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Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Omicron Post #4 · 2021-12-10T17:34:37.296Z · LW · GW

Or it has a higher viral load.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 10/28: An Unexpected Victory · 2021-11-09T19:50:49.786Z · LW · GW

That is, a growth in case rate.(79% now)

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 10/28: An Unexpected Victory · 2021-11-09T19:38:01.580Z · LW · GW

If Public Health people start considering the ‘costs and benefits’ of an intervention—especially one that could be framed as a default right now—that makes lives worse in exchange for less disease,

To be fair, he didn't ask for Public Health people to consider it.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Humanity is Winning the Fight Against Infectious Disease · 2021-08-30T13:15:15.359Z · LW · GW

The emergency of new diseases

*emergence

?

been terrorist attack

-> been a terrorist attack

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Delta Strain: Fact Dump and Some Policy Takeaways · 2021-07-30T10:05:12.518Z · LW · GW

They are not that bad.

sensitivity (Ct ≤33): 97,1% (132/136), (95% CI: 92,7%~98,9%)

sensitivity (Ct ≤37): 91,4% (139/152), (95% CI: 85,9%~94,9%)

Considering the price and simplicity they are often worthwhile.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Delta Strain: Fact Dump and Some Policy Takeaways · 2021-07-29T15:55:12.371Z · LW · GW

Do you know of any non-pooled tests that are cheap and fast, that perhaps a group of individuals could order loads of? I’ve heard people talk about LAMP and such for a while but without any persuasive end-to-end evidence.

Antigen tests. They take 15min to give results, and are 0.8€(retail) here.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Delta Strain: Fact Dump and Some Policy Takeaways · 2021-07-28T22:17:41.169Z · LW · GW

In Australia, hotel quarantine has caused one outbreak per 204 infected travellers. Purpose-built facilities are far better, but we only have one (Howard Springs, near Darwin) and the federal government has to date refused to build any more.

But no cases of infections slipping thru the testing, no?

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 7/22: Error Correction · 2021-07-23T12:18:05.831Z · LW · GW

Or another framing: The question is, how long is the time between being infected and then infecting someone else? And the answer might be smaller than the time before you show symptoms, but if it’s negative the virus is doing something involving time travel.

They seem to be referring to the serial interval between symptom onset. Which indeed can't be negative on average. But they write it was only negative in 21.6% of cases. And there is no rule stating there can't be cases where it's negative (as long as you have transmission before symptoms).

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 7/15: Rates of Change · 2021-07-17T13:32:12.188Z · LW · GW

On June 18 they had 1.92 cases per million, right before things started rising, on June 14 it was 65.09, for R0 = 1.97.

Those dates seem wrong.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Luna Lovegood and the Chamber of Secrets - Part 13 · 2021-06-25T17:34:29.488Z · LW · GW

The part where she survives the killing curse.

It's foreshadowed very nicely.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-06-17T16:58:45.586Z

"Are you about to invite me to join a secret organization full of interesting people like yourself?"

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Search-in-Territory vs Search-in-Map · 2021-06-12T19:44:01.513Z · LW · GW

Ups, missed that. Thanks.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Search-in-Territory vs Search-in-Map · 2021-06-08T21:48:50.221Z · LW · GW

Interesting.

Technicality:

A toy example: suppose we have a big pile of rocks, and we want to find the rock whose mass is closest to the mass of a reference weight (without going over).

A search-in-territory algorithm might use one of those old-school balance-scales to compare masses pairwise. We could pull each rock out of the pile one-by-one, and:

First, compare the rock to the reference weight. If it’s heavier, throw it away and move on to the next rock.

Second, compare it to the best rock found thus far, and replace the best rock with this one if it’s heavier.

At the end, we’ll have chosen the best rock.

Wrong, we have the closest rock iff the closest rock is lighter than the weight.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-06-05T09:56:45.285Z

I'm not sure he would be paranoid enough. Anyway this seems to be a continuation of HPMoR.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on I'm from a parallel Earth with much higher coordination: AMA · 2021-06-04T21:24:56.307Z · LW · GW

Ha, I suppose that could work too.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-06-04T21:07:14.573Z

She doesn't have to touch the wand. She is just that good.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Bayeswatch 5: Hivemind · 2021-05-22T15:13:02.291Z · LW · GW

Wow.

