A legendary tale of the dying Twitter imperium
And well, parody everywhere…
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Unsent tweets, fake tweets, true facts
Essential Foiling
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Eine illustrierte Geschichte des gsf/Helmholtz Forschungszentrums München
(in öffentlich zugänglichen Originaldokumenten)
In Neuherberg stand ein TRIGA Mark III, in Mainz bei Fritz Straßmann, dem Mitentdecker der Kernspaltung, ein TRIGA Mark II.
Das Ende der Endlagerung
4,7 Milliarden Kosten
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
How to drop your Facebook & Instagram shadow account
Even after deleting any account, shadow profiles are still there and linked to your addressbook. Here is a link to delete them (if Meta is not cheating) https://www.facebook.com/contacts/removal
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Querdenken
Es gibt bisher wenig gute Erklärungen der Querdenken Bewegung.
Warum verfallen Menschen auf bestimmte Meinungen? Und was unterscheidet sie zum Beispiel von den wahnhaften Störungen in der Psychiatrie oder aber auch von Fehlschlüssen in der Wissenschaft? Irgendwie scheint sich doch alles auf einem Kontinuum zu bewegen?
Bei dem Versuch einer Antwort folge ich dabei mehr oder weniger dem Psychiater Manfred Lütz, der auch nicht viel auf unsere psychiatrischen Diagnosen gibt, da sie nur Hilfskonstruktionen sind die nur einem Zweck dienen, nämlich Menschen medizinisch zu helfen (S.32ff)
Unbestrittenes Kennzeichen des Wahns ist jedenfalls die Unfähigkeit, die Perspektive zu wechseln. Mit dieser Definition gelingen nun auch die Unterscheidungen: So sind Psychotiker und Querdenker beide unfähig, die Perspektive zu wechseln, während das den meisten Wissenschaftlern aber möglich sein sollte.
Psychotiker leiden unter dieser Unfähigkeit (zumindest im symptomfreien Intervall) während Querdenker darüber in ihrer Gemeinschaftserfahrung Bestätigung erfahren. Die “self enforcing loops” bei der Psychose sind wohl hirnorganisch bedingt, während sie bei Querdenker eher sekundär und erlebnisreaktiv sind. Die Ideenwelt der Psychose ist kreativ, während Querdenker kaum zu neuen oder innovative Ideen in der Lage sind.
Dennoch: Querdenken sollte nicht pathologisiert werden – Labels helfen nicht, sie verstärken nur eher den Zusammenhalt der Gruppe. Mit Wegfall von Youtube und Telegram würde die Bewegung wohl in sich zusammen fallen. Da dies nicht passierte, sucht sie sich neue Ziele etwa Russland.
Im selbst gewählten Asyl ist es dann aber mit dem Gemeinschaftserlebnis vorbei, so auch bei den zwei prominentesten Ärzteaccounts diese Woche zu sehen.
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Katzenjammer II
Seltsam, was gerade auf Twitter los ist wenn wir CT Bergstrom glauben, der eine Team Email von Musk geteilt hat.
Es sieht so aus als sei Twitter nun in der Gewalt von einem reichen Mann, der einem pseudoreligiösen Mars Kult angehört – nachzulesen in dem aufschlussreichen Artikel von Dave Troy
This is a reference to “longtermism” the heavily marketed philosophy being promoted by Musk and his friend William MacAskill that asserts the only thing that matters is humanity’s future in space, and that the only goal of the living is to maximize the number of future humans alive, as well as the number of artificial intelligence instances that could possibly exist in the future. This mandate is most often used to brush aside calls for improving conditions and alleviating suffering among the living here on Earth now. Because, the theory goes, giving a poor person a blanket isn’t likely to be as useful for the future of humanity as building a rocket to Mars. Longtermism is heavily influenced by “Russian Cosmism” and is also directly adjacent to “Effective Altruism.” Musk’s stated mission, which he intends to fulfill in his lifetime, is to “make humanity a multiplanetary species.” The anti-democratic urge in longtermism is rooted in the belief that “mob rule” will lead to nuclear annihilation; we should, Musk thinks, be guided by “wiser” minds.
