NoImmatureAdHom

You have to understand, in modern Britain bureaucracy is the point.

Everybody is lazy, nothing works, and nobody is going to do anything about it because doing something would require fighting an army of bureaucrats. And, dear reader, who would blame you for not doing that?

I had British Telecom around to fix a wiring issue. The rental agency said they'd be coming by on Thursday or Friday and I should pick. Simultaneously, I get a text from BT that they'll be by on Wednesday. The gent shows up Tuesday. I ALSO get a call on Friday (while I'm at work): "Mate, I'm about 15 minutes away from your house...".

Everything is like this. Everything.

This is the informative take these days. You know what was way, way worse than colonialism? Everything that came before colonialism.

My first wonder: is there a good reason for canceling the contracts? Were the contracts reasonable, or was the U.S. gov't getting fucked?

If they were paying reasonable, open-market rates to Amazon and Google, this could be a tragedy.

If they were getting fucked, it could be a reasonable response to sloth and indifference on the part of our civil service.

Has anyone bothered to check, or is this all just wailing and gnashing along party lines?

"AFAIK they're consistent throughout time and space as far as history goes[0], and form a common base from which more complex morality stems."

Not even close! Universalized morality (e.g., "stealing is wrong") is a product of the last couple thousand years, and it's only present in some modern humans. It is the foundation of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) psychology.

If you're curious about what other kinds of human experience can be like, I recommend checking out some ethnographies. Here's a summary of one: https://peacefulsocieties.uncg.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/1...

It seems like every media article on some archaeological find is like this...!@!@$OI@!

Why???

"If your system is compromised then you have a problem."

...well, yeah.

Don't pull up with clips on the bike. No need to. I recall (but will not look up) a study showing the most efficient pro riders don't pull either.

Yeah...I'm not saying he's wrong, but I am saying you can get hookworm that way. Choose your soil wisely.

Anecdata: I had persistent knee issues in my early - mid 20s. Lasted for years, doctors were no help. I could only run half a mile - a mile before pain stopped me.

I switched to minimalist shoes (zero drop, thinner sole with less cushioning but not toe shoes) and a midfoot / forefoot strike and the issues went away. I can't prove causality, but it did definitely seem like shoes fixed knee.

I appreciate you engaging.

"Or I can be rigorous and not make data points up in my head to fit some worldview."

It seems clear to me that you're sticking your head in the sand, not me. I'm believing the thing that is dangerous to believe, not you. I believe it because it's obviously true.

"actual hard data" would be best. It would be best if we just had board scores split by race. But we don't. We do, however, have lots of other information that makes it very, very clear that there will be significant disparities by race in USMLE boards in pretty much exactly the same pattern we see in MCAT scores.

Here's the meat of it, you can look to the other comments here for the potatoes:

This: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00904... Suggests MEDIAN USMLE step 1 scores for White, Asian, Hispanic/Latino, and Black applicants were 242, 242, 237, and 232. It's urology specific, and practice specific, though.

This: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hsr2.161 Says The mean (±SD) USMLE step 1 score was significantly greater among non-[Black or Hispanic] applicants as compared to URiM applicants (223.7 ± 19.4 vs 216.1 ± 18.4, P < .01, two-sample t-test). This is at a specific medical school.

...and this is just the result of a casual search.

The people who are best at this sort of thing are economists. They are trained to do causal inference based on patchy, far-from-perfect data. It's totally normal to come to a conclusion (even a very strong one!) using a "patchwork of studies". That's just life. You don't usually get "actual hard data". It's very clear what the pattern in the USMLE data would look like. I bet the effect size would be a little attenuated.

Your epistemic stance, which seems to be "Well we don't have perfect, incontrovertible proof, which means we must act like we don't know anything at all!" is unworkable. You don't do this, I don't do this, the world doesn't permit of this. As a rhetorical move, I can see where you're coming from. It gives you license to not think about the hard thing, and to punish those around you who might. But I'd argue that's not a way forward for us as a whole.

As above:

You could probably back out at least some bounds from the data here: https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/students-residents/report/...

