Acidflask’s Annotated Guide to Eddie Teo’s Speech “The first mistake in public business is the going into it.” –Benjamin Franklin Former MP Siew Kum Hong tweeted recently about a speech made by the current PSC chairman Eddie Teo. One could not blame him for vigorously defending the scholarship system, considering that his is after all the chairman of an agency whose principal objective (among others) is awarding some of the most prestigious government scholarships in the land. Naturally, I disagree in the strongest possible terms with Siew Kum Hong’s characterization of Eddie Teo’s speech as “nice”. It is “nice” in the sense that for once, a public servant at Eddie Teo’s level is willing to admit to problems in the scholarship systems. Perhaps some will even see that as progress. But at its core, the speech is little more than a thinly concealed attack against those who have chosen to break ranks with their peers, which supposedly are happily ensconced in the System where they will play out long and prosperous careers. Allow me to explain how the arguments brought up in several major themes of the speech are fundamentally flawed. Bond-breakers are evil because they waste taxpayers’ money (FALSE) How could a discussion of the scholarship system leave out a discussion of the infamous political hot potato – the existence of disgruntled former scholars who have decided for one reason or another to leave? Let’s begin with paragraph 13, where Eddie Teo trots out the dead horse and promptly proceeds to beat it up: However, we still get upset with scholars who break their bond without serving even one day after they finish their studies. They have wasted the PSC’s time and effort and used taxpayers’ money upfront for their selfish purpose. Even if there is no scholarship quota, there is an opportunity cost to every taxpayer dollar spent on scholars. It bears repeating, since the dead horse is beaten so often, that this argument is demonstrably fallacious. PSC and other scholarship agencies could conceivably retain the moral high ground, if not for an inconvenient fact that is never brought up by Eddie Teo and the like: Bond breakers must pay liquidated damages, at an artificially high interest rate. (e.g. 10% for PSC) PSC bills its bond breakers a detailed and itemized expense sheet, including: All tuition and fees, Scholarship allowances for room and board, The cost of third-party programs that the scholar participated in, such as the Outward Bound School programs The cost of mandatory programs participated by the scholar, such as the Overseas Scholars Midcourse Programme (OSMP)  Incidentally, OSMP costs on the order of $1000, for the privilege of listening to senior civil servants ramble on about what they do. Travel allowances Warm clothing allowance Computer allowance The cost of incidental benefits, such as a subscription to the International Edition of the Straits Times, when it existed A 10% compounded interest rate, just for kicks A prorated discount, which depends on how long the bond breaker had worked prior to breaking bond. Scholars who break bond before they even begin Day 1, of course, must cough up the full amount. Some other scholarship agencies even go so far as to charge a fee for administering the scholarship program! In short, PSC and the like spare no effort in recuperating every cent spent on scholars who break bond, even to the extent of billing bond breakers for petty incidentals like newspaper subscriptions. The only conceivable area open for quibbling is whether or not the artificially high interest rate is sufficient to cover the opportunity cost of not having the monies spent on the scholar from day one until the day the liquidated damages are paid up. Anyone who still believes that bond breakers are black holes of wasted tax dollars deserves to be bludgeoned repeatedly until they admit to these facts. Note also the blanketing remark that bond breakers do so only “for their selfish purpose” (sic). Apparently there can be no acceptable situation for a scholar to break bond, and no other acceptable response than to “get upset”. Suffice to say, my own experience stands in direct contrast to this outright defamatory lie. Bond-breakers are evil, but rare (O RLY?) In the same paragraph 13, Eddie Teo quotes a fascinating statistic: If those who are unsuitable for the public service break bond, we should be disappointed that we failed to sieve them out earlier, but we should not be unhappy. However, we still get upset with scholars who break their bond without serving even one day after they finish their studies… In the period 1999 to 2008, there were 9 such PSC scholars out of a total of 791 scholarship holders recruited. Although this is a low attrition rate of 1%, we would like to see it go down to as close to zero as possible. Wow, only a 1% Type I error rate! Clearly the goverment has done their best to weed out potential misfits and discontents! Or have they? Let’s look more closely at that section, which ends with paragraph 14: There are also some scholars who finish their bond and leave for positive reasons. Some scholars move on because they want a change in career. Nothing wrong with that especially if they stay in Singapore or contribute to Singapore in other ways. Others want to care for their young children. As a family-friendly nation, we should applaud such a motive. A few get invited to tea and become politicians. Others go on to become successful entrepreneurs and managers in the corporate world. And if they stay in Singapore or work in Singapore firms overseas, they can still make a contribution to Singapore. So far so good. The natural conclusion from this section is that Eddie Teo has neatly outlined a clean dichotomy of scholars who leave the civil service: Eddie Teo’s classification of quitters GOOD (??? of 791): Those who finish their bond as contractually agreed upon, then leave the civil service – Not bond-breakers. Lots of good reaons for doing so. Now run along, kiddos. EVIL (9 of 791): Those who do don’t serve a single day of their bond and leave the civil service – Bond-breakers. Thankfully, only 1% of the apples rot. Ladies and gentlemen, we are looking at an excellent specimen of the common logical fallacy – the false dichotomy! And here is the missing middle, the case that was glibly elided over: DISAPPOINTING (??? of 791) – Those who serve part of their bond, but not all of it, before they leave the civil service. That such people exist are not in doubt – the speech begins with such a case. I know a couple myself. And yet, this particular category of bond breakers is completely excluded from the section of the speech entitled “Bond Breaking & Attrition”. Not even the most astute and attentive audience member could have been expected to remember that this case was alluded to ten paragraphs prior! (Revision: Thanks to Agagooga, who pointed out that this category of scholars is discussed at some length as “attrition”. D’oh! Nevertheless the omission of corresponding statistics is very telling. Once could perhaps think it was inappropriate to bring up in the context of where the speech was delivered, but since the subject matter is already quite well exposited at this point, the lack of attrition statistics stands in stark contrast to an explicit enumeration of the number of “evil” bond-breakers.) And tellingly, no statistics are presented of how many scholars break bond partway through their bonds. The omission cannot be ignored. And given how there are certainly more than nine such bond breakers, the true statistic must be a far more telling indicator for the true success of the scholarship system than the 9/791 number quoted. And in all likelihood, the number of partway bond breakers is far higher than that. Quitters are evil, and I will bash the one who got me started It is, again, the old yarn about how quitters are evil. And yet we have already seen how the primary argument stacked against bond breakers fails to stand up to scrutiny. Undaunted, the condemnation proceeds with a thin veneer of civility – that which lies below amounts to a scathing ad hominem attack on a bond breaker. Quoting paragraph 3 (emphases mine): I disagree with her overall sentiments but I agree with her on one point. She should never have been selected for teaching. PSC should not have awarded her a teaching scholarship when she showed no interest in, or passion for, teaching. She said she had no idea what she wanted in life at 19 and university overseas was a mind-blowing experience that exposed her to the endless opportunities she could have seized instead. But what was revealing was the nature of her complaints. She did not write anything about her experience in teaching. She did not say that teaching gave her no joy and that she could not empathize with or care for the students  she taught. Instead, she gave a vague hint of her dismay with office politics and her disagreement with unspecified government policies. I can understand why she chose to cite the latter rather than the former as reasons for her quitting teaching. Look at the tenuous chain of logic here. I shall point out a particular dissection of the subtext here in what I have underlined. Said bond-breaker, being interviewed for a scholarship at 19, has no idea what she wants in life. PSC awards her teaching scholarship, which she ultimately rejects. Reasons for rejection: a) realizing what she likes in life, and how being a teaching scholar is not one of them, b) nebulous unhappiness about government policies and her colleagues/superiors. Oh look, she didn’t say anything about how she enjoyed or hated the act of teaching. Therefore she must hate teaching. Therefore PSC was wrong in awarding her the teaching scholarship. Notice the logic here: The speaker has already acknowledged that the subject had made no comment about teaching, only her vague unhappiness with her experience about being a teacher. This in itself is sufficient to conclude that the subject should not have been awarded a fast track to a teaching career in the first place. This is clearly a mysterious leap to an unjustified conclusion. Evidence as to whether or not she was actually a good and successful teacher – student feedback, principal’s evaluations, etc. – is apparently not necessary to justify such a deduction! Isn’t that the whole damn point of giving her a teaching scholarship – for her to do her work as a good teacher?? In reality, this reasoning is nothing more than a fallacy of relevance – the argument has nothing to do with the premise. In the light of such woolly reasoning, the only reasonable diagnosis is that this paragraph is ultimately little more than an ad hominem attack of the subject. The practice of divination The only point of any substance whatsoever in Paragraph 3 is an admission of failure, in a sense – that the criteria for evaluating and selecting scholarship candidates failed to weed out a potential turncoat. Given that the scholar herself, by her own admission, “had no idea what she wanted in life at 19″ when she was being interviewed, nothing short of outright divination above and beyond the subject’s own conscious awareness would have been successful. Long-time readers, of course, will immediately recognize that the fallacy in assuming that such divination is possible was discussed at length in Michael Young’s dystopian novel The Rise of the Meritocracy. In the seminal novel that coined the very