tjradcliffe

@tjradcliffe@mastodon.scot

Poet, physicist, former engineer, former adjunct in Pathology and Molecular Med at Queen's (Kingston). Semi-retired consulting scientist living on a small island off Canada's west coast. Actor, improvisor, writer, kayaker, sailor, hiker, father. Current projects: computational physics (multi-particle Schrodinger's equation), local community theatre group, kayaking, hiking, carpentry, reading (eclectic), low-flow deep well pump design, SIRS modelling of covid. (he/him)

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tjradcliffe, to random

It is past time to denormalize the violence we do to each other via transmissible diseases.

tjradcliffe, to random

It kills me (probably literally) that "it's just a cold, not covid" is seen as being OK to go out and infect people.

I don't want you to assault me and leave me operating sub-par for a week while I recover from your attack.

"I'm just going to punch you in the face and make you miserable for seven to ten days" is not something a caring person would say.

We didn't understand, before, how aerosol spread works. Now we do. We have no excuse for it. "Just a cold?" Wear an N95!

tjradcliffe, to random

I wonder if the CDC is also going to recommend symptom-based protocols for AIDS?

The 5-day "don't bother to retest" guidance for covid was bad enough. "We don't believe asymtomatic cases spread" would be much worse.

codinghorror, to random

Men, please read this article and really take it to heart. And I mean me too. https://medium.com/

tjradcliffe,

@clacke @codinghorror

Definitely put off by the title, and the "Men are wrong. Men, fix yourselves!" vibe. If men are broken (many are) there are reasons for reason for it, but on that list of reasons is not "the free and unfettered choices that individual boys and young men made in their lives, acting in their capacity as autonomous libertarian fantasy creatures."

Anyone blaming men are like folks who said women shouldn't vote because they weren't educated, while refusing to educate women.

tjradcliffe,

@chebra @hypolite @clacke

Maybe the onus is on society to change. Maybe that's where almost all of our attention should be, instead of on men as these mythical autonomous individuals.

tjradcliffe,

@hypolite @clacke @chebra

So just to be clear, you're agreeing with Margaret Thatcher that "there's no such thing as society"? That is: there are only individuals, with no identity beyond what they freely choose for themselves, unconstrained by class or system.

I don't think I really have a fruitful way to engage with a far right libertarian, and the position "society is nothing but a collection of individuals"--that is, there are no collective effects--is a far right libertarian position.

tjradcliffe,

@hypolite

I'm a social democrat.

My characterization of your political position is based on your stated political position, which is indistinguishable in this regard from Margaret Thatcher's.

This view of "men as individuals are the problem" is what feeds nightmares like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate, who are precisely telling "men as individuals" what to do, rather than talking about how society can change to nurture better men and boys, and how it harms them now, as it once harmed women

tjradcliffe, to random

#WritersCoffeeClub 02-08: Which words do you overuse? Be honest.

All of them? :-D

I tend to overuse absolutes: completely, utterly, entirely, and so on.

tjradcliffe, to random

CBC News Headline: "Homeless people in Toronto more likely to get COVID again compared to housed population: study"

Superficial message: "Hurting the most vulnerable is a bad terrible thing!"

Actual message: "Only homeless people are suffering, not folks like the people reading this, so we're doing the right thing by letting it rip!"

The myth of the caring Canadian is sold to us daily by the press, and people buy it because it lets them continue to imagine they are good people.

tjradcliffe, to random

#WritersCoffeeClub 01-30: What genre(s) are not your thing?

I'm not a big horror fan. It either leaves me cold, or creeps me out in a bad way. The fundamental mechanic of horror is helplessness, and I'm not comfortable with it: my goal is life is to avoid it in myself and prevent it in others. Why would I read about people being subject to it? It exists. I am aware of it. It is my enemy. Stories that revel in it? Not interested.

zombierustpunk, (edited ) to random
@zombierustpunk@hachyderm.io avatar

The thing about apps like mIRC, ICQ, and Winamp is that they felt like they were made by people who used them. Apps today feel like they were designed by a committee looking at a spreadsheet.

