I'd like to briefly discuss something I think is really important. Possibly the most important thing to consider this new year. When I worked in law I was taught to research and analyze all info & possibilities/arguments. We were taught to remove our emotions from this process..

The reason we were taught not to become too emotionally invested in a particular client or case was because it creates a situation in which you can be blindsided and/or manipulated. It can cause you to miss important information or facts that your client didn't want you to see...

This can then in turn implode your entire case & can damage the firm and/or attorneys reputation & credibility. In law, your reputation/credibility is everything. We were taught to remove emotion from the fact finding due diligence process. We were taught to seek out counter

Evidence; we were taught to analyze a case or legal argument from all sides and perspectives. We were taught how to understand the other side & attorneys argument. This is a vigorous process of picking apart your theory, trying to poke holes in it, questioning your own clients

Story, trying to independently validate or disprove it. This is so when you take the case to trial, you are prepared for everything and all possibilities. You must know the other sides legal theory/argument better than they do. You must have a solid foundation of prior case law..

Taoiseach singles out the finding that mother and baby homes had significantly higher mortality rates than broader society

He also singles out Catherine Corless for the work she did on researching the burial records of Tuam which prompted this State inquiry

Taoiseach says he will issue the State apology in Dáil Éireann tomorrow

Roderic O'Gorman says the report reflects a society which was "stifling, oppressive and deeply misogynistic"

O'Gorman: Every person who spoke out led us to the truth that we see today… this is an extraordinary moment for those for whom this is not history, but everyday living pain

O'Gorman: Legislation allowing dignified excavation of Tuam, and testing on remains, will be passed this year

𝔻𝟝 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕤

1/

@stormypatriot21

For some of us that are yet to see an ✈️ not to talk of boarding one, these Buhari’s new trains (Ibadan/Lagos/Ibadan) are giving us that kinda vibes.. Obvious that work is still in progress... I can’t wait to share my experience. Thank you @MBuhari | @ChibuikeAmaechi

There’s a lot of emphasis on time even while buying tickets...

They left at exactly 8am
For the unfortunate ones that like to throw local jobs at Ibadan, does your city have a functional rail station?
Se Buhari fùn yin ni train

We have just arrived the ‘ongoing’ Abeokuta Train Station, Ogun State to pick more passengers....
Guess who I saw... Our own Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka.

Another ‘very brief’ stopover at Papaa in Ogun State... You can see the ongoing works...

One of the value chains and good things about these inter states train stations is that the it opens up the communities around to opportunities. Somewhere in Ogun State...
Ku ise @ChibuikeAmaechi
Ose @MBuhari

1) *IMPORTANT LINK AT END OF THIS THREAD*
(and no, I've never posted a tweet like this before.)

What times we are in. And how few understand or grasp the utter profundity of the moment.

2) Yet despite how it's looking from this current perspective, and after some turbulent months ahead (likely an understatement), the dawning of a true planetary renaissance WILL become apparent to even the most at-present comatose sleeper.

3) The evil is being uprooted and is being defeated.

That is my conviction as has been since April 2020.

About eight months ago I took a whole new look at Présídent Ťrůmp and what he has been doing – and re-orientated what I thought my opinion of him was.

4) When he first entered the pŕesidency, I had looked at and heard about his tweets, and thought, “Gosh. Can you believe it. This is the Pŕĕsidenţ of the Uníted Státés. How very unstatesmanlike to be tweeting stuff like this”.

5) But about eight months ago, I thought, "Why has every single article that has been written about him in the British media since he started running for office been – without exception – negative, negative, negative?".

For all of you think sampling, is stealing....

Let’s visit first, literature...

The ILLIAD and The ODYSSEY, two works that samples from each other. A ton of 18th and 19th century literature takes the sample liberty, taking earlier works, to create new works, time after time, century after century.....even to the point that our movies are all, samples

Samples and bits and pieces of earlier works. Ray Charles...”I Got A Woman”, was a complete take from a song recorded in the 1920s...a “loop” if you will. Thousands of COLLAGES hanging in thousands of museums across the globe, are made from different mediums...

Even if you are a student, sitting in a classroom, studying to become a teacher OR producer, or a player that becomes a coach, a vast portion of your ideology, your thought process, and your instruction is derived from “loop”, that you were taught, but reformed.

Reformed, or texts and content explicated, to introduce that information to a new generation....it’s called “repetition with a difference”....

1/n

I am working on a paper on why interest rates and yields are as low as they are. I will share some preliminary results here.

2/n

What I will share are some of the output from a simple model for US 10-year Treasury bond yields.

3/n

It is key to me that the model not only is statistically significantly, but is also economically significant. We need to understand economic developments within economic theory.

4/n

I have estimated a model for the US 10-year bond yield based on the following fundamental variables.

5/n

1) Nominal GDP growth (per capita).

It has been instructive to look back at our tweets re' the pandemic from early in 2020. So here are the questions we have today as we start in 2021. Feel free to add to the list. Let us see how these age a year from now:
1/n👇

1. Getting the world vaccinated -
How can we get the vaccine to everyone? First, we must make enough, then overcome the hesitancy, solve the problems of logistics of distribution and administration. We are struggling in all these areas.
2/n 👇

2. The dosing regimen-
Is it better to give 1 dose of 2-dose regimen to more people vs. give both doses to few?
Data from both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that if you look at the cases after 12 days of 1st shot to the second shot, the efficacy may be in 80-90% range
3/n 👇

3. Vaccine prioritization:
Should we first give the vx to younger HCWs to keep hospitals open or to all the elderly who are likely to be sicker and the reasons hospitals will be overwhelmed?
Israel is doing a fantastic job getting all the elderly vaccinated first.
4/n 👇

4. Variant strains:
RNA virus tend to mutate. Vx are targeting the Spike protein of the Sars-Cov-2. Will there be enough mutation at critical points to make the virus resistant to the Vx?
This will require regular sequencing/monitoring. Besides the UK, who will do this?
5/n 👇

A serious reasoning error that is particularly common among educated people is to argue that if a study hasn't been done on a particular question we have 'no data', and therefore no basis on which to form beliefs or act.

