Link. We make mistakes in medicine too — but I wonder if the burden on prosecutors is even greater.
Monthly Archives: November 2021
xkcd: Bayes’ Theorem
Link. Mandatory introduction to every Bayes lecture forever.
GOP authoritarianism is permanent.
Link. I suspect less than 40% of Americans are strongly committed to democracy.
“the population can be divided into networks of quasi-homogeneous mixing populations that are internally well-connected but only loosely connected to each other, the effective reproduction number can undergo large fluctuations even in the absence of beh
Link. Simulations have disappointed.
“In 2017, after more than a decade of work, Laporta published his magnum opus — the electron’s magnetic moment to 1,100 digits of precision.“
Link. Love this description of hard core mathematical physics.
“participants who were smokers but had taken naltrexone were less likely to consume high-fat, high-calorie foods than smokers who had been given the placebo.”
Link. Naltrexone is used now in some people with severe obesity.
DeLong’s latest blog home is on substack
Link. At least it has an RSS feed. Because of the way sub stack works I can’t tell how old it is, maybe 2021?
Vials labeled ‘Smallpox’ contained vaccinia.
Link. This really should have gotten more coverage.
“Fox employees often speak of this in terms of “respecting the audience.”
Link. I have wondered how they get up in the morning. Also, Tucker Carlson ambitions are limitless.
Identified serial killings are dramatically down in US.
Link. Lots of plausible explanations.
Right-to-Repair: don’t trust Apple.
Link. I hadn’t read previously how Apple screwed participants in their small vendor program.
Africa disintegrates.
Link. Too many languages and cultures.
“COP26, while not yielding much in the way of enforceable commitments to cut emissions, has actually turned out to be one of the more productive climate summits.”
Link. Coal appears.
EVs in winter: “warming the bus during its runs on those cold days drained a little over half of the battery’s charge, whereas driving the bus used a bit more than 40%.”
Link.
“The maximum root pressure measured in some plants can raise water only to 6.87 meters, and the tallest trees are over 100 meters tall.”
Link. Transpirational supposedly but not fully understood.
“life will go on as usual for Wadena County residents, even as many of them get sick or die.”
Link. Most people don’t understand how dumb most people are.
“biggest six-month increase since the department began recording fatal crash data since 1975”
Link. Doesn’t give car vs ped vs bike numbers. Some is shift from transit to car but is surprising.
APFS based Time Machine has a problem with hard drives.
Link. More fragile backup and slower performance.
Belarus: [Putin] … “has yanked on the Belarusian strongman’s chain very hard. The crisis is effectively over, although Lukashenko may be allowed a face-saving ‘decent interval’ before he calls it off.”
Link. Where will refugees end up?
“Which hand do you think controls the front brake on a moto? The right hand! This is why you hear people refer to reversed brakes as “moto-style.””
Link. I’m persuaded. Current arrangement is legacy of old geometries where front brakes promoted headers.
Roundabouts: climate and cars.
Link. The article suggests they are bad for bikes and pedestrians unless special accommodations are made.
The end of file system defragmentation.
Link. SSDs and APFS are marvels.
Managing beavers: “easily, easily trapped and easily caught by wolves, so, no, they’re not exactly the brightest animal on the street.”
Link. The beaver-deceiver is cool. Beaver population is growing very quickly.
“five biggest Chinese mining companies in Congo had lines of credit from state-backed banks that totaled $124 billion”
Link. While Trump focused on …. Coal. The safety story is surprising.
Gordon’s Tech: How to mitigate SMS spam in iOS 15: filter unknown AND disable notifications for unknown senders
Link. If this made the news I missed it.
“mild peripheral neuropathy, a condition defined by nerve damage, pain and stiffening in the feet. Despite extensive testing, the team found no cause for that condition.”
Link. This is common but doesn’t get enough medical attention. Biden is one fit almost-80 dude.
Acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse: “for legal scholars, it was not a surprise”
Link. WTF wasn’t it universal knowledge that anyone who actually knew WI law expected an acquittal? Because journalists won’t spike a hot story.
“unicode (outside of string literals) in programming languages was a mistake”
Link. Undo this.
Proteins Aging: “perhaps the adoption of asparagine as a canonical amino acid might have been a mistake”
Link. My cataracts are developing nicely.
Alzheimer’s Vaccines: “these clinical trials, long shots though they are, are appropriate”
Link. A relatively positive take by a trusted source.
“the first two weeks of November, those two ports cleared about a third of the containers sitting on their docks.”
Link. If BBB passes this could be an impressive Biden finish. As they say, “Go Brandon!”
Disk Utility still can’t check and repair APFS volumes and containers.
Link. There are workarounds. Sigh.
Returning faulty Apple product via a doorstep replacement service.
Link. “if the new keyboard was delivered by UPS, I could ask them to wait on the doorstep” while swap old and new.
“At the end of each year, I’ll export the current year’s messages to EagleFiler and have a mostly-empty Mail app to work with.”
Link. I’m slowly moving in this direction. Don’t trust the way Mail manages archives. Would like less Google dependency.
Congress threatens to draft women (not really).
Link. It is insane that men register and women don’t. Registering women will ensure draft never happens.
Roma genetics: “The slip from genetics to eugenics is one that can happen quite easily”
Link. It is hard to study humans without falling into the traps of our history. In medicine today we have the estimated GFR problem.
“Congressional Budget Office published an official cost estimate on Thursday afternoon that found the package would increase the federal budget deficit by $160 billion over 10 years.”
Link. Damn, that’s a lot smaller than I expected. A pittance basically.
“China required some travelers from overseas, including diplomats, to submit to anal Covid swab tests”
Link. China has GOP assholery down.
WI: “Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, said that G.O.P. state lawmakers should unilaterally assert control of federal elections,”
Link. He probably sincerely believes Democrats can only win by cheating. He is very stupid and left reality long ago.
Giant Sloths dug huge South American tunnels.
Link. Then we ate them.
BBB act fixes many Obamacare issues.
Link. What should have happened years ago — but for the GOP.
Not worth fighting MN’s despicable GOP on behalf of those who seek their own death.
Link. The drowning idiots refuse the life rope.
Amazon to stop accepting Visa’s UK-issued credit cards over high fees.
Link. POWER! AMEX and Apple VISA also have high fees. So have they given Amazon a special deal or are they next?
Gifts for People You Hate 2021: Naomi Kritzer.
Link. Many gifts from past years are likely available as well. If, for example, you hate lot of people.
The Concept of the Ruliad—Stephen Wolfram.
Link. “we are bounded observers, embedded within the ruliad.” Reminds me of The Mathematical Universe (Tegmark)
Published by iHeartMedia: “[mRNA vaccine] It’s an egg that hatches into a synthetic parasite and grows inside your body”
Link. There’s money to be made exploiting simple minds.
Uyghur genocide and corporate sponsorship of the Olympic games.
Link. Sponsor ads should reference genocide.
“high-tech flat-screen televisions with some of the latest fancy features are often surprisingly affordable. Part of the reason those prices are so low is due to the rampant selling of user data by TV makers like Vizio.”
Link. Give up.
“Dealers buy $600 worth of parts, put them together, then sell guns for as much as $1,400. Customers are happy to pay a premium for an untraceable weapon, he said.”
Link. Gun control works better than I thought.
Twin Cities Bicycle Touring Map
Link. Local cyclist personal project. Google map based.