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Plato Design | Product Engineer | Full Time | NYC / Remote (USA)

We're building iOS apps for second language acquisition. If you're a full-stack product engineer who wants to use AI and classic NLP to crack the problem of second language acquisition for adults, let's talk! This is an early stage startup inventing new kinds of tools, so comfort with trial and error, and the occasional pivot, is essential. If you join us you'll spend 90% of your time writing code and report directly to the CTO. As for our tech stack, we build mostly in SwiftUI and TypeScript. We can offer competitive salary, full benefits, and flexible hours. If interested, email [email protected] and tell us about (A) why language learning interests you and (B) cool things you've built.


Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback.


Aesthetic | Senior Full-Stack Software Engineer | REMOTE | NYC

Aesthetic (https://www.aesthetic.com/) is building tools for NFT creators and communities.

About us: We are a team of serial entrepreneurs (previous exit to Pinterest) with deep backgrounds in blockchain, machine learning, generative art, and design. We are backed by top investors, including Y Combinator, OrangeDAO, Soma Capital, Paul Graham, SV Angel, A. Capital, and Liquid2.

Responsibilities: - Build, test, deploy, and maintain our web3-integrated application (https://app.aesthetic.com/) - Own frontend-to-backend development, including QA, and bug-fixing of major features - Participate in product development, recommending features and contributing to vision

Job listing/apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/aesthetic/335f5c64-c991-4a18-a696-b...

Contact: Matthew - [email protected]


If we're leaving out the sonic weapons from this hypothetical 6-hour Lynch's Dune, would we keep or throw out the heart plugs?


Of course, keep! They were sick as hell.


I thought the weirding modules were sick as hell, too - especially with Paul's name literally becoming a killing word.


But if you just do the trial you don't know if you actually got the vaccine or placebo.


It’s pretty obvious if you got it or not. Also .... why would you want the trial to not be double blind??


How is it obvious in a trial?

I mean, take the flu shot. The times I've gotten it I've not had any reaction or one so mild I don't remember. Maybe a sore arm? Slightly tired, though that could have been work. I wouldn't personally know until they do blood tests.

Even if you have side effects - outside of a possible sore arm, you wouldn't know it was the vaccine or just unfortunate timing for a virus or something.

You want the trial to be double blind because it means there is less bias: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-double-blind-study-27....


A friend of mine did the Pfizer trial, and he strongly suspected he had the real thing because he had some pretty strong reactions to it, with flu-like symptoms making him feel awful for a day. He later got an antibody test, and it was confirmed.

I don't know what the poster above was talking about, getting calls to participate in a study. Nobody contacted my wife or I with such offers. I suspect that the poster was lucky to live right in a city where the test was being conducted; those outside of major cities are probably not included in his claim that anyone could participate in the trials.


I know some folks have reactions to vaccines: not everyone does, though. And weirdly, when folks don't know, sometimes the placebo gives them reaction. Pretty much, side effects have to happen more often in the real thing than they do a placebo.

Sometimes it just doesn't work to have double blind: LSD trials, for example, make things pretty obvious. It isn't the case for the flue, though.

You are correct on the trials: most folks don't get called. That said, living outside the city doesn't exclude you from trials in general because they generally need participants with x and/or y. Often, they will pay for expenses to travel, especially if your disease is uncommon or they have trouble finding participants.


that's interesting i didn't think about that! would taking an antibody test be banned for participants? because those who confirm that they received the real shot could change their behavior?


You can get a serology test to see if you have covid antibodies. It really defeats the purpose of the double-blind.


Yes, and the practitioners boosting the drug combo have also said that in order to be effective, it should be administered early, similar to Tamiflu.


Was this done in the study linked?

All doctors I’ve seen promote hydroxychloroquine have been adamant that it must be administered early in the disease’s progression in order to have any effect.

But most of the studies being performed that I’ve heard of, have explicitly been on late-stage patients. This includes the central EU study.

It would be tragic if the drug works when administered early, but all the studies have happened at a late stage, incorrectly disqualifying a treatment that can save many lives.


As mentioned in the paper they only include people where the drug was given within 48 hours after diagnosis.


48 hours is two days! "48 hours after diagnosis" is NOT early treatment. See my earlier post!


So, the time between when symptoms first started and up to 48 hours after patients' test results came back positive.


I'm curious why there hasn't been a proper prophylactic study of HCQ. Every test I see are hospitalized and late stage. The vast majority of people are told to quarantine at home after testing positive.

I'm sure a test group could be made among them to test for severity of symptoms + testing to see the number who are later hospitalized.


Giving a dangerous drug to healthy people (presumably thousands of them, to be statistically useful), on no real evidence of efficacy, would be ethically dubious, to say the least.


There's plenty of evidence hydroxychloroquine works for SARS.

How would you justify giving hydroxychloroquine to hundreds of thousands of healthy people a year for malaria prophylaxis?


GP wasn’t suggesting prophylactic use on healthy people. The suggestion was to do this on diagnosed patients, maybe in risk groups, that haven’t progressed to a serious condition yet. But would be at great risk (>10%) to do so soon.


But this study is on outcomes where the treatment was administered within 48 hours of diagnosis.