term ‘meritocracy’, Lord Young speculated on the inevitability that using IQ tests and the like to predict the future success of any given being would ultimately lead to an increasingly more pure and distilled ruling élite that became ever more disconnected with reality, obsessing instead over the ability to measure IQ and the social consequences thereof. Young concludes that basing a social order on merit must necessarily lead to an obsession over the process of measuring a person’s merit to the exclusion of more pressing social issues, in particular the deepening of class inequity. Some may feel that Young is being too extreme, and cling to a reified notion of meritocracy as it is meant to be in today’s vernacular. Economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen certainly thought so too, complaining that meritocracy in practice is too prone to hagiography and an excuse to justify the status quo. And since a quick trawl through my blog archives will bring up the long posts that I have written on this topic, concluding that Young was right after all, I shall say no more. Certainly one of the core assumptions of the scholarship system, that it is possible to extrapolate potential for future success from some rather arbitrary metrics determined at the age of 18 or 19, seems like a tall order, and is made even more so by the stronger claim that the System knows better than the individual what’s best. Daddy knows best. Now sit down and shut up. And therein lies the rub: how many people do know what they want in life at 19? And of those who do, how many of them change their minds going from 19 to 29, given that many people gain a deeper level of self-realization and maturity in exactly this period of life? There is even evidence that PSC itself recognizes that scholars may lack the necessary maturity going into their studies. Why else would there be a demand (or at least, there was a demand) that scholars sign an affidavit stating that getting married during their periods of study will not significantly affect their academic results? I mean, how would you even enforce such an affidavit – how could you prove it? How would you even devise a study to test if such a phenomenon existed? You’d have a hard time getting that proposal past an IRB. The only sensible rationalization of this state of affairs is that scholarships agencies, like the rest of the civil service, persist in patronizing their scholars by mollycoddling them behind rationalizations that whatever happens to them, it is all in their own best interests. Such excuses amount to little more than the worst in “Daddy knows best” paternalism. A good example of where this is most transparent can be found in paragraphs 16 and 17: My sampling of the views of the younger officers suggest to me that they yearn for better communication from the top on crucial matters such as their next posting. They say they will accept unpopular postings better if they are given a hearing and it is explained to them how the job fits into their career development and what they can learn from it. However, Lim Siong Guan, the former Head of Civil Service, had what I thought was a good rebuttal for scholars who griped about their postings. He used to tell them that going wherever the Public Service decided to send them was the best way to develop themselves. If they were to choose their postings, many would never get out of their comfort zone and so would not grow. The supposed response to scholars desiring information about their career trajectories in reality does not address the fundamental issue. Whereas in virtually all comparable alternative private sector jobs, where curiosity about one’s future is natural, even expected, and a demand to have an ever-greater say in one’s future is seen as a healthy augur of strong leadership qualities, the highest echelons of the Civil Service persist in actively suppressing such queries and requests. Could you imagine a vice president of a large company whom, after years of work at the helm, to be absolutely ignorant of what he or she wants in the next 5 or 10 years, and have no roadmap for attaining such goals? Would you pick such a vice president to be the next CEO? Why should anyone not be told what one would be doing next? And how can we expect our future leaders to lead and manage large swathes of people if they cannot control their own careers? Again, there are few reasonable rationalizing conclusions to draw from such statements. The most charitable, perhaps, is that such advice as Lim Siong Guan’s is a balm for soothing over a rough patch. But here is a more plausible thesis:  the Civil Service knows best, so sit down and shut up. In this, scholars are treated no differently from other private citizens who resent the patronizing and paternalistic treatment that us Singaporeans have come to expect from our Government. Not all fast tracks run at the same speed The absurdity of analogous situations in the private sector forms compelling evidence that something is not quite right with suppressing scholars’ desires to steer their own careers. Despite this, the public sectors feels otherwise. Eddie Teo even goes so far to point out that some scholars nurse “unrealistic expectations… about their jobs in the public service” (para. 5). In fact, that such attitudes are not seen as encouraging signs, but rather, can be seen in paragraphs 30 and 31: Most of the current generation of young scholars are responsible and dedicated, but a few have a poor attitude and misplaced expectations. Some are very choosy about their postings and tend to place their personal interest above organizational interest… Why should the Public Service be worried that some scholars are like this? First, if our scholars seek to advance only their self-interest, it indicates that they may be unable to work in a team… The problem is not yet so widespread that it cannot be rolled back. There is still time for the Public Service to correct the trend. There are some very valid points in these paragraphs (in the unquoted segments), namely that it is desirable for scholars to have a diverse portfolio of experiences. Such a policy is not without its merits, and has its analogues in the private sector. (Examples like McKinsey’s program for new management consultants come to mind.) Also, scholars should recognize that the needs of the public sector can at times conflict with their individual desires. Nevertheless, this is unrelated from the subtext in these paragraphs, namely that there are scholars who want a say in how their careers are run, and within this group, there are some scholars who are perceived in being “very choosy” and having “a poor attitude and misplaced expectations”. Whether or not such impressions are justified can only be decided on an individual basis, but it certainly points toward a general negative evaluation of scholars who exhibit such wants. It should also be noted that not all scholars are on the same fast track. It is well known that the prestige of scholarships, and the relative rankings of the various government scholarships, is strongly correlated with the perceived speed of ascent up the civil service hierarchy. PSC gives out two tiers of scholarships, the Overseas Merit Scholarship and the Singapore Government Scholarship, which are functionally identical in virtually all respects. The only reasonable justification for giving out two practically identical scholarships is that one must be somehow pegged to a higher rank than the other, with its scholars earmarked for bigger and better things. Whether or not this is actually true, alas, I have no hard data for, but it certainly corroborates with the widely held views amongst scholars about the differences in ranking. But really, the stronger evidence that not all scholars are created equal can be seen in the very existence of the Management Associates’ Programme, within which willing hand-picked scholars are singled out for more extensive nurturing. Such Management Associates (scholars participating in this program) are often recruited into the prestigious Administrative Service, an overtly élite group of bureaucrats. One has to ask: given the extensive selection process of filtering through the various levels of school examinations, then scholarship interviews, and finally earmarking for such special programs, is it then human and inevitable that scholars who are inducted into such programs develop an attitude that they must be oh-so-special? Having been told through life that one was destined to be “the country’s future leaders” , is it perhaps possible? And does not the existence of the MAP create a side effect of resentment among those who were not selected to participate, those who faltered somehow at the very last hurdle toward being the crème de la crème of government scholars and public servants? Can such systemic issues ever be resolved, or are they inevitable byproducts of the rareifying distillation process that, ultimately, oestensibly, exists to serve the country’s Greater Good? References Eddie Teo, Defending Scholarships, not Scholars, PSC Press Release, 2009-10-31. Scholars with poor attitude, Straits Times, 2009-11-04. Postscript – let’s learn to behave at the level of a ten-year-old Paragraph 29 is too hilarious to not point out. In the section entitled “Recollections of Older Scholars”, one of the learning examples is this following gem: Another recalls how she had to do many things herself – photocopying papers for meetings, receiving and serving visitors and taking lots of minutes during meetings, sometimes as many as three sets a day. She had to be very nice to the typists in the Typing Pool in order to ensure that her work did not end up at the bottom of the pile. Note that the last sentence falls neatly into Kohlberg’s taxonomy of moral development. Specifically, it is the second stage of six, a stage usually attributed to preteens from ten to twelve. Early teenagers as young as thirteen typically demonstrate abilities to reason morally at a higher stage than that. The irony of Eddie Teo exhorting an example that in reality shows moral reasoning that is no better than that of a ten-year-old really ought not be missed. I think it speaks volumes about the going level of moral sophistication amongst our higher echelons of public servants. Is Singapore’s imports of non-residents hurting its economy? One of my friends recently posted on Facebook the following message: Singapore’s population will soon cross the 5 million mark. I might be wrong, but it feels like our population is growing at a faster rate (3.1% over 2008) than our GDP … It was easy enough to check on the ever-insightful Statistics Singapore (SingStat) website that indeed, our GDP fell by an annualized rate1 of 6.4% in the first half of 2009, while the population increased by 3.1%, resulting in a net fall of GDP per person2 of 9.7%. That’s a pretty scary number by itself, but it got me wondering how Singapore’s recent economic woes were exacerbated by its relentless importation of foreign workers. SingStats saves the day, as usual. First, here’s a breakdown of Singapore’s population by resident vs nonresident status, since 1980: Next, GDP(PPP)3 per person as a function of total population. [Edit: In these time series graphs, one data point represents one year, from 1980 to 2009 (inclusive). The GDP data point for 2009 was extrapolated as described above.] Now the kickers: GDP(PPP) per person as a function, first of the number of residents: then as a function of the number of non-residents: and finally as a percentage of non-residents. The range of the horizontal axis may shock you. Draw what conclusions you like from the data. Just remember: Correlation is not causation. Play with the Google spreadsheet here. Annualized from Q1 and Q2Per person, as opposed to per capita, because I didn’t want to deal with the mess of calculating the number of economically productive citizensPurchasing power parity calculation estimated as GDP(PPP) = GDP(nominal) * 100 / CPI. Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-23 Graffiti outside MFA http://mypict.me/mryU # Extremely disturbing kimono from 1936 in MFA gallery http://mypict.me/msww # #fail #crab in mfa http://mypict.me/msGh # @b_catenin "The Japs have dynasties, like Myojo. [Me: that's the mee] Oh, then must be Meiji. See this is how I study Japanese history." # Just watched #ndrsg on youtube. Great slideshow and retrospective! But tough issues remain unaddressed. Also, who REALLY deserves credits?! # As suspected, #mbta clock is five mins slow. # Eight-year-olds reciting Latin in affected tones is somehow charming. #northend fishermen's feast http://myloc.me/mA6N # @kulturbrille problem with that Pov is: when Will it be time? 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Who won the election in the first place? # My share of the cape Ann community share fishery is HUGE- it's poking out of my 5qt cooler. Sole and monkfish FTW http://myloc.me/npA0 # This week's veggies yellow carrots green tomatoes peppers arugula zucchini # Every single bus I've taken today has come 20+ minutes late. #mbta #fail # RT @CheapTweet Get a 11"x14" poster for FREE + $1.99 shipping from Walgreens – order by the end of today! http://cheaptweet.com/t/1jx1rk5 # crate & barrel's picnic basket is fugly http://bit.ly/5zh3X # Just added myself to the http://wefollow.com twitter directory under: #singapore #academia #science # @Tetanus better than a can't-look-good kind of mood. :0 # apparently all ethnic malays in malaysia are legally defined as muslims. how about singapore? are all malays muslims or apostates? # "Owing to the lack of vampires, we used leeches instead." How does junk like this get published?! -__- http://bit.ly/3FT7xA # Mark/Space tech support guy writes back to suggest that I run his shell script. It deletes my data. My opinion of Missing Sync is tanking. # Besides, I tried archiving (instead of deleting) the files he wanted me to delete. That didn't help. Idiot. # gopalan nair summarizes the national day rally HAHAHA #ndr09 http://bit.ly/EWLQn http://bit.ly/MH70o # now that everyone's had fun with the math of zombie attacks, here's a statistical analysis of how to pick a spouse. http://bit.ly/ui9D2 # former a*star researcher, phd in biochemistry from stanford (1990), turned taxi driver makes the singapore news http://bit.ly/XdMy2 # dear ST: the plural of 'curriculum vitae' is 'curricula vitae' or 'curricula vitarum', NOT 'curriculum vitaes'. #fail http://bit.ly/XdMy2 # Newly blogged: Who is Dr. Cai Mingjie?: Many people by now have discovered A Singapore Taxi Driver.. http://bit.ly/w2iIc # @yjsoon did you not read The Andromeda Strain? dude. @b_catenin in reply to yjsoon # sitting down to lunch of spaghetti alla prego tomato sauce, carrot greens, chicken nuggets, cubed tofu and mozzarella sticks. # somewhere an italian grandmother must be spinning in her grave. # @yjsoon an awesome prank to play on your batchmates. send out anonymous cards that say "congratulations, you made it!" on 4/1/2010 in reply to yjsoon # "But if Einstein became a cab driver instead of working on the theory of relativity, there would not be Singapore." *fp* http://bit.ly/8HjuZ # @yjsoon sorry, planning to go native. :p in reply to yjsoon # @yjsoon i've already mastered teh fahrenheights, and bought numerous potatoe's in reply to yjsoon # @struthious they are good for the occasional laugh-out-loud gem like the broken causality one in reply to struthious # @struthious oh that's the one I tweeted in reply to struthious # I'm always amazed at how Indians can be SO oblivious; couple w pram happily blocked the main subway entrance while waiting for bus. #fail # is excited about tonight's Star Trek and Star Wars symphonies being performed! http://bit.ly/Ft28B # how do you manage a flu pandemi? learn how by playing the game http://thegreatflu.com # ZOMG What am I going to do with my Cape Ann Fishery half share this week? It's 2.06 kg / 4.5 lb of fish. Hake? http://skitch.com/t/i11 # @BoraZ lol "clew" in reply to BoraZ # dear oh dear… http://bit.ly/6jgkN # see comment #15 http://bit.ly/1187g1 : how many things make you go OMG THAT'S SO TRUE? # @BoraZ as opposed to now, when many are merely, literally critical. :p in reply to BoraZ # @AIP_Publishing the new Journal of Chemical Physics search box is terrible. The "Find an Article" option should be the default!!! # @jaredbrubaker I just came from a shopping trip there. :p in reply to jaredbrubaker # Watch this robot in Nagoya make ramen in 1 min 40 sec. Da-amn… http://bit.ly/vAga0 # Newly blogged: Douglas Prasher, potential Nobel laureate turned vehicle driver: Ju.. http://bit.ly/JnFf3 # how fat are the sg internet pipes? not that big, really. http://bit.ly/cWH6J (from http://bit.ly/1531vT) omg .sg – .za connection! # omg russell peters on twitter! @therealrussellp # how on earth did this switch get labeled 'smallpox'? http://bit.ly/bBahb language log has the answer http://bit.ly/HtLix # lifehacker's advice for how to stock up a bar – basics and specifics for parties (awesome!) http://lifehacker.com/5337547/ # quick intro to matrix norms http://bit.ly/qLIFy # HT @PolymerPhD Marinades, garlic and onion can reduce carcinogen formation in BBQ by 88% (!!) http://bit.ly/11xlfA # Why does salty food go so well with beer? A: salt suppresses bitter tastes http://bit.ly/11xlfA # my boss commutes by skateboard. my own transport options are much more… pedestrian. :p # Powered by Twitter Tools Douglas Prasher, potential Nobel laureate turned vehicle driver Just a quick note to pass along a story posted at random thoughts in a faraway land. It’s the story of Douglas Prasher, the biochemist who isolated the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene for which the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded. Not too long after isolating the GFP gene, Prasher eventually left science and academia to work at a car dealer. Prasher comments on his near-miss at the Nobel Prize in Science, despite his essential role at developing what has today become a staple tool of just about every life scientist. (First seen posted as a comment at FreshBrainz.) Douglas Prasher, potential Nobel laureate turned vehicle driver Just a quick note to pass along a story posted at random thoughts in a faraway land. It’s the story of Douglas Prasher, the biochemist who isolated the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene for which the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded. Not too long after isolating the GFP gene, Prasher eventually left science and academia to work at a car dealer. Prasher comments on his near-miss at the Nobel Prize in Science, despite his essential role at developing what has today become a staple tool of just about every life scientist. (First seen posted as a comment at FreshBrainz.) Who is Dr. Cai Mingjie? Many people by now have discovered A Singapore Taxi Driver’s Diary, a blog oestensibly written by a Stanford PhD holder and former A*STAR researcher, now retrenched and self-employed as a taxi-driver. The blogger’s name is Cai Mingjie, and his blog currently begins with this poignant headline: Probably the only taxi driver in this world with a PhD from Stanford and a proven track record of scientific accomplishments, I have been forced out of my research job at the height of my scientific career, and unable to find another one, for reasons I can only describe as something “uniquely Singapore”. As a result, I am driving taxi to make a living and writing these real life stories just to make the dull job a little more interesting. I hope that these stories are interesting to you too. A lot of people have asked: What’s up with his story? Is he for real? It’s not always easy for laypeople to understand the sometimes arcane aspects of the scientific world. With that in mind, here’s some facts I have collected, along with some comments that might help put them into context: 1. The Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) existed before the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) did, which was only founded in 2001: IMCB was founded in 1987. IMCB, along with several other institutes, were co-opted into the A*STAR as an “autonomous research institute” around the time A*STAR was founded. In contrast, Dr. Cai supposedly started working there 16 years ago from now, i.e. in 1993. This brings me to: 2. There is indeed a Cai Mingjie who has a documented existence in the scientific literature, and he has published several times as documented by databases of scientific publications such as the ISI Web of Science. a) Two papers dated June 1989 and May 1990 are listed as authored by a Cai MJ from Stanford University’s Department of Biochemistry and co-authored two well-received papers by Prof. Ronald W. Davis, presumably his PhD advisor. The earlier paper was cited at least 66 times, and the later paper was published in the prestigious journal Cell and has been cited 249 times; these papers are pretty influential. b) Starting from 1995, 14 papers from a Cai MJ from IMCB are documented on Web of Science. Let’s tally the papers from 1993, the year the supposed Dr. Cai started work at IMCB. 1993: 0 1994: 0 1995: 1 1996: 1 1997: 2 1998: 0 1999: 2 2000: 1 2001: 1 2002: 0 2003: 1 2004: 0 2005: 1 2006: 0 2007: 1 2008: 0 2009: 2 Yes, that was not a typo. His remaining colleagues are still publishing work done together with Dr. Cai, who is the corresponding author of both 2009 papers and still lists IMCB as his affiliation on these papers. This does not necessarily mean that he is still employed at IMCB, as it is customary to declare the affiliation with the institution at which the work was done, not necessarily where the author is now. Usually authors choose to list past and present affiliations, although in this case the lack of a second affiliation is hardly surpising. 