Paul Allopenna
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paulallopenna.bsky.social
Paul Allopenna
@paulallopenna.bsky.social
340 followers 760 following 890 posts
Amateur guitarist, even more amateur guitar builder, retired cognitive scientist, interested in all things human rights.
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Reposted by Paul Allopenna
davideagleman.bsky.social
What is the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, and what does it have to do with every cell in your body replacing its pieces over time? Join me for this week's Inner Cosmos podcast: "Why Do Your 30 Trillion Cells Feel Like a Self? Part 1"
eagleman.com/podcast/82
#brain #self
December 29, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
paulrosenberg.bsky.social
In 1932, FDR was elected with 57.4% of the vote. He brought us the New Deal.
In 1964, LBJ was elected with 61.1% of the vote. He brough us the Great Society.
In 2025, Trump was elected with 49.8% of the vote. He's attempting to destroy everything FDR & LBJ built.

The rest is commentary.
December 27, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
barryp.bsky.social
Merry Christmas to all. defector.com/what-did-we-...
What Did We Get Stuck In Our Rectums Last Year? | Defector
This is the time of year to be grateful for not having things stuck in our asses, and to think of those less fortunate than us. So spare a thought for those Americans who misjudged the capacity of the...
defector.com
December 25, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
Read this. Merry Christmas indeed
December 25, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
marisakabas.bsky.social
concentration camps.
ICE documents reveal plan to hold 80,000 immigrants in warehouses
The Trump administration wants to build seven large-scale deportation hubs to speed up deportations, internal ICE documents show.
www.washingtonpost.com
December 24, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
karlykingsley.bsky.social
🎯
Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.
December 20, 2025 at 11:54 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
twitterrefugeeog.bsky.social
Imagine dying from being shot in the head and having a building named after you, only now to share the name with a man who is still alive and has raped teenage girls.

The Kennedy Center.
December 18, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
pwgtennant.bsky.social
"Using LLMs as stand-ins for human subjects amounts to fabricating data" - @emilymbender.bsky.social , @carlbergstrom.com, & @jevinwest.bsky.social
sabrinanorwood.bsky.social Sabrina Norwood @sabrinanorwood.bsky.social · 15d
Did you know that from tomorrow, Qualtrics is offering synthetic panels (AI-generated participants)?

Follow me down a rabbit hole I'm calling "doing science is tough and I'm so busy, can't we just make up participants?"
Text reads: About synthetic panels Recruiting the right participants for a study can be difficult. You may not get the exact demographics you need, and the shorter the deadline, the less sure you can be that everyone will answer on time. One possible solution can be to use synthetic panels. Synthetic panels are powered by a first party proprietary AI model developed here at Qualtrics. Our synthetic panel is trained on thousands of responses from a variety of demographic backgrounds in order to more accurately predict how certain populations would respond to a survey. Our synthetic panel is based on the United States General Population, and is only available in English. This panel comes with ready-made quotas and target breakouts in order to represent your chosen population and make it easy to launch your survey right away. Text reads: Question-writing best practices To get the most reliable and actionable results from synthetic audiences, consider these question-writing best practices: Ask forward-looking and attitudinal questions. Synthetic panels perform best with perceptions, preferences, and intent-based questions. For example, “How likely are you to try…?” Synthetic panels are less applicable for studies on past behaviors, detailed recall, brand recall, or awareness questions. For example, “When did you last visit…?” Text reads: Discussion The current study aimed to conduct a meta-analysis of the TPB when applied to health behaviours which addressed the limitations of previous reviews by including only prospective tests of behaviour, applying RE meta-analytic procedures, correcting correlations for sampling and measurement error, and hierarchically analysing the effect of behaviour type and sample and methodological moderators. Some 237 tests were identified which examined relations amongst model components. Overall the analysis indicated that the TPB could explain 19.3% of the variance in behaviour and 44.3% of the variance in intention across studies. This level of prediction of behaviour is slightly lower than that of previous meta-analytic reviews which have found between 27% (Armitage & Conner, 2001; Hagger et al., 2002) and 36% (Trafimow et al., 2002) of the variance in behaviour to be explained by intention and PBC.
December 16, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
mluckovich.bsky.social
December 17, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
jlazarus.bsky.social
Apparently we're still talking about this so I'll add my $.02 that I've sat on a dozen hiring committees (chaired 4 or 5 of them) and participated more peripherally in close to two dozen more hires, and the idea that white applicants aren't getting a fair shake is horse shit. It's complete fiction.
December 17, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
asharangappa.bsky.social
I keep saying this but no one is connecting the dots. The war is to satisfy legal preconditions for mass removal *domestically* of Latinos (i.e., suddenly a lot of people are going to be “Venezuelan” for purposes of removal). This is 100% Stephen Miller…oil claim is to make grandpa go along
busbyj2.bsky.social Josh Busby @busbyj2.bsky.social · 15d
There is no national security logic that would impel the US to want to do regime change in Venezuela. It's simply not that important. I'm not even sure wag the dog is the right metaphor for what's happening here. Seems like an insane misallocation of US national security assets and attention.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 15d
Trump: "Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled ... It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the USA all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us."
December 17, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
emilymyers.bsky.social
My very favorite moment in Spinal Tap comes at 0:40 in the clip below when Reiner as Marty DiBergi goes to fold his arms and then awkwardly decides not to. It's subtle and silly and it kills me every time.

What a loss.

www.facebook.com/share/v/1GUE...
December 15, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
emilymyers.bsky.social
Just us, regarding the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow.
Dog hunts for a ball under snow-covered pine trees
December 15, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
krisbrown.bradyunited.org
The horrific tragedy at Brown University is the 389th mass shooting this year and the 230th gun incident on school grounds so far this year.

