majos

1. the evidence-free claim of “full peer review”, 2. the fact that patients who refused or met “exclusion criteria” for the drug served as a portion of the control group, and were the only members of the control group from the same region as the experimental group, 3. the removal of people from the experiment group because they went to the ICU or died (only three of first and one of second, but a rather bizarre thing to happen before claiming 100% cure), 4. the lack of coverage from any major news source, despite this being reported about a day ago.

Comment · 6 years ago

This reminds me of a pretty niche article I found a couple months ago. It was about the bones of a bunch of cave bears that a father and his young son found in Drachenloch Cave in Switzerland in the early 1900s. They called in naturalist Emil Bachler and he got to work finding more bones in the cave, organized in tantalizingly structured ways.

> In Drachenloch, however, not only were there [crude stone] walls, but behind these walls were found accumulations of bear bones — the long bones of the legs and more or less complete skulls. The pattern was very consistent. Where such walls were present, bones were present. Where they were absent, bones were rare along the cave walls.

These and other deliberate-looking accumulations of bones (including apparent crude “chests” of limestone slabs enclosing more bones) led Bachler to suggest the idea of a prehistoric cave bear worshipping cult. But a counterargument suggests this explanation is unnecessary. It might just be bears being bears, no cult required.

> When cave bears entered a cave to hibernate, they began by scratching nests into the cave fill. In the process, bones and small rocks were pushed aside, often falling into crevices among the fallen blocks. This had two effects. First, it helped to build up accumulations of bones in natural cavities among rocks or among piles of rocks. Second, it protected the bones that did enter such interstices from further trampling and, if they were buried there, from weathering and decay. It is perfectly natural, therefore, that modern excavators should find concentrations of bones in cavities surrounded by rock. Moreover, because further weathering of the cave roof naturally produced subsequent roof fall, it is perfectly normal that such cavities would be covered by slabs of greater or lesser size.

I wonder if something similar happened here. Obviously, the lack of a cave is an issue. But it’s a funny connection to something I read randomly a few months ago.

Cave bear stuff from https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-cult-of-the-cav... which is also a fun read if you like archaeologists sniping at each other.

Comment · 6 years ago

Geez, I thought this might be an overblown piece about algorithms unwittingly optimizing for the wrong things, but the headline is pretty accurate. Discussing how moderators choose content to recommend to people in the “For You” section (not a user — I assume this is something highlighted to users):

> Under this policy, TikTok moderators were explicitly told to suppress uploads from users with flaws both congenital and inevitable. “Abnormal body shape,” “ugly facial looks,” dwarfism, and “obvious beer belly,” “too many wrinkles,” “eye disorders,” and many other “low quality” traits are all enough to keep uploads out of the algorithmic fire hose.

A TikTok spokesperson seems to confirm they are real guidelines, but won’t confirm how they were used.

> TikTok spokesperson Josh Gartner told The Intercept that “most of” the livestream guidelines reviewed by The Intercept “are either no longer in use, or in some cases appear to never have been in place,” but would not provide specifics.

Comment · 6 years ago

The estimates in that first article seem oddly cavalier:

> “Around 40 million people died in 1918 Spanish flu outbreak," said Prof [of mathematical biology at ICL] Ferguson. "There are six times more people on the planet now so you could scale it up to around 200 million people probably."

As of 2014 the number of deaths is <500, although the Wikipedia article [1] is written as if bird flu is something that may yet turn much worse.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5...

Comment · 6 years ago

The best source I know of for statistics like this is the Federal Reserve's most recent "Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households" [1]. It's a survey of about 10,000 people and, as far as I can tell, is the source for many claims like "40% of American adults cannot meet an unexpected $400 expense", which has been consistently true for several years, although it used to be more like 50% in 2013. Note that “cannot meet” here means anything other than “would pay the expense in full before next month”.

[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2018-repor...

Comment · 6 years ago

Not any kind of doctor, but the list of adverse effects on Wikipedia [1] is...not trivial. Seizures, deafness, retinopathy, and the bald assertion that “there is not enough evidence to determine whether chloroquine is safe to be given to people aged 65 and older.”

Granted, all these risks may be outweighed by those of covid, but it’s not a slam dunk choice yet.

There are trials for chloroquine starting at University of Minnesota [2] too.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine

[2] http://www.startribune.com/university-of-minnesota-to-test-t...