I'd like to briefly discuss something I think is really important. Possibly the most important thing to consider this new year. When I worked in law I was taught to research and analyze all info & possibilities/arguments. We were taught to remove our emotions from this process..

The reason we were taught not to become too emotionally invested in a particular client or case was because it creates a situation in which you can be blindsided and/or manipulated. It can cause you to miss important information or facts that your client didn't want you to see...

This can then in turn implode your entire case & can damage the firm and/or attorneys reputation & credibility. In law, your reputation/credibility is everything. We were taught to remove emotion from the fact finding due diligence process. We were taught to seek out counter

Evidence; we were taught to analyze a case or legal argument from all sides and perspectives. We were taught how to understand the other side & attorneys argument. This is a vigorous process of picking apart your theory, trying to poke holes in it, questioning your own clients

Story, trying to independently validate or disprove it. This is so when you take the case to trial, you are prepared for everything and all possibilities. You must know the other sides legal theory/argument better than they do. You must have a solid foundation of prior case law..

#Arsenal re: rebuilding | I know we all want this club to be successful again. In that light, there is work to be done in terms of how we build-out the squad moving forward. But for me, that cannot be all about buying every single player (1/12) #AFC

We are undoubtedly going to be linked to a lot of names from now and running through the summer...but what truly makes the most sense? Where in the team are - right now - the biggest questions? For me it's CM, CB, and long-term at CF. Most of the spine (2/12)

Yes Auba extended and we still have Laca, but both are on the wrong side of 30, and long-term, it's unlikely they'll be here and performing. The only question we don't have at CB is around Gabriel. The CM debate continues about a number of players & if they're good enough (3/12)

Arguments can easily be made for a CM purchase in the summer, as well as a CB depending on how things shake out with Mavropanos, Chambers, and Saliba's loan at Nice. What there should not be questions on, is our attacking options (4/12)

I am always adamant about the necessity in finding a balance between veteran pieces, a core of prime players, and a sprinkling of young talent that have unquestionable futures. You need all three to be a club that can sustain itself both financially and in terms of results (5/12)

IMHO, this article — https://t.co/wLiWDOZrvm — is an important corrective to fatalism about the new strain. As in, "welp, there are probably already at least a handful of cases of the new strain already here, so no matter what we do now, it's gonna spread." Not necessarily so.

"10 to 20 percent of infected people may be responsible for...80 to 90 percent of transmission."

"An early run of bad [or good!] luck...can produce dramatically different outcomes."

New Zealand had 277 separate introductions; only 19% of them led to more than 1 additional case.

That's all referring to the original COVID strain, but I haven't read anything suggesting that the same pattern doesn't apply to the new variant. Not sure if we know yet, but it's at least possible a lot of people don't spread it (while the few that do, spread it *A LOT* a lot).

Here's what we know, or think we know:

* The new variant is here, with probably at least a handful of undetected cases.

* The new variant is so wildly contagious that, once it gains a foothold, cases WILL spike.

* Cases stopped rising steeply around Nov. 10 (by onset day).

It seems like 1 of 2 things is true:

1) New variant arrived in October or earlier, and helped cause our November spike. We then reined it in, without even realizing it was here.

2) New-variant community spread is low-level thus far, at least thru ~Xmas. No superspreaders yet.

My New Years resolution is to provide more actual useful info was thinking maybe it would be shitpost less but I don’t like setting up for failure so here’s a thread on how I think about supply / demand imbalances over cycles thus far I’ve lived

1. Bitcoin is an extremely unique asset in that supply cannot react to demand in any meaningful capacity, miners can add hashrate and mine albeit slowly faster but it’s not enough to drive material supply side changes

2. This differs from a lot of commodities say oil or silver or gold or leggos as people want more of these and prices go up producers produce more they feed the ducks

3. Altcoins imo have largely been a market force driven by this issue though a lot of get rich quick and some actual innovation sprinkled but I think this is why the asset class has grown horizontally at its core

4. Either way you have periods where demand clearly crushes supply often halving related but nonetheless fucking up the imbalance and the momentum does the rest

Istigatha - a thread 🧵.

Found in the collection of risaa’il and fataawaa of Shaykhul-Islaam Ibn Taymiyyah (rahimahullaah) found in the Maktabah ath-Thaahirriyah,

In the screenshots, what is found in brackets is an addition from Mukhtasar al-Fataawaa al-Misriyyah.
(1/25)

(2/25)

It is not allowed for one to worship anyone except Allah. Dua is a form of worship. We must call upon Allah alone

It says in Surah Jinn verse 18

“And the masaajid are for Allaah (Alone), so do not call upon anyone along with Allaah.”
(3/25)

(4/25)

Abdullah bin Mas’ud (radiyallaahu ‘anhu) said: “People used to make du’aa to the Angels, and ‘Uzayr and al-Maseeh (the Messiah, Isa bin Maryam, alayhis salaam), so Allaah the Most High said:
(5/25)

🧵 THREAD 🧵
1) Recent Аzeri propaganda campaign, “Аrmеոiaոs have a gеոе for schizophrenia & other mental disorders”, is a narrative often gloatingly thrown in the middle of heated debates as a derisive argument against the collective sanity of

2) So let’s debunk this.

