Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

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.

One of the copy-and-paste #antivax talking points is that #polio was caused by #DDT. For everyone repeating this vile lie:

My grandmother was a polio survivor. She caught the disease in childhood, before DDT was in use as a pesticide. When I was a small child, she could walk, sort of, with crutches. By the time I was in high school, she was wheelchair-bound, as she would be for the rest of her life.

Consider this an engraved, gold-plated, personally delivered invitation to go fuck yourselves.

"You picked up the leash and said 'walkies!' Then you got distracted and I never had my walk. I'm sorry it's come to this, but I really have no choice."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/26/dog-shotgun-nebraska-convenience-store

Context: https://www.quora.com/What-species-of-bird-did-the-Tyrannosaurus-rex-evolve-into-Do-evolutionists-know-which-one-You-d-like-me-to-believe-that-dinosaurs-existed-and-they-all-evolved-into-talking-parrots-but-it-s-not-that-easy-is-it/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

"Also, you’re not any kind of street fighter, or 'Str33t F1ght3r' either. I guess you think calling yourself that, and spelling it in a way that was amusingly quaint around the beginning of this century, makes you sound cool and badass. Take it from someone who’s actually been in a few fights, it doesn’t. Mainly it makes you sound like someone who will get his ass kicked the first time he pokes his face outside his Mom’s basement. Tell her I said hi, by the way."

Definitely need some old rubber bands that are so dried out they'll snap the first time you try to use them. Bonus points if they hit you in the eye.

Or is that just me?

FB Memories just reminded me that I've been working on The #Silmarillisaurus for over a year. [sigh] #Worldbuilding is fun, but I really want to get back to telling *stories* soon. ✍️ 🚀 🦖 🦕

Lots of #MAGAts are gleefully commenting about #Polis getting censured. "They're eating their own," "circular firing squad," etc. Yeah, we already know the idea of a political party that punishes bad behavior on the part of its members is difficult for #Republicans to understand.

So I just saw an anti-Trump political cartoon that showed #Trump wearing a #yarmulke. Not waving an #Israeli flag or anything like that, you understand. Just wearing a blue yarmulke, emblazoned with a white Star of David. There are probably millions such caps floating around, all over the world.

This is not an attempt to tie Trump to #Israel. This is an attempt to tie all #Jews, everywhere, to Trump.

I have lately spent a lot of time defending the political #left against blanket charges of #antisemitism. I often say that while there are certainly #leftist #antisemites and always have been, antisemitism is deeply and permanently embedded in #right-wing ideology in a way it never has been on the left. And I still believe that practically everywhere in the world *except* Israel, this is true.

You motherfuckers aren't making it easy, I gotta say.

Another addendum. (Does that make it an addaddendum?) I don't automatically dismiss all #AI #writing as "slop," because I think that with proper training, AI models can produce useful writing under circumstances where repetition is the goal.

Right now I'm cranking out a bunch of documentation files on a string of data sets where the analysis is almost exactly the same, with just a few little differences between them. I want the files to look and sound like each other, because my goal is not to surprise the reader. My main frustration has been training the AI *not* to try to get "creative." But I wouldn't do that in a paper or full-scale tech report, and I really wouldn't do it in a story.

Of course a lot of #advertising was repetitive slop long before #ChatGPT et al. came along. There is such a thing as good ad copy, though, and I suspect it's going to have to come from human brains for quite a while yet.

In fairness, I will note that it's possible to go too far in the other direction with trying for variety in sentence and paragraph structure, and human writers often do. This is to grammar what "hey guys, I just learned about this cool thing called a thesaurus" is to vocabulary. But right now, I think mind-numbing repetition is by far a bigger problem.

From a post on #AI #writing "tells." Both of these can be useful devices, but they're best as seasoning, not main ingredients. AI doesn't get that, of course. Sadly, neither do a number of human writers who have started using a more robotic style.

Oh, they'll comply with the #virus, all right. See, viruses don't ask nicely for compliance.

There are not words.

Okay, I have plenty of words. Most of them would get me banned for life, so I won't say them. You can probably guess.

I can say this, though: #Polis' political career had better be over forever.

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/15/nx-s1-5690286/tina-peters-polis-commutation-trump

Yes, but also no because the #Reddit "science and logic guys" believe a whole lot of different but equally pernicious #bullshit, but also yes because #antivax may well be the most murderous ideology in history, which is a fucking high bar when you think about it.

I hope my #stories will never be *quite* as obscure as this. But if anyone ever loves my #writing enough to put that much effort into finding me, I'll feel like I've really accomplished something.

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/267072/story-id-lost-in-space-novel-posted-on-usenet-in-87-88-with-an-engineer-and

"I am the exiled Prince of America, Donald J. Trump Jr. My father, KING DONALD J. TRUMP, hid a fortune of $1 BILLION US DOLLARS US in a secret location before being deposed by Democrat rebels. You are a good and kind person and I would like you to keep this money in safekeeping ..."

Well, *I* thought it was funny.

"And yes, Actionable should go. A memorial service will not be necessary."

"I'll contact Actionable's family and see what they'd like done with the remains."

Sometimes my job is still fun. Not often at the moment, but I treasure it when it happens.

"Actionable" is a word that should never appear in any report or paper, unless we are working on a project involving analysis of the neurological conditions that cause people to use words like "actionable." I'm rather proud of that one.

The manager of the #Spirit #Halloween in #Butler, PA is very sad it's the off-season.

For all the #antivaxers who are drawn to any post mentioning #vaccination like moths to a flame:

You are shit. You will always be shit. No matter what good you've done in your life, no matter how kind you are to your family and friends, no matter how hard you work, no matter what accomplishments you have to your name, you're still shit. Add a drop of diarrhea to a bottle of the finest champagne, and you have a bottle of shit.

(Hardly any of you were ever champagne. MD 20/20, mostly. But some were at least decent drinks, before ... you know.)

Those of us who are not shit, particularly in the #medical biz, will keep trying to keep you from going down the toilet. Not because you deserve it: you don't. Because we're thinking, feeling, decent human beings. Because we're better than you. We want to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror, and we don't want to see shit like you looking back.

Still, at this point it's hard to feel sorry when you inevitably get flushed.