This: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00904... Suggests MEDIAN USMLE step 1 scores for White, Asian, Hispanic/Latino, and Black applicants were 242, 242, 237, and 232. It's urology specific, and practice specific, though.

This: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hsr2.161 Says The mean (±SD) USMLE step 1 score was significantly greater among non-[Black or Hispanic] applicants as compared to URiM applicants (223.7 ± 19.4 vs 216.1 ± 18.4, P < .01, two-sample t-test). This is at a specific medical school.

But more generally...imagine what would have to be true for us to go from BIG differences in g-loaded test performance to small / no differences. Either people fundamentally change somehow (get smarter / dumber), people's test scores systematically differ because they e.g. got better / worse at "tests" or something, independent of their underlying knowledge of the content or abilities, or it's attrition (e.g., very many minority med students wash out, leaving only those who should have been admitted in the first place).

None of those things seem plausible to me. The little glimpse we have from the two studies above is consistent with the obvious thing happening. Things are mostly the same, though I'd bet URM have higher wash-out rates, so differences get attenuated somewhat by the time they're practicing. Of course, URM vs non-URM will sort differently into specialties and geographies so there's that...you'll see bigger or smaller differences depending on how they sorted. A good question, as well, is why the USMLE people don't split reporting by race. I bet one of the reasons is they'd get a lot of flak because there would be big disparities. And good on them (maybe!) because one reason they might care about that is they want to produce good doctors, and watering down their test won't help with that.

You could probably back out at least some bounds from the data here: https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/students-residents/report/...

This: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00904... Suggests MEDIAN USMLE step 1 scores for White, Asian, Hispanic/Latino, and Black applicants were 242, 242, 237, and 232. It's urology specific, and practice specific, though.

This: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hsr2.161 Says The mean (±SD) USMLE step 1 score was significantly greater among non-[Black or Hispanic] applicants as compared to URiM applicants (223.7 ± 19.4 vs 216.1 ± 18.4, P < .01, two-sample t-test). This is at a specific medical school.

But more generally...imagine what would have to be true for us to go from BIG differences in g-loaded test performance to small / no differences. Either people fundamentally change somehow (get smarter / dumber), people's test scores systematically differ because they e.g. got better / worse at "tests" or something, independent of their underlying knowledge of the content or abilities, or it's attrition (e.g., very many minority med students wash out, leaving only those who should have been admitted in the first place).

None of those things seem plausible to me. The little glimpse we have from the two studies above is consistent with the obvious thing happening. Things are mostly the same, though I'd bet URM have higher wash-out rates, so differences get attenuated somewhat by the time they're practicing. Of course, URM vs non-URM will sort differently into specialties and geographies so there's that...you'll see bigger or smaller differences depending on how they sorted. A good question, as well, is why the USMLE people don't split reporting by race. I bet one of the reasons is they'd get a lot of flak because there would be big disparities. And good on them (maybe!) because one reason they might care about that is they want to produce good doctors, and watering down their test won't help with that.

It's possible to put together multiple data sources. There are certain things everyone reading this will already know. It's like reporting "educational attainment" rather than g or IQ in studies...everyone knows what it implies, you just can't say it. Anyway:

1) Board scores are strongly linked to patient outcomes (this paper)

2) We already know test scores vary strongly with observable characteristics like race

3) It's a very safe bet that board scores vary with race in the same way that MCAT scores vary with race

Therefore,

4) We can have a very good idea of how good a doctor is based on observable characteristics like race

Which is a thing the article immediately, obviously, and loudly implies but of course couldn't say for fear of censorship, losing jobs, etc.

Soon they will be!

"study after study have shown improved care for colored patients and outcome better when treated by black physicians"

This is false. You're probably getting this idea second hand from this study: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1913405117

Probably because it was famously misused by SC Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who got it wildly wrong https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/06/14/statistics...

Anyway, that study is bogus: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2415159121

The only evidence for your claim that I know of is an NBER paper https://www.nber.org/bah/2018no4/does-doctor-race-affect-hea...

