I got a PhD in computational biology, then I decided that I didn't really want to be a scientist. So I went back into sofware.
(I've seen some stuff. I was an early engineer at Justin.tv an engineer at Yelp.com doing "data science" before the term was invented, and most recently, I was fortunate enough to be able to start a couple of startups. Sadly, neither one worked out, but I've learned a lot in the process. Ask me if you have any questions!)
Other goals that have been haunting me, in no particular order:
1) Speak a non-english language fluently (working on it - conversational in Japanese; currently studying for JLPT N2)
2) Live outside the US (check!)
3) Create at least one publicly exhibited work of art.
> Right now, I'm using Anki to learn Japanese vocabulary from N5 to N3[1]. I know the words and the example sentences well enough to read N3-level text, provided I know the grammar. But when it comes to listening, I struggle to understand even N4-level spoken Japanese.
You need to listen to people, ideally in actual conversations (I am conversational in Japanese, somewhere around N2).
Spaced repetition won’t help you here. The fundamental problem is that you can’t hear the words, which is not a matter of memorization. The only thing that will fix it is exposure to lots
and lots of native input.
Fortunately, it is easy to find native listening input today! If you’re a beginner and not in a classroom setting, you should be spending at least half your time listening to native material. The best option is a native tutor and/or friend(s), but failing that, get thee to Youtube and Netflix or even Instagram. There are tons of good teachers on those platforms, posting content for free. Nihongo no mori, Takoyaki_senseiyade, nihongo_camp, and miyu_to_nihongo are just a few I follow on instagram who tend to post serious learning content, mainly in Japanese.
Also, spaced repetition is more valuable at the higher levels, not less. You do need to spend more time reading and listening to native input, but the volume of things to learn grows exponentially, so efficiency is essential. At N5/N4, I could have used paper flashcards and been fine.
No. That’s not my position, it’s a ridiculous metaphor here, and even if it weren’t, the logic doesn’t follow. I am not obligated to stop using a product because someone associated with the product did a bad thing once. Literally no product passes that test.
I’m not sure if you’re trying to say that it’s left or right, but it’s perhaps relevant to point out that that article is about the political bias of all major models. And right there in the subhead, they explicitly say that the models have a left bias.
That's not a "classic". It's just a silly, overwrought straw-man [1] that gets passed around by people who think they're being clever, and/or don't understand the topic with any degree of nuance.
Nobody reasonable suggests that RCTs must be used for every problem. When the effect size is enormous, or there's obviously no alternative (as in the parachute example), it's silly to suggest the use of an experiment.
On the other hand, if you want to compare some subtle difference between two competing parachute designs, for example, then perhaps an RCT would actually be appropriate. This is much closer to what is actually being measured in real clinical trials.
[1] To be completely fair to the authors, it was intended as a joke, not an argument. The real joke ended up being that people took it seriously.
I explicitly chose a criticism from someone with a wildly different political ideology than my own, just to show that this is not a partisan take. I disagree with almost every opinion expressed in that link, yet agree completely with the validity of the examples given. The Atlantic routinely makes statements contrary to fact, and seemingly has no qualms about lying or exaggerating to make an attention-grabbing point. It’s coverage during Covid was particularly atrocious.
> In medicine, observational evidence is actually better and far more ethical than the RCT. (Which simply dooms the terminally ill to fake treatment.)
This is just nonsense. First, everyone in a trial is informed of the situation. It's not "unethical" unless you lie about it. If you participate in a trial, you do so knowing that you might not get the experimental drug. It's a selfless, honorable thing to do, and we shouldn't be framing it as some kind of scam.
Second, we don't give terminally ill people "fake treatment" (placebo trials). We give them current standard of care. Giving someone a placebo trial doesn't prove anything that would change clinical practice, because you want to know if the drug works better than what is out there today. Rarely is that standard of care "nothing", and this (bad controls) is actually a primary reason that a lot of drug company trials are rejected by the FDA.
If I didn't see the Wall Street Journal editorial board repeating the same garbage in defense of patent medicines, I'd write you off as simply having a sophomoric understanding of how trials work. I'm convinced that someone is driving this absurd narrative.
Do you mean that you don't believe that humans learning a language have the problem the parent described? Because I do, and everyone I've ever met while learning does as well.
Do you mean that you don't believe the problem exists in general, because here's another example: if you give a song title, I can easily hum the opening. If you give me the opening, I cannot reliably name the song.
> One thing I've never seen discussed on this topic (possible I just missed it, I only read popular accounts) is whether speaking multiple languages is a proxy for higher sociability / stronger social ties.
Yes. This is exactly what you should be asking with this kind of stuff. The research is hopelessly confounded by social status traits that correlate with wealth.
And before anyone says it, the abstract claiming "adjustment for linguistic, physical, and sociopolitical exposome factors" is fine, but it's essentially impossible to control for something as pervasive as the effects of wealth, without randomization. There are also factors -- like the culture you grew up in -- that are equally difficult to control. For example, if your dataset has only X multi-lingual Americans, and 1000x multi-lingual Western Europeans, no amount of statistical massage will correct for the imbalance.
No, that’s called pharmaceutical development. That’s the business.
We don’t generally fund Merck’s R&D with federal money. You’ll note the following critical detail from the article:
> That will impact 22 projects being led by major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and Moderna, for vaccines against bird flu and other viruses, HHS said.
We’ve gone so far round the bend with partisanship that straight-up corporate welfare has become a left-wing cause.
Also, for the record: very few (no?) vaccines are “mandated” by the federal government. Recommendations are made, and state and local governments do this, mainly through school districts.
Various agencies and the military will, of course, mandate things for their own staff.
No. Pharmaceutical companies love vaccines. They’re relatively easy to make, they’re indemnified against harms, they cannot be generic, and they are wildly profitable. And on top of all of that, they often get mandated by schools, ensuring a captive market.
If the government never funded another study for vaccines, ever, pharma companies would continue to pump them out.
> Trump one had a sane cabinet that largely controlled his wilder impulses.
This is absurdly revisionist. The first administration’s cabinet/staff was a reality show and a merry go round of people like Anthony Scaramucci and Ryan Zinke. If anything “controlled” it, it was just the chaos of incompetence.
As far as loyalty goes, I suppose it’s worth reminding you that Kennedy was a Democrat, who ran in the Democratic presidential primary, and routinely criticized Trump.
This administration literally fast-tracked the original covid vaccines for approval.
Say what you will about the Covid vaccine or Kennedy’s specific motivations (which I disagree with), but choosing to cut government funding for development of wildly profitable pharmaceutical products is a reasonable choice.
(I've seen some stuff. I was an early engineer at Justin.tv an engineer at Yelp.com doing "data science" before the term was invented, and most recently, I was fortunate enough to be able to start a couple of startups. Sadly, neither one worked out, but I've learned a lot in the process. Ask me if you have any questions!)
Other goals that have been haunting me, in no particular order:
1) Speak a non-english language fluently (working on it - conversational in Japanese; currently studying for JLPT N2)
2) Live outside the US (check!)
3) Create at least one publicly exhibited work of art.
You can contact me at timaro on gmail.