But you probably wouldn't actually notice the readout.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 5/13: Moving On · 2021-05-13T20:12:45.753Z · LW · GW

In vein of Anna's response.

When people are looking for people to vaccinate, are they actually looking for americans to vaccinate?

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Bayeswatch 2: Puppy Muffins · 2021-05-07T15:25:14.960Z · LW · GW

That may be one of the worst industrial definition accidents yet. Tensely awaiting the philosophical safety board report.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Bayeswatch 1: Jewish Space Laser · 2021-05-06T15:12:43.437Z · LW · GW

As usual, fun!(What is the secret to generating these?)

Bayeswatch

Is that about this new EU regulation?

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-04-23T11:02:53.840Z

Ha, so we can implement immunity passports!

But how many people are actually interested in privacy preserving immunity passports?

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 4/22: Crisis in India · 2021-04-23T09:35:09.662Z · LW · GW

I had an unstated assumption that even if direction of the effect was inverted the change wouldn’t be significant enough to account for the data.

I agree.

or a change to the measurement

Given the apparent under reporting, I'd say no.

95% confidence that India fails to get B1.617 under control before it burns through the population.

It seems like people will panic and isolate. Don't know how much that could or will change in India though.

According to OWD the reproduction rate is 1.5 . So non pharmacological interventions might make a difference, conversely abandoning non pharmacological interventions might have contributed to the current outbreak.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 4/22: Crisis in India · 2021-04-22T19:57:35.279Z · LW · GW

Summer. Seasonal change doesn’t make sense because infections ought to go down, not up.

AFAIK seasonality works different in the tropics. It's worst in the rainy season.

Complete breakdown of society on the scale of a civil war. If this happened I would have heard about it.

Weren't there religious & political events that may have contributed?

I predict with 98% confidence that the exponential growth is caused by a new strain,

Yes I came across this graph variants

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Andrés Gómez Emilsson at the AstralCodexTen Online Meetup · 2021-04-17T12:28:14.426Z · LW · GW

2021-4-25

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on I'm from a parallel Earth with much higher coordination: AMA · 2021-04-07T11:58:02.777Z · LW · GW

Eliezer Yudkowsky: Right. They try not to present people with fantasy worlds more attractive than reality. Respectable fantasy novels will generally start the protagonist off with a disadvantage and force them to reform some awful place, for the same reason.

Wait a minute...

Also, where is the handshake !!??

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Why We Launched LessWrong.SubStack · 2021-04-01T10:45:17.337Z · LW · GW

Clippy gives good advice, where can I hire him?

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Another RadVac Testing Update · 2021-03-25T18:04:12.806Z · LW · GW

They’re “research use only” and hard to get your hands on if you’re in the US, but if you’re outside the US (or have a friend outside the US willing to help) it should be easier.

I'm willing to help.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Another RadVac Testing Update · 2021-03-24T17:38:57.125Z · LW · GW

This test put that possibility to rest: after snorting just the peptides, I was very obviously congested for a couple days, in basically the same way as after the vaccine doses.

That seems pretty strong evidence to me.

I would do a placebo control too, just to make sure.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 3/18: An Expected Quantity of Blood Clots · 2021-03-18T20:45:21.994Z · LW · GW

Isn't that even more stupid than the legal argument?

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 3/18: An Expected Quantity of Blood Clots · 2021-03-18T20:43:19.429Z · LW · GW

The CDC suggests child prison social distancing requirements could soon change, and be reduced from six feet to three feet. You see, there was one recent study that said with full and proper masking that three feet distancing was “safe.”

Of course, with full masking the distance doesn't matter.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 3/12: New CDC Guidelines Available · 2021-03-15T21:25:20.801Z · LW · GW

Presumably the solution is to ask the question, then if someone says yes to check if it’s chronic or otherwise explained before escorting them automatically out of the building, or at least to say ‘non-chronic’ or ‘new’ or something. I would actually want to avoid ‘explained’ here and at most let a follow-up determine what counts as explained.

Or you could not deny treatment to symptomatic people, whether they have COVID or not.

I continue to be rather baffled by the whole ‘wait and see’ attitude, unless it’s another case of avoiding blame and social pressure, in this case by avoiding taking a position, and doesn’t cash out to anything at all. What are we waiting to see, at this point? We’ve given about 100 million doses in the United States and everything’s going great so literally what do these people worry they are going to see? Is it basically this?

