Tum's recent activity

  1. Comment on Unvaccinated vs vaccinated protection from COVID in ~health.coronavirus

    Tum
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    All good, having trusted news sources means you don't have to laboriously verify everything that is said because it might be biased. Good sources trade on their reputation, so have a lot to lose...

    All good, having trusted news sources means you don't have to laboriously verify everything that is said because it might be biased. Good sources trade on their reputation, so have a lot to lose pushing misinformation. The guy in the video is a random dude who seems to be promoting his personal website, and from what I've seen there is a lot of money to be made promoting anti-vax content. These are all red flags.

    The reason I gave him the benefit of the doubt is that throughout his talk he showed graphs from particular papers and referenced Nature magazine (which I consider to be a good source). I am also interested in the policy implications of his conclusions, and the discussion around that is what prompted me to post it.

    Also, no offence taken: we are talking about vaccines which literally save lives. There is a lot at stake, and misinformation can cause real damage.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on Unvaccinated vs vaccinated protection from COVID in ~health.coronavirus

    Tum
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    So I posted this thinking of two possibilities: The content was correct and backed up by credible sources (which I thought Nature would be) If the content was correct, what policy implications...

    So I posted this thinking of two possibilities:

    • The content was correct and backed up by credible sources (which I thought Nature would be)

    • If the content was correct, what policy implications could it have

    As far as I'm concerned: good science comes from sound data with sound interpretation. If what he was talking about was correct then I'm less concerned with who is presenting the data than the underlying data itself. Yes, I agree that the tendency of conspiracy theorists (and their news sources) to push lies to mitigate inconvenient truths is a real problem, but my concern is that there could be scientists discrediting the notion that immunity derived from natural immunity might be more effective than first generation covid vaccines. I want to be clear: even if this is true, my initial response would still be to vaccinate everyone because the possibility of saving lives and lack of data to point to the contrary just wasn't available.

    My point is that there is conflicting self-interest from both sides on this topic in particular, so hoped that posting it would generate some critical analysis from what I view to be a sceptical, well educated audience.

  3. Comment on Unvaccinated vs vaccinated protection from COVID in ~health.coronavirus

    Tum
    Link Parent
    Thanks for the reply. I was also pretty apprehensive going into it, however one of my biggest fears recently is the possibility that my information sources are becoming warped by group bias. My...

    Thanks for the reply. I was also pretty apprehensive going into it, however one of my biggest fears recently is the possibility that my information sources are becoming warped by group bias. My impression is that tildes membership is predominantly educated and trusts official sources, while my impression of the guy in the video and the audience he is talking to seems to be conspiracy theorists and those who don't trust official sources.

    The conclusions he draws are an interesting thought experiment, though. If it is the case that getting Covid rather than the vaccine is as effective from an immune response point of view, then how would that affect public health policy? Where would the trade off be when the risk of someone becoming seriously ill or dying from not taking the vaccine are worth the supposed immune benefits? How would it affect 'covid certificates' for some jobs?

  4. Comment on Unvaccinated vs vaccinated protection from COVID in ~health.coronavirus

    Tum
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    An interesting video discussing the effectiveness of vaccines and natural immunity over time. There are sources (such as Nature) in the youtube link. Please feel free to comment on any questions,...

    An interesting video discussing the effectiveness of vaccines and natural immunity over time. There are sources (such as Nature) in the youtube link.

    Please feel free to comment on any questions, inconsistencies or mistakes you find. Mine are:

    • Is getting an unvaccinated Covid infection every 2 years as severe as being periodically vaccinated
    • Is there a tradeoff based on age: if under a certain age you should not get the vaccine to build your immune system, while older you should?
    • What requirements should be for health professionals treating immune compromised patients?

  7. Comment on The 300mm silicon wafer transition in ~tech

    Tum
    (edited )
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    An interesting look at the latest silicon fabrication process and why going forwards or backwards in wafer size is very difficult and expensive.

    An interesting look at the latest silicon fabrication process and why going forwards or backwards in wafer size is very difficult and expensive.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on Soft power Japan: How Japanese culture influenced British Grime music in ~music

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    It's a strange title from an unexpected conference. The talk is mainly about how marginalised British youth found their ability to express themselves musically (in this instance, through Grime...

    It's a strange title from an unexpected conference. The talk is mainly about how marginalised British youth found their ability to express themselves musically (in this instance, through Grime music) by borrowing popular Japanese cultural icons of the late 80s and early 90s.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on Lecture series: Understanding the war in Ukraine in ~misc

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    This is a lecture series given by Alexander Stubbe, giving an in depth view (from a distinctly Finnish perspective) on the war in Ukraine.

    This is a lecture series given by Alexander Stubbe, giving an in depth view (from a distinctly Finnish perspective) on the war in Ukraine.

    2 votes

  16. Comment on Is nuclear power green? in ~enviro

    Tum
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    An interesting situation on the economics: hopefully common design and clear regulations will help bring down costs. It should also probably go without saying that the cost to turn back on a...

    An interesting situation on the economics: hopefully common design and clear regulations will help bring down costs. It should also probably go without saying that the cost to turn back on a reactor you needlessly shut down would also probably be cheaper than importing natural gas.

  20. Comment on We're building computers wrong in ~comp

    Tum
    Link Parent
    Yeah, I've not seen them used for training the neural networks: consumer devices that use neural networks use the already trained network (which is feed forward), so could deliver significant...

    Yeah, I've not seen them used for training the neural networks: consumer devices that use neural networks use the already trained network (which is feed forward), so could deliver significant energy savings for (for instance) mobile devices. Current chip fabrication is also heading towards more 'system on a chip' design, making it easy to add to future devices.

    That being said, I agree it would be awesome if they could implement back-prop or CNN using this analogue approach.

    1 vote