enthusiastically bad dancer
Springfield, MO
Joined January 2008
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ericj076 retweeted
I've hired 100's of people in my career, here's what I know: most managers don’t want a genius. They want someone who shows up with a good attitude, follows through, communicates well, and makes everyone's job a little easier. That's really about it.
ericj076 retweeted
Orville Rogers is 100 years old.
He set a new age record by running the men's 60 m in 19.13 seconds.
ericj076 retweeted
3 years ago, I ran a 10k in 31:45 (5:07/mi) taking down Olympic🥉Medalist Molly Seidel
Today, only 3 years later, I ran a 5:04 1600m Time Trial
How I got 6x worse at running in only 3 short years 🧵
ericj076 retweeted
It's worth re-reading this today in light of last night:
thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-n…
ericj076 retweeted
«When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me ― it still sometimes happens ― and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife.
They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl.
But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting.
Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance.
That pure chance could be so generous and so kind. That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time. That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful.
The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful».
― Ann Druyan
ericj076 retweeted
The University of Chicago contjnues to treat its students like adults. Follow up message from today:
Dear Members of the University Community,
For more than four days, those encamped on the Main Quadrangle have expressed their views freely. I imagine there isn’t a person on campus who isn’t aware of their message. Yesterday, the provost and I met with them to better understand those views and seek a pathway forward. As I wrote on Monday, out of principle we provide the greatest leeway possible for free expression, even expression of viewpoints that some find deeply offensive, even in rare cases at the expense of some policy violations–for a time. But the encampment cannot continue.
The encampment has created systematic disruption of campus. Protesters are monopolizing areas of the Main Quad at the expense of other members of our community. Clear violations of policies have only increased. Our students have issued a torrent of reports of disrupted classroom learning. Other disruptions include repeated destruction of an approved installation of Israeli flags, shouting down speakers they disagree with, vandalism and graffiti on historic buildings, incorporating walkways into the encampment, and co-opting the University flagpole to fly the Palestinian flag.
What started as a modest encampment has grown each day. Fewer police are providing safety patrols in the neighborhoods because they are obliged to be present for the growing 24-hour unauthorized protest. Left to itself, there is no end in sight, and the disruptions will continue to mount. The encampment protesters have flouted our policies rather than working within them, despite UChicago being an institution that allows for many ways to express views.
We met with the group designated by the protesters to listen to their demands and to search for a way to end the encampment grounded in dialogue. They shared genuine and powerful statements about what has brought them to the encampment. I very much regret that we have not yet found common ground. The nature of their demands are such that we could not accede. There remain, however, numerous ways consistent with our principles and policies for the protesters to advance their views. We are prepared to support meaningful engagement on the issues that the protesters have called attention to.
On Monday, I stated that we would only intervene if what might have been an exercise of free expression blocks the learning or expression of others or substantially disrupts the functioning or safety of the University.
Without an agreement to end the encampment, we have reached that point.
Paul Alivisatos
ericj076 retweeted
Being good (in either sense) will bring you what seems like good luck, but isn't as random as it seems. People will talk about you behind your back, just as they do if you're bad, but instead of secretly harming you, they'll secretly help you.
ericj076 retweeted
$5.99 for bag of chips too much? Don't buy it
$19 for a movie ticket is outrageous? Don't go see it
$237 for a dinner & drinks for two? Cook at home
The best way to tame inflation is to stop buying stuff.
If demand drops, the prices will drop.
ericj076 retweeted
Why is it that Americans are so uninformed about how much in taxes the wealthiest Americans pay?
The reason is that the White House straight up lied about it and the media has been saturated with this lie.
Let’s take a look (thread)...
ericj076 retweeted
It is perfectly possible to hold BOTH the following views:
- Fauci & co made unforgivable mistakes pre and post COVID (inc lying)
- Future pandemics, both zoonotic and man-made, are a VERY real risk, and it’s good that “disease x” vaccine tech is being researched in advance.
ericj076 retweeted
Incredibly, the placebo effect is (mostly) not real.
It is a result of statistical confusion. Whenever you have a group with extreme values, they tend to exhibit regression to the mean. Eg. on average, sick people tend to become more healthy over time.
Thus if you give one group medicine, and one group placebo, the placebo group will also tend to get better over time, because of regression to the mean.
People have then misinterpreted this to think that it is the placebo pill that actively does this.
If you want to demonstrate a placebo effect, you have to construct a study where there are three groups:
• A. treatment
• B. placebo
• C. no treatment, no placebo
If B and C get different outcomes, that would demonstrate a placebo effect.
When this has been tried, mainly there has been no provable placebo effect. See the paper in the screenshot. (There is some evidence for an effect for pain, but this get's into a slightly different debate.)
The fact that the placebo effect is mainly not real, fortunately frees us from having to come up with convoluted explanations, as to why the placebo effect would work even when we tell the patient that it is a placebo, as in the quoted tweet.
ericj076 retweeted
Some have asked for pics of the Revolutionary War fort we discovered inside an old plantation house in West Virginia. Almost none of the original Rev War frontier log forts survive. Historians believed an old log fort know as Byrnside’s Fort was still there, inside the walls of this large house. But…
We had to buy the property first before being able to take a crowbar to it to see if the logs were inside the walls. I was 90% sure they were there…
