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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦

@shallit.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1K following 3K posts

Grumpy old American mathematician and computer scientist, now retired. My Erdös number equals 1.

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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 15h
It's pretty appropriate that Trump wants to change the initialism for the names of the Great Lakes from "HOMES" to "SHAME".
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Princess Vimentin PhD | Cancer Biologist @princess-vimentin.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Vaccines save lives. Researchers modelling a hypothetical global outbreak of flu found that fast-tracking vaccine development could cut deaths from 58.5m to 23.9m. Boosting confidence in vaccines would reduce the death toll by a further 1.9m. 🧪 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Nearly 3m more lives could be saved in next pandemic if vaccines are shared more fairly, says report
Move would mean deaths would rise in wealthier nations, according to NUS-Lancet Prime commission – which modelled a response to a flu pandemic based on population size, not purchasing power
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Congressman Greg Casar @repcasar.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The horror has come to our city: ICE has shot a person in Austin this morning. As the facts emerge, I am demanding a full, independent investigation, immediate release of the body camera footage, and accountability for any ICE officer who broke the law.
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
My kids have measles, I can’t afford gas, I can’t get a mortgage , and I have explosive diarrhea from a parasite the CDC no longer monitors. But at least now they’re demolishing the Kennedy Center.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
An entirely reasonable organizational response from CNN would be that they will no longer host members of the administration as long as the administration bars them from the White House
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JoanKay @joankay.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Apparently now a big result in number theory has been proven with the help of an LLM: Catalan's constant is irrational. arxiv.org/abs/2609.04176 Despite this I'm sure I will get lawyers and doctors and writers of romance novels telling me that it's all hype.
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Ah, now writers of romance novels have suddenly become experts in LLM's and the behavior of complex systems.
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Andrew Couts @couts.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Absolutely horrific: Thanks to a false intelligence "generated with the help of artificial intelligence," the US military nearly carried out an operation aboard a Chinese ship because the incorrect intelligence said it was carrying nukes, according to @cnn.com. edition.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...
edition.cnn.com
Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN Politics
The episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran war
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A new risk for mathematicians: a colleague reports that immediately after they posted an abstract of their upcoming talk online, a student elsewhere used AI to derive proofs of the stated results and then posted it on the arxiv. My colleague hadn't posted to arxiv yet. Scummy. Watch out.
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
There are an awful lot of accounts here that have suddenly become experts on AI despite having zero training in minds, brains, computers, emergent behavior, software systems, and so forth. And they get really mad when you point out they're talking nonsense.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Nothing makes you realize the kids are alright more than sitting & talking with a couple dozen of them for a couple hours at office hours. It would be great if the Ranting Pundits convinced that they know What Is Wrong With Higher Education could meet these students full of great questions & ideas.
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
So much winning with RFK Jr. in charge! www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/w...
nytimes.com
Pennsylvania Officials Report Fourth Measles Death, as Outbreak Grows
This year has become the deadliest year for measles in the United States in decades.
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
So you're just saying we're f*cked, then?
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Matthew Gertz @mattgertz.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Naked graft, selling out the country. www.propublica.org/article/dona...
propublica.org
Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch
The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large...
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Lots of people saying this is corrupt; I say let the first stone be cast by those among us who have not had a Russian oligarch attend and pay for our destination wedding. 🙏
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Charles Johnson @charles.littlegreenfootballs.com · 11/09/2026
The real legacy of 9/11 is what we see happening in the US right now. Organizations purportedly formed to combat terrorism are being used by a demented sociopathic president to terrorize the citizens of the US, and turn the nation into a white supremacist dictatorship.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Honestly, I'd say the most disastrous decisions of Obama and Biden were not really holding anyone accountable for crimes committed under the previous administration. Obama wanted to "turn the page" on Iraq and the financial meltdown while Biden never put any urgency behind the January 6th cases
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
"Kennedy's department cited seven articles, two of which were apparently made up entirely and three of which did not exist in the journals to which they were attributed..." www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
ms.now
Judge slams HHS for referencing fake studies generated by misuse of AI
The Department of Health and Human Services has suffered more than its share of AI-related humiliations. The list, alas, is still growing.
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I find it really weird that people can be confronted with lists of how LLM's have proven useful to others, in a wide variety of different applications, and they'll still insist this is all just hype. 1/2
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
The grifts, scams and corruption are endless. I only limited my list of Trump’s most corrupt acts of 2026 to 75 because I ran out of column space. I had well over 100. Here’s another one.
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Raw Story @rawstory.com · 09/09/2026
A veteran "60 Minutes" journalist fired in May said unqualified online personalities have taken over CBS News, and that he was pushed out for refusing White House talking points.
bit.ly
Ousted '60 Minutes' journalist breaks silence on MAGA mouthpiece 'dilettantes' at CBS
A veteran "60 Minutes" journalist fired in May said unqualified online personalities have taken over CBS News, and that he was pushed out for refusing White House talking points.Guy Campanile, who was managing editor of "60 Minutes" until his dismissal in May, made the accusations in a statement he ...
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Andrew Weinstein @andrewjweinstein.com · 08/09/2026
Of all the things that never happened, this never happened the most. A disgraceful lie that disrespects the memory of every life stolen on September 11th.
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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
In a story that's built on questions of Giuliiani's credibility vs. Mamdani's, the New York Times should have pointed out that Giuliani has been disbarred in both Washington, DC, and New York.
nytimes.com
Giuliani Says Mamdani Should Skip 9/11 Memorial (Gift Article)
During an anti-Muslim diatribe, the former mayor called for Mr. Mamdani to skip the ceremonies. The mayor has said he is going.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
If you are ever tempted to believe that he is actually "committed to supporting early stage investigators", remember that NIH funded fewer NIH Director's New Innovator Awards last year (42) than they had in a decade and success rates for Early Stage Investigators were way down. 3/4
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Republicans had a conspiracy theory that the government covered up a lab leak. Now they are in charge, they have not been able to find real evidence of a cover-up, but are trying to prosecute scientists anyway. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/h...
nytimes.com
Inside the D.O.J.’s Investigation of Fauci and Other Virus Scientists
As Dr. Anthony Fauci has faced public scrutiny from congressional Republicans, the D.O.J. has pursued a quieter and more expansive effort against a wider circle of researchers.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Trump family crypto earnings: $1.4 billion $TRUMP meme coin: -98% $MELANIA meme coin: -99% “Perhaps the most blatant example of corruption in the history of American politics.” — Bilello
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
People who claim "you don't need an LLM to do that, you could have just used Google search" don't seem to realize that Google search has been using an underpowered version of its LLM, Gemini, for a while now.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
It's like a parody, but it's deadly serious; the Commerce Department (which includes Census, NOAA, and others) has outright deleted "don't alter or suppress scientific findings for political reasons" from its scientific integrity rules. Seriously.
Protecting against "inappropriate influence" is no longer a "hallmark" of scientific integrity