When an app is missing basic features and still pesters me whenever I open it to try some new AI bullshit, I wonder if the PM got the promotion they were going for.

That’s one of the things I like about open source apps. Even if they’re less polished, you can feel they are made by people who use them.

tjradcliffe,

@zombierustpunk @Nicovel0

Except for the whole "I am an xcf editor and will only let you save in xcf, everything else is an export even though OPEN works just fine" thing...

tjradcliffe, to random

The success of HPV vaccination shows how getting at the upstream cause of a disease can be enormously effective.

Now let's do the same with every single respiratory disease and clean the indoor air with HEPA, ventilation, and upper-room UVC, shall we?

What are we waiting for?

As we celebrate victory over one deadly disease, let's start working toward the next one.

Respiratory disease are the 3rd and 8th leading killers. Preventing them would be like curing 1/3 of cancers.

Let's do it!

codinghorror, to random

I have to concur with Ryan Broderick. At the point where someone writes "Even Elon Musk doesn't do that" anywhere remotely near your name, it is time to seriously take stock of your life choices to date.

tjradcliffe,

@codinghorror

My problem in looking for alternatives to substack is that every alternative platform is distinguished by precisely and only the fact that they don't acknowledge actual Nazis are using their platform... but actual Nazis are certainly permitted by their terms of service, which don't differ materially from substack's.

So what this suggests is that pretending to care about Nazis on your platform is all that's required to make people happy, which sucks.

tjradcliffe, to writing

#WritersCoffeeClub #Writing 01-09: Do you avoid or embrace adverbs? He said provocatively.

Sure. After all, Stephen King does, and who am I to argue? For all King's supposed disdain for adverbs, he uses them at about the same rate as other modern authors. I've heard this, and just checked informally for myself: 0.970% of King's words end in "ly", 0.975% of four other author's do (Mick Heron, T. Kingfisher, Robert Harris, TJ Klune).

Moral: never trust a human's self-report on their behaviour.

tjradcliffe, to random

"People have always died of stuff so not doing anything about people dying is perfectly OK so long as I can get on with my life without the inconvenience of actually stepping over the bodies of the dead" is the most morally supine position imaginable.

Everyone who has the enormous luxury of adopting it is kept alive every day by engineers who do not accept it.

tjradcliffe, to random

Describing this era as "post-covid" means you accept that tens of thousands of Canadians are going to die every year from a preventable disease but you don't care.

luckytran, to random
@luckytran@med-mastodon.com avatar

One of the most ridiculous “middle ground” policies is when hospitals require masks in exam areas, but not in waiting rooms, hallways, lobbies or elevators. Airborne viruses don’t care about the “middle ground.” Not requiring masks in all areas puts patients and staff at risk.

tjradcliffe,

@KimSJ @luckytran
This is nothing but a workplace safety issue. Now that we know unequivocally despite a century of physician incompetence and lies that almost all respiratory disease is aerosol-spread (as evolution would predict) there is the same obligation on the part of employers to protect health care workers as there is to protect laborers. I've never been on a construction site or down a mine without appropriate safety gear. Why should industrial safety standards be lower in health care?

ninsiana0, to bookstodon
@ninsiana0@mastodon.social avatar

What books are you ending your year on?

I'm currently reading NIGHT SIDE OF THE RIVER by Jeanette Winterson.

@bookstodon #bookstodon #readersofmastodon #readersonmastodon

tjradcliffe,

@ninsiana0 @bookstodon

Just finished "Exit Strategy", Martha Wells. Gonna be sad when I'm fully caught up on Murderbot.

Also just done "The Escapement", Lavie Tidhar. Surreal, deftly executed, weird, touching, a bit too close to home for me. Highly recommended, CW/spoiler below.

