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okaram

441 karma · joined January 2, 2013

I'm a CS teacher at spsu.edu, a state university in an Atlanta suburb.
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okaram··on U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’
They are NOT saying they're not ready for college level work, right? They may not be ready for UMich college level work.

Also, they may need an adjustment period, which makes sense.

I think we need to wait and see how it works, before blindly criticizing a possible good idea

okaram··on Scientists find a way to regrow cartilage in mice and human tissue samples
There's two issues, success rate (about 5%) and time ... even if it is successful in humans, it will be 5 to 10 years before it's available (and 20-30 before it's affordable)

This is not being a contrarian, but a realist.

okaram··on The Concise TypeScript Book
They have a PDF in the downloads, and an epub one if you have an ebook reader like a kindle or kobo
okaram··on Jensen: 'We've done our country a great disservice' by offshoring
Porque no los dos?

He was a super-rich guy, who had had too many people telling him he was a genius for way too long (reminds you of anybody?), and so was way too sure of himself. A bunch of his ideas were crazy, which doesn't mean others weren't trying to dismiss his views.

okaram··on HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark
This is one research paper reporting on particular results.

It is DEFINITELY not too early to tell. Cervical cancer rates in Australia, which adopted the vaccine widely and early have decreased, and it has been widely reported ( https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/cancer-types/cervical-can... )

okaram··on HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark
There's nothing particularly bad for adult males.

The benefits may be statistically lower, since you may have been infected by some of the variants already, older males may have fewer sexual partners in the future, and cancer takes a while to develop.

In the USA, it is recommended by default for adults up to 26 and kinda for 27-45.

okaram··on FDA has approved Yeztugo, a drug that provides protection against HIV infection
That would be up to individuals or health departments, who decide what risk is high enough. The risk for non-promiscuous people in 'western' countries is so low, that I don't see any country giving this to everybody.

This is not a vaccine, BTW, and it needs to be given every 6 months.

okaram··on FDA has approved Yeztugo, a drug that provides protection against HIV infection
This heavily heavily depends on the population you choose, given the difference in sexual habits.

As a data point, the paper below shows 1,213 out of 18,401 high-risk people in France got infected in 4 years (and 260 out of 31,992 with the previous gen prep, it seems this one reduces it by ~10x again)

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2...

okaram··on Intel CEO Letter to Employees
It is some of both. Business conditions have changed, but also the bosses kinda collude to reduce power of the employees.

Eventually some companies will start scooping talent up, and everybody will zig :)

okaram··on Plain Vanilla Web
There's so many different people, and it's hard to know if that's made you lose customers.

I would immediately discard any website that makes me send an email to order.

okaram··on Cheap blood test detects pancreatic cancer before it spreads
We do, it's not as if we aren't doing any testing. I've been getting a yearly prostatic antigen test for several years now.

The recommendations tend to take these into account, and then you and your doctor adjust.

Sometimes politics gets into it, like with the recent changes to breast cancer recommendations, but, overall, it works well for many people.

okaram··on Cheap blood test detects pancreatic cancer before it spreads
You only get that probability if the test results are completely uncorrelated, chances are, they're not.

I'd assume the chances of getting a second false positive if you already got one are much higher.

okaram··on Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths
The way most countries who have it (including Canada) have solved it is to add waiting periods, and layers of reviews. In Canada, you need two different doctors to sign off on it. If you're not actively dying, you also have a 90-day period of reflection. And you have to be of sound mind.

This seems to me like good enough safeguards, don't you think?

okaram··on The size of BYD's factory
I don't think anyone envisions having no cars; public transportation make it so we don't need cars, and other nudges make it so we have fewer cars than we would otherwise have.
okaram··on Maslow 4: Large format CNC routing made accessible
And, correct me if I'm wrong, they also have a person somewhere around and a big red button, right?
okaram··on M4 Mac mini's efficiency
But a ton of us have a friend/kid/relative in HS or college ...
okaram··on The Long Road to End Tuberculosis
I'm assuming you're mistaken, given it provided herd immunity. It definitely reduces your chances of getting it. Reducing the impact also means you spread it less.
okaram··on Growing Food Instead of Lawns in California Front Yards
Definitely not, but having fresh herbs veggies available is amazing. With herbs, I think it can be cheaper than buying them at the store (we normally waste tons of herbs if we buy at the store). With peppers and tomatoes, they just taste better :)

This year we may do squashes and eggplants ...

okaram··on Growing food instead of lawns in California front yards
But ... keep in mind it will attract insects, birds, and animals, and they may not be cute :). Be prepared for more insects in your house, more bird poop and more possums etc
okaram··on GLP-1 for Everything
Maybe ... maybe not.

Modern medicine does have magic pills for many illnesses; for example, antibiotics are magical for many bacterial infections, many vaccines are almost magical too.

OTOH, many pills will have undesired side-effects, and the body is in a complex dynamic equilibrium, so it may happen that blocking GLP-1 may have side effects.

Eventually, we'll all die, but I'm optimistic that GLP-1 will lead to a better equilibrium. Preliminary evidence says it will. I'm not as confident as the author though :)

okaram··on Jeffrey Snover and the Making of PowerShell
> I primarily write Powershell Core scripts for scenarios ... in an environment where installing runtimes for programming languages is discouraged.

But PS Core is a programming language, right? And only installed by default on Windows?

I'm assuming there's other constraints on your system that make it preferable to installing bash or python on your Windows boxes?

okaram··on How The Economist’s presidential forecast works
Still, their actuarial chance of dying within a year is >5%, given their age and sex.

Even with scans and checkups, at that age, a bad case of the flu can kill you, or start you on that path. And I don't think we have any reliable non-invasive ways of detecting heart attack risk, or aneurism risk, those kinds of things.

okaram··on Engineer's solar panels are breaking efficiency records
We're in the process, and may arguably already have, for the tropics.

Get more panels, maybe some batteries.

okaram··on Qwen2 LLM Released
I think we need to agree on terminology, but to me, this seems clear.

The model is open-source (or open-content, if you prefer). The input data isn't.

okaram··on Qwen2 LLM Released
Why is this false? The model is open source, Apache 2.
okaram··on mRNA Cancer Vaccine Reprograms Immune System to Tackle Glioblastoma in 48 Hours
Yes, the system works, and we have very little poison being sold as medicine.

The issue is that with some illnesses/stages, we do not have a good treatment, and a lot of people would like the calculus to be different. We do have compassionate drug rules, but they're a pain for many people.

I'm not in that situation, and not sure how I'd react; but I can see how, having an incurable illness, with tons of suffering or a few months left to live, I might want to try everything. Hydroxychloroquine, Chinese acupuncture, herbal remedies, and experimental treatments.

okaram··on The True Rate of Unemployment
Sorry, we are NOT having high inflation any more, regardless of what you feel or think.
okaram··on The True Rate of Unemployment
This is a decent metric, my only problem with it is calling it the 'True' rate, implying that the other measures are 'False'.

If they called the LISEP unemployment rate, I'd be happy :)

okaram··on Did the ancient Greeks and Romans experience Alzheimer's?
Yes, but there would still be a very high selective pressure to have more resistance to illnesses and famine.
okaram··on Thoughts on tech employment
Doesn't seem unreasonable, as long as it's a soft target and at a large level. When every manager needs to fire one employee every year or two or get fired, it Uber sucks.

Any time a manager needs to fire a performing employee, the company dies a little. You start destroying cooperation, and selecting sociopaths as managers.

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