The Commerce Department updated its policy for promoting a "culture of scientific integrity" in January 2025, days before Trump's second inauguration.

A new Trump administration order bans the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis from using statistical “noise,” or data for fuzzing survey results, to protect people’s privacy in their statistics.

The 2025 version included bans on attempts to shape or interfere in data collection, statistical analysis and other scientific activities "against well-accepted scientific methods and theories or without scientific justification."

The department's policy, the 2025 version said, involves ensuring scientific findings at its agencies "are not suppressed, delayed, or altered for political purposes and are not subjected to inappropriate influence," as well as making sure there's "independent review of facilities, methodologies, and other scientific activities as appropriate to ensure scientific integrity."

That language is missing, however, in the Trump administration's revision of the policy, according to an NPR analysis of text posted on the Commerce Department's website.

And while the revision adopts a definition for "scientific integrity" that is similar to the previous version, it no longer says that "protection from inappropriate influence" is among the "hallmarks of scientific integrity."
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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
“Wokeness” isn’t a thing. It’s a negative marketing grab bag used to hold basically all regulations, press freedom, universities, the humanities, all of public health, climate science, most of the social sciences, renewable energy, civil rights, all concern for social justice, the environment, etc
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Aaron Parnas @aaronparnas.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
NEWS: The Trump Administration is ending 3 federal research projects responsible for researching and fighting cyclospora amid the largest ever outbreak of cyclospora.
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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Death by intentional neglect is the characteristic method of murder in concentration camps
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Excellent story about Bhattacharya www.insidehighered.com/news/governm... with strong quotes from @scott-delaney.bsky.social @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social and others. 1/4
insidehighered.com
NIH Director Says a Lot. Critics Call Much of It Misleading
Jay Bhattacharya insists he wants to restore trust in the National Institutes of Health. Current and former agency employees say he’s doing the opposite.
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Steven Beschloss @stevenbeschloss.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
“We learned that Donald Trump made a deal with Venezuela—that is, if you believe when someone has a gun to their head and agrees to something they are ‘making a deal.’” www.americaamerica.news/p/can-americ...
americaamerica.news
Can America Ever Regain Its Honor?
A Saturday Prompt
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Update your priors, when you see "Johns Hopkins" you shouldn't think "good school" or "medical research," you should think "hedge fund that lives off taxpayer money and drops its claimed standards to collaborate with fascists" because that's what the school decided to make itself.
chronicle.com
Conservative Scholars Are Rare. Johns Hopkins Wants More of Them.
Ronald J. Daniels says the ideological imbalance is bad for the academy and for the country.
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
In the midst of an awful lot of ever-so-sophisticated equivocating and oh-so-thoughtful-chin-stroking and too-clever-by-half-over-thinking, I just want to say, simply and unequivocally and for the record: The Resistance Libs Were Right.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
There's no forgiving this. No living it down. It's a stain on our humanity. When all this is over, the monsters who did this should be pariahs. And the soulless thugs who cheered it on while dehumanizing Haitian immigrants should be reminded of what they did every day of their lives.
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Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
While Prasad drones on about Fauci and 2020, this is what his incompetence enabled while chief medical and science officer at the FDA.
reuters.com
US widens lettuce-related cyclosporiasis probe to 20 states
U.S. health authorities have widened their probe into a cyclosporiasis outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce from central ​Mexico after detecting cases in three additional states, ‌raising the total to 20 ...