48 hours after _diagnosis_ is pretty damned late. To rephrase that, it's "Two days after diagnosis"!

I'd expect the lungs to be fully invaded and serious damage done by the virus by that time. This is not an early, or even seriously prompt, treatment. Certainly if the patients were in a hospital setting this would be unacceptably slow treatment.

This appears to be yet another of several "studies" where HCQ was given late to patients that were already near death. Of course it had little effect.

The recommendation was always HCQ + AZITHROMYCIN + ZINC SULFATE given EARLY. Few, if any, studies have followed that recommendation.


This debate would be EASILY settled by doing real science like you suggest. Instead, we get these proud Trump debunkings that don’t answer the important question. Ok, HCQ doesn’t help critical patients. But we’ve already suspected that for two months.

I don’t get it. Just do a simple, proper frickin’ study where the cocktail you mention is used immediately after diagnosis, and compare outcomes with different treatments.

This seems so obvious that I wish someone could point out to me what obvious detail I’m not understanding. It’s as if proving Trump wrong is more important than answering the real and important yes/no question.


Thanks. That settles my question. It was administered much later than suggested by most doctors that have tentatively used it based on experiences with malaria and SARS.

So it’s sadly not very useful for drawing conclusions about that :(


As we would with any drug, we'd start with a small group and scale it to more as it was determined to be safe.


Excuse me. It is know to be safe for 70 years. It used widescale in the whole world. It is cheap and easily manifacturable (only India is doing it right now). It is known to be working as COVID-19 prophylaxe (not as treatment). There is no vaccination in sight.

https://www.icmr.gov.in/pdf/covid/techdoc/V5_Revised_advisor...


HCQ is given to millions in USA alone, since 1955.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxychloroquine


It is not a dangerous drug at all. Dangerous is CQ phosphat/Resochin, which was used only for a short time in history, until it was replaced by HCQ. In the 40ies already, at the German Africa campaign.


So if we kill another thousand people administering it differently how likely are we to discover it now works instead of substantially increasing mortality?


I don't know. We should follow whatever procedures we follow when testing any potential new treatment.


> Tamiflu.

Another drug that doesn't work nearly as well as some people think. https://www.bmj.com/tamiflu

> The reviewers concluded that there was no convincing trial evidence that Tamiflu affected influenza complications (in treatment) or influenza infections (in prophylaxis), and raised new questions about the drug’s harms profile.


> Hayashi pointed out that the key piece of evidence underpinning the previous Cochrane review’s conclusion--that Tamiflu reduced the risk of secondary complications such as pneumonia--was based on a manufacturer-authored, pooled analysis of 10 manufacturer-funded trials

Everything needed for FDA approval.

> no convincing trial evidence

It just sounds like Tamiflu efficacy studies to date haven't been thorough enough to be convincing.


This is great. Any plans to add other genres (sci fi, espionage, mystery...)?


Yes please! This is great. Another request for Sci-Fi from me! :)


I have heard good words about The Expanse. I haven't read the books but have seen the show and I think it's fantastic.


The books are quite good as well, but as is common with these things, the books and the show diverge in ways I won't spoil. Expect it and enjoy the books for what they are.


I do. William Langewiesche is probably the best writer on aviation - if you want really deep and detailed analysis.


That reads as extremely biased analysis (to put it lightly).


I don't consider it analysis. It is a discussion. He writes that Air France 447 was "an exercise in poor airmanship", full stop. That is completely inconsistent with the final report on AF 447, where literally everyone but the passengers got part of the blame for it. It blamed Air France, it blamed Airbus, it blamed the simulators, it blamed the pilots.

His central thesis in this article might be:

Boeing became the world’s pre-eminent commercial airplane manufacturer in part because it developed a coherent design philosophy that relied on pilots’ airmanship as the last line of defense.

And that's come up before in various discussions like Langewiesche's. And here I'll underscore this article is a discussion, it's not an analysis. He does bring in myriad relevant factors like airline's being cheap, foolhardy, downright wreckless at times, literally expecting pilots to paper over their decisions. I think that is a real problem all airlines have to contend with, but the safest airlines have mostly solved it, and the least safe airlines still struggle with it and it's mostly about systemic corruption, not pilot incompetency. It's just that if you don't have particularly skilled and experienced pilots all of the time, you're playing roulette - you don't have your last line of defense all of the time. Eventually, things aren't going to work out well. And on that part of the discussion, I agree with him.


Cool, you must honestly be one of a few. I could never bear myself to read such a long article even if the topic was of interest.

I can listen to or view content that are hours long but in text format it's kind of overwhelming to me. Mainly because I cannot do anything else than read while I am reading which makes reading such a piece a very time-consuming task. I'd rather do something else than read such an article but it's probably for the best that there are people like you who like it as well.


I understand your point, but I read articles like this (and especially ones by Langewiesche) because there are topics that, for me, I learn better about it this way. I'm exactly opposite of you -- I generally can't bear to watch videos or listen to podcasts about these kinds of nonfiction topics because they feel way too long to me, whereas I can read an article faster and skip the parts easily that I don't feel are good.


Beware, this code is licensed under the GPL.


I wonder if we might achieve better* results in some systems if we added in these biases on purpose. (I.e. treated them like features, not bugs or even emergent patterns.)


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