Tom @tompccs Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Tom

@tompccs

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I intend to retire when man-made nuclear fusion becomes self-sustaining: ten years from now

London

Joined July 2009

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@tompccs

Tom

4 years

"The chemistry and physics on which we fed, besides being nourishment vital in themselves, were an antidote to Fascism....they were clear and distinct and verifiable at every step, and not a tissue of lies and emptiness like the radio and the newspapers" -- Primo Levi

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@tompccs

Tom

1 year

@growing_daniel So he's finally admitting that nobody wants to live in a Meta-verse?

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Tom

5 years

There's a strange irony in the perception that Railways = Socialist Motorways = Capitalist Railways directly recoup their costs as each passenger pays at point of use Motorways *always* have to be centrally funded and paid by tax unless you install unpopular toll booths #HS2

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Tom

5 years

"But local authorities have forbidden them from cultural burning when they've asked for permission." Cultural practices, including religous ritual, are #antifragile @nntaleb

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Australia fires: Aboriginal planners say the bush 'needs to burn'

What would happen if Australia followed the ancient bushfire management practices of Aboriginal people?

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4 years

At school we were first taught regression by getting us to draw lines, by hand, through scatter-plots. Later taught how to calculate "correct" lines using a formula. A heuristic: if you can't hand-draw a line through the data w/o feeling like an idiot, forget regression analysis

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2 years

@patrickc For those interested, here's the only article I ever found which explains in detail just *how* hard making vaccines at scale is (this was published around the time most journos were arguing about patents)

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Why manufacturing Covid vaccines at scale is hard

Exploring the pinch points vaccine makers face as they ramp up production

www.chemistryworld.com

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Tom

3 years

@RobDotHutton Favourite paragraph. Perfectly skewers the way journalists report on northern towns as if they are a 19th century travel writer in Cairo

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Tom

5 years

@BrianRoemmele This is not true. What is demonstrated here is the system entering a lower energy state by injecting energy into the system to overcome a friction barrier. Same reason amorphous material can be heated and cooled down to become crystalline.

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Tom

2 years

What they are destroying is not just priceless art (though that would be bad enough), but the sacred trust of the general public to be allowed into the same space as beautiful, irreplaceable objects. No more. Back to the private collections they will go.

@rachaelvenables

Rachael Venables

@rachaelvenables

2 years

Just Stop Oil have just thrown soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery. @LBC

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5 years

If there's one thing I've learned from @nntaleb , it's that philosophy is not the stagnated, naval-gazing, irrelevant field I thought it was - as long as you avoid the philosophers

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Tom

2 years

@Austen He's betting his net worth that he's a Jobs-tier innovator and not just a smart but incredibly lucky 17 year old who was in the right place at the right time

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Tom

3 years

@nntaleb Of all your book titles to tattoo on oneself, surely it should be "Skin in the Game"

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Tom

4 years

@MaajidNawaz @colinelves @iandonald_psych Behavioural Psychology is to Virology as Astrology is to Mechanical Engineering

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1 year

@tszzl Understand? Maybe. Evaluate? Absolutely not.

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3 years

@DrEricDing Sorry this is nonsense, the SA cluster was in a care home and the India strain cases are all linked to travel

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Tom

2 years

The last 10 years have really done a number on our oldest and most respected institutions. 1660: "Nullius in verba" (take nobody's word for it) 2022: "don't question the dominant ideology"

@royalsociety

The Royal Society

2 years

"Coming out as non-binary is a journey I am only just beginning”. On #NonBinaryAwarenessDay , we wanted to reshare Giles Oldroyd FRS’s reflections on how life for LGBT+ scientists has changed in the 50 years since the first London Pride:

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Tom

5 years

Note also their histories: railways came about through Victorian tycoons, the ultimate expression of large-scale private enterprise. Motorways came about as one of the major socialist policies of Nazi Germany, and military policy in the USA.

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Tom

1 year

@kunley_drukpa I thought nothing could surprise me anymore. See my pinned tweet.

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Tom

3 years

@martinmckee @rwjdingwall @BBCNewsnight It's literally on that page

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4 years

@BallouxFrancois I'm with you until the last point. I've seen studies show that life expectancy went up slightly during depressions because people can't afford harmful habits (like smoking). GDP and LE both driven by third factor: technology, which mainly affects infant mortality.

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2 years

@Baddiel Never mind that, I'll give you my wife's Chelsea season ticket for free. Signed, a Spurs fan

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Tom

1 year

@kunley_drukpa Is this a real clip?