3. A Dr. Cai Mingjie appears several times on IMCB’s website. a) In this November 2007 press release, Dr. Cai is listed prominently as the last author of the two featured scientific publications. The fact that he is the last author in sequence is significant in many scientific disciplines, as it is typically reserved for the Principal Investigator, who is usually the most senior or most powerful researcher involved in the work reported. The publication’s abstract lists his affiliation as IMCB Singapore. However, note that Dr. Cai is promiscuously absent in the title photo. Note that the Dr. Cai on the blog claims that he was informed of his being fired some time in 2007. b) An A/Prof Cai is listed in the program of the 1st A*STAR Postdoctoral Symposium in 2004. It is not unusual for researchers at a research institute to also hold professorial appointments at nearby universities. Draw your conclusions as you wish, but to me, the facts seem pretty clear: Dr. Cai does exist, and has a well-documented history as a biochemist from the years 1989 to 2009. There is at best circumstantial evidence to suggest that he had a falling out with IMCB sometime in 2007, but hardly anything definitive at this point. So why was Dr. Cai “forced out” of IMCB “for reasons [he] can only describe as something “uniquely Singapore”"? And why is Dr. Cai having trouble finding another R&D job, if not in Singapore, then abroad? His own words strongly suggest some influence of internal politics. However, the above facts also suggest other facets to his current predicament. I have blogged before about A*STAR’s strong emphasis on metrics of scientific output, which I have always maintained as missing the forest for the trees. As highlighted prominently in the Johns Hopkins University debacle of 2006, A*STAR focuses strongly (if not exclusively) on measurable quantities such as the number of publications generated or number of patents successfully filed, as all supposedly ways to measure and justify their return on investment. With that in mind, it becomes a damning fact that Dr. Cai only has 14 publications to his name since joining the IMCB 16 years ago. Going only by that criterion of quantity, publishing less than one paper a year makes for a truly unimpressive publication record. But just about every practicing scientist knows that despite the current pressure to publish or perish, science and research isn’t (entirely) about churning out more and more papers, and the number of papers that can attributed to one’s name is not necessarily a good measure of a scientist’s productivity. At the very least, one should take a more qualitative assessment of the quality of the work – one that I, as a non-biochemist, am not really qualified to make. I can’t really tell if Dr. Cai sat on his bum for 16 years doing very little, or if he was doing good work in an environment that insulated him well from the more contemporary pressure to publish. However, I will point out that Cai had had a good run as a graduate student, which at least suggests at the very least, at some point in his scientific career, that he was capable of doing good science. His papers prior to 2004 were also well-cited, so even going just on these two counts, it seems unlikely that the “Dr. Cai was a bum whose time was coming” theory is true. So why is Dr. Cai having trouble finding another R&D job? The R&D market isn’t so hot these days. The bad economy means not many firms are hiring professional scientists. Academia isn’t much of a help – there’s a long history of too many PhDs chasing too few jobs. It doesn’t help that many people get a feeling for rampant ageism in the R&D job market too. Dr. Cai, having received his PhD in 1990 or so, is probably in his mid-forties by now, which in any industry is a particularly challenging time to find work. Dr. Cai now writes engaging stories of his experiences as a taxi driver. However, for someone like me, his experience spells a clear cautionary tale for anyone interested in a R&D career, let alone anyone interested in an R&D career in Singapore and A*STAR. Update: Thanks to Fox who points out that Dr. Cai is in today’s edition of the Straits Times., which not only confirms that Dr. Cai is for real, but also has a few more details: [Dr. Cai] joined IMCB two years later [in 1992-3] and worked as a principal investigator in the field of cell genetics up till his departure. A spokesman for A*Star, meanwhile, said renewal of all its researchers’ contracts is based on a number of factors, including the time taken to train PhD students, their performance and their contributions to the research institutes and the agency in general. Dr Cai’s work, like that of all A*Star researchers, was assessed by an external Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), which recommended his contract be terminated. This leds further credence to the “you don’t have enough papers, so you’re fired” theory. Not that this necessarily excludes other possibilities, like internal politics or IMCB deciding that having a yeast geneticist like Dr Cai around was no longer in line with its long-term plans (after all, it doesn’t offer tenure). But there you have it. Update 2: After a long discussion with an A*STAR scholar-friend of mine (yes, shock! horror! I do have friends in A*STAR!), I think it’s worth clarifying that a lot of this post has to do with Dr. Cai’s publication record. This is not because I think it was necessarily the deciding factor in his leaving, but it is something I have data on, and hence something to comment on. However, A*STAR’s track record on placing a lot of emphasis on the quantity of publications (and variant metrics like quantity weighted by impact factors) does not rule out the possibility of Dr. Cai getting fired over his less-than-stellar publication record. Again there are many other plausible factors at work here, which (at least for now) cannot be ruled out, nor can they be used to evaluate many other plausible scenarios. Useless bum who deserved what’s coming? Good scientist insulated for too long against the relentless pressure of modern science to publish or perish? Well-intentioned researcher who allowed years of lax oversight to get the better of him? Who knows… Who is Dr. Cai Mingjie? Many people by now have discovered A Singapore Taxi Driver’s Diary, a blog oestensibly written by a Stanford PhD holder and former A*STAR researcher, now retrenched and self-employed as a taxi-driver. The blogger’s name is Cai Mingjie, and his blog currently begins with this poignant headline: Probably the only taxi driver in this world with a PhD from Stanford and a proven track record of scientific accomplishments, I have been forced out of my research job at the height of my scientific career, and unable to find another one, for reasons I can only describe as something “uniquely Singapore”. As a result, I am driving taxi to make a living and writing these real life stories just to make the dull job a little more interesting. I hope that these stories are interesting to you too. A lot of people have asked: What’s up with his story? Is he for real? It’s not always easy for laypeople to understand the sometimes arcane aspects of the scientific world. With that in mind, here’s some facts I have collected, along with some comments that might help put them into context: 1. The Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) existed before the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) did, which was only founded in 2001: IMCB was founded in 1987. IMCB, along with several other institutes, were co-opted into the A*STAR as an “autonomous research institute” around the time A*STAR was founded. In contrast, Dr. Cai supposedly started working there 16 years ago from now, i.e. in 1993. This brings me to: 2. There is indeed a Cai Mingjie who has a documented existence in the scientific literature, and he has published several times as documented by databases of scientific publications such as the ISI Web of Science. a) Two papers dated June 1989 and May 1990 are listed as authored by a Cai MJ from Stanford University’s Department of Biochemistry and co-authored two well-received papers by Prof. Ronald W. Davis, presumably his PhD advisor. The earlier paper was cited at least 66 times, and the later paper was published in the prestigious journal Cell and has been cited 249 times; these papers are pretty influential. b) Starting from 1995, 14 papers from a Cai MJ from IMCB are documented on Web of Science. Let’s tally the papers from 1993, the year the supposed Dr. Cai started work at IMCB. 1993: 0 1994: 0 1995: 1 1996: 1 1997: 2 1998: 0 1999: 2 2000: 1 2001: 1 2002: 0 2003: 1 2004: 0 2005: 1 2006: 0 2007: 1 2008: 0 2009: 2 Yes, that was not a typo. His remaining colleagues are still publishing work done together with Dr. Cai, who is the corresponding author of both 2009 papers and still lists IMCB as his affiliation on these papers. This does not necessarily mean that he is still employed at IMCB, as it is customary to declare the affiliation with the institution at which the work was done, not necessarily where the author is now. Usually authors choose to list past and present affiliations, although in this case the lack of a second affiliation is hardly surpising. 3. A Dr. Cai Mingjie appears several times on IMCB’s website. a) In this November 2007 press release, Dr. Cai is listed prominently as the last author of the two featured scientific publications. The fact that he is the last author in sequence is significant in many scientific disciplines, as it is typically reserved for the Principal Investigator, who is usually the most senior or most powerful researcher involved in the work reported. The publication’s abstract lists his affiliation as IMCB Singapore. However, note that Dr. Cai is promiscuously absent in the title photo. Note that the Dr. Cai on the blog claims that he was informed of his being fired some time in 2007. b) An A/Prof Cai is listed in the program of the 1st A*STAR Postdoctoral Symposium in 2004. It is not unusual for researchers at a research institute to also hold professorial appointments at nearby universities. Draw your conclusions as you wish, but to me, the facts seem pretty clear: Dr. Cai does exist, and has a well-documented history as a biochemist from the years 1989 to 2009. There is at best circumstantial evidence to suggest that he had a falling out with IMCB sometime in 2007, but hardly anything definitive at this point. So why was Dr. Cai “forced out” of IMCB “for reasons [he] can only describe as something “uniquely Singapore”"? And why is Dr. Cai having trouble finding another R&D job, if not in Singapore, then abroad? His own words strongly suggest some influence of internal politics. However, the above facts also suggest other facets to his current predicament. I have blogged before about A*STAR’s strong emphasis on metrics of scientific output, which I have always maintained as missing the forest for the trees. As highlighted prominently in the Johns Hopkins University debacle of 2006, A*STAR focuses strongly (if not exclusively) on measurable quantities such as the number of publications generated or number of patents successfully filed, as all supposedly ways to measure and justify their return on investment. With that in mind, it becomes a damning fact that Dr. Cai only has 14 publications to his name since joining the IMCB 16 years ago. Going only by that criterion of quantity, publishing less than one paper a year makes for a truly unimpressive publication record. But just about every practicing scientist knows that despite the current pressure to publish or perish, science and research isn’t (entirely) about churning out more and more papers, and the number of papers that can attributed to one’s name is not necessarily a good measure of a scientist’s productivity. At the very least, one should take a more qualitative assessment of the quality of the work – one that I, as a non-biochemist, am not really qualified to make. I can’t really tell if Dr. Cai sat on his bum for 16 years doing very little, or if he was doing good work in an environment that insulated him well from the more contemporary pressure to publish. However, I will point out that Cai had had a good run as a graduate student, which at least suggests at the very least, at some point in his scientific career, that he was capable of doing good science. His papers prior to 