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
I laughed. But more and more people believe this dangerous nonsense. Our ability to prevent and treat #disease is under full-scale attack, and millions—tens or hundreds of millions—will die because of it.
Nobody deserves to die of an easily preventable disease. If anyone did, though, the people pushing this insanity would be at the top of the list.
Checklist time!
Good food: #France ✅ #OlympusMons ❌
Good beer: France ❌ Olympus Mons ❌
The Louvre: France ✅ (kind of) Olympus Mons ❌
High peaks: France ✅ Olympus Mons ✅
Highest peak in Solar System: France ❌ Olympus Mons ✅
Cool fossils: France ✅ Olympus Mons ❌ (probably)
Hard decision, really.
[climbs out of acid bath] You mean I've been doing this wrong the whole time?
Perhaps I was luckier than I thought when my academic career ended prematurely.
"I was too smart to enlist and they didn't want me as an officer because I raise too much hell."
"Officially, there's no record of my service."
"I'd've punched out the DI the first time he got in my face."
Did I miss any?
"Okay, we're clearly at the beginning of a #movie. Now, is this a wacky #comedy with incompetent #gangsters who take ever-more-ridiculous pratfalls in a futile attempt to recover their loot, or a gritty #thriller where the viewpoint characters are in way over their heads? Help me figure it out ... fast."
This is how "intellectual" #creationists and #antivaxers sound to #biologists, BTW.
Not posted for agreement, if you share from my post please leave my commentary intact, terms and conditions apply, see your local grumpy scientist for details ...
This type of "#humor" is shit.
"#Cardcatalogs were our #Google! #Polaroids were our #Instagram! #Payphones were our #iPhones!"
NO THE FUCK THEY WEREN'T. They were very useful in their time, but the modern versions are *better*. Which is why it's difficult to find a card catalog or a Polaroid camera these days, and a payphone is practically impossible.
Grow the hell up.
Every time I think the vastly misnamed #Republicans can't get any lower, they have to go and prove me wrong. They are now #censoring the #Constitution.
BTW, the pages aren't only missing from the direct links, e.g. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-9/ , they're also missing from the index of Article I, https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/ . There's no possible way this is a glitch.
The phrase "foreign and domestic" popped up in my head for some reason.
Not posted for agreement, if you share from my post please leave my commentary intact, etc. This came up in a #fantasy and #sciencefiction writing group on Facebook. I disagree with it, but it's a worthy topic for discussion.
There's nothing magical about #numbers IMO: like any other part of #worldbuilding, they should be dropped into the story when they're useful and left out when they're not. Give the readers enough to understand the world, without multiple paragraphs of exposition or "as you know, Bob" dialog.
I live in #Colorado and spend as much time as possible in the #mountains. When people are talking about mountains—as the characters in my current work do a lot—they throw numbers around. #Elevation, map #distance, and time all matter a great deal when you're planning a hike. Since they're #explorers in a mostly unmapped world, they need all the information they can get. Qualitative details like #flora, #fauna, and #climate matter at least as much, so they talk about those too.
Number soup is boring, but as a seasoning rather than a main ingredient, numbers can really help add flavor. Readers who know mountains will recognize the way my characters talk, and those who don't will hopefully pick up on the authenticity. Anyone who wants to challenge my numbers at a con is welcome to do so, but I try to make sure they need to bring their A-game.
I understand that when it's time to pay up, he can be a real bastard.
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
