throwpoaster (u/throwpoaster)

throwpoaster commented on How well does the money laundering control system work? journals.uchicago.edu/doi... · Posted by u/PaulHoule

goalieca · 2 days ago

What did you think about the bc government report on money laundering?

throwpoaster · 2 days ago

The Cullen Commission Report [0] was damning. Canada is “willfully blind” to the issue and is, at this point, knowingly funding international crime and terrorism.

0: https://cullencommission.ca/

throwpoaster commented on How well does the money laundering control system work? journals.uchicago.edu/doi... · Posted by u/PaulHoule

throwpoaster · 2 days ago

In Canada any transactions over a certain limit require the regulated counterparty to file a Suspicious Transaction Report with FINTRAC.

FINTRAC is unable to establish a pattern in those reports and prosecute. Instead, when someone is charged with an indictable offence, their name and related entities are searched for STRs. Any financial crimes are then used to create additional charges.

The net result of this, because of lack of digitization and various privacy guarantees, is that it is almost impossible to be charged with financial crimes as a primary offence in Canada.

Source: former RCMP financial crimes consultant.

throwpoaster commented on Databricks is raising a Series K Investment at >$100B valuation databricks.com/company/ne... · Posted by u/djhu9

alecco · 4 days ago

> and Lakebase, a new type of operational database (OLTP), built on open source Postgres, and optimized for AI Agents.

Rust + Cloud Object Store/serverless/S3 + Postgres. Slap "AI agents" on top: keyword peak reached. So they will easily raise the 100bn.

Meanwhile, this is Lakebase/Neon: https://blog.opensecret.cloud/why-we-migrated-from-neon-to-p...

Due diligence? Taboo.

throwpoaster · 4 days ago

They’re not raising $100b. They’re raising _at_ $100b.

throwpoaster commented on ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes bmj.com/content/390/bmj-2... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

whatevertrevor · 8 days ago

Where in Canada?

I had the complete opposite experience last winter in Ontario. I asked my doctor about ADHD, he had me fill two forms, set up an appointment with a psychologist, who after a couple weeks of appointments was ready to prescribe Atomoxetine (at my request since I wanted stimulants only as a last resort).

I paid for nothing in this entire exchange, and the meds are usually covered by an extended drug plan if you have one.

throwpoaster · 8 days ago

Toronto - very interesting comment, completely alien to my experience. Thanks!

throwpoaster commented on ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes bmj.com/content/390/bmj-2... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

cmrdporcupine · 8 days ago

This wasn't the experience of our family here in Ontario. Nobody but the family doctor involved.

throwpoaster · 8 days ago

Toronto - interesting. I was told by several doctors that this was standard procedure. I’ll have to double check.

throwpoaster commented on ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes bmj.com/content/390/bmj-2... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

throwpoaster · 8 days ago

Canadian here.

ADHD diagnosis is one of the few non-socialized parts of our medical system. Because of the abuse potential they charge a fairly steep fee (cad $3k+, with a $2k+ autism assessment addon) to even attempt diagnosis (after screening by your GP — referral required).

The intake paperwork alone was perhaps 100 pages of online questionnaires that lead to interviews where they schedule counselling and evaluation sessions with you.

It took me almost a year to complete because 100 pages of “often always sometimes never” multiple choice questions (with attention checking red herrings) proved to be an almost insurmountable barrier for me.

I ended up completely surrendering to their scheduling requests: “just book it and tell me when it is. I will adjust my schedule around you. Agreeing on mutually free times with six providers is a functional impossibility. Just book it. Now. Go. Lock it in.”

It took a year to get through the maze and now they’ve booked me ASAP: three months out.

If I have an opportunity to give feedback it will be that they badly need people on their team with lived experience. It makes sense that a system designed by people who were able to complete multiple years of medical education and training is effectively blind to conscientiousness and executive function deficits.

Then again, perhaps the maze is another preventative measure: if you are able to speedrun it, perhaps you shouldn’t get medical meth.

throwpoaster commented on Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act bbc.com/news/articles/cjr... · Posted by u/phlummox

throwpoaster · 12 days ago

Maybe this is good. On balance, perhaps Wikipedia has become too important a cultural asset for anonymous editors.

throwpoaster commented on GPT-5: Overdue, overhyped and underwhelming. And that's not the worst of it garymarcus.substack.com/p... · Posted by u/kgwgk

throwpoaster · 14 days ago

I recommend people ask the LLMs the hardest questions they can think of and compare their answers. Save these questions as your benchmark.

When I ran mine through GPT-5 there was a noticeable degradation in the answers.

throwpoaster commented on GPT-5 openai.com/gpt-5/... · Posted by u/rd

throwpoaster · 16 days ago

I’ve been working on an electrochemistry project, with several models but mostly o3-pro.

GPT-5 refused to continue the conversation because it was worried about potential weapons applications, so we gave the business to the other models.

Disappointing.