Where they randomly assign black male patients to white or black doctors, IIRC, and patients get advice on preventative care. Outcomes for black patients are better because they are more willing to take black doctors' advice. Obviously, newborns in the first study, so it's about doctor competence straight-up.

This study has nothing to do with the claim being made by the grandparent comment.

It isn't exactly news that doctors with better test scores are better doctors, but this is additional evidence. The article doesn't touch on race, but very deliberately. To anyone on the inside, the silence is deafening.

In the U.S. med schools been matriculating many unqualified "underrepresented minority" (black, hispanic, native American, Hawaiian) medical students for a long time. This is unfair to patients and doctors, especially competent brown doctors, because it is now the case that you get a very strong signal about how how good a doctor is simply by the color of his or her skin. Which is messed up.

AAMC has the data (https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/students-residents/data/fa... , table A-18). This is after the 2023 Supreme Court decision, so the spreads are a little wider in e.g. 2022 data. MCAT scores range from a minimum of 472 to a max of 528, which is stupid and a deliberate tactic to make the differences between groups seem small. Subtracting 472 from each average score, 2024 average MCAT scores look like this for matriculants:

41.9: Asian

40.2: White

36.9: Hawaiian

34.4: Black

33.9: Hispanic

31.3: American Indian

These are very large differences which you can absolutely expect to show up in doctor performance. Everyone has to pass the same boards during / after med school, but that's just going to cut out some of the worst. Among those who pass, the unqualified minority students who were admitted to med school because of their skin color will still be concentrated at the bottom of the distribution.

Do you know what they call the guy who finished last in his med school class? "Doctor".

They can claim whatever they want, but that doesn't make it true. The law hasn't changed. It sucks to be in this situation, though.

I think you still have the right to travel without ID. The TSA may demand it, and may tell you it's legally required, but that doesn't make that true. If you show up at the airport without an ID, you'll still be allowed to fly domestically. Of course, how easy that is probably depends on whether you frame it as a "woops!" or as a "fuck you guys!". They'll put you through extra "security" screening and try to confirm your ID other ways.

"In fact, the TSA does not require, and the law does not authorize the TSA to require, that would-be travelers show any identity documents. According to longstanding practice, people who do not show any identity documents travel by air every day – typically after being required to complete and sign the current version of TSA Form 415 and answer questions about what information is contained in the file about them obtained by the TSA from data broker Accurint…."

https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/05/19/tsa-tries-again-to-im... https://papersplease.org/wp/2024/03/18/buses-trains-and-us-d... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unit...

Thank you! I wonder if there's someone out there who is hosting it and providing API access. I've poked around and don't see anything.

Know of a list of available (through an API) "base" models out there?

Is there a "base" version of DeepSeek that just does straight next-token prediction, or does that question not make sense given how it's made?

What is the best available "base" next-token predictor these days?

The U.K. is jailing people for mean tweets, and has been for a while:

- "More than 30 people found themselves arrested over social media posts. From what I’ve found, at least 17 of those have been charged." -- the BBC, this is specifically for the Southport riots. They have been doing this for years, of course.[1]

- "First people jailed over social media posts during unrest 9 August

Today's live coverage has mainly come from the courts, with jail sentences handed down for those involved in the violent disorder since the fatal stabbings in Southport last Monday.

Here's a quick summary of key events today:

    In the first case of a person going to jail for posting on social media during the disorder, Jordan Parlour, 28, of Seacroft, Leeds, received a 20 month sentence for inciting others to target a Leeds building which housed asylum seekers
    At least two others also received jail sentences for social media posts that stirred up racial hatred 

    Suspended Labour councillor Ricky Jones appeared in court charged with encouraging violent disorder after he was filmed apparently telling a crowd that far-right demonstrators should have their throats cut
    6000 officers with specialist training in public order are "prepared and ready" to deal with any potential unrest over the weekend
    About 600 people have been arrested this week with hundreds more expected in the coming days and weeks, police say, with the use of facial recognition technology fast tracking the process "[2]

- This woman merely livestreamed other people doing naughty things, and called some people "tramps". "Much of the TikTok stream had been rather amateurish, Mr Rudge argued, giving a view of the cobblestones in Tamworth but showing no acts of violence." LOL. 9 months in prison. [3]

- More: [4]

- More: [5]

- "This is in relation to some comments you made on Facebook (police arrest old man in his home, good video): [6]

- "We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media to look for this material, and then follow up with arrests." - Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales. Video worth a watch. [7]

-

Punishment is often also extremely swift. Facebook video --> court --> prison in a matter of a week and a half. Of course, if you stand accused of e.g. raping children, it will take a year and a half.