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2 years

@yuanyi_z Don't forget the attempted German fascist coup

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Tom

11 months

@leekern13 People don't want to admit this because it means peace is impossible. But it's true and it is.

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Tom

2 years

@MartinSLewis Time to tighten your Persil

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Tom

2 years

@jew_AndAhalfMen Can't take a few bevvies to the park with some friends but can take a handgun to your child's non-denominational school production of the "Happy Winter Snowperson"

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Tom

4 years

@nntaleb @neil_ferguson I wrote this 7 days ago

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Tom

2 years

@whippletom Same for the reverse inference - you can't claim that lockdowns worked and also that they wouldn't have secondary consequences for immunity to other diseases, particularly among those born during lockdown

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Tom

3 years

Crypto arose from the mistaken belief (which I once shared) that the weak point of the global money system was having to trust a third party (banks/PayPal to maintain the ledger of transactions, or, equivalently, Fed not to debase the currency). 1/3

@smdiehl

Stephen Diehl

3 years

Uber was also a company based on regulatory arbitrage. But at least you could summarise their business model as "car picks you up". After 12 years of blockchain nobody can summarize what the value proposition of crypto is without droning on about silly libertarian gish gallop.

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Tom

2 years

@quantian1 This is more or less exactly what American universities are doing today, except for Asians instead of Jews

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Tom

2 years

@ClickingSeason The sun exploding would be great for reducing inequality

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Tom

3 years

🧵 The problem with #bitcoin isn't simply that it 'wastes energy' and contributes to greenhouse emissions, it's that at a certain price, it becomes more profitable mine bitcoin than do literally anything else with energy anywhere. 1/4

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Tom

2 years

@ericjacobbutton @paulg Nice story but not relevant. Nothing could be more non-conforming than being a successful engineer with a PhD and packing it in to work in a garden centre for no reason other than your own happiness

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Tom

2 years

@GnasherJew Gefilte catfish

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Tom

5 years

@JamesClear Difference between a scientist and an engineer: a scientist works in hope of surprise, an engineer works in fear of one.

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Tom

3 years

@ThatRyanChap @andrew_lilico How can 81% support compulsory facemasks when less than 80% actually wear them on the tube where it is already compulsory? Everyone likes rules that only other people have to follow

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Tom

2 years

@autistpassing @CyberPunkCortes @Akhilleus_Ilias Very old study - published 1991

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Tom

2 years

@Porkchop_EXP @nntaleb To be a conspiracy theorist requires non-exposure to any large organisation at the above-janitorial level.

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Tom

3 years

Crypto not only failed to solve a real problem, it made an existing one potentially worse. 3/3

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Tom

3 years

As 2008 showed, the weak point was the types of contracts people were making with each other, which were then ruthlessly enforced. We avoided collapse by writing off parts of the ledger (or equivalently, printing money). A "zero-trust" system categorically CANNOT do this 2/3

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Tom

3 years

@nntaleb There's a certain logic to publishing your best work posthumously - you don't have to argue with people who misunderstand it

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Tom

3 years

@HJoyceGender @teaandabikkie @uk_lealea If you believe the trans ideology that you can become the opposite sex without caveat, then of course a homophobic parent would want it for a gay child. "Trans" does not require acceptance (like homosexuality does) - only suspension of disbelief

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Tom

4 years

@kjhealy Amazing the number of undergraduate electrical engineering students I've taught who didn't understand what a file was on a computer.

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Tom

3 years

@GnasherJew @habibi_uk @gmpolice I don't *want* police to break up these rallies - I want these people to be seen for who they are, in public. But I wish they were as politically radioactive to be a part of as a BNP march

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Tom

1 year

@ZachWeiner Hate to be pedantic but his mother would not have survived an Elizabethan C-section (hence "not a woman born" - he was lifted out of a corpse)

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Tom

1 year

@iris_IGB @sidravi_ By the time these things start to work the process has already had millions of tweaks across thousands of different parameters. Becoming blind to obviously sub-optimal parts of the process is very normal. Working in paranoid isolation makes you stupid.

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Tom

5 years

@VictoriaCoren Glad I wasn't the only one who saw it, thought my mince pie had been spiked

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Tom

3 years

@daraobriain Apparently Iranians and Irish share some of the same customs (courtesy of @omid9 )

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Dignity & restraint - 'ask 3 times' Iranian rule - Omid Djalili...