This is incorrect and dangerous. 1/

There is almost always a reference class we can use to make a sensible prediction, and often we can reason about the causal mechanism directly.

To see how this is clearly wrong, consider these two extreme cases: 2/

a. Before a vaccine trial is conducted we have 'no data' on how likely it is to work.

But we can estimate the likelihood just fine! To start with we can just check the base rate of all vaccine trials.

What fraction of all vaccine trials in history have had +ve results? 3/

That gives a much better estimate than pure agnosticism.

b. Imagine now that the vaccine trial results have come back positive. But by chance all the vaccines were given in a blue room.

So, will the vaccine still work if given in a red room? I guess we have 'no data'.

4/

So can we say nothing about about whether vaccines work in red rooms?

That is plainly ridiculous — we understand the causal mechanism and it doesn't involve room colour, so in fact we can give a near definitive answer to that question. 5/

Thread: A look back at the top 10 most-read @undarkmag stories published in 2020, starting with…

#10: I had not personally heard of the Voynich manuscript — a cryptic, centuries old “text” that still baffles researchers — until super-smart @jillianefoley brought this story idea to us. If you don’t know about this puzzle, prepare to be fascinated:

#9: A riveting review by @Svobodster of @jameshamblin's book "Clean" and our collective obsession with "surface notions of cleanliness."

#8: My personal favorite headline of the year, which I continue to argue contains a gift to any budding garage band looking for a name. (You’re welcome). Story by the always excellent

#7: Written all the way back on April 16th, @kategammon’s smart look at the anti-vaxx community’s then-percolating suspicions around the hunt for a Covid-19 vaccine seems eerily prescient as vaccine roll-outs get underway now.

‘From China with Love’: profile of a #volunteer. Kiki was born in China, an hour’s drive from Hong Kong. In 2016 she visited the UK for first time and was lost late at night one evening in London, not knowing how to get back to her accommodation. #volunteeringstory

Along came the man who (though she didn’t know it yet) was the love of her life, Dean, who helped her find her way. Exchanging numbers and staying in touch turned into a long-distance relationship and an eventual decision to move to the UK permanently, which she did in March 2020

... just in time to 'enjoy' the first lockdown! Arriving in Reading determined to plunge herself into British culture, Kiki searched @eventbrite for interesting social possibilities. She booked herself on one of the last local events that were able to go ahead face to face...

– a Reading #RecruitmentCharter Launch event on 12 March.

To keep herself busy in lockdown Kiki offered free virtual Mandarin lessons, and was interviewed by @BBCBerkshire for their series of ‘Making a Difference’ community features.

At the beginning of summer Kiki and Dean got the green light from the council to have a marriage ceremony – attended by 6 people in person and by her family back in #China via livestream through a phone on a tripod. #wedding

Thread: Going through my TL, pulling out relevant tweets that show facets of things that have been happening in the past weeks/months, trying to use pattern recognition to put together a coherent picture, I'm struck by our cultivated allergy to nuance. (1/x)

@ukcynic01 Yes, you are right on the number.... they, including Regeneron, pay this Murray guy now for instance to make sure not to utter a word about niacin

https://t.co/d58DAM88q1

the new tabletop simulator update.... oh no

hey @BerserkGames, please hire freelance translators instead of doing whatever the fuck you're doing

oh god

mais je gueule

press V to pâte

Max Boot calling for the FCC to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine to reign in Fox News Channel is what happens when a columnist writes with great passion and doesn’t bother to look up the specifics of what he’s writing

For starters, Fox News - and Fox Business News, One America Network, and NewsMax TV — are cable stations and do not broadcast over public

The Federal Communications Commission has little authority over cable channels. The FCC might have a little more authority over Fox News Sunday and other news programs that carried by the Fox Broadcasting

The FCC commissioners decided to revoke the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, a unanimous 4–0 decision involving two Republican commissioners and two Democratic commissioners.

The FCC counsel concluded that the rule had become counterproductive, as broadcasters “had shied away from covering controversial issues in news, documentaries and editorial

I went to bed last night really angry and frustrated that people are still forcing learners to be on camera...

At this point I wonder if the holdouts are people we can get through to, who are just in need of more support and information about the science of teaching and learning, or if they are committed to their own ignorance? Is it worth continuing the conversation?

Reactionaries are like, "ah, I see that you post constantly and passionately about minimum wage, but riddle me this: have you considered that some people I don't respect or care about might benefit from this?"

I love it when a thought occurs to someone a century after everyone with a brain thought about it and quickly explained why it's irrelevant or false.

Ah, but did you know that human beings who are of high school age also are compelled by social structure to mortgage the time they have in this life to perform labor to survive, from which wealthy people extract profit??? #gotcha

I find it very clarifying to think about min. wage not as the lowest amount you're owed for your labor but the lowest amount you're owed just for giving your employer that time, even if you're standing around. Your time alive is also what they are buying from you.

This is useful in part because it negates skill-based labor objections, which are garbage anyway, but anything that reframes the conversation as a human right and not a job-based right is good.