-

This country has gone right off a cliff and is currently in free-fall.

-

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr548zdmz3jo

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cpdlvz80pjzt?post=asset%3A3678...

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgdkvwwwqyo

[4] https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1857720874146664670

[5] https://x.com/SamanthaTaghoy/status/1857928002014761201

[6] https://x.com/i/status/1823087302886965636

[7] https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1821178852397477984

And more

https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2024/08/think-before-you-...

https://news.sky.com/story/wife-of-tory-councillor-jailed-fo...

It's best to think of it as "tree-ing" or "to tree"

A really, really fantastic article: https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2021/05/02/theres-no-such-th...

There are challenges brought by the very powerful magnets required, as other posters point out. Think about the safety procedures for even approaching an MRI machine.

I wonder if you could do this with passive air pressure alone. That way, no strong magnets required and you can use clear building materials so you can see out.

A simple model:

Imagine a hollow cylinder (like a pipe) with one end capped. It is standing vertically, with the capped end down. Now imagine the ride "vehicle" is a plexiglass sphere. If you drop the sphere into the cylinder from above and the plexiglass sphere isn't a perfect fit to the inside diameter of the cylinder, the sphere will fall through the pipe and eventually hit the capped bottom of the pipe. How fast the sphere slows in the pipe will be some function of how much clearance there is between the sphere and the ID of the pipe.

There are elevators that work sorta like this, but with seals and much slower, pneumatic vacuum elevators (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QccXIj0k5qg). At least, they do basically this in one failure mode.

Ok, great. But we want a fun ride. What about, instead of a pipe, a big funnel? Could be straight-walled or shaped like the bell of a trumpet or the barrel of a blunderbuss (i.e., fans out at an increasing rate). Now, since we don't need you exactly in a tight-fitting pipe (at least at the beginning), we can just drop you at the funnel, rather than starting you carefully placed within the pipe. So you get some amount of free-fall inside a clear plastic sphere.

Okay, that's a ride! My gut says that there should be some combination of funnel shape, sphere size, and possibly vents in the side of the funnel that allows us to control the rate of deceleration as you approach the ground such that the human(s) inside the sphere are unharmed and had a lot of fun.

Physics nerds: what say you?

Well, sounds like a fun project! Good luck.

"NHTSA says the changes could save up to 67 lives every year."

"Each year, cars kill roughly 40,000 Americans."

Well that's dumb, skip it. Unless there are other reasons beyond safety, 67 lives is nothing.

The same vehicle (same drivetrain etc.) will be rated for two very different towing capacities in the U.S. vs. Europe, with the European one being quite a bit higher.

E.g., Volvo XC40 T5 is 1600 kg in the U.S. https://www.volvocars.com/en-ca/support/car/xc40/21w22/artic...

but 2100 kg in the UK https://www.volvocars.com/uk/support/car/xc40/21w46/article/...

As I recall it has to do with standards for stability at speed...

All to say you can probably tow more than you think with a U.S. car that's also sold in Europe, just maybe don't go above 55mph...?

Yeah...this is nauseating.

It's far from clear that "reusable" (thick, thin plastic bags are reusable too) plastic bags are a better deal environmentally. If you have to get 300 uses out of a thick one to break even, does the average "reusable" hit this number?

Yeah, some good points in here.

You can have multiple profiles in Android, so you can, for example, have your main GrapheneOS profile be google-free and have a "spyware trash" profile for things that won't work without tithing to Sauron.