Omid Djalili explains a little about Iranian politeness and the 'ask 3 times' rule in this hilarious clip from his one man BBC comedy show. Contains strong l...

www.youtube.com

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Tom

3 years

@aaronjmate @ggreenwald The hacking flag is hilarious. I'd never heard of so wouldn't have bothered to click were it not for Twitter helpfully verifying the authenticity of the link 😂

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Tom

2 years

@AnyaM8_ This is why the billionaire obsession of the left annoys me. The consumption of a billionaire is roughly the same as that of a multi-millionaire, but the billionaire invests a huge portion of their wealth into new businesses, while the millionaire merely consumes.

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Tom

4 years

@nntaleb @JimmySecUK @shashj @TheEconomist Humanities trained people don't understand how people can have a discussion across fields using basic logical arguments without having to resort to credentialism.

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2 years

@TypeForVictory Politically unworkable. Too many grannies in modest 2 bed terraces having to sell to make ends meet

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3 years

@JamesLiamCook

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3 years

@omgstater Reminds me of this joke, maybe it's time to read a different newspaper?

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Tom

5 years

@nntaleb @PTetlock Funny you mentioned locking doors, I was thinking of writing something along these lines today

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3 years

@yaneerbaryam He's specifically talking about the risk to vaccinated people, though

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2 years

@SCP_Hughes Would need lessons in how to use them (my parents have been known to remark what a shame it is that people keep their shutters closed on lovely sunny days in Spain)

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Tom

2 years

@nntaleb He also likes hedgerows and small farm holdings

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Tom

2 years

@nntaleb @BallouxFrancois We know that herd immunity never happened, but the debate around it feels a lifetime ago. Those who advocated it have pivoted to saying that endemicity is inevitable (well, it is now) - but the opposite of what they said originally. Collective memory is forming very badly.

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Tom

1 year

@LeorSapir FTFY

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1 year

@Samfr How do you square this with their 30% youth unemployment rate?

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2 years

@robkhenderson "He's innocent but hella annoying"

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3 years

@NCO61 @Super70sSports Had to scroll waaaay too far to find this. Jesus Christ what's wrong with this website

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11 months

@SimonMagus Literally never heard of this policy and I follow lots of transit/urbanism related politics. It sounds like a slide from a fringe Davos talk that got picked up by a tinfoil hatter and blown out of proportion. Unless you can show me evidence to the contrary?

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Tom

2 years

@paulg I also think that if beef were banned tomorrow the Amazon would still be cleared for the next most productive use of the land (which could be biofuels, soy for plant based meat, etc)

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Tom

5 years

@nntaleb Not a living person but Alfred Loomis, Wall Street financier and self-taught scientist who self-funded a lab in which he and others contributed to the fields of ultrasound, radar, high-energy physics,nuclear physics and more. My best read so far this year

Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of...

Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

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3 years

@DamCou Boy that second one is an unpleasant image.

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Tom

4 years

@nntaleb Stand up comedy and science conferences have been going downhill for the same reason: absence of (good natured) heckling!

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2 years

@robkhenderson We used to call this "academia"

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2 years

@kimdkeller @Steve_Sailer @mattyglesias

@EconTalker

Russ Roberts

5 years

Google "Paul Dolan Marriage Happiness" and you'll find a zillion news stories saying something like "Happiness Expert Says Women are Happier Without Marriage and Children." All of the articles quote Paul Dolan of the LSE saying that when their spouses...

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4 years

@kjhealy Stop, stop! You're just contributing to his h-index!!

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Tom

5 years

@OzKaterji Sorry mate, nothing will ever top this one (courtesy of @Sara_Rose_G )

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Tom

5 years

#antifragility thought of the day: irregular pavingstones vs smooth tarmac Pavingstones: lots of puddles during even small amts of rain Tarmac: no puddles, but if drain fails, big flood! Many local gravitational minima is safer than 1 big one that can be filled up (cc @nntaleb )

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Tom

3 years

The Queen just had her 10th grandchild. If current fertility rates hold, the UK will be majority Royal by the year 7000. Good thing Harry and Meg are cashing in while they still can.

