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thomasfedb

1,338 karma · joined April 3, 2013

Doctor, medical researcher, and software engineer. Pronouns they/them.

https://drake-brockman.id.au/

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thomasfedb··on Medical students are using popular research tool to pump out misleading studies
It is my (unpopular I suspect) opinion that the contents of medical or other academic journals is not intended for consumption by the “interested public” as much as I can understand the desire to do so.

That’s not the same as saying that the interested public shouldn’t be able to learn about these things, but I do think they will often need assistance from those who are trained to read and discriminate this content.

And yes, journals should also do better, and peer review should be high quality and paid (you get, ultimately, what you pay for…)

thomasfedb··on Medical students are using popular research tool to pump out misleading studies
As a clinician-academic who published in The Lancet during medical school, I think this goes a bit far. Unfortunately student doctors are encouraged to publish whether or not they actually have an interest in research… but that shouldn’t discount the work of those who are genuinely engaged.

But certainly we should always approach the literature critically, including the author list, journal of publication and its peer-review practices, and the methods.

thomasfedb··on 99% of adults over 40 have shoulder "abnormalities" on an MRI, study finds
A patient being drunk wouldn’t make it any harder for me to anaesthetise them. But if they’re drunk they wouldn’t legally be able to confirm they consent to the anaesthetic immediately prior.
thomasfedb··on The cost of interrupted work (2023)
If it was actually 23mins, and not modifiable, then a myriad of important professions would be completely unviable (e.g. medicine). That is to say, it seems doubtful that the impact of interruptions can be meaningfully summarised in a single figure.
thomasfedb··on I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst
I wrote my joint med-CS honours (1 year research thing we have in Aus) thesis in Word. My med supervisor was happy with it. CS supervised insisted I reformat it in LaTeX as he couldn't stand the typesetting.

Honestly I don't disagree with him, it looked far better in 'TeX. But that's probably a learnt preference.

In essence, it's culture.

thomasfedb··on Transparent peer review to be extended to all of Nature's research papers
Nothing is ever “proven”. There is simply more or less support for a theory or proposition.

Replication and meta-analysis are an important part of this.

Most scientists are in fact very conservative with how they claim their results - less so university PR departments and “study shows” clickbaiters.

thomasfedb··on $100 Hamburger
We no longer require a bun crisis to lodge this flight plan. Plenty of flights are made to Rotto for a sausage roll, any time of the year.
thomasfedb··on Mexican Navy ship crashes into Brooklyn Bridge leaving two people dead
I’ve heard (can’t tell for sure from the photos I’ve seen) that they were “dressing the yards” at the time - which is when the crew stands on top of the yards (the horizontal spars) side by side. It’s done for ceremonial or celebratory reasons, not for work.
thomasfedb··on We can no longer run Microsoft Store on 1809/LTSC 2019
This was sufficient justification for me
thomasfedb··on I'd rather read the prompt
I would argue against “entire”. As an academic I (and I believe many of my colleagues also) take much pride in what we write - both the content and the prose itself.
thomasfedb··on Reversing the fossilization of computer science conferences
I think you should expect to have your arguments deconstructed on HN.
thomasfedb··on France rejects backdoor mandate
What freedoms are you referring to wrt Australia?
thomasfedb··on Boycott IETF 127
Singapore and Australia might also be on the list.
thomasfedb··on Minding the gaps: A new way to draw separators in CSS
Perhaps with margin: auto your :gap element can sit in the middle of the “gap space”?
thomasfedb··on The model is the product
I find the distinction you draw between weights and a program interesting - partially the idea that one is a “static file” and the other isn’t.

What makes a file non-static (dynamic?) other than +x?

Both are instructions about how to perform a computation. Both require other software/hardware/microcode to run. In general, the stack is tall!

Even so, I do agree that “a bunch of matrices” feels different to “a bunch of instructions” - although arguably the former may be closer in architecture to the greatest computing machine we know (the brain) than the latter.

