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.

When I am #dictator, every antivaxer will be on the hook for every death that could have been prevented by vaccines. #Civil and/or #criminal liability, depending on the extent of their activities.

https://www.propublica.org/article/rfk-jr-vaccine-agenda-childhood-plagues

Say there were 100,000 #vaccine-preventable deaths in the US last year—a reasonable guess, from some quick Googling. Did you make an #antivax post? Now you're a defendant in 100,000 wrongful death lawsuits.

Are you making money by pandering to paranoia and willful ignorance? You're an accessory to 100,000 counts of conspiracy to commit #murder. Public figure, spreading your poison every time people look at their TVs, computers, or phones? That's 100,000 cases of first-#degree homicide.

No truce with #traitors, now or ever.

"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

"And this is why argument from authority is not always (or even usually) fallacious. Neither is ad hominem, and if you disagree with me, it's probably because you're an idiot."

This is good news. Just remember what #antivaxers are. They don't know they're mass murderers—but they still want you dead, and your children, and ultimately themselves after they've done away with everyone else. You have to be lucky all the time. They only have to be lucky once.

https://open.substack.com/pub/yourlocalepidemiologist/p/a-win-for-your-access-to-vaccines

Of course, “really bad at getting the point” is always a possibility. I’m just going to pretend I didn’t think of that.

A line in a mostly unrelated post by a friend got me thinking about a maxim I've heard a lot lately: "#Sciencefiction is not about predicting the #future, but rather commenting on the present." It's become conventional wisdom rapidly approaching the status of a thought-terminating cliche.

When I sit down to write #SF, "what if" is my primary motivation. The here-and-now obviously shapes my thoughts, but I'm not *deliberately* writing about it—if I wanted to do that, I'd pick a different genre.

Maybe I'm not exactly trying to predict the future, but I am trying to make believable predictions about what *could* happen if such-and-such occurred. And I think most of the SF authors whose work I admire would agree with me, unless I'm just really bad at getting the point!

This was a pretty mild expression of my opinion on the matter. “I don’t care” is practically never something you should feel the need to say, unless someone asks you directly. And when it comes to fan debates, let the people who *do* care have their fun.

For the WISP (work in some progress) I'm fiddling with #population growth models, and considering rolling my own to justify the numbers I want. I guess that makes me a rather finicky #Watsonian. But maybe it's like Tolkien coming up with several complete languages before writing any actual plot!

Like their modern #Italian descendants, the ancient #Romans ate a lot of fish. Italy is a peninsula, after all, and except for the northernmost part, nowhere in the country is far from salt water. Even as the #Empire extended to places deeper inland, they kept up their #pescavorian habits.

Indeed, fish may have been their most esteemed source of protein. They appreciated red meat and poultry as much as anyone, but fish brought out their true culinary artistry. From tiny herring to giant halibut, from the icy North Sea to the body-temperature waters of the southern Mediterranean, from cooking fresh on the beach to smoking and salting and drying and fermenting—there was no way in which they did not savor the bounty of the sea.

One particular type of fish, however, took on greater meaning than mere sustenance. Their writings speak of their devotion to this optima maxima of the finned and scaled kind. Religious inscriptions in particular show their gratitude, not only for meat on the table but for all kinds of good luck, be it victory in battle or a bountiful harvest or a successful business venture. They might even ask for its aid *before* setting out on some difficult quest.

Yes, as strange as it may seem to the modern mind, the record is clear: Romans would do anything for tuna.

#seemslegit

This post was almost a rant about a pet peeve that came up in a comment by someone I don't know and almost surely will never meet. And then I realized there was no point, and there are a million better ways to spend my time and mental energy. Is this what wisdom feels like?

This may be the stupidest thing #Kegsbreath has come up with yet, and that's ... impressive, in its way.

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-warrant-officer-bonus-auction/

Meta meme is meta.

After Pam #Bondi's appalling performance in #Congressional hearings, I have seen a number of people wishing her various kinds of harm. Some I understand, others I don't.

Most obviously, #prison #rape. This is something a lot of people who should know better seem to think is an appropriate punishment for sex crimes. There are about a million reasons why this is wrong, and I'll go into them if anyone wants.

TL;DR: if you wish rape on anyone, for any reason, you are bad person. You may be a good person in other ways, but in this particular way you are scum. Either do better, or own it—just don't pretend righteousness. I'm genuinely baffled by how people I call friends don't understand this.

Nor do I want her, or any of #Trump's coterie of crooks, #assassinated or #lynched. I'm more sympathetic to those wishes, but just no. Every revolution in history has been, in every sense, a bloody mess.

What I want is for We The People, in accordance with the #Constitution and the United States Code, to #impeach, arrest, try, and convict every one of them for the numerous crimes of which everyone knows they're guilty, and then sentence them to prison for life without possibility of parole.

I want us to show the world that we can, legally and correctly, clean up our own mess.

And all that said ... I do hope when Bondi is led, stunned and baffled, down the concrete corridor to her final home, that just before the cell door slams shut, a guard whispers to her, "It's okay, Pam. The Dow is doing *great*!"

"Well, it is the ‘20s. So I guess we should all meet up in vaxeasies, where we’ll get illegal jabs and dance the night away. Until ICE bursts in and mows us down with Tommy guns, anyhow."

I slay me.

In the comments on the Quora version of this post:

"Fear not! The truth and power will be fully exploited and realized in other, sane countries. Where there is demand, it will be met with supply!

"When the first shipments are smuggled across the border, I will be waiting to meet the mule and take the load to smuggle it across the country to local distribution networks. Just like the good old days."

"Well, it is the ‘20s. So I guess we should all meet up in vaxeasies, where we’ll get illegal jabs and dance the night away. Until ICE bursts in and mows us down with Tommy guns, anyhow."

This is where my prediction comes true: the insane opposition to #mRNA #vaccines, without any scientific basis, is about to start killing people. Tip of the iceberg, and we’re all on the boat.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/10/health/fda-moderna-mrna-flu-vaccine

The last time I put my #luggage in an old-fashioned #suitcase, I lifted it too rapidly after check-in because I was in a hurry to catch my flight, and my #massive #manly #musculature propelled it upward so fast it punched a hole in the #airport roof. Air traffic control lost track of it at the #Karman line where it was still traveling at considerably more than escape velocity. It's probably somewhere in the #asteroid belt by now. So I'll stick to the wheeled variety. Just safer for everybody.

The Bird-dog of Alcatraz.

As a friend points out, this is bullshit: there were absolutely #protests against #deportations under #Clinton, #GWBush, and #Obama. #MAGA's selective memory is at it again. "Protests/Riots" is also telling. #Cult rules prohibit them acknowledging any distinction.

I do remember a number of #conservatives getting very worked up about the brutal treatment of #ElianGonzalez and his family. They were right to do so, or so I thought at the time.

Years later I figured out that what they objected to was not government agents waving guns in a little kid's face, but rather that it was happening under a #Democrat instead of a #Republican. Sanctioned #violence is only ever supposed to flow one way.