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
If I had a nickel for every time I've realized I'm a member of a group which popular culture often (a) fetishizes, and (b) portrays as entirely female, I'd have ten cents. Which isn't very much money, but it does seem a little weird that it's happened twice.
"Sorry, our #medical systems here in the West have ZERO incentive to cure, only #treatment and #sustaining #patients long term in order to milk them. Even if they found a #cure, you wouldn’t get it. That’s just bad business."
"Go fuck yourself."
I think I handled that appropriately.
@zuthal Yeah, I think that's specific to easily identified targets—as you say, aircraft parked in the open are almost a perfect use case. I said elsenet that for strikes on more ambiguous targets, and especially in fluid situations like CAS, I really think autonomous drones will be dramatically worse than human pilots about collateral damage and friendly fire. I wouldn't want to be the grunt relying on a Cylon Raider for backup.
A friend points out that the success of the #Ukrainian #drone #attack on #Russian #airfields has to have the US and other large #defense #industries rather jittery. All those big high-tech megabucks systems ... something something ten-rupee jezail.
My suspicion is that the age of drone supremacy will be short-lived: as long as they rely on human #pilots on the ground, their #signals can be jammed, traced, or hacked. Best-case scenario, the drones become flying bricks. Middle-case, the ground control facilities become #artillery targets. Worst-case, the drones are turned against their erstwhile controllers.
Those systems already exist in embryonic form—note that #Ukraine had to rely on old-fashioned #infiltration to get close enough for the strikes to work. You can bet every major #military power on the planet is already putting a lot of money into R&D for much more sophisticated approaches. Of course the alternative is autonomous drones, taking off with a set of mission parameters and the same decision-making authority as pilots in crewed #aircraft. That, uh, presents its own set of problems.
With all this said, drones are going to be a big *part* of everyone's arsenal going forward, and yeah, it's going to disrupt current #doctrine considerably. Assuming Ukraine survives the war, which I'm increasingly confident it will, veterans will be in great demand as consultants—at least in smart countries. I wonder if the US will be one of those.
Joni #Ernst is a year younger than me. Like me, she probably has decades of life ahead of her. She is also probably aware, as I am, that we're at the age where things start ... just happening. Not to everyone our age, or even most people. But to some. To *enough* to be a source of worry.
A nagging #cough. A #mole you don't remember being there the last time you looked. The sensation of an irregular #heartbeat. Moments of inattention and confusion. Fear that never quite goes away.
If she has any of these symptoms, I hope they're nothing significant. Really, I do. There is a short list of people I truly want to see drop dead, and she's not on it. However vehemently I disagree with her politics, if she were my patient, I'd give her the best possible care. Like I always have.
But when she goes in for her next #medical appointment, if she mentions any of these or other worrisome symptoms to her provider, goes through the usual battery of tests—
—I really do kind of hope the good doctor says "well, we're all going to die" before giving her the all-clear.
Map of US #job losses due #federal #research #funding cuts, on a county-by-county level. Not shown: the number of jobs lost to knock-on effects, of which mine could well be one. And oh yeah, since so many of these grants are #medical and #epidemiological, the number of people who will FUCKING DIE as a result of this lunacy.
@FeralRobots exactly this. And they pretend philosophical thought experiments like the trolley problem are in the same class as scientific thought experiments like Einstein's "what would the world look like if I rode on a beam of light?", when they're just not. Drives me quietly nuts. Or not so quietly, as the case may be.
And here it is. "Kill kids and future mothers first" is an odd strategy for a natalist party, but expecting consistency from these loons is a mug's game. I bet I know how they make it fit together in their heads, and so do you. https://endpts.com/rfk-jr-ends-routine-covid-vaccine-guidance-for-kids-pregnant-women/?u=e79ec92b-641d-4704-968d-efd571e586b5
The lengths to which people will go to defend the #TrolleyProblem are both hilarious and terrifying. Bonus points if they accuse you of "not understanding thought experiments."
No, sweetie, I understand fine. I just don't want to be part of your circle jerk.
If this didn't happen, it should have.
Implications for current political issues are left as an exercise to the reader.
The #WISP exists partially as a deliberate counter to this—i.e. to portray #fictional #dinosaurs more like the first panel than the second. Not that I expect it ever to become a #movie. But *if it does*, I will use the vast power for which #writers are known in #Hollywood to ensure my dinosaurs don't have mange and broken wrists.
@gsymon Freeform is basically a whiteboarding app, right? I hadn't thought of trying to adapt that to mapmaking, but I can see some similarities.
#Writing-related question: seeking recommendations for easy-to-use, free or very inexpensive #shareware, #Mac-compatible #drawing #software for #mapmaking.
Currently I'm working on a writer's bible for the Stationverse, called "The Silmarillisaurus" because of course it is. For my own use, mainly—a shared world would be neat, but if that ever happens it will be a long time from now. This is for me to keep track of everything.
What I have in mind is really basic. I don't have Tolkien's sketching ability, so I figure I'll draw something simple and then try to pretty it up a bit on screen. Drawing and cloning symbols for mountains, trees, etc., along with lines for shores and rivers and roads, then cloning and pasting as needed.
(*Dedicated* map-making software that allowed me to do things like topo lines would be nifty, but I'm not expecting that.)
Untold æons ago, I was actually pretty decent with Illustrator, at least for a non-artist. Those skills are gone now, like tears in rain, and so is a registered copy I can use on anything resembling a modern OS. Simple and cheap is what I'm after.
Oh yeah—I'm also open to working with an artist who can take my crude sketches and turn them into something publishable. I can pay, just not much right now, and I don't want anyone to feel ripped off. You may be noticing a theme here.
Like many memes about #GenerationX, this is superficially appealing but falls apart the more you look at it. #Xers do a lot of self-congratulating on how #independent we are, but what that's translated into is more support for #Trump than any other generation, including the reviled #Boomers. We're cats.
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