The study they refer to, is a groundbreaking peer-reviewed paper by Armenian molecular geneticists. What it says is that by studying 225 affected and 225 healthy subjects they found a correlation between schizophrenia and a *variant of the “C1QB gene”,

3) at least in ARM population”, further studies in other populations would have to be done to confirm the results. This is a short summary of the paper’s conclusion.

So what is this “C1qB gene”? Is it an “Armenian gene”, as Аzeris like to claim? ⬇️

4) C1qB “gene” is a subcomponent of C1q protein complex which is a component of C1 complement system — C1 is what makes up the innate human/animal immune system. It is involved in a bunch of very crucial immune system functions.

5) Azеris claiming “they don’t have this gene” is the most amusing response I get. Well, the only way you wouldn’t “have it” is if you were a spiոeless cell, i.e. an amoeba; or in the best case if you were very siск (C1q deficiency), or

CW Nightmare

In the torn out belly of an old, sprawling hotel, I found myself investigating strange happenings in the fledgling restaurant that sprouted in the blasted ruin.

Swarthy men gutted the collapse, using every nail & timber to build the eatery and it's long tables.
1🧵

I swear to have seen a spider, large as a dinner plate, with an ape-like face and twitching human fingers for legs, ground down to bloody points. But only a flash witnessed in a broken pane of glass. The bike thing was some illusion. A twisting of light and color, nothing more.

It was then , in the darkening hours of the day, that six young travelers entered, seating themselves at the single large feast table. Colorful, happy, bawdy souls in all, they seemed unaffected by the haze of terror that lingered among the workmen.
3🧵

I found no sign of mold or damp, gas or chemical, any phenomenon to explain the various sightings.
The matron, dutiful and mild in manner, brought the travelers beer, soft pretzels, and honey butter - leaving them to chitter and indulge.
4 🧵

The workmen, in the growing dark, left as quickly as a flock of larks, in one writing mass at the foreman's whistle. Unashamed in their obvious terror. Each man nodded to me, the stranger, in quiet gratitude and sorrowful fancy, as I dared to remain after dark.
5 🧵

So here's the problem. Most (but admittedly not all) of the R reps & sens are signing up for this charade *because they know it will fail*. Their calculus is this gives them a media / primary advantage for doing it, but can safely discount the logical conclusion of their argument

That works for them because there's basically no personal cost to doing it. And in the US system as it is, not at all clear to me that externally-imposed consequences would ever be remotely on the table. Not criminal; no personal consequences; no political costs. So an easy win.

The problem is that this strategy is now the new normal. Next time the political cost of engaging in this strategy will be *far* lower.

That's fine (but obnoxious) so long as it stays in the realm of symbolic political bullshittery.

But one day it won't be. Maybe that'll be in 2025, maybe 2029, maybe later. But eventually this strategy will coincide with majorities in Congress where the strategy isn't doomed

And on that day, America will break in a way that won't resolve without extreme violence. America *will not survive* the direct blow of a democratic election for the highest office being explicitly overruled by the other party.

As Mark Twain once said, "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." Here's a thread that looks at Premier Kenney's claim that the international border testing pilot program of air travellers has been a "success." #ableg

At his Jan. 1 presser, Kenney noted the the pilot program had a test positivity rate of 1.48% compared to an overall positivity rate from testing done in the province of about 7%. See video link at approximately 3:15:

Indeed, Kenney's numbers for the pilot project are accurate. Of the 18,021 travellers who had participated as of December 17, 1.48% had tested positive after arriving in

But was it appropriate to compare the results among travellers who were presumably screened before boarding and found asymptomatic to those from recent testing results among Albertans who are overwhelming if not entirely symptomatic or have had a known contact with the disease?

Perhaps, it would have been better if Kenney had compared those results to those done among similarly asymptomatic Albertans. As @CBCFletch noted in an October 23 tweet, 659,000 tests among people with no symptoms found a positivity rate of just 0.11%....