This is not normal and we don't have to live this way.

bradyunited.org
@bradyunited.org
December 14, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
mcsweeneys.net
LINUS: Charlie Brown, you are the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. Maybe Lucy is right. Maybe it is because of woke.
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/bar...
Bari Weiss’s A Charlie Brown Christmas
Sixty years ago, A Charlie Brown Christmas made its debut on CBS. Today, as part of CBS’s new initiative to modernize content, CBS Editor-in-Chief ...
www.mcsweeneys.net
December 12, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
jonathancohn.bsky.social
An anti-science, anti-people death cult

www.cnn.com/2025/12/12/h...
FDA intends to put its most serious warning on Covid vaccines, sources say | CNN
The US Food and Drug Administration intends to put a “black box” warning on Covid-19 vaccines, according to two people familiar with the agency’s plans.
www.cnn.com
December 12, 2025 at 11:43 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
whysharksmatter.bsky.social
Week in wildlife: a baby echidna, a 600lb gator and an ‘unbearable’ bear
Week in wildlife: a baby echidna, a 600lb gator and an ‘unbearable’ bear
This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
www.theguardian.com
December 12, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
stephy.bsky.social
Kiddo is learning the Pythagorean theorem so I finally have the pleasure of introducing him to the hippopotenuse
Sandra Boynton’s hippo hypotenuse (hippopotenuse) explaining the Pythagorean theorem
December 12, 2025 at 1:48 AM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
lromeranth.bsky.social
Why would Europeans want to fight to become a political Disneyland for racist white Americans?
nytimes.com The New York Times @nytimes.com · 21d
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

Europe must “persuade younger Europeans that their heritage, culture and way of life — a fundamentally Christian civilization leavened and improved but not erased by the values of the Enlightenment — are worth defending,” our columnist Bret Stephens writes.
Opinion | Europe, Too, Is Worth Fighting For
Provided Europeans want to fight for it.
nyti.ms
December 11, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
billkristolbulwark.bsky.social
Democrats would be crazy not to make this comment super-famous tomorrow when the Senate debates health care. Republicans don’t want you to be cared for as a patient when you’re sick. They think of you as a “consumer”—and tough luck if you don’t have the money for the care you need.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21d
Roger Marshall: "We want patients to become consumers again. We want patients to see what the actual prices are. We believe that if we would add the price tags to this bill, that it would save the country a trillion dollars a year."
December 11, 2025 at 3:15 AM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
pbump.com
Every part of this is bonkers. The intro is bonkers. The transition to his health is bonkers. The mention that other presidents didn't need cognitive exams is bonkers. The claim that this screening test is somehow hard is bonkers. The idea that criticism of him is treason is bonkers. All of it.
There has never been a President that has worked as hard as me! My hours are the longest, and my results are among the best. I’ve stopped Eight Wars, saving many millions of lives in the process, created the Greatest Economy in the History of our Country, brought Business back into the United States at levels never seen before, rebuilt our Military, created the Largest Tax Cuts and Regulation Cuts, EVER, closed our open and very dangerous Southern Border, when previous Administrations were unable to do so, and created an “aura” around the United States of America that has led every Country in the World to respect us more than ever before. In addition to all of that, I go out of my way to do long, thorough, and very boring Medical Examinations at the Great Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, seen and supervised by top doctors, all of whom have given me PERFECT Marks — Some have even said they have never seen such Strong Results. I do these Tests because I owe it to our Country. In addition to the Medical, I have done something that no other President has done, on three separate occasions, the last one being recently, by taking what is known as a Cognitive Examination, something which few people would be able to do very well, including those working at The New York Times, and I ACED all three of them in front of large numbers of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know. I have been told that few people have been able to “ace” this Examination and, in fact, most do very poorly, which is why many other Presidents have decided not to take it at all. Despite all of this, the time and work involved, The New York Times, and some others, like to pretend that I am “slowing up,” am maybe not as sharp as I once was, or am in poor physical health, knowing that it is not true, and knowing that I work very hard, probably harder than I have ever worked before. I will know when I am “slowing up,” but it’s not now! After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean “THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.” They are true Enemies of the People, and we should do something about it. They have inaccurately reported on all of my Election Results and, in fact, were forced to apologize on much of what they wrote. The best thing that could happen to this Country would be if The New York Times would cease publication because they are a horrible, biased, and untruthful “source” of information. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
December 10, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
awntiewithaw.bsky.social
December 10, 2025 at 1:19 AM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
around.com
If the formerly great American newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post) were really doing their jobs, it would look like this:

talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/life...
Life Inside the Undocumented Underground
During President Donald Trump’s second term, dramatic raids staged by the Immigration...
talkingpointsmemo.com
December 9, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
schooley.bsky.social
Grade inflation is higher than ever.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 22d
POLITICO: I wonder what grade you'd give the economy

TRUMP: A+

POLITICO: A+?

TRUMP: A+++++
December 9, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Reposted by Paul Allopenna
adamserwer.bsky.social
The “garbage” destroying America isn’t in Minnesota’s Somalian community. It’s in the Oval Office. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
There is a difference between inheritance and action. I cannot help who my ancestors are, but I can make my own choices. That so many Americans chose to place in power a man who holds people in contempt on the basis of race, religion, and national origin; that so much of the mainstream media conveys this bigotry through tired, obfuscating euphemisms; that there is so low a political price for the president’s racism that he and those around him see little risk in its expression—well, that does say something about America, and Americans. Immigration isn’t breaking our society. That’s a job Americans can do on their own.
December 4, 2025 at 5:08 PM