Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@social.cleverlibre.org

@TwShiloh I admit it, I'm lazy: I want everyone who thinks I post things worth reading on Facebook, Quora, and (to the degree anyone cares) Twitter to follow me over here en masse. 😀 But I know it's not going to happen automagically.

To be fair, and as the article acknowledges, #Mastodon *is* harder to use than #Twitter or #Facebook. A lot of the difficulty is in deciding where to get started, the paralysis of choice, and that can leave a bad taste in your mouth which affects the whole experience. First impressions matter.

But it isn't *that* much harder, and there's real value in choice too. More to the point—again as the article says—there's value in, well, values. Nobody's getting rich off Mastodon. It exists because people think something like it would be neat to have, and they want to share that neatness with others who think the same. There are egos involved to be sure, but no one person's ego can bring it all crashing down.

As a practical matter, it is AFAICT the first and only open-source, distributed, not-for-profit social media platform that registers as a threat to the big players. That counts for a lot in my book.

Remember when the internet felt promising instead of overwhelming, depressing, and sometimes terrifying? Mastodon's bringing some of that back, at least for me.

Vive la Résistance!

A small entry in the "what is #bioinformatics, anyway?" category.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-bioinformatics-and-other-computer-sciences-such-as-software-engineering/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

This is one of those stories that either is the start of something huge or will sink like a stone: not much in between.

#Tessera's claims are ambitious but not unprecedented. One of our clients does something similar with stem cells, and they have a product that's actually made it to market. As far as I can tell, Tessera is claiming the ability to do this in all kinds of cells, with whole living organisms. Which would be a really big deal.

From a bioinformatics / biostatistics perspective (you knew that was coming) I have Questions about consistency. Doing it once, or ten times, or a thousand, isn't enough. You need to do it *trillions*, very accurately indeed. With cell cultures you just screen out the cells that didn't do what you wanted and keep the ones that did: insert "bury their mistakes" joke here. And with stem cells it's particularly easy to know when you have it right.

"65 percent efficiency—20 times the rate at which it performed unintended or errant edits" sounds quite good on a cell-by-cell basis, although I'd like to see the error bars on those numbers. In a patient, it would be an unmitigated disaster. Congratulations, we've cured your muscular dystrophy ... and given you ten different types of cancer.

More generally, their secrecy does not fill me with confidence, of the 95% variety or any other. As I've said many times before, science done in secret isn't science at all, it's alchemy.

Well. It's early days yet. Let's just hope Tessera isn't another Theranos, because I am *really tired* of that. If they do achieve any of what they're claiming, I'll be cheering them on.

#genetics #geneediting #genewriting #stemcell #bioinformatics #musculardystrophy #cancer

https://www.the-scientist.com/bio-business/can-gene-writing-deliver-what-gene-editing-can-t-70740

@DavidDvorkin right. 😀

@ahi Thank you!

@pieist I just wonder if there's any way to fight this. Maybe not, but I'm not quite ready to give up.

@DavidDvorkin Well, yeah. But I'm wondering about the precise nature of the ignorance and if there's anything I can do about it. Or maybe I'm just over-analyzing it as we ivory tower types are wont to do, when all I really need is some good old-fashioned common sense!

Seen in the wild: "All a #PhD tells me is you were at least able to cram study and pass tests."

I can't even.

Do people really think this? Obviously this guy does, but in general? An honest question, not a rhetorical one.

I've spent a significant chunk of my life in the company of people with #doctorates—including two grandparents, so I understood from childhood that getting a PhD was quite different from any other kind of degree. Most people I know haven't, but everyone who was part of my life through my long and winding #academic career has a pretty good idea what I did to become #Doctor Dvorkin. For anyone who doesn't know, I'm always happy to give a quick sketch.

Among people who don't have family or friends who have done it, and have never thought seriously about doing it themselves ... is that the perception, that grad school is just a more intense version of elementary school through college? More tests, more cramming, more regurgitation, and then you get some shiny new letters after your name?

If that's the case, I guess I can't blame them, exactly. Like I've said before, most people have no idea how most of the things I've done for a living in my life actually work. The #military, #medicine, #science: all quite mysterious except for what people *think* they know from movies and TV, which is often worse than complete ignorance. So I guess it's shouldn't be a surprise if #academia is on that list.

But I would really like to know how widespread this view is. Maybe I can do something with that.

@AndyLowry You can't see him because he's on the other side of the Gondor. He's trying to block it and hasn't quite figured out why that's not necessary. Be patient with him, he's been through a lot.

Gondor has no knob. Gondor needs no knob!

[It's Time to Redeem Prometheus](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a37377867/prometheus-movie-defense-essay/)

Not posted for agreement, if you share from my post please leave my commentary intact ... you know the drill.

The thrust of the article seems to be that the foolishness and total lack of relatability on the part of pretty much all characters makes sense in the light of Scott's message and vision for the movie. Making me not care about anyone played by Rapace and Fassbender, IMO two of the finest actors in the field, is an impressive trick, but he pulled it off!

In short: I recognize Scott had his vision. But given that it's a stupid-ass vision, I've elected to ignore it.

#Prometheus #Alien #Aliens #Xenomorph #RidleyScott #NoomiRapace #MichaelFassbender

"Free speech absolutist" must mean something different in Muskrat than in English.

The Scientist is a well-known and respected biomedical research trade publication, and I guess they put on events now and then. The Scientistt must be even better: that extra 't' adds a certain zing, doncha think? So I'd better send them my response right away. I'd hate to miss out on this opportunity.

Nice of them to recognize me as "a leading researcher in the field." Most of my work is behind the scenes, partly by personal preference and partly because it just doesn't take much to get the villagers lighting the torches. But maybe it's time for me to put aside my instinctive humility and step into the limelight.