Something to keep an eye out for:
we also predict that the virus may invade multiple brain tissues, which may help explain to the loss of taste and smell in infected individuals. Has anyone seen evidence of further brain damage in COVID-19 patients? Please share if you do!
Also unexpected is the prediction that the virus may be able to invade the reproductive system (vagina, uterus, testis, cervix, ovary). Has anyone seen evidence for this? Please share if you do.
The COVID-19 targets do not show significant overlap with any major disease module (we tested it...
New post by Tomas Pueyo, the author of 'Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance':
'Coronavirus: Out of Many, One'
Here’s what we’re going to cover today, with a lot of data, charts and sources:
1. What’s the situation in the US and its states
2. Why the coronavirus should be a bipartisan issue
3. The economics of controlling the virus
4. Which decisions should be left to the federal government or to states
Here’s what you’ll take away:
The coronavirus is growing everywhere in the US....
Some states are on their way
Video explaining the Czech Republic's experience of having everyone make home-made masks in about 10 days, from a starting point of almost no masks being worn in public in the country.
Here is their COVID19 infection curves on a log chart (seems to be flattening).
Excerpt from Twitter thread summarizing it:
We have very good evidence that universal adoption of cloth masks will combat the spread of the virus. Specifically, we know that 1) asymptomatic people spread the virus, 2) mask wearing by infected people prevents them from transmitting the virus (the report provides citations).
How large are the benefits? Even if masks reduce transmission probabilities by only 10% (and as you'll see...
It seems to me like this study wasn't very good and I've been more convinced by the rebuttals, such as this one:
The tone of this post, including the title, reminds me of an exchange between two characters on the TV show Deadwood (HBO, 2004-2006):
Wild Bill Hickok:
You know the sound of thunder, don't you, Mrs. Garrett?
Alma Garrett:
Of course.
Wild Bill Hickok:
Can you imagine that sound if I asked you to?
Alma Garrett:
Yes I can, Mr. Hickok.
Wild Bill Hickok:
' Your husband and me had this talk, and I told him to head home to avoid a dark result. But I didn't say it in thunder. Ma'am, listen to the thunder.
"Well it's alright for you, Confucius, living in 5th Century feudal China. Between all the documentation I have to go through at work, and all the blogs I'm following while pretending to work, and all the textbooks I have to get through before my next assignment deadline, I don't have time to read!"
The correctness of a decision can’t be judged from the outcome. Nevertheless, that’s how people assess it. A good decision is one that’s optimal at the time it’s made, when the future is by definition unknown. Thus, correct decisions are often unsuccessful, and vice versa.
--Howard Marks, The Most Important Thing p.136 (about investing, but applies to other things)
They say when you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
They underestimate me.
“When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.”
-Steve Jobs, [Wired, February 1996]
Unless there are two horseshoe quotes, this one seems to be disputed:
...One of the most serious problems with modern "management" is that the incentives are all wrong. Imagine that I hire a programmer and pay him by the line of code. This idea has been so thoroughly debunked that it is nearly impossible to write out the consequences without sounding cliché. Yet it happens all the time: Companies promote "Architects" who are evaluated by the weight of their "architecture." The result is stultifying and demoralizing. The architect does not work to facilitate the programmer's work, he works to produ
One perennial problem is the overwhelming incentive for analysts to issue “Buy” recommendations. The universe of stocks not owned by a customer is always much larger than the list of those currently owned. Consequently, it’s much easier to generate commissions from new “Buy” recommendations than from recommendations to sell.
-Joel Greenblatt
"At one of our dinners, Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”
-Milton Friedman story
A few points come to mind:
It has never mattered to me that thirty million people might think I'm wrong. The number of people who thought Hitler was right did not make him right... Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?
-- Frank Zappa, quoted from The Real Frank Zappa Book
Sometimes they only unlock the deadbolt, and you need a friend to help push open the door. Sometimes the door is on the top of a cliff, and you need to climb up the rope of Wikipedia to get there. And so on. A lot of people who are having trouble learning something are having trouble realizing what resources they have available.
I've added it to my list. I'm currently reading Poor Charlie's Almanack and liking it a lot so far.
The best business book I've read is probably The Essays of Warren Buffett (second ed.), but it's certainly not exhaustive in what it covers.
Update: I've got my copy from Amazon.ca (really fast shipping - 2 days). Will probably have a chance to read it in February.
Take the bettors in the racetrack experiment. Thirty seconds before putting down their money, they had been tentative and uncertain; thirty seconds after the deed, they were significantly more optimistic ans self-assured. The act of making a final decision--in this case, of buying a ticket--had been the critical factor. Once a stand had been taken, the need for consistency pressured these people to bring what they felt and believed into line with what they had already done. They simply convinced themselves that they had made the right choice and, no doubt, felt better and it all.
-Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The psychology of Persuasion, p.59
Some more on proning in this NYT article:
... (read more)