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
The same people who have been whining that The Democrats Aren't Doing Anything are now whining when ... #Democrats do something.
"Corey [sic] #Booker's filibuster was performative nonsense."
"we knew it was BS when #Schumer was gushing about it lol"
Well, those were two easy blocks.
Republicans hate you and want you to die.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/trump-health-agency-layoffs-cuts
(I (have (to (admit (I (never (expected (to (see (#LISP (#viruses (but (I (suppose (it (was (inevitable.)))))))))))))))))
https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/29/malware_obscure_languages/
"What's the penalty for being late?"
"Death."
"What's the penalty for rebellion against the Emperor?"
"Death."
"Guess what ... we're *late*."
Treat innocent people like criminals, and they will see little reason to stay innocent. This is so obvious it shouldn't even need to be said. And yet.
Sometimes I wish I believed in Hell so I could think #antivaxers would burn there.
I have in fact read the #MIS (#medication #information sheet) for the #Pfizer #vaccine, since that's the one I've been getting, and I do the same for every prescribed #medication I take. People act like it's some kind of super-secret information, when really it's as easily accessible as a Mike #Waltz chat on #Signal.
Over the years, a lot of people have asked me if services like #23andMe were legitimate and safe. I always said yes, citing the rapidly improving technology and strict #genetic #data #protection laws.
I was wrong, and I’m sorry.
#Bhattacharya for #NIH, #Makary for #FDA, the latter with some (D) votes. Fuuuuuck.
"Daniel Dvorkin f'ers like you will probably live in the chambers of hell"
"Well aren't you just a little ray of sunshine."
So ... how's your day going?
[coding] "Huh, that's a weird result. I need to fix that."
[Cate Blanchett voiceover] "Then something happened the Daniel did not intend."
*Every single time*, man.
Daniel Dvorkin
boosted
If enough people learn how to do something, it protects those that don't know how to, this is known as nerd immunity
"Peer review is the worst method of safeguarding scientific integrity, except for all those other methods that have been tried from time to time." As Churchill might have said if he'd been a scientist rather than a politician.
From a conversation with a friend: https://theconversation.com/peer-review-is-meant-to-prevent-scientific-misconduct-but-it-has-its-own-problems-248015
There are a lot of flaws in #peerreview as it's generally done now, and people working to improve it. But what's the alternative to the concept itself? We know what general public #commentary on #science looks like, and politicians shoehorning science into their #ideologies, and science for #profit without checks on validity ... they're all awful.
None of them can be completely avoided either, any more than the potent combination of authoritarianism and stupidity which is always trying to infect #democratic forms of #government. (Just to choose a random example.) And in fact there *should* be input into science from outside the field, because it doesn't exist in a vacuum any more than defense or education or business or religion or any other large-scale area of human endeavour.
But if there's a better way to keep science more or less on track, I'll be damned if I know what it is. The only people qualified to judge the work of scientists—not the big-picture priorities, and not the utility of the results, but the nitty-gritty of the work itself—are other people knowledgeable in the same line of work, and I don't see that changing. Same as any other job, really.
Like I said above, there are proposals for addressing peer review's flaws, and I'll be happy to expound on that if anyone likes.
"The #squirrels are really active today."
"Yeah, they're squirreling hard out there. But you know, the other squirrels are squirreling too, and they have to squirrel their hearts out. Squirrel 110%. At the end of the day, all that matters is who has the highest squirrel."
"We're getting dangerously close to #Smurf territory here."
"I kind of imagine squirrels as real-life Smurfs. Like that's the way they think. Everything is 'squirrel this' and 'squirrel that,' and calling them 'squirrely' is the highest compliment you can give."
Pretty much every day at our house.
Like "so, it has come to this" and "as the prophecy foretold," any statement can be answered with "that's just what the Freemasons *want* you to think." Just one of those little life hacks.
I have to admit, I did not have "Go Leopards! My wife didn't need that face anyway" on my bingo card.
A conversation: someone describing all the ways in which #fibromyalgia changed their life, and someone else responding with a cheery "Have you tried giving up all #FODMAPs† yet?" My reply was as follows.
"A friend with fibromyalgia calls this the 'cucumber water' question, as in 'have you tried cucumber water?' Anyone with any #chronic #illness has most likely tried anything you're likely to suggest. Unless they ask you for ideas, sympathy and support are all you should offer."
That was as civil as I could possibly be, and probably more than they deserved. I think there's at least the *possibility* of getting through in this case, which is why I didn't immediately turn green and rip my shirt off.
But having observed in detail the effects of #fibro and other #chronic #diseases on the lives of people I love—
NO. DO NOT.
===
†Fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols ... one or more of which occur in most of the meals most people eat every day. But sure, you should just drastically limit your diet because some stranger on the internet says so.
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