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
A better password manager
As I don’t like software subscription models, I never updated 1password 6 until learning yesterday about an open source alternative. And yes, KeePassXC is a perfect replacement.
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Pharma (and often also academic) research doesn’t match public health needs
There is also a review in the BMJ “Can medical product development be better aligned with global needs?”
Typically, market analyses are performed by pharmaceutical companies. These analyses lead to value propositions and business cases for developing new products based on technologies those companies have either developed, or for which they have licensed intellectual property. These analyses—together with assessments of “end-user” (patient) preferences, and assessments of regulatory pathways—drive research and development (R&D) investments. In traditional for-profit product R&D, the unmet medical need is factored in only partially, including through the end-user preferences and the company’s assessment of likely regulatory authority perspectives. In some cases, governments or multilateral agencies can be large scale procurers (i.e., they will purchase the product), and in this situation their preferences may be given more weight.
However, at present, only a small proportion of global health R&D spending (around 2%) is on the compelling medical problems faced by LMICs.
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Dall-E Showing Nuclear Power Plants and Dead Fish
Continue reading Dall-E Showing Nuclear Power Plants and Dead Fish
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Academic freedom
Peer review kann auch Wissenschaft verhindern, wie wir gestern an dem Cosmos Artikel oder vor ein paar Tagen bei eLife gesehen haben.
Und es ist ein riesiges Problem, wie ich gerade in einem weiteren Essay bei Sandra Kostner gefunden habe “Disziplinieren statt argumentieren. Zur Verhängung und Umsetzung intellektueller Lockdowns” in ApuZ 71. Jahrgang, 46/2021, 15. November 2021.
Continue reading Academic freedom
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Faded
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Peer review in peril
Cosmos has an interesting article
The list of retractions and editorial issues of concern, even from the most-respected peer-reviewed journals, swells daily, exposing the underlying problem of expecting peer review to act as the gatekeeper for scientific rectitude and rigour. This is a job for which it is woefully inadequate.
Academic peer review became an integral part of the scientific publishing process in the early 1970s and quickly became synonymous with trustworthiness – both of the journal and of the science itself…“One of the biggest issues in peer review is the lack of incentive to do a good job,” says medical researcher Dr Hannah Wardill, from the University of Adelaide. “There is no oversight and no training. People are just so thinly spread. None of these factors facilitate a robust and thorough peer-review system.”
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
COVID-19 Mortalität VIII: Hamburg reloaded
https://twitter.com/FrankfurtZack/status/1586741101322444801full thread https://archive.ph/Ewhyg
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Von Algorithmen bestimmt
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025
Too many complaints about eLife
Following the recent announcement of eLife to overcome a accept/reject decision
We have found that these public preprint reviews and assessments are far more effective than binary accept or reject decisions ever could be at conveying the thinking of our reviewers and editors, and capturing the nuanced, multidimensional, and often ambiguous nature of peer review.
there are now many complaints
Destroying eLife’s reputation for selectivity does not serve science. Changes that pretend scientists do not care about publishing in highly selective journals will end eLife’s crucial role in science publishing, says long-time supporter Paul Bieniasz
While the announcement could have come in a more polite way – creating a second tier of an eLife archive – I believe this is a good decision.The rejection attitude is basically driven that “your inferior paper would harm my journal impact” while it just goes to another journal. Publication is seldom stopped so it produces workload at other journals and for other reviewers in particular when the initial reviews are not public.
The eLife decision therefore breaks a vicious circle.
27.11.2024
Unfortunately, eLife is now starting again to reject papers. From an email that I received this month
In this case the editorial team felt that the manuscript should be reviewed by a more specialized community. Where results are principally useful within a specialised community, then it is likely that this audience can evaluate the paper themselves, so the public reviews and assessments carry less value. We also think that in these cases more specialised journals are likely to be able to find more suitable technical reviewers than eLife.
We wish you good luck in getting your work reviewed and published by another journal.
eLife is also been delisted now, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to fire Michael Eisen.
CC-BY-NC Science Surf
accessed 30.11.2025