That seems like an intuitive version("native implementation"?) of a safety trial.

We Have Established as Common Knowledge That Andrew Cuomo Is The Worst

Congratulations.

Fun Fact: Germany stopped AstraZeneca vaccinations as well.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 3/12: New CDC Guidelines Available · 2021-03-15T21:16:40.835Z · LW · GW

Then there’s that to normalize that anywhere is to normalize it anywhere.

everywhere?

Then there’s the question of Prizer’s CEO, who it seems is not vaccinated, and this forced him to postpone a trip to Israel.

*Pfizer.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Yes, words can cause harm · 2021-02-25T14:04:28.173Z · LW · GW

The article is rather vague but seems to imply/say that words alone can cause harm. Which is not the case in these examples.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-02-21T16:46:25.536Z

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-02-21T16:45:39.494Z

It's a play on LTCM.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-02-20T15:37:26.968Z

“It’s okay. I could use a few laughs right now,” said Caesar.

And that is just what we get.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-02-20T10:38:55.888Z

Hah! Great!

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Bitcoin and ESG Investing · 2021-02-17T22:58:58.082Z · LW · GW

Store of value is an important function too.

Even if you want a crypto-currency there are solutions that more effective and don’t burn as much unnecessary energy.

Sure it's great if they work out. But switching may be a coordination problem as well. I'm not sure why, but it hasn't happened yet.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Bitcoin and ESG Investing · 2021-02-17T22:50:28.857Z · LW · GW

Specifically, they can threaten your trading partner with reprisals, and the whoke point of crypto is that it keeps a public log of all transactions forever.

Well it's at least pseudonymous.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Bitcoin and ESG Investing · 2021-02-16T15:36:12.773Z · LW · GW

But luxury yachts aren't a good comparison. PoW-coins are a technology for coordination among humans. They need this energy to work. I don't think that is a general argument against them.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-02-16T12:26:45.018Z

Arbitrary data compression is equivalent to cryptography.

Um, no?

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Bitcoin and ESG Investing · 2021-02-15T22:24:01.227Z · LW · GW

I don't see a principled reason to treat it different from other processes/activities that require energy/resources.

That said a efficiency comparison to other payment processors might be interesting.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-02-15T18:04:23.058Z

Nice story.

“I’m scared,” said Sheele.

If she was lying that would be just what she would say.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-02-15T17:56:30.719Z

Of course you do.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on [deleted post] 2021-02-15T17:40:29.043Z

“If a sixteen-year-old can build an AGI on the salvaged hardware running in his basement then lots of other actors have had the power to do this for at least a decade,”

There are some interesting anthropic explanations for that as well.

Of course Sheele could be lying.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 2/11: As Expected · 2021-02-14T11:13:36.882Z · LW · GW

Yes that is correct.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Your Cheerful Price · 2021-02-13T12:03:38.584Z · LW · GW

Q: Technical objection: Surely if you’re asking everybody in the room to name their Cheerful Price for something, you should pay the lowest bidder the second-lowest bid, not pay the lowest bidder their actual bid?

Uhhh… possibly? I’m not actually sure that this logic works the same way when you’re asking people for Cheerful Prices—I think you’re already asking them to nudge the price upwards from “the lowest they’d accept”, which means you don’t have to give them the second-price of the auction in order to ensure they get any gains from trade. It’s a more friendly idiom in general—you’re asking them and trusting them to tell you the truth about what won’t make them say “ow”. And despite that example of the laundry, the whole thing seems more useful for individual interactions than auctions? But you may still have a point. I’ll have to think about it.

It would avoid disincentivizing honesty. And prevent people from regretting honesty.

But I suppose some people prefer interacting based on trust. And that can work too, I think.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 2/11: As Expected · 2021-02-13T11:36:06.449Z · LW · GW

Kolmogorov Complexity, and are told to say that thunder proceeds lightning

?

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on John Wentworth on "Tabooing 'Should' Exercise" [Sunday Meetup 1pm] · 2021-02-12T23:00:05.420Z · LW · GW

The time is 21:00 (9:00 PM) UTC.

Comment by TheSimplestExplanation on Covid 2/11: As Expected · 2021-02-12T21:12:15.977Z · LW · GW

Huh? Ctrl-f for “complex” only shows up in the comments.

It clearly says complexity in the article. That is the first hit I get.