Reading "The Narrow Road Between Desires", Patrick Rothfuss, while wait (and waiting) for Book Three.

Also reading "The Steerswoman", Rosemary Kirstein. Fun.

I'll bury this a bit but child death is hard to take.

mloxton, to random
@mloxton@med-mastodon.com avatar

For those who don't know me yet, I would like to tell you something I periodically say.

Do NOT ask job candidates any questions other than those specifically needed to select them for a defined set of job requirements.

Don't ask them things to surprise them, or find out what tree they would be, or what sports, foods, music they like or ANY other thing not DIRECTLY tied to the actual job.

Asking fool questions will tend to select people you like and people like you, and will harm the org

tjradcliffe,

@mloxton

I get this, but I do tend to ask people, "What do you do when you're not working?" I'm generally hiring software people, and the ability to work together is crucial. How they spend their off time can be very informative: musicians, performers, amateur sports, volunteering... all of that can speak to how well they play with others. So I think that still fulfills your criterion, which is a good one (musicians and people with literature backgrounds are generally awesome developers, too.)

tjradcliffe,

@mloxton

My hiring record suggests otherwise. I'm hiring a person, not a set of skills. It's also impossible in my world to not know at least a bit of what folks are up to outside of work. Looking at someone's github/lab profile (source control system) is routine and generally showcased as part of their CV, and inevitably somewhat revealing of other interests. Asking about it gives them an opportunity to expand on that.

tjradcliffe,

@mloxton

As I said, I'll stand by my hiring record. I've reflected a lot on this, b/c I'm not an idiot. Have I hired diverse teams? Yes. Have I hired successful teams? Also yes. Have I hired happy teams? Likewise.

I've gotta ask, since making baseless blanket judgements is apparently a thing here: how much hiring have you done over the past 30 years?

Hiring in tech is famously difficult, and toxic teams abound. None of them have been hired by me, according to the people who've worked for me.

Teri_Kanefield, to random
@Teri_Kanefield@mastodon.social avatar

I'm at the stage of writing a book when I keep finishing it.

I finished it yesterday.

Then today I found a problem, rewrote parts, and finished it again.

I'll keep finishing until I have to give it to my editor.

Books are never finished. They are abandoned.

(Next comes the part when I say, "I'm never writing another book. That usually lasts about 6 months.)

tjradcliffe,

@Teri_Kanefield

https://tapas.io/episode/34391

:-D

tjradcliffe, to writing

#WritersCoffeeClub #Writing 12-10: What aspect of your work are you most proud of? Don't be shy.

I write novels in formal verse. I'm most proud of the fluency of the poetry, which can for the most part be read as easily as prose, but which is still poetry.

theotherotherone, to books

Who to read if you're an Agatha Christie devotee, but have read all of her books (besides re-reading her books, of course)? The former is true of me, but the latter, not quite yet. I'm planning ahead.

I know to at least consider Sherlock Holmes, anyone in the Detection Club (which Christie co-founded), medieval mysteries like Brother Cadfael, etc. And yes, I've already read some of those here and there, especially Cadfael.

What else?

@bookstodon #books #bookstodon #mysteries #cozymysteries

tjradcliffe,

@theotherotherone @bookstodon Not exactly Christie-ish but you might enjoy the Pentecost and Parker books.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Via Simon Rosenberg:

A reminder to everyone writing about #NikkiHaley today:

  • #Trump is only at 60% in the primary now. 40% of Rs are not currently supporting him. This is a big number.
  • Trump is under 50% in IA, NH, SC. A majority of Republicans in these early states are not supporting him.
tjradcliffe,

@GottaLaff It's also worth remembering that the response numbers in these polls are fantastically low--often less than 10%. Today a poll number should be treated as one input to a sophisticate voter model, and any such model would take into account many other factors than raw response rates. 60% is a bad number for Trump, but it's more likely an overstatement of his support than an understatement given social pressure with GOP to support the Leader, and similar factors.

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