</armchair>

thomasfedb··on Court filing: DOGE aide broke Treasury policy by emailing unencrypted database
You might disagree, but if you bother to post here you should aim to make an argument. I don’t think a gay slur advances anything.
thomasfedb··on Cloudflare asks browser devs to sign insane NDAs before fixing browser blocking
Akamai or Imperva maybe? No personal experience, but they seem to offer similar suites of WAF/DDoS/CDN products.
thomasfedb··on Cloudflare asks browser devs to sign insane NDAs before fixing browser blocking
From what I can see, there’s reasonable competitors for CF’s offerings, but extremely limited parallels to their free tier. The free tier is the killer.
thomasfedb··on Cloudflare asks browser devs to sign insane NDAs before fixing browser blocking
I think the majority of contributors to that thread are being very reasonable and measured. CF should not be in a position to determine which UAs are viable on the Internet.
thomasfedb··on ChatGPT Saved My Life (no, seriously, I'm writing this from the ER)
Arguably the issue in your friend’s case is providing the patient with a document that’s not designed for them. Radiology reports are written with a particular audience in mind.

They are also written with a particular medicolegal perspective, which the intended audience will appreciate.

I often give my patients copies of their results/reports, which gives me an opportunity to explain them.

If we are going to send reports to patients directly, maybe they need to be written differently? Who should pay for that different report to be written/checked?

We already have AI tools for prioritising the order some tests are processed in (e.g. which X-Rays the radiologist looks at first). But once the report is written the author has a responsibility to ensure any urgent result is escalated. As a requester (I order tests), if I result needs urgent action within days or less, I expect a phone call to myself or another doctor in the practice.

thomasfedb··on ChatGPT Saved My Life (no, seriously, I'm writing this from the ER)
Generally yes.

Sometimes what’s “normal” is highly dependant on other factors. In that case you might get a table or other comparative information provided.

That said, some results are still concerning if they’re “high-normal” or “low-normal”, and some results are not that worrying even if they’re slightly abnormal.

thomasfedb··on ChatGPT Saved My Life (no, seriously, I'm writing this from the ER)
These systems likely vary around the world, this is an Australian perspective.

> When blood works or whatever exam results are available they should go through some kind of automated system that can flag critical situations like this, without waiting for a doctor.

We already have this. Based on either individual results or how results relate to each other.

Labs will detect critical results and then a range of things happen:

- a scientist may repeat or check the result if the value is extreme, to ensure it isn’t an error

- a scientist may alert a pathologist to the result immediately

- a scientist or pathologist may contact the referring doctor/hospital by phone to provide the result immediately

- in some cases, the lab will contact the patient directly (if they need to go directly to hospital for example)

This also gets done with radiology.

This then gets followed by the official report in hours to days depending on how much confirmation is required.

thomasfedb··on Protoclone, the first bipedal, musculoskeletal Android
Probably because we have quite a lot of human tools already.
thomasfedb··on Writing a Gimp 3.0 Plugin
Though Photopea is already an online Photoshop clone and sounds a bit similar?

(It’s also pretty decent. My usual go to for stuff I can’t justify spinning up an Adobe VM for…)

thomasfedb··on Anyone can push updates to the doge.gov website
I agree. Have always felt that USDS/18F are best in class examples of tech innovation being brought to perhaps slightly tech-backwards areas of government, and doing the interpersonal work to bring other agencies along as well.

The UK’s Government Digital Service is similar. They’ve got some good examples of doing unglamorous but impactful work -e.g. replacing dozens of different payment processing systems with one quality one, the same thing for sending physical letters, etc.

thomasfedb··on The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action
It’s a rewarding experience. A bit voodoo magic until you wrap your head around all the utilities, build systems, workflows, and then quite pleasant.
thomasfedb··on The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action
Sometimes changes are required to meet packaging guidelines, sometimes you can get exemptions. Of course users often don’t realise who’s done what.

I suppose my advice to upstream would be to direct the end user to the Fedora bug tracker, where the bug can land in my queue. Or advise the user to install from a different source.

The upstream that I’ve dealt with have been kind enough to lodge a bug themselves on the package I look after, which is also an option, and much appreciated.

thomasfedb··on The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action
That’s a poor faith comment.

I’m a Fedora packager (not for this package). Like many others I have an unrelated day job.

If there’s an upstream complaint I might get to it this weekend, maybe next. If I’m busy for a few weeks that doesn’t make me stupid.

Have had my share of “discussions” with upstream who want the latest version packaged when this might not be completely in line with our guidelines. Not an uncommon issue.

thomasfedb··on The doctor who gave himself an ulcer and solved a medical mystery (2010)
The previous dogma being that no bacteria could survive in the acidic conditions (pH ~2) of the stomach.
thomasfedb··on The doctor who gave himself an ulcer and solved a medical mystery (2010)
Studied at the home University of this Nobel prize winner. Was a good bet you’d get a question on it in the exam every year.
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