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3 years

@smdiehl @SimonDeDeo @nntaleb It also displaces useful economic activity:

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Tom

3 years

🧵 The problem with #bitcoin isn't simply that it 'wastes energy' and contributes to greenhouse emissions, it's that at a certain price, it becomes more profitable mine bitcoin than do literally anything else with energy anywhere. 1/4

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Tom

5 years

@d4nf0x Einstein was a Zionist, for starters. To the extent that he was asked to be the State of Israel's first president. Corbynistas never step outside the padded confines of their own imaginations.

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2 years

@ABeautifulCult1 I think Art Nouveau but still beautiful!

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3 years

@ScottAdamsSays I think more people may read my Whatsapps than my tweets

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Tom

3 years

@ZachWeiner You take a vaccine when you're healthy, you take antibodies when you're sick. People will take more risks when they are already sick (similar to why highly experimental cancer therapies are ethical only in extreme circumstance)

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1 year

@SAshworthHayes Urban renewal worked in the London docklands. In fact every major city was able to revitalise its deindustrialised zones. Why can't the north of England?

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2 years

@RodricJenkin @YvesBarmaz @toxvaerd1 This is taught in the third or fourth year of a physics degree, so depending on your level of mathematics, 3 or 4 years

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Tom

3 years

@mr_james_c @micsolana Good primer here:

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2 years

@paulg The carbon footprint of cattle is massively skewed by large scale forest clearing in the Amazon. If all but grass fed cattle were banned then people would be able to eat as much as they could afford sustainably.

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1 year

@thomasforth Towards the end of the Covid era something like a third of British people were polled as wanting to close all nightclubs permanently

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Tom

3 years

@s8mb You could not have come up with two more non-intersecting sets of people as "young people who care about planning law" and "anti-maskers"

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2 years

@Edeaulx Maybe I'm horribly insensitive but I can't see how the victim comes away from that situation with anything worse than a funny anecdote about an elderly aristocrat.

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Tom

2 years

@edwest Incredible artefact. The Guardian was a breath of fresh air compared to establishment broadsheets. They fully embraced online, had great tech journalism, dug out interesting stories. You could forgive the occasional crankery as being part of their commitment to free speech.

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Tom

2 years

@suzanne_moore You put in years of hard sacrifice (losing jobs, being told you're a nazi, etc) to finally get coverage of this issue in the respectable national press, but as soon as you are vindicated, you're told to leave the debate so the "sensible adults" (who let this happen) can take over

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5 years

@ScottAdamsSays It's been a while since I checked in on this public spat but pretty sure the author is missing the point. @nntaleb doesn't use trading and pricing as an analogy for probability - he's saying that making predictions without making bets is masturbatory and meaningless

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2 years

@nntaleb @toadmeister Toby Young, yet another who mistakes contrarianism for intellect.

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2 years

@edwest Thinking about this some more, The Guardian pretty well reflected "nerd culture" and was the news source of choice for smart technical people (physicists, programmers, etc) To the extent that that subculture has degenerated into liberal conformity, so to has the Guardian.

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11 months

@TanyaGold1 Not even a generation apart

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3 years

@s8mb Effect on death could actually be much larger, trial was stopped early as results were so strong that it was considered unethical to continue with a placebo arm. No deaths were detected in the experimental arm.

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11 months

@RichardHanania Read Satre. One group intellectualises, the other is boots on the ground

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2 years

@thomasforth I was on one of the first trains running to Battersea on the northern line a few months ago. air suddenly changed from hot to cool in new section. The clay surrounding London Underground tunnels is ~50degC because trains have never stopped running long enough to cool

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3 years

@Baddiel This Corybynite list obsession has a very Mean Girls vibe to it.

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4 years

@omid9 Electroboom! He's a real electrical engineer and his Youtube channel is genuinely educational. Sneakily teaches you about physics while electrocuting himself

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2 years

@nntaleb It's this group, they are real stunts, none of it is staged, and they keep being arrested.

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Van Gogh's Sunflowers: Women deny damaging frame

The two have been charged in relation to soup thrown at the painting in the National Gallery,

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3 years

@SmallRedOne Not only is it just another respiratory virus, at this stage it's the best-studied, most well-understood respiratory virus in history. The confidence intervals on the CFR for flu, for example, are huge, and we've never tracked a flu wave in the detail we now do with Covid.

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3 years

@andrew_lilico Respectfully, I disagree. Basic freedoms should not be epidemiological levers. Extreme measures should require extreme circumstances to use. The government should never leave these on the table - it should be a "break glass in case of emergency" device, not a simple button

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3 years

The fastest growing demographic in hospital admissions right now is the under 5s, and it's not for Covid

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