Meetup : Singapore Meetup Group

1 MixedNuts 21 February 2015 12:48PM

Discussion article for the meetup : Singapore Meetup Group

WHEN: 01 March 2015 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE: East Coast Park, next to the beach, at The Amber Beacon Tower, Singapore

There will be a meetup on March 1.

Time: 2pm until ???

Location: East Coast Park, next to the beach, at The Amber Beacon Tower* (Google Street View, more diagrammatic map) The tower is near Parkland Green, where people could get food before or after.

Activity: Loose socializing and discussion. If you have something you know you'd like to talk about, feel to post a blurb or relevant link here.

The meetup organiser is particularly interested to talk to people about how to decide when to gather more information versus act on the information one already has (which may be known to be inaccurate). This boils down to how to calculate an expected value of information gathering. Of course, by March 1 he might be onto something else.

*The Amber Beacon Tower is also known as the Yellow Tower, and is purportedly haunted by a murder victim.

Note: I can't convince the automatic Google Maps thing (here underneath) to show the right place (coordinates are 1.298176,103.905926), if you know what I should put into the "Location" field to make it do that, please tell me.

Discussion article for the meetup : Singapore Meetup Group

Help me refactor my life

9 MixedNuts 16 February 2013 12:19PM

So I got stuck in a depressive rut once again and I'm making a fresh start. Give me advice!

I'll move. My plan is to find a cheap place somewhere in France, but anywhere in the EU's good. Having like-minded roommates would be a plus. Anyone wish to bask in my glorious presence? I'm a very accommodating roommate (I've complained about exactly one thing in two years of rooming with various people, and never refused a request), respond well to nagging, tend to keep to myself unless prompted, don't have many irritating habits I can think of (maybe I use too much dish soap?), and am generally good with kids. And if you're a mentally odd person who could use a bit of live-in help, boy are you in luck!

I'll poke around at jobs until I find one I can reliably handle. That means not having to focus too much and no heavy responsibilities. Working from home is best - programming or web dev or translation or editing. For meatspace jobs, maybe tutoring. Anyone have a bright idea? Anyone want me to normalise the tags in their music collection for a pittance?

I'll try to develop better mental hygiene. That includes hounding psychiatrists, maintaining my network of friends (social life is the one thing I'm really successful at these days), cultivating new hobbies, and tinkering with useful habits. Anyone have deep wisdom, or an old lockpicking kit to send me?

I'll make some long-term plans. Taking up my studies again and going for that cool engineering career is the obvious choice, but it might not be a reasonable goal by then. Anyone want to recruit me for seasteading or something?

I have enough savings to last me for a while and my parents haven't cut me off yet, so I can afford a few failures before my life's in order again. Other than that I can't predict very much about how dependable my meds, any of my friends, my shiny new boyfriend, or my own brain are.

Link: 50% effective malaria vaccine developed

10 MixedNuts 21 October 2011 10:01AM

A study on over 15000 children in 7 African countries shows GlaxoSmithKline's anti-malaria vaccine halves the risk of contracting malaria. The trials were run on children between 6 and 12 weeks old, and between 5 and 17 months old.

Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/18/malaria-vaccine-save-millions-children

Full paper: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1102287

From skimming the paper, this looks sound. GlaxoSmithKline both developed the vaccine and paid for the study, but that's standard. The disclosure forms don't show anything fishier.

There are ways this could go wrong. GlaxoSmithKline says they'll make it cheap (probably for PR) but this is not sufficient to ensure availability. This could also increase total risk by replacing bed nets, or by making other diseases worse.

Thoughts on the research? Comments on effects? Plans for wild celebration?