2004 were also well-cited, so even going just on these two counts, it seems unlikely that the “Dr. Cai was a bum whose time was coming” theory is true. So why is Dr. Cai having trouble finding another R&D job? The R&D market isn’t so hot these days. The bad economy means not many firms are hiring professional scientists. Academia isn’t much of a help – there’s a long history of too many PhDs chasing too few jobs. It doesn’t help that many people get a feeling for rampant ageism in the R&D job market too. Dr. Cai, having received his PhD in 1990 or so, is probably in his mid-forties by now, which in any industry is a particularly challenging time to find work. Dr. Cai now writes engaging stories of his experiences as a taxi driver. However, for someone like me, his experience spells a clear cautionary tale for anyone interested in a R&D career, let alone anyone interested in an R&D career in Singapore and A*STAR. Update: Thanks to Fox who points out that Dr. Cai is in today’s edition of the Straits Times., which not only confirms that Dr. Cai is for real, but also has a few more details: [Dr. Cai] joined IMCB two years later [in 1992-3] and worked as a principal investigator in the field of cell genetics up till his departure. A spokesman for A*Star, meanwhile, said renewal of all its researchers’ contracts is based on a number of factors, including the time taken to train PhD students, their performance and their contributions to the research institutes and the agency in general. Dr Cai’s work, like that of all A*Star researchers, was assessed by an external Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), which recommended his contract be terminated. This leds further credence to the “you don’t have enough papers, so you’re fired” theory. Not that this necessarily excludes other possibilities, like internal politics or IMCB deciding that having a yeast geneticist like Dr Cai around was no longer in line with its long-term plans (after all, it doesn’t offer tenure). But there you have it. Update 2: After a long discussion with an A*STAR scholar-friend of mine (yes, shock! horror! I do have friends in A*STAR!), I think it’s worth clarifying that a lot of this post has to do with Dr. Cai’s publication record. This is not because I think it was necessarily the deciding factor in his leaving, but it is something I have data on, and hence something to comment on. However, A*STAR’s track record on placing a lot of emphasis on the quantity of publications (and variant metrics like quantity weighted by impact factors) does not rule out the possibility of Dr. Cai getting fired over his less-than-stellar publication record. Again there are many other plausible factors at work here, which (at least for now) cannot be ruled out, nor can they be used to evaluate many other plausible scenarios. Useless bum who deserved what’s coming? Good scientist insulated for too long against the relentless pressure of modern science to publish or perish? Well-intentioned researcher who allowed years of lax oversight to get the better of him? Who knows… Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-16 Drunk men in suits are swinging from the subway train's standing handles, forming a human collision ball apparatus. # Post cereal on sale. With coupon: doubleplus good! # baked potato with caramelized onions. yum. # tr.im dies. # was upset for 3 minutes that MacOSX doesn't have seq. Then I found jot. # macosx 10.508 is out # RT @BoraZ: FriendFeed acquisition by Facebook is official: http://tinyurl.com/m4hvd6 # LOL Scary Go Round! http://bit.ly/2bVeEz # unemployed japanese woman, 58, found living in closet of unemployed japanese man, 57. http://bit.ly/hzAP # Attention, captain! Alien starship approaching… A really bizarre-looking charge oscillation in pentacene. http://skitch.com/t/ieb # Who wants a polyacene hot dog? http://skitch.com/t/ien # @b_catenin: "ship phasers don't go Piu piu piu, they are more like bzongggg bzonggg" # Dear beggar on newbury st: asking me "how bout some for that kong Pow chicken" is a surefire way to NOT get anything from me. Racist pig. # Spent WAY too much at Trader Joe's. Then again I usually don't make it there. Chocolate covered hazelnuts were too much to resist… # trying melatonin for the first time. let's see if this actually works. # mum's report on #ndp09: ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? # @BoraZ @mrgunn thinking that my last two years in grad sch have made me sleep at very odd hours. seeing if melatonin will help w/ normalcy. in reply to BoraZ # ok, who thought the name Somerville Community Access Television (SCAT) was a good idea? seriously?! access-scat.org # how do you pronounce 'cedele'? the definitive answer http://bit.ly/uHOFq # melatonin expt: took one 11:20 pm, slept 12:30 pm, awake 5:30 am. # RT @mrgunn @nuin "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the NHS would… http://ff.im/-6qBgH # Typhoon strikes taiwan, south china; earthquake near japan. http://bit.ly/5Pt1s (@nytimes) # "I was struck by what I perceived as a near complete absence of irony in my Singapore friends and colleagues." ROFL http://bit.ly/2hTefy # @sciencebase I like how the title in plain English is "You Could Be Eating Shit At A Beach In Chicago" http://bit.ly/fecal in reply to sciencebase # @Tetanus My guess is shoplifters. in reply to Tetanus # @coolinsights asians tend to pretend that the intangible and hard to quantify doesn't exist, or measure them poorly @MartinRoll in reply to coolinsights # @Tetanus MY favorite peeve is how online shopping (stateside, at least) can come packaged in ginormous boxes with airbags for dinky items. in reply to Tetanus # RT @Tetanus: @oiseauxbleu @acidflask Amazon's "Frustration Free [Packaging] Initiative" needs more traction: http://is.gd/2bKlu # yet another unscientific "my grand theory of how science works" paper in a scientific journal (gah!) http://bit.ly/NMhCp # stephen fry takes on the split infinitive and other widely misperceived alleged errors of english (yes!) http://bit.ly/j8PDc # ironically, the description for stephen fry's english delight misspells synergie [sic]. ROFL #fail http://bit.ly/j8PDc # @gracechua my beef is that such papers almost always end up being insular, subjective, narrow-minded, and prescriptive – highly unscientific # stephen fry rips into software grammar correctors (YES THANK YOU!) # "What'd you bring that book I don't like to be read to out of about Down Under up for?" totally trashes the dangling preposition rule. # RT @BoraZ: Did Dawkins sink Enron? http://tinyurl.com/q8bvq # why is Harvard running out of money? maybe because it's trying to trademark the english language. http://bit.ly/ZEV6B # #woot packaging #fail icanhazsanepackaging? Kthxbai. http://mypict.me/jWgx # library: "the only available supplier for this paper cannot process requests for this paper. They have been doing a search to try to fig … # let's play "Spot the FAIL" #mit #fail http://bit.ly/1773Jw # even #mit has trouble getting the calendar straight. http://skitch.com/t/ie3 # a tragic tale of the lack of fresh food in detroit. how tragic that not even walmart wants to step foot into town! http://bit.ly/D5YqC # RT @HarvardResearch: In India, 42 state-owned labs earned more patents from 1993 to 2006 than all private firms combined http://ow.ly/jHGd # made a paula deen recipe. feeling VERY guilty, but wow, it IS good. # reason #939241 why fox news isn't taken seriously http://bit.ly/9bgct # @struthious i mean unscientific in the science that the authors clearly didn't bother to do a systematic inquiry, not unlike your pov in reply to struthious # triclosan antibacterial soap ends up in dolphins, where it hurts their life cycle. also, it ends up in humans. http://bit.ly/8YnxL # JetBlue offers $599 all-you-can-jet pass, valid sept 8 – oct 8. @_@ http://is.gd/2dVth # RT @consumerist: Judge Tells Microsoft It Can't Sell Word In U.S. [Patents] http://bit.ly/Li5FL # the us economy from 1999 to 2009 produced an annual job growth rate of… 0.01%. good job, bush. http://is.gd/2e0sw # Boston lyric opera completely massacred the flower duet. Not only was it WAY too fast, the duo also ended noticeably flat. EWW. # the incomplete guide to financial aid for singaporeans is now mirrored on google knol. please msg me if you want access http://bit.ly/igfask # RT @BoraZ @noahwilliamgray video of sex in a MRI machine. http://bit.ly/q7ezo # the mist managed to set off the fire alarm in my apartment. i hate my landlady. # finally, finally, finally, got the damn smoke detector to shut up. i hate this smoke detector. # @lucian yes it was 6 am. in reply to lucian # RT @timeshighered US prepares to clarify policies for foreign student recruiters http://bit.ly/11Nq4o # just ate an entire pack of trader ming's siew mai. That's 480 calories. *urk* # @brainopera what i got out of that article was that elitist wikipedia editors are hindering growth. how familiar… http://bit.ly/YbzfI in reply to brainopera # major pwnage on quiz show LOL http://bit.ly/sFXAg # Why people think the government is incompetent: RT @LabSpaces: Cash for clunkers may be bringing home more of the same. http://bit.ly/Lf4aV # @LabSpaces I thought the new vehicle had to be X mpg more efficient?! Guess not. Dumb size-compensating hicks. in reply to LabSpaces # @LabSpaces point taken. Make that "damn size-compensating lame truck-nut-owning hick-wannabes" :p in reply to LabSpaces # @LabSpaces because, y'all know how dangerful dem potholes outside of der Target over yonder hill, dey bespoil dem bargains at low low prices in reply to LabSpaces # @brainopera in the worst case, i'll do it. in reply to brainopera # has finally updated his backup scripts and checked that they work # The apartment is now just barely presentable to this weekend's guests… # RT @PolymerPhD: Former Ph.D. student accuses professor of plagiarism: http://bit.ly/17NAKz #Stanford #PhD # 11-year-old gets a one hour one-on-one interview with obama. french fries and mangoes for all schoolchildren! woot! http://is.gd/2gVUs # @Tetanus canopy walk! in reply to Tetanus # @Tetanus yeah. i really liked doing that. in reply to Tetanus # @Tetanus the last time i was back in sg, i went to kampung buangkok. saw people painting scenes there. is it still there? in reply to Tetanus # @Tetanus i went with @gssq and @struthious, maybe they can give you directions? i just tagged along :p in reply to Tetanus # maple has been trying to invert a 4×4 matrix for the past 20 minutes. #maple #fail. # maple's help won't let me search for the 'if' statement.