The client was always a scary landscape to me. Not necessarily because of the many inconsistencies of the browsers. Not because of the idiosyncratic and plain silly parts of javascript, the chosen language of the client. Not even…

I don't trust the client. This, I always thought, is a good thing. A back-end developer should not trust the client. Every input should be validated and mistrusted, all possible interactions with that less (and less-than)…

I think some of the inherent conflict, not enmity - never that obvious, between front-end and back-end stems from such mistrust. How can we not mistrust them? To us they are a load of hippies using toy languages and eldricht incantations to work around…

But, something has changed. The browser-wars have quieted down somewhat. Javascript performance has begun to approach a qualitatively acceptable domain. HTML has matured and with FlexBox and Grid even CSS is starting to make some sense (if I squint at it).

And now we have Web Assembly. I'm not going to poke into that with my time and effort, I lost enough nights to assembly back at university. After that i took a look at Java and later C#, and decided that life is far too short to spend it managing…

Organizations Protecting Former FPI Members and Public Provocateurs Are Next In Line.

On December 30, 2020, the good people of Indonesia felt relieved, because they received the gift of being free from a bothersome gripping fear.

The activities of the Defenders of Islam Front (FPI) were banned by the government, because they were growing increasingly far from the life of our Pancasila-based society which is tolerant of differences.

The public can now hope to live more peaceful life, in the democratic environment which has been growing since the reformation period began in 1998.

There will be no more disruptions of people who are worshipping or holding weddings, no banning of saluting the national flag, no more raids of cafes, mini-markets, drugstores, eateries, shopping malls and other activities where that group had taken the law into their own hands.

Organized criminal activity hiding behind a religious front has been curtailed by the government in order to uphold the law, as well as for the benefit of social discipline.

Too popular admin - good or bad?
The hype industry is a field in which even two admins, sometimes, can hardly turn around. Most likely they won't. Projects that are launched every day are most often similar to each other.

Only a few projects work stably and efficiently thanks to admins who know what to do. Once having gained popularity, the admin must continue to keep the brand. But whether this is true, let's figure it out.

So much cultural criticism boils down to chewing on the strange result of popular genre chum--guilty pleasure stuff--being taken more seriously than it was really designed for or capable of sustaining.

Im thinking about the furors around American Dirt, Bridgerton, and WW84, which, in different ways, are all objects meant to be consumed for pleasure without thinking too much about why and how. And then you think about them and you're like "wow, this sucks."

Scads of thrillers as bad or worse than American Dirt are published constantly, and no one but their readers notices, but THIS one got lots of "serious" attention, so it was held to real literary standards and eviscerated.

Bridgerton is an adaptation of romance novels--not serious alt-history--but when claims for the progressive work it was doing were made, lots of folks were like "wow, this seems pretty silly and kinda careless?"

And the conversation around WW84 is fascinating because of the strange way "comic book movie" is simultaneously "stupid goofy fun, not supposed to make sense" and "this is an allegory for America under Trump" (doubly vexed by the "saving cinema!" role WW84 was slotted into)

.@claudiahammond introduces the panel discussion on elitism in occupational psychology with @NancyDoylePsych @TomCalvard @PavtweetKhurana and Ben Williams, former Chair of @ABPsychologists

Ben starts by taking a poll on the topic, do we feel the profession is elitist? 22% say yes, 13% say not at all. #DOPconf

Ben says if success comes to the "best" in a profession, how accessible is it? Or do factors such as network bring you to the elite? Challenging to level the playing field. #DOPconf

Turning to @PavtweetKhurana, who takes issue with "best". Who defines it, standards mapped against what? Does school define access? We can have an elite without elitism, it is exclusion that is problematic. #DOPconf

And now @NancyDoylePsych who talks about lack of disability, racial and other areas of representation in Occupational Psychology. #DOPconf

Hey, Happy New Year's Eve, I want to talk about the federal workforce 1/

Let's say in theory that a prominent retired military leader recently suggested that you could "pink slip 50% of the [defense civilian] workforce = 4x gain in productivity."

This is in no way unique, and is totally acceptable political rhetoric by public leaders.

Bashing the federal workforce as lazy, slow, pointless, non-responsive, intransigent, or even subversive is common, even successful, political commentary on a bipartisan basis.

There are many interesting things about this to me, but I'll start with an aside: do you imagine that a congressman could remark, to applause, that we should remove half the soldiers in the Army in order to experience a massive increase in military readiness? Probably not.

But back to your basic bureaucrat. I'm fascinated by understanding the origin of America's derision for the average federal worker. Because to start, it doesn't match with federal worker's view of themselves.

A mini history re: AZ Senate Seat Politics:
McCain was an AZ Senator for 31 yrs over 5 terms.
In 2015 he was primary challenged by Dr. Kelli Ward, an AZ State Senator and tea party fav.
In a surprisingly brutal primary, where McCain poured HUGE 💰 into, he won. (Did he?🤔)