Friday’s Finds

Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“The hardest part of teaching: Having to justify to students that what they’re learning in school is relevant and will be useful in the future.” —@AnaFabrega11

The Most Precious Resource is Agency

Agency is the capacity to act. More subtly: An individual’s life can continue, with a certain inertia, that will lead them on to the next year or decade. Most people today more-or-less know what they are going to be doing for the first twenty-or-more years of their life—being in some kind of school (the “doing” is almost more “being told what to do”). Beyond that age there is of course the proverbial worker, in modern stories usually an office worker, who is often so inert that he becomes blindsided by a sudden yank of reality (that forces him out of his inertia, and in doing so the story begins).

Gaining agency is gaining the capacity to do something differently from, or in addition to, the events that simply happen to you. Most famous people go off-script early, usually in more than one way. Carnegie becoming a message boy is one opportunity, asking how to operate the telegraph is another. Da Vinci had plenty of small-time commissions, but he quit them in favor of offering his services to the Duke of Milan. And of course no one has to write a book, or start a company. But imagine instead if Carnegie or Da Vinci were compelled to stay in school for ten more years instead. What would have happened?

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Always urgent, but never specific. That should get the result you want.” —@MeetingBoy

“Saying it’s ‘post-pandemic’ because your regional lockdown is over is like saying it’s ‘post-climate change’ because the flooding in your town receded.” —@emorwee

“Vaccine efforts, and much of public health for that matter, are about convincing and manipulating people rather than providing them options, data, or decision-making tools. The base assumption is that the public is stupid and that the information they get must be carefully controlled and metered. That approach doesn’t work well in a networked information-rich environment. To compensate for this and achieve planned outcomes, network technology companies are being enlisted to actively control, censor, and manage public discussions on public health. NOTE: we saw this happen with [US] politics in 2019.” —@JohnRobb

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@A_AMilne — “My father used to say that the third-rate brain thought with the majority, the second-rate brain thought with the minority and the first-rate brain thought for itself. Where there was uncertainty, where opinions differed, I would have to decide for myself.”

COVID19 original coronavirus + variants of interest & concern so far + country where they were first found:

– SARS‑CoV‑2 (China)
– Alpha (UK)
– Beta (South Africa)
– Gamma (Brazil)
– Delta (India)
– Theta (Philippines)
– Iota (US)
– Kappa (India)
The pandemic is not over yet.
—@NRGomes

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“I do admin exactly like I clean vomit: Hold breath, enter without looking, do something, retreat, retch, wipe eyes, breathe, repeat.” —@ChristoMove

“Most doctors are rather good with healthcare of individuals, but not that good with mathematics & large scale human behaviour analysis.” —@autiomaa

“You catch highly contagious new-variant Covid-19 when you INHALE air that an infected person has EXHALED. This is more likely with CLOSE CONTACT, CROWDED PLACES, and CLOSED SPACES (3Cs).” —@TrishGreenhagh

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“If you focus on sickness, you’re going to end up with doctors as the key actors. If you focus on well-being, you’re going to end up with communities as key actors.” —@CormacRussell

“Collaboration is a necessary technique to master the unknown. Academics are slow to explore and understand the process. For now, practitioners provide the best laboratory to learn the complexity of collaboration.” —@EdMorrison

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@DavidBoxenhorn — “The most important thing is the ability to survive until you get lucky.”

@ProfCharlesHaas — “I am glad to be in a field that is enriched by assimilating knowledge from other fields, rather than one that tries to maintain a monopoly of wisdom on the basis of credentials.”

Right now, it’s hard to imagine that any global pandemic could ever fade into a routine fact of history.

But Esyllt Jones says that is what occurred with a previous worldwide disaster, the Great Influenza of 1918.

That pandemic faded despite a death toll in the tens of millions, and the loss of entire families and communities.

The public health historian notes that: “There are decades of almost complete neglect of (the 1918 influenza) as a historical subject, during which many of the survivors died.” —CBC Ideas

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Stop doing dumb shit and I’ll stop being negative.” —@Fisman

“Even if you’re fully vaccinated, the CDC still recommends not using Reply All to thank or congratulate one person.“ —@Aisha_Dickerson

I am the very model of a modern …

I’ve information anecdotal, chemical, and clinical
I know the COVID experts, and I quote-tweet fights on aerosols

List BioNTech to Zeneca, in order categorical
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters virological

I understand most models but I’m baffled by the cubical
About t-cell immunity I am teeming with a lot o’ news … lot o’ news…
with many cheerful facts about the antibodies I’ll produce!

I know the vaccine history from Jenner and the old cowpox
I answer diagnostics, I thank all the nurses and the docs

I quote in elegiacs all the CDC analysis
And hope we’ll usher in an annus slightly more mirabilis

I can tell adenoviruses from mRNA and spike proteins
I have a working map of every single drug store close to me
Then I can hit refresh until finally a slot I score … slot I score …

I’ll whistle all the way home ’cause I’m happy that my skin is sore!
I’m looking at the r-naught and I hope the trend is fabulous

I know the pseudoscience claims of beings antivaxxulous
In short, in matters anecdotal, chemical, and clinical
I am the very model of Moderna-made injectables

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds. This is #400.

“We can succeed only by concert. It is not ‘can any of us imagine better?’ but, ‘can we all do better?’ The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” —Abraham Lincoln

@trishgreenhalgh — “the 2-metre physical distancing rule is based on a flawed droplet model of transmission. Just like cigarette smoke, if you’re in an enclosed space for 30 minutes, aerosols spread across the whole room. Think 3Cs: closed spaces, crowded places, close contact.”

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“The day life got better was the day I stopped arguing with people who don’t read.” —@MrErnestOwens

“COVID Haiku: Coffee in morning. Then a bunch of stuff happens. Red wine in evening.” —@JohnCHavens

“Really, there are just two kinds of people in the world, the narcissists and the rest of us who care about each other. One of these days we will stop falling for their selfish tricks and send them into trauma recovery programs.” —@NurtureGirl

“Why is morale low? Hmm, well, you promoted all the assholes without ever making them clean up their act. Maybe start there.” —@MeetingBoy

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“The spread of germs is the price we pay for the spread of ideas.” —Nicholas Christakis

1990s Hackers: “I’m building a free operating system to run the internet”.
2020s Hackers: “I’m building a casino to sell memes to gullible people for fake money by incinerating the planet”.
—@SMDiehl

“It’s easy to do great things within a great culture; the real trailblazers do great things within toxic cultures.” —@white_owly

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