#maple #fail # RT @mrgunn: FORA.tv – Making the Web Work for Science http://ff.im/6CkDJ # Walked past a bunch of falungong practitioners in the hallway. WTH # Friday night at north end http://mypict.me/lCrC # best experimental _equipment_ evar. http://bit.ly/U1tVf # look! a man giving birth through his navel! http://bit.ly/LgtwA # People in NH appear to enjoy driving on the shoulders. Also, the highways are littered with offramps to state liquor stores. # Unpaved roads appear to be eminently fashionable in Maine; lame road names too, like 'Stone's Throw' one block from the beach. # Kid: "Mommy, what if I fall down?" Mom: "Just don't…" # Powered by Twitter Tools Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-09 today's boston globe runs a full half page on the malaysian anti-isd riots. anwar ibrahim gets a pull-out quote. photo of rioters running. # @struthious mangosteens are now considered uber-hip, trendy and exotic in the us. i am so amused to see aethestically cut fruit for $15. in reply to struthious # @b_catenin is tt e kind of mango we get in sg? The regular kind scare me. Weird colors in reply to b_catenin # @bigsurf silly me, but it didn't even occur to me that i could defrag a mac hard drive. :p my hdd looks like that too… in reply to bigsurf # it's amazing how eggs soy sauce shallot oil and old rice can transform leftovers into something palatable # @skinnylatte indeed! It's also an amazingly good base for my leftovers: curried cauliflower breaded squash and veggie stir fry in reply to skinnylatte # @skinnylatte as in while making fried rice I callously dump them in. My fridge feels so much cleaner now too in reply to skinnylatte # Also rapidly discovering the amazing ability of kewpie mayo to mitigate too much sudden soy sauce consumption. # Fried rice with mayo – a new disgusting-sounding culinary revelation. # @skinnylatte there are days when rasa malaysia and lily hong's blog are the only things keeping me sane inthis country… in reply to skinnylatte # Spent $1 on this pretty old school handmade wine carafe at a yard sale at a Cambridge synagogue. I am a total sucker. http://mypict.me/gLeb # Saffron labeled prominently for $9.99 in white and $3996.00 per pound in orange makes me giggle # @skinnylatte sounds like a good description of academia too in reply to skinnylatte # boy, 6, and his brilliant watercolours http://bit.ly/4bFSY # sorely tempted by bartending course for $150 (usually $445). deal or no deal? http://www.groupon.com/boston # finally Finally FINALLY, i found a product in america that even vaguely resembles protective plastic book wrappers: http://www.booksox.com # ht @pulseproject Modern bananas are a mutant of plantains, discovered in 1836 by Jamaican Jean Francois Poujot http://tinyurl.com/6zjurm in reply to pulseproject # Time to migrate en masse to Google Voice? RT @tracitoguchi @chrispirillo: Skype's Future In Serious Doubt. http://bit.ly/eNu7h (via # For anyone still in college, sign up for cash rebates on http://edhance.com # omg wineriot volunteer spots still available! http://wineriotiivolunteers.eventbrite.com # so unbelievably psyched about wine riot, even though it's still 7 weeks away. thewineriot.com # coupons for tonight's grocery run are armed and ready. i have just leveled-up in auntiness. # ht akikonomu hear all your favorite singaporean christian fundamentalists at these special seminars http://is.gd/1ZMG0 # "double your coupon with this coupon" – behold the meta-coupon! # alas, my preparations were in vain. someone up in heaven left all the taps running. # my phone rebooted itself while in the middle of a phone call with mum. thanks a lot, rim, for making such a lousy pos # @Tetanus i could try, but it's the second lemon in a row. maybe the blackberry storm is just an unmitigated failure. in reply to Tetanus # sarah palin to get divorced. the republican irony is staggering. http://is.gd/1ZQQm # Starting to look into green card applications. the fee is $2,010. *hurk* # i am learning how to write new chinese characters every time i fire up the chinese input method. la1ta1, the word for 'untidy', is ?? (!) # @gssq i knew the upped the fees two years ago. still, *hurk* in reply to gssq # ?? (scruffy) joins ?? (lazy), ??? (sneeze) and ?? (cough) on my list of Everyday Things That Are Incredibly Hard To Write In Chinese # @gssq nuh-uh, the lottery merely qualifies you. you still need to pay for the actual application. in reply to gssq # @gssq oic you meant it the OTHER way. that's certainly possible too # "[I]f you receive… a Nobel Prize, you will qualify… Since few workers receive this… alternatives [are] permitted." http://is.gd/1ZXYw # dear americans in my network: would anyone be interested in adopting me? it'd make my green card process much easier. # @gssq whoa green card by gay marriage is prolly pushing new legal grounds too in reply to gssq # going through follower list. hello new followers! tell me about yourselves! *humbled* # @kulturbrille's blog's design makes me want to redo my online presence. after i write a few posts, maybe. # @struthious certainly you can fit more chinese poems than english ones into 140 characters @fisheses in reply to struthious # @struthious writhing arteries are themselves signs of impending cardiac trouble. that, or cephalopodlike mutation. in reply to struthious # @fisheses that video is totally fp. http://bit.ly/fQgT5 in reply to fisheses # The last ad on this page totally reminds me of far too many people back home, even at face value. http://is.gd/209M3 # jacs paper reports using NaH as an oxidant. wait, WHAT?! http://bit.ly/QrnBC http://www.thechemblog.com/?p=1497 # @struthious @gssq regular store mayo is terrible. Jap kewpie is not bad. Homemade is a revelation. in reply to struthious # RT @sivasothi: Creationism sneaking into Singapore classrooms? TOC exposé – http://bit.ly/4wwpMs # it sounds like for the bean counters who go for quantity, i'll be more productive by the end of the third month than my entire grad sch life # learned today that there are TWO versions of the famous B3LYP functional. For the exciting history thereof, http://bit.ly/yMlvY [pdf] p.38 # VMD 1.8.7 is out! get your GPU-accelerated molecule-viewing goodness today! http://bit.ly/ZFyR0 # notice outside bathroom: 'please notify campus police or [dept] hq if you notice any inappropriate behavior in this bathroom.' … # This orbital totally reminds me of chiclets and popcorn kernels. http://skitch.com/t/ibh # @shianux how a rubber band next time. in reply to shianux # Not even MIT is immune to the BSOD… http://mypict.me/hebw # Google maps now has transit info YES http://myloc.me/heEO # @izreloaded rule #1 of science reporting: check your sources! study was paid by Levitra that among other things says "take more Levitra". in reply to izreloaded # @gssq @izreloaded I didn't say wrong. still good reason to be SUPER skeptical. LONG history of industry funding twisting scientists results. in reply to gssq # Saved $12,96 with coupons. Paid only $19.32. Sales tax now up 1,25%. Boo. # Got letter from KMart lawyers over last week's "shoplifting" episode, demanding $350 by 8/18. Wondering if a good lawyer costs # Take this, keyboard cat! Nora the piano cat has totally pwned you. http://is.gd/21z99 # Programmers are like lawyers in one way: bad ones generate more work for other ones. # so, kiddies, this is why you don't bring metallic thingies near the mri machine. everyone capiche? http://is.gd/22bwE # was intrigued by @lancerlord's post on flash mobs dancing to MJ. too bad it turned out to be a commercial promotion http://bit.ly/3XCUJ3 # "The latest [big protest at Harvard was] in 2003… CNN [instead] recorded the celebration of housing lottery results." http://bit.ly/JLVgT # oh look, a nice _readable introduction_ to singular value decomposition. http://bit.ly/sGIUJ # @yjsoon dangit i was ready to whip out my plastic and charge it like it's 1999 again. in reply to yjsoon # Sydney Morning Herald blasts Temasek for keeping Ho Ching over Goodyear, and also reveals new details (via Cavalierio) http://bit.ly/NX67Z # My interlibrary request from an article from Química Nova has arrived. They didn' # My interlibrary request from an article from Química Nova has arrived. They didn't mention that it was in Portuguese. # creationists' theme park seized for tax evasion. owner: "i'm employed by god, i have no income or property." FAIL. http://bit.ly/17J2Ad # ht akikonomu school principal to talk at christian fundamentalists' seminar. is this allowed under moe rules?! http://bit.ly/ZYclx # "fan": if you were a superhero, then your superpower is clearly the ability to raise a shitstorm. -__- # 'anemone anatomy'x5 – easy with american pronunciation, well nigh impossible with british phonemes. # ht @novickancy laura ling and euna lee's tearful reunions in america http://bit.ly/X5zid # science confirms what i've found out on my own: 16C – 20C is optimal room temp for sleep. hot water bottle? hmm… http://bit.ly/1OYY5i # hm. one of the references cited says optimal room temps are 16C-19C with clothes and sheet, or 30C-32C naked. http://bit.ly/Lh1GZ # ive always had a weakness for cake wrecks RT @ennn: Divorce Cakes! http://bit.ly/13dsWZ Let us celebrate divorce! Let them eat cake! # @fisheses it's in the hayden library holdings, as is the prequel in dewey. in reply to fisheses # congrats @b_catenin for first paper accepted for phd work! WOOT!! # @fisheses i've already have had reason to use the microfiche. yes, the gasp of horror is entirely called for. in reply to fisheses # Please fire the editor: "If you are… playing street soccer, the SCDF chime would sound… to signal this moment." http://bit.ly/OlNCY # ????????????????? (Does Singapore gain or lose by giving foreign students scholarships?) http://bit.ly/VOoUu # "The essential mystery of editing is why the reports I receive as an editor are so much better than the reports I receive as an author." … # @gssq you cunning spambot, you. in reply to gssq # OMG I've been cited 10 times on Web of Science! (8 non-self-citations) *faints* # mum called to nag me about getting new glasses. apparently the haze is back in sg. # ht @shianux google noms on2, a video codec specialist tech company. better youtube quality soon, perhaps? http://bit.ly/Zt6Go # @skinnylatte if you change the soundtrack, i bet you could make it the post-apocalyptic dystopia of your dreams http://vimeo.com/3026569 in reply to skinnylatte # Walked past Thai pad called The Similans. Giggles only stopped when I got home. # I am so proud of mai marder. She figured out the whole handwritten chinese thing in MSN all by herself. http://skitch.com/t/ir8 # @struthious i'm sure he can get reinstated in reply to struthious # would anyone care to point out the obvious FAIL here? http://bit.ly/kkKJW # OMG Krispy Kreme! I just wonder how many people get that allusion. Hot Fad in one hemisphere, Common Sin in the other http://bit.ly/1VXAze # i think i have just discovered a new favorite site. http://bit.ly/13wrs7 # keyboard cat, hide in shame: mashup of piano-playing cats recreating performance of schönberg piece. http://bit.ly/lP4A9 # Just found out about @curb_cuisine. Man, now I have to make another trip back to Seattle! # lawyer: "the charges are clearly bogus, but it's in your best interests to just pay up and hope they don't pursue it further." # indonesian tribe adopts korean alphabet to write its language http://bit.ly/189I6A # @skinnylatte eat some ??? on a stick in ?? for me in reply to skinnylatte # Missing Sync is borked again. I hate Missing Sync. # Kualiti journalism! RT @miyagi: ST proofreading #fail RT @khaosworks: The perils of desktop publishing software. http://yfrog.com/emwvhj # Apparently even Harvard affiliates can't be bothered to run spell check. Spellong #fail http://mypict.me/izCk # Crap my journal volume is totally overdue # Its a nice cool 58F out and yet half the neighborhood's got the AC running… # As I had suspected you couldn't see the misprint on the earlier photo of the Harvard affiliated hospital ad http://mypict.me/iAzB # RT @BostonPopular: Local news: T chief resigns under pressure, but gets to retain his remaining salary… http://is.gd/27qiV # grad christian fellowship pulls info on fundie seminar, as does bloggers who blogged it b4. how… convenient #awaresg http://bit.ly/3nYEhJ # the sonoran hot dog sounds SO BAD for you, yet SO GOOD… http://bit.ly/170l4W # the inventor of the kitchen skimmer is a total genius. how on earth did i make soup stock without it?? # Powered by Twitter Tools. Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-02 Today's bout of domesticity shows that mum's painstaking brushing of a/c parts is no more effective than cleaning them under a shower. # Just woke up from bizarre dream that involved people from my distant past. Did my former buddy really run off to france to elope with my ex? # dear unconscious, why did also dream about discussing hydrodynamic flow with obama last night? # yesterday's picnic on the commons was… interesting. had totally forgotten that a particular stratum of singaporean society had existed. # at least the tiramisù was well-liked, even if the "foodies" couldn't identify the limoncello. some talk of blind taste test party. # RT @consumerist: Access Commercial WiFi Hotspots At Airports For Free [How To] http://tinyurl.com/lygvr5 # went to the sowa antiques market and spent $140 on a pre-war enrobed bakelite mahjong set in excellent condition. only 4 missing tiles! # The complete set I bought today http://mypict.me/egQ5 # pictures of the mahjong set on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/acidflask/3760419524 http://www.flickr.com/photos/acidflask/375962371 … # @patlaw that song totally transports me back to lower sec. :p in reply to patlaw # Newly blogged: IMG00066-20090726-2101 [Flickr]: Elia Diodati posted a photo: http://bit.ly/zv0sL # Thunder rends the ink-black sky. The white trash are restless. Several are raising their beer-laden appendages at the heavens, yelling. # Got stopped by kmart security. They made me sign a form admitting to shoplifting. All for a clothesline I forgot to scan on checkout?! # dear kmart: being detained by a security guard who says things like "i thought chinese people only steal expensive items" is not very funny # dear kmart pt 2: also, threatening to send out a claims form for hundred of dollars for an honest mistake is a good way to lose customers. # Being on the accused end of things sucks for us non-residents. There's always the thought that getting arrested risks deportation. # To @JohnKerry: Affordable, quality health insurance can't wait http://bit.ly/j63je #hc09 #MA #02144 # Monday's Kmart unpleasantness was history repeating itself: almost two years ago, to a WSJ editor http://bit.ly/KxUrP # @ketsugi another response: College is important because…? http://bit.ly/kpq58 in reply to ketsugi # @dorothyho oh no!!!! ok or not?? in reply to dorothyho # Took me awhile, but I finally figured out the racial profiling angle to "I thought Chinese people only stole expensive things." Sinister! # nolite te bastardes carborundorum. # petroleum engineering degree holders earn an average of $83k out of school. note: sample bias for small size http://bit.ly/Te4D9 # The paradox of the second ace is occupying all my disposable mental capacity right now. # This week's CSA contains new potatoes! And more onions! Yummy # @solitairejoker dear me, where have your cojones gone? in reply to solitairejoker # Homemade fried chicken from reconstructed KFC recipe ZOMG YUM @gssq http://mypict.me/f1Eh # @gssq exactly as specified, I.e. WAY too much. Also excellent for tempura… in reply to gssq # @gracechua the mental image of the entire population of the jurong bird park dumped onto an office table in a standard-issue cubicle: funny! in reply to gracechua # @gracechua especially if the ostriches have already buried their heads in the hastily co-opted and impressed kitty litter pans. in reply to gracechua # The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Malfunction #failedchildrensbooktitles # Anna Nicole Smith of Green Gables #failedchildrensbooktitles # The Tale of Rabbit's Peter #failedchildrensbooktitles # Winnie the Poo #failedchildrensbooktitles (cheap shot, yes) # How To Be A Good Boy Or Girl, Vol. I: Sit Down And Shut Up #failedchildrensbooktitles #awaresg # ROFLMAO! RT @JeffHolton: Lolita, the Early Years #failedchildrensbooktitles # okok, having too much fun. last one:The Child Whisperer by Cesar Millan and Supernanny Jo Frost #failedchildrensbooktitles # i can haz one more? Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NSFW #failedchildrensbooktitles # "The Big F***ing Giant", "The Enormous Crocodile Twat", and "George's Marvelous ADHD Medication" #failedchildrensbooktitles # ht @ketsugi dr thio li-ann responds to her critics surrounding the withdrawl from her proffered nyu teaching stint http://is.gd/1ShYL # Avenue Q: The Kids' Abridged Edition #failedchildrensbooktitles # A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel Toe #failedchildrensbooktitles # A Picture Book of Harriet Tubgirl #failedchildrensbooktitles # Keyboard Cat In The Hat #failedchildrensbooktitles # "If you're gonna be so thin-skinned about race, you probably shouldn't be living in Massachussetts." Yet another reason to hate Massholes. # Oh Google, you funny! Google's self-referential humor: http://skitch.com/t/whi # @ketsugi see lah, this is what happens when people don't Read The Fine Book. :p in reply to ketsugi # for real, @huffingtonpost? I expected to read about such stories on @theonion! http://is.gd/1SUks # RT @mrgunn: Google releases Wave protocol implementation source code http://ff.im/5TEYY # crap. i spilled a couple of drops of hot oil on the carpet and they've burned holes through. any ideas on how to fix this? # @mrbrown too bad it dun qualify for Flee Gib (TM) @b_catenin in reply to mrbrown # i had no idea making cream of chicken soup was this unbelievably easy, and this unbelievably good… # he best part of yesterday's experience is feeling that for one, someone in power is on my side. # @brainopera hoot ah! who're you gonna hoot! in reply to brainopera # for any one with 12 minutes or so to spare, this is one of the funniest Moth episodes ever http://bit.ly/SJccY # RT @CheapTweet: Through 8/2, save 30% at Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy http://cheaptweet.com/t/1c4y8so And 5% goes to DonorsChoose.org! # Web 2.0 is NOT science friendly. Data are clumsy to handle, notation is a pain, and associating records and physical specimens is manual. # @brainopera clearly the hikikomori article is missing an entire section on graduate students in reply to brainopera # why does the new research center's personnel form require _ethnicity_? er, hello? # @myapplemenu i should write such a post now just to spite you hahaha in reply to myapplemenu # ROFLMAO RT @brainopera: You saw the wedding, now see JK's Divorce Entrance Dance – http://bit.ly/CaTgf (nice job @indigoprod!) # @garifusion they've all watched their ads: gotta get their yomeishu! in reply to garifusion # The cluster of folks next to me are comparing core dumps to orgasms… # @struthious the superculious "I know everything, I am the best at everything" type in reply to struthious # wonders how many people routinely use google to enter urls, convert currency, look up åççënts, or type chinese characters. # especially when compared to the number of people who still use google to do real searches, not half-hearted shortcuts to wikipedia articles. # @gssq in chinese mode google, you can type hanyu pinyin and search for chinese phrase matches in reply to gssq # @ennn wait, what? you dun do 'creative spelling'?! git wid da program, grrl! in reply to ennn # a fan just told me another fan told her that i'm the most famous bond breaker in singapore history. i don't know whether to be fp or amused # @mrgunn isn't it annoying? the "correct way" doesn't always work. the trick that always does is drawing a white box over it and locking it. in reply to mrgunn # @_karenteoh_ @ennn ok so what design do you want on dem tshurts in reply to _karenteoh_ # Ok MBTA you SUCK so bad. The first bus came early and the second one just zoomed by without stopping and RAN A RED LIGHT in a hospital zone! # Yay! I finally have my subsidized employee's T pass! Finally, my _carte blanche_ for metro travel! # Thank you WorldCat, for this brilliant FAIL. http://skitch.com/t/w9r # @Gracechua does MITSSS potluck count? @b_catenin @struthious @gssq # It's now August and scores of monthly pass holders have been unceremoniously barred from catching their last trains. D'oh! # Which also reminds me: I've been here two months! Yikes! And what exactly have I accomplished since?! # Finally plucked up the courage to open my KMart shopping bags. And what do I find but a security tag – the big honking kind for clothes. WTF # @gssq lol remind me to bring you to popeye's and a soul food kitchen if you ever come visit in reply to gssq # yet another reason why fundamentalists in singapore are so creepy (ht akikonomu) http://is.gd/1XxXj # Powered by Twitter Tools. IMG00066-20090726-2101 [Flickr] Elia Diodati posted a photo: IMG00063-20090726-2059 [Flickr] Elia Diodati posted a photo: IMG00061-20090726-2057 [Flickr] Elia Diodati posted a photo: Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-26 Trying out location tagging in iphoto '09. iPhoto doesn't know where Mt Rushmore is. #FAIL http://myloc.me/bMKb # Version 0.8 of the totally awesome Hugin panorama maker is now available! Hugin.sourceforge.net http://myloc.me/bOiZ # Finally found the blackberry twitter client for me. Ubertwitter, I # The plural of passerby is passersby, that of spoonful is spoonfuls. What is the plural of 'MacBook Pro'? http://is.gd/1EC7R # economists unwilling to recant old submitted papers predicting continued global prosperity. wtf? http://is.gd/1ECX3 # indian tiger park has run out of tigers. http://bit.ly/qt3zq # contrary to popular belief that 90% of all restaurants fail, more careful studies say 60%, on par with other industries http://is.gd/1EE8L # finally got adobe air (and hence tweetdeck and seesmic) to work again. cause of mysterious hang: corrupt font. stupid !