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
Pinned post
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.
#Authoritarians are often very fond of #engineering, because they always want better ways to kill people. But they hate and fear #science, because the laws of #nature don't care about their #ideology at all. This is a reaction as instinctive as a rattlesnake's bite.
Never let it be said I'm above a little self-promotion. 
This may be the last short story in the Seaway Station universe for a while: I'm going to concentrate for a while on the Silmarillisaurus, the writer's bible for the universe, and then get to work on the novels.
#dinosaurs #timetravel #sciencefiction #SeawayStation
Main BSQ site: https://www.boundaryshockquarterly.com/product/30-fading-empires/
Amazon, including paperback option: https://www.amazon.com/Fading-Empires-Boundary-Shock-Quarterly-ebook/dp/B0F397V5QY
I want to write about #dinosaurs, but I keep having to write about work instead. Not that writing about dinosaurs isn't work too, but it doesn't pay the bills as reliably. Oh well. Right now I'm going to let rapid eye movement write on the inside of my eyelids. 'Night, all. 
A lot of what the regime does is driven by greed, of course. Make as much money as possible as fast as possible. But I'm increasingly convinced just as much of it is toddler-like gleeful destruction for its own sake.
The text at the end of the post is copied rather than shared, at previous poster's request, and lightly edited. Feel free to share my post, though, with commentary intact.
You know this was always their endgame. The bullshit answers #RFK Jr. and his fellow loons gave Congress were even more transparent lies than all the other confirmation hearing testimony. Everyone who voted to confirm them shares the blame, but Bill #Cassidy has earned a special place in hell.
#Bondi, #Hegseth, #Noem, and all the rest of the cabinet are all assholes, and profoundly dangerous. Justice and Homeland Security are slaying their thousands, and Defense is gearing up to slay its tens of thousands. Health and Human Services is chuckling at them and saying "amateurs."
I'm skeptical that any amount of lobbying #HHS directly, or any of its sub-departments such as #FDA, #NIH, and #CDC, will have much effect. But maybe, just maybe, calling your #Senators and #Representatives will have an effect.
Let's face it, members of #Congress will suffer a lot less from idiocy like #tariffs than the rest of us, and they're (probably) safe from roundup and #deportation. #Viruses don't care about such distinctions. Mighty and humble alike can choke to death on their own liquefying lung tissue.
#Antivaxers are not "skeptics." They're not interested in evidence. They can't be bargained with, they can't be reasoned with, and they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
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Marty Makary and Tracy Hoeg at the FDA are currently trying to set a policy that would effectively eliminate all covid vaccines. They want to require a full clinical trial every year for companies to update the covid vaccine to match the current strain, which they know is not possible.
Please contact the FDA and demand continuing access to yearly updated covid vaccines and ask for the Novavax 2025 covid vaccine to be approved.
mmakary1@jhmi.edu
ocod@fda.hhs.gov
tracybeth.hoeg@fda.hhs.gov
800-402-8010
From a thread on Bluesky: “#Scientists together - STRONG!” needs to be a thing.
Unity is beautiful.
"We've been trying to reach you about your Frosted Flakes' extended warranty."
Right-wingers hate and fear anything that even approaches objective truth. Of course Wikipedia drives them nuts.
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@dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz
@devilonger @nixCraft Trump's people are starting to make the opening moves on attacking Wikipedia and probably intending to destroy it. Recent po...
See, this is why I miss living in #Minnesota: everything is just so efficient!
Daniel Dvorkin
boosted
Daniel Dvorkin
boosted
What a commentary on the stupidity — and venality — of a critical mass of people at this point in history, that, collectively, they/we have chosen to return ALL of us to a situation in which measles will be endemic.
When the disease had been conquered by a vaccine and the willingness of a critical mass to recognize the importance of vaccinating ourselves and our children and in that way, protecting not just ourselves but the common good….
State of Colorado: "Record every ride, investigate complaints, and don't hire drivers with a history of crimes that would endanger their passengers."
Uber: "This is an outrage! We're taking our toys and going home!"
Me, a #Colorado voter: "Well ... bye."
There's a *reason* traditional taxis and various other services are so highly regulated. Cities and states are finally realizing that #Uber, #Airbnb, and the rest of these "disruptive" businesses are far from an unmixed blessing. It's about time.
Maybe not the only #alignment chart you'll ever need ... but probably the last.
A request to my friends outside the #US: can you put a hold on the "LOL #Americans are so stupid" jokes for a while?
People, we know our recent outbreak of national idiocy has the rest of the world looking on in shock. We know that in the last three months we've done damage that will take decades to repair, if we ever can, and more is coming. We know a lot of you have written us off as a hopeless case.
If you care about us at all—*any* of us, individually or collectively—please remember that nobody is more dismayed than those who are trying to hold it together on the inside. Trying to figure out some way to mitigate the damage. Trying to keep our critical patient, the body politic, alive.
When that patient dies, we die too. I trust that most people reading my words, anywhere in the world, would see that as an undesirable outcome.
Honestly I've never been fond of humor that relies on national stereotypes, directed at my country or anyone else's. Most of the time I can shrug it off. Right now it's salt in the wound.
A recent discussion about #inclusivity on one of the goth groups I follow got a bit heated, and the admins pulled the plug. Okay, it happens. Hardly anyone wants people screaming at each other in their virtual living room.
Every subculture I've ever been part of has had the same problem. #Punk, #goth, #science #fiction #fandom, #hackerdom, maybe a few I'm not thinking of at the moment.
#Subcultures are *in general* more accepting and inclusive than society as a whole, yes. People who are seen as weird and scary by the #mainstream find groups of other people who have had the same experience. This leads to groups that welcome refugees of all kinds. All to the good.
Then the idea becomes part of the group's identity. Instead of understanding that people in the group tend to be more tolerant than others because of their experiences, they start assuming that being part of the group automatically *makes* them less prejudiced.
"We can't be racist / sexist / etc., that's a mundane problem!" So when these "mundane" #bigotries turn up in the subculture, as they *inevitably* do, they get swept under the rug.
Yeah, well, you can be, and very often you are. Face it. Deal with it. Be better than the people who made your life hell. Or at the very least, stop acting so hurt and surprised when you get called on your own brand of bullshit.
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
