Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

Most likely I'm preaching to the choir by posting this here. But #covid has spawned more conspiratorial thinking than any other event I can remember in my lifetime, and that includes things like 9/11. So, in case it's useful for countering any bullshit you may encounter, here you go.

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-WHO-come-up-with-a-brand-new-virus-death-classification-procedure-just-for-covid-in-early-2020-What-was-wrong-with-the-pre-2020-virus-death-classification-procedure/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

I was an #airman a lot longer than I was a #soldier. But I was a soldier first. There are not quite words for how much this pisses me off.

https://www.pogo.org/investigation/2023/02/documents-show-air-force-leaders-shirking-their-close-air-support-responsibilities

@trinsec Thanks!

@Rickd6 Yeah, they really don't want to answer that question. I guess that's why they have a designated "black friend" each primary cycle. 😀

Possibly the last time I'll give an honest, non-sarcastic answer to this kind of question. I've tried, for decades, and I'm just about done. Snark is practically all I have left. Consider this a brief flash of the old me.

I really doubt the questioner will pay attention, but maybe it will do someone some good. FOR ... THE ... LURKERS!

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-Democratic-Party-hate-white-men-so-much/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

The wheels of #Mouse grind slow, but exceedingly fine.

#Disney rolled over a lot quicker than I expected when #DeSantis took #ReedyCreek away. Gloomily, I thought that meant they were giving up—calculating that it was better to alienate some large part of their customer base than to pick a fight with a terrifyingly succesful #fascist politician on his way up the ladder. Now I have a different view.

This conference presents a huge challenge for #DeathSatan. If he tries to stop it, he's in for a massive court fight... and/or persuading Dinsey that it's finally time to leave #Florida, which could happen, and would be a massive blow to the state. Maybe even enough to lose him Florida's electoral votes in the 2024 Presidential election where he clearly expects to be a candidate.

If he doesn't, he looks weak. The #Republican #Party is hopelessly committed to #performative #masculinity. The slightest appearance of weakness on the part of #SqueakyRon will give Former #President #Babyhands all the opening he needs to win the pissing contest. Forget the general: #Trump gets the nomination and DeSantis is yet another also-ran.

Me, I'll just be over here making popcorn.

I will note that it's a deeply weird feeling for me to be backing a giant corporation against a legitimately elected government, however much it galls me to admit the latter. But strange bedfellows and all that. #Stalin vs. #Hitler: sometimes you gotta pick a side.

@NoahH I'm pretty sure that's among their goals. There was a time within living memory, in some parts of the US, when women could be arrested for wearing pants and men could be arrested for having long hair. Many right-wingers would love to go back enforcing gender roles at gunpoint.

@trinsec There are still enough good questions, and good answers, to keep me active there. But the signal-to-noise ratio is definitely dropping, and has been for years. A lot of formerly active users have decided it's not worth it anymore. Many of them are my friends, and sooner or later I'll probably join them. Just not *quite* there yet.

Do I have to explain *everything*?

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Europe-defy-God-by-not-using-the-United-Statess-dollar-which-was-invented-by-Jesus-in-1776/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

@drsbello Yeah, they'll buy that! 😛

Scurry, my pretties, scurry!

DAMN IT.

#Bioinformatics life:

When working with #data from multiple #species, it is important to keep them separate. This is a particularly a problem with #human and #mouse data: we're pretty similar, big-picture-wise, with a lot of similarly named #genes that do similar things. So you want to make sure your species labels for each datum are clear and unambiguous.

Note to self: it helps if you label them "mouse" and "human" rather than ... say ... just to choose a random example ... "muman". Because trying to make *that* happen will get your funding yanked rather quickly.

A friend asks, "What is Neo-Gothic?"

The #Goths were a major geopolitical force from about 200 AD on, ruling much of the territory northeast of the #Roman #Empire, with a powerful and reasonably centralized government. Indeed, it was one of the few military-political entities in the world which could negotiate with #Rome on roughly equal terms. Today we know these people as the "elder Goths."

But around 375 AD, the #Huns crashed into the eastern edge of the #Gothic polity, bringing down their governmental and economic structure and driving uncounted refugees west. The Goths could at that point have been wiped away as so many other peoples had been in the Huns' ruthless march of conquest. Fortunately for them, the Eastern Roman #Emperor at the time, #Valens, gave them permission to settle along the Roman side of the #Danube, and they survived as a culture, albeit in a weakened state. Some commentators of the time claimed they were no longer truly Goths at all, but a new and lesser people, the "#Emos."

Of course they spent a lot of time being gloomy about this. Still, their fundamental nature was not to accept their fate passively: their cities may have lain in dust, but not for nothing was the refrain of one of their traditional songs, "I want more." So they rose, clad in leather and steel, and headed farther west ... conquering the Western Roman Empire in the process during the 5th Century. We divide them into #Visigoths and #Ostrogoths, but "neo-Goths" is a good catch-all phrase.

I hope this clears things up.

From electoral-vote.com: "If #Bragg was expecting a surrender in roughly 48 hours, especially from someone who lives more than 1,000 miles from #Manhattan, then he would likely have made contact with Trump's lawyers by this point. Although we suppose that, to make things easier, Bragg could meet #Trump halfway. Say, have him surrender at, oh, we don't know... #Appomattox Court House, VA? That would be an appropriate location, right?"

The whole post is great, but that last sentence is brilliant.

https://www.quora.com/Why-have-some-people-been-told-that-humans-evolved-from-chimpanzees-gorillas-monkeys-and-other-monkey-type-species/answer/Jake-Dickerman

@denniskpeters Yes, very much this. To some degree it's inevitable, but we *really* need to have fallback plans.

When my father was a NASA engineer, they talked about (I think I'm remembering this) "FO-FO-FAS," i.e. fail-operational, fail-operational, fail-safe. If one major subsystem goes out, the craft still works. If two fail, the same. If three, everyone still gets home alive. Medicine needs the same standard, and I'm not at all sure we're building that in to current systems.