^$@*$& adobe # almost 2 months now, and electric company still hasn't sent me a bill that is addressed to the correct person. i guess they don't want money # Verizon customer service is terrible. Just wasted 45 minutes of my life dealing with billing issues. Not to mention VERY rude local staff. # Verizon wireless: best customer service in the industry MY FOOT. If true, what a terrible libelious indictment of the rest of the industry! # @b_catenin yeah their corporate rate was not as advertised and they didn't honor their price reduction on the handsets. in reply to b_catenin # Wtf ad in today's metro. Only in America. Also good for the @cowboycaleb "There is no hope for the human race" series http://mypict.me/c6F5 # @virajchatterjee my adobe air apps would take hours to start, then crash. i found a corrupted font on my system and deleted it, now my a … # RT @novickancy Kelly Hildebrandt is engaged to Kelly Hildebrandt. And no, they are not getting gay married… http://bit.ly/22vvIz # uiuc physics library to close – consolidating with grainger. the end of an era. # RT @yuwanmei: Monkfish drink is best for robustness! #FishTime @TheOnion # RT @mrgunn @jensmccabe: MIT takes shit seriously http://tinyurl.com/lrogu3 # @mrgunn damn now i gotta watch out for these damn poop catchers when i visit the restrooms! # @akatsukira airfarewatchdog.com and farecompare.com are my best friends. in reply to akatsukira # @lucian had similar xp too with translating american honors. Frustrating no? in reply to lucian # LOL @shianux ya gotta admit it takes srs cojones to compare religious leaders to super-glue, racism to moral relativism http://bit.ly/10i9JD # RT @nytimes: black harvard prof Arrested after forcing door of his home. Srsly do ppl hv to drag race into this!? http://bit.ly/12hcJl # Why does BBC insist on avoiding the term 'gay men' in favor of 'men who have sex with other men'?! # @b_catenin that totally breathes new life into an old american cliche: "woman, make me a [grilled cheese sandwich]" in reply to b_catenin # RT @LabSpaces titin fibers in muscle have strong directed bonds, allowing muscles to bear heavy loads http://is.gd/1Gvyz # dear [redacted]: you know what, sending an email containing the same message in multiple languages is a tad gratuitous. :p # @virajchatterjee macosx 10.5.7 in reply to virajchatterjee # a canonical list of sarah palin's blatant lies (wow) http://bit.ly/gkuM9 # why i consciously decided NOT to get the iphone. (at&t sucks so bad) http://bit.ly/CBW5I # if you want to interview me, please do NOT send me questions from the acidflask ten year series. that's what blog archives are for. # and before you ask, no redspot will not be publishing the edition with Model Answers to study. # RT @ACSpressroom: American Chemical Society describes important publication changes to its journals http://tr.im/to51 # today's food-related divination methods: aleuromancy, alphitomancy, corsned, and tyromancy http://bit.ly/3p752C # Newly blogged: Goodbye, Speranza Nuova: Speranza Nuova’s blog Inspirations & Aspirations.. http://bit.ly/zjkiA # @mbsullivan i was asked today if there was a way to do charge analysis in plane wave basis sets. Any thoughts? in reply to mbsullivan # prof gates complains about racial profiling in his arrest http://bit.ly/A7bDX # @mbsullivan cool will check it out in reply to mbsullivan # @pleinelune omg a letter referencing another that doesn't begin with "I/We refer to ___'s letter "____" (ST __/__/__)." SCANDALOUS! :p in reply to pleinelune # @mbsullivan looks like one of them is in the building next to me! i should pop by and ask in reply to mbsullivan # is stitching panoramas from recent washington state trip using the venerable #hugin tool. mountains! wedding! ocean! so pretty! # @gracechua @mbsullivan totally won that round. admit it! :p in reply to mbsullivan # acidflask @izreloaded you can buy a high end graphics card that can also do ~1 teraflop. eg. nvidia tesla, amd firestream. no need 2 b jeles # @b_catenin just posted a totally awesome #commentfail. "SAF should really ban their soldiers from taking the bus… green smelly things" in reply to b_catenin # my fav quote: "if i got grandson i will tell him to be responsible citizen and take taxi or i fetch." #commentfail http://trunc.it/zfpw # @mbsullivan shhh not so loud! @izreloaded can hear! :p still, double precision became available recently. *optimistic* in reply to mbsullivan # @b_catenin: "EVERYONE knows the chow recruits are the smerriest" / me: "because they are CHOW recruits! tautology! *clangs bell*" # @mbsullivan someone in my former group is working on mixed precision gpu implementation of scf, with really good results. http://mtzweb. … in reply to mbsullivan # @izreloaded current hot topic in computational science: gpgpu. use gpus for general computing applications. look up nvidia cuda, ati stream in reply to izreloaded # @mrbrown I will totally send you a Flee Gib (TM) if you work that into you show lol in reply to mrbrown # @missbossy @davechua so did @pleinelune #pinkdot #awaresg http://bit.ly/cTxD in reply to missbossy # Submitted corrected proofs for paper no. 4! *jig* # @mbsullivan coming out in jcp. Very dry technical note on empirical charge models. I'm sure you'll recognize it. in reply to mbsullivan # Omg it's already twilight. *whinge* damn northern latitudes and all this midsummer business. I should try to get some shuteye. # blackberry storm is dead again. what a piece of crap this phone is turning out to be. # tonight's hatch shell encores: brahm's hungarian dances 6 and 5 # kingston announces 256gb thumb drive. ridiculous today, mainstream in 2012. http://bit.ly/ndPxL # has discovered the problem: the usb charger won't charge a completely drained blackberry storm: only the mains ac charger will. ridiculous! # @spoonrabbit not hamsap can oredi in reply to spoonrabbit # most ironic thing i've thrown away this year: two _completely_ rotten new potatoes. this explains the bizarre smell in the larder # RT @gracechua: TLA withdrawal fr #nyu – And now it's on NYT http://bit.ly/K9Gxj @struthious @siewkumhong # @struthious I'm still recovering from the traumas of scholarship and growing up in sg in reply to struthious # RT @BostonPopular officer who arrested prof gates speaks: I'm not racist. Inquiry 7/29 http://is.gd/1IV0V # @struthious @gracechua oh in THAT case, my guess is that the answer is somewhere between 5 years and never. in reply to struthious # discussing lunch plans with colombian friend. she wants thai; her bf doesn't like curry. "por qué!? tú no tienes cojones?" >_# @struthious i haven't tried therapy yet. maybe that would help. in reply to struthious # @shianux there was a good story about the nypd spending $1m to fix and buy new TYPEWRITERS on the rachel maddow show http://is.gd/1IXs7 in reply to shianux # @brainopera go go go! you can do it!! *breaks out pom poms* in reply to brainopera # @gssq someone else has taken up the evony story. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001286.html # i tried so hard to whittle down my unread google reader items. and now the acs journals dump their weekly load on me. # thursday is academia's journal reading day. # @gracechua there is no a priori reason for not doing both in reply to gracechua # oh look: yet another "i can do perturbative correction calculations on this model" paper. # vanity fair rips into palin's resignation speech. old-skool fisking never looked prettier, or this dense. http://bit.ly/ZH4mA # last item off my rss feeds before lunch: the homeopathic a&e ward on youtube http://bit.ly/WoTWd # the bf won. no thai lunch. see, us guys can win. # @b_catenin the friend's bf is jewish :p in reply to b_catenin # @uzyn ask maya angelou: she knows why the caged bird sings. in reply to uzyn # my friend's friend is running an organization whose raison d'être is "where we grow your Successes to get into Research/Academia". -__- # services offered: tuition, university/career advisory and mentorship programs – ok; olympiad training – wtf? # the smoking gun comes through with a copy of prof gates's arrest report http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0723092gates1.html # New Boss, with one sentence, cast the Confundus Charm on me and throw me into a parallel universe, with irony meters all off-the-scales. # also, the parallel universe has reverse causality. staggering. # Beer needs me right now. # i have long thought this to be an obvious next step in automation, and finally it's reality. http://bit.ly/YZTHA # @skinnylatte i am also amazed at how quickly my blackberry has changed my daily life. evernote is my best friend. so is snapping pix of ads. in reply to skinnylatte # irony has gone to hell in a wastebasket, and the slippery slope hath run its last course, having inherited the earth via mixed metaphor. # Prof gates interviewed on CNN. Omg it looks like he's about to… (HT The Metro 7/22 p2) http://mypict.me/d9P7 # This upcoming week's Boston Phoenix gleefully covers 'Gates-gate'. -__- # There are a surprisingly large number of people who don't know that they shouldn't be clapping between movements. # @gracechua yes. In retrospect, mayhap the inevitable hypertrophy of the tuition market. in reply to gracechua # I'd forgotten what it was like to listen to period choral music in a grand old church. The soloists' Miserere reduced the first row to tears # Conductor's surprise direction of leading choir, orchestra and audience in America the Beautiful http://mypict.me/ddP0 # @b_catenin my my it looks like 2girls1cup would've been precisely joyce's cup of tea. http://www.johnhamilton.us/2/jamesjoyceletters.htm in reply to b_catenin # @akatsukira true, but it totally ruins the suspensefulness of silence and fermata in reply to akatsukira # limoncello-lime soda with julienned shoestrong summer squash. major nommage # my first dictionary is usually ripe with satire, but with this they have outdone themselves in creepiness http://bit.ly/Zoz1u # @spoonrabbit *pours glass, scoops heap of shoestring squash on apéritif plate* nah! # @spoonrabbit @b_catenin try this pioneer woman recipe http://bit.ly/HGe2O in reply to spoonrabbit # @struthious woot! in reply to struthious # one of the mirror doors for my medicine shelf decided to hurl itself onto the sink below and shatter. clearly a Sign. # today is one of days i wished i saved my gameplay yesterday so that i can reload from there. # making tiramisù by hand was just asking for bad sore arms. limoncello and nutella flavored, only one layer of savoiardi. let's see tomorrow. # Powered by Twitter Tools. Goodbye, Speranza Nuova Speranza Nuova’s blog Inspirations & Aspirations is now officially defunct. We’ll miss you. P.S. The scientist in me has to nitpick his parting words. “Information cannot be created or destroyed.” is a manifestly false statement, and a denial of irreversible processes in thermodynamics. Goodbye, Speranza Nuova Speranza Nuova’s blog Inspirations & Aspirations is now officially defunct. We’ll miss you. P.S. The scientist in me has to nitpick his parting words. “Information cannot be created or destroyed.” is a manifestly false statement, and a denial of irreversible processes in thermodynamics. Tasting notes from the American Craft Beer Festival #acbf Image by znhpics via Flickr One of my longtime readers (LR) came to meet up with me in Beantown and we went to hit the American Craft Beer Festival that happened this past weekend in Boston’s World Trade Center complex. Apparently the turnout for our session (there were three) was 3,300+, and it certainly felt like trudging through a slough of human bodies to get to the goodies. Despite the crowd, the $40 entrance fee was totally worth it. We found quite a few new drinks to our liking. Descriptions from the program and (my) ratings out of four are as follows: 4/4 21st Amendment Brewery’s Brew Free or Die IPA (American India Pale Ale / 7.0%) – I usually don’t like IPAs, but this one had an incredible flavor! Brooklyn Brewery’s Intensified Coffee Stout (Stout w/ coffee from Stumptown Coffee Roasters, raw demerara and Malavi sugar / 8.0%) – a truly excellent coffee stout that, unlike many others, tastes of both coffee and stout, yet without the ridiculous overdose of hops that predominates the American stouts Cambridge Brewing Co’s Biére de Miel (Belgian-style Honey Ale / 8.6%) – the accent is wrong (it should have been bière), but the taste is spot on – light, yet full of yeasty and meady goodness Sherwood Forest Brewers’ Maiden’s Blueberry Ale (5.3%) – Most decidedly not a fruit bomb – has incredible aroma of blueberries, and drinks like a real ale with just a hint of fruit. I could drink this one all day. Southern Tier Brewing Co’s Mokah (Imperial Stout brewed w/ coffee & chocolate / 11.0%) – If you could distill all the yumminess of quality dark, 70% chocolate into an abstract taste and fragrance, and brew it with a rich, full-bodied (but not burnt!) arabica coffee, and make stout of it, this