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Decoding Fox News @decodingfoxnews.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Jesse Watters was always overly optimistic about the war with Iran. I went back through my archives to see how his predictions matched up at the start of the war to where we are now. It seems he was way off about just about everything.
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
RFK Jr.: pathological liar. Complicit in murder. apnews.com/article/rfk-...
apnews.com
Exclusive: RFK Jr. said a Samoa trip had nothing to do with vaccines. New documents refute that
The Associated Press and The Guardian have obtained documents that contradict statements made by current Health Secretary Robert F.
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
One look at the first paragraphs of the stories this guy Alexei Koseff is writing for the Washington Post (which is all I can see for free), and I'm gladder than ever that I unsubscribed from that fascist rag.
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Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was a content creator who spent the pandemic “calling for” other people to do things. Now, he’s in power and as pathogens spread out of control, all he can say is he’s doing his “best.” I believe him. This is his best. My latest.
sciencebasedmedicine.org
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on Measles: “I Think I’ve Done My Best.”
As football coach Bill Parcells famously said, “you are what your record says you are”.
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
RFK Jr praised himself for what he argued was a great job controlling measles in the US 🤯 Um, he went to Lancaster County, PA, targeting people with horrific anti-vaxx messages—now 2 are dead from measles in that county, both unvaccinated His self-praise is no comfort to the families of the dead 😢
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Letter from 130 bioethicists condemns the “unwarranted, ill-advised, & frankly bizarre vendetta against a scientist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, rather than making a sincere effort to learn from the painful experiences of the pandemic to improve national preparedness” bioethicstoday.org/blog/an-open...
bioethicstoday.org
Blog - An Open Letter of Support for Anthony Fauci from the Bioethics Community - Bioethics Today
As individuals concerned with ethics in science, medicine, and public health, we wish to express our dismay at the approach taken by Senate leaders to
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Ricky Davila @therickydavila.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
The MAGA regime are now threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center if they’re unable to move forward with their tacky destructive renovations including adding the orange felon’s repulsive name on someone’s memorial. No words can possibly describe how despicable these traitors are.
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
a million pieces/segments sneering at hasan piker and the co-chair of the DSA, meanwhile a republican congressional candidate in upstate new york named peter oberacker is the grandson of an actual nazi germany soldier and his former staffer was part of the 'i love hitler' young GOP group chat
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Frank Figliuzzi @frankfigliuzzi.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
My latest column: Is Todd Blanche putting guns and cash in the hands of Trump loyalists in a de facto militia? open.substack.com/pub/lincolns...
open.substack.com
Pardons, Guns, and Cash: Inside the Changes at Trump's Department of Justice
Four recent developments under Attorney General Todd Blanche point toward a dangerous shift: using state power to protect, compensate, and arm political allies.
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Jeffrey Shallit 🇺🇦 @shallit.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This is truly appalling. Johns Hopkins should be ashamed. imagine.jhu.edu/blog/2025/04...
imagine.jhu.edu
Johns Hopkins works to bolster intellectual pluralism across the university
Hub staff, Apr 21 For more than a year, Johns Hopkins University and the American Enterprise Institute—a leading center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C.—have been building bridges to…
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Norm Eisen @normeisen.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
BREAKING: the administration is now threatening in federal court to LEVEL the Kennedy Center if Trump does not get his way His path of destruction knows no bounds & he will answer for it in court @democracydefendersaction.org @WLG -TN
nytimes.com
Trump Lawyers Warn That Kennedy Center Might Need Demolition if Not Fixed
In a court filing about honoring President Trump on the facade, the administration said that without a proper renovation the building might need to be “taken down.”
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