Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org
Bioinformaticist / biostatistician, veteran USAF medic and Army infantryman, armchair paleontologist, occasional science fiction author, long-ago kickboxer, oldbat goth, vaccinated liberal patriot.
Joined Oct 2022
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Hello, all. I've been around for a few days but haven't yet made an #introduction post. So here we go.
I'm a #bioinformatics consultant with [The Bioinformatics CRO](https://www.bioinformaticscro.com/) working on a variety of small and large projects ranging from fundamental genomics to clinical decision support. Before that, for several years I was a postdoc and ORISE fellow specializing in high-altitude medicine and physiology at the University of Colorado Altitude Research Center. My academic background is a nearly even mix of #biostatistics, machine learning, and biology.
The ARC* has been sadly moribund for a few years, but thanks to collaborations with other groups, we're [starting to get more active again](https://harcsummit.org/). Hopefully I will have more to say about that in the future. Meanwhile, feel free to ask me anything about #altitude medicine---I think I still remember most of it.
Years before _that_, I was an Air Force #medic (after a brief stint as an Army infantryman) followed by a couple of years as a civilian EMT. My time in patient care informs my approach to science: the numbers I crunch represent human lives.
Otherwise, I'm an armchair #paleontologist hoping to be able to call myself an _amateur_ paleontologist again one of these days---by which I mean actually spending some time in the field and/or the prep lab---a too-occasional science fiction writer, and chronically sleep deprived. Also, my life is the internet: it's cats all the way down.
*Fellow #Primeval fans may recognize the jacket in the picture. My wonderful fiancée found it for me when I was hired at the ARC, for exactly the reason you think.
Unashamed plug: Becca Lee, my beloved wife and an amazing #wildlife #photographer, finally has her work up for sale. If you're looking for a 2026 #calendar, this would be an *excellent* choice. 🙂
https://www.zazzle.com/things_with_wings_a_wildlife_photography_calendar-256547422419714113
Do you want the #PLA in #Venezuela? Because this is how you get the PLA in Venezuela.
"So you're not willing to define #dinosaurs, except as 'not #birds because I say so'? Okay."
Really I should know better than to keep having this argument, but for some reason I can't resist.
Someday, someone will write The History of the #Decline and Fall of the #American #Empire, perhaps even in the then-former territory of the United States. In that work, the #Roberts #Court will be correctly identified as one of the chief causes of its destruction.
https://thehumanityarchive.substack.com/p/undoubtedly
There have been worse Supreme Courts, including of course the one which issued the Dred Scott decision. But I honestly think there's never been one so venal, so inconsistent, and so cowardly all at once. If the #Constitution I swore to defend survives their filthy hands, it will be only through fire—much as #Taney et al. made inevitable Shiloh and Antietam and Gettysburg and the Crater, and at last Appomattox.
If the nation is *very* lucky, at least some of the six "Justices" currently using the Constitution for toilet paper will live to see the blood and hear the screams and smell the shit.
There's a style of writing that's become popular.
One-clause sentences.
One-sentence paragraphs.
Maybe two or three sentences if you're lucky.
But no commas.
Never any commas.
Definitely only one sentence per line.
Nonstandard spacing.
Lots of ellipses ...
Writers think this makes their work sound punchy.
Lots of emphasis.
It doesn't.
It's boring.
Some people say it's all AI writing.
Because that's how AI writes.
Like this.
And AI does write like this.
Often.
But it's not all AI.
People do it too.
For the love of God.
Please stop.
#ScienceFiction fans are weird. I should know: I've been part of organized #fandom since I was too small to see over the tables in the huckster room, as we called it in the days when we printed fanzines on mammoth vellum.
#FlatEarthers are weird. Not fun weird like fen (something something dodged sabertooths uphill both ways). Just boring, depressing, will-you-please-go-away weird. Which to be fair, is the reaction some people have toward fandom, but usually when we encounter those people we let them be.
Flat-earthers who are also SF fans? That strikes me as a deep wrongness in the universe.
I get a lot of mileage out of "This is not difficult to understand, unless you choose not to."
"Why are #atheists so *angry* all the time?"
This.
The smugness, the arrogance, the idea that no one could find any worth in a child's life and well-being other than through #religion. When true #believers show every day, all over the world, how little they value anyone.
This is why.
And, of course, #notallbelievers. Probably not even most. But *enough*.
This incredibly low-effort and unoriginal meme is going around again. Whoever came up with it has never done #science for a living, and I guess neither have the vast majority of people who repost it.
#Questioning *nature* is how you do science, trying to figure out something new about the way the world works. Sometimes, yes, that involves questioning existing science, but not very often. Much more commonly—99% or more of the time—scientists are building on each other's work. Shoulders of giants and all that, without Newton's sarcasm.
In my line of work, for example, I often question whether a particular #mutation in a particular #gene increases #responsivess to a particular #drug in a particular type of #cancer. I don't question whether #chemotherapy in general is worth doing for cancer patients, or whether genes in general influence drug metabolism in general, because I don't have to. Other people have already done that work, and if I want I can go back and read how they did it.
*Very* rarely I think they did it wrong, and I will of course bring that up to my clients. Even then, it will be about specific cases relevant to the mutation, drug, and #tumor type at hand—not about the idea that relations between #genetics, cancer, and the #treatment thereof *exist*. Not because someone's paying me not to, or because I'm afraid of the answers I'd get, or any of that nonsense, but simply because there's no point.
Scientists could spend all our time trying to prove each other wrong, of course. Every once in a while we do, both because it improves our knowledge, and yes, because that's one of the best ways to get a paper published in a major journal. But if that were all or even most of the practice of science, nothing else would ever get done.
Do you want that outcome? A lot of people seem to. When they're lying in a hospital bed dying of something we could have treated if we'd been able to research it properly, I bet they won't.
This is one of those cool things I feel like I should already have known about, but somehow didn't: a map that allows you to see how #coastlines would change with #sealevel rise or fall, at any scale from local to global. Also mildly terrifying, as such things tend to be.
Bold of you to assume there's any kind of #dinosaur I wouldn't at least give a nibble.
"Fucking mirrors, how do they work?"
"No one knows lol"
"Must be a miracle. [solemn nod]"
"Similar to magnets, I think."
"Well that doesn't help!"
"Sorry that’s all I got."
"Fair enough. I guess it's time to Do My Own Research™."
Every time a group to which I belong congratulates itself on having "zero tolerance for bullshit," I die a little inside.
Naaah, not really. You were horny and did something stupid. We've all been there.
Hi, internet. Whatever your message, scrolling it over a video of you mugging for the camera will not make it more effective. Just thought you might want to know.
A somewhat more amusing exchange from my VA visit: "You are #Lithuanian. I am #Ukrainian. We love our #coffee with cream." Stripped of context, that's totally a coded message from a #ColdWar thriller.
After all the sturm und drang, getting my #covid #shot from the #VA turned out to be not that difficult. But there's a tragic backstory.
The tech told me that when the shot clinic first opened for the season, about a month ago, they were only allowed to give #flu shots, not covid. Then after about a week, they were allowed to give both, but covid only to employees. The week after that, they were allowed to give both to everybody, but patients (unlike employees) had to ask for the covid shot—the clinic wasn't allowed to offer it. Finally they were authorized to offer both to anyone who walks in.
In that window, there were #veterans who wanted the covid shot, didn't know they could get it, and died as a result. I have no proof of this, but also no doubt.
Many #government policies have made me angry over the years, and no doubt will for many years to come. None of them have ever summoned quite the same fury as institutionalized #antivax. It is #treason, not to the country but to all humanity, and the #traitors should pay the traditional price for that crime. Knowing they won't, unless the enemy to which they adhere does the job, is icing on the rage cake.
So I guess I'll keep banging the #vaccination drum. Preaching to the choir, for the most part. But if my words are of any help to anyone, please feel free to use them.
Bioinformaticist / biostatistician, veteran USAF medic and Army infantryman, armchair paleontologist, occasional science fiction author, long-ago kickboxer, oldbat goth, vaccinated liberal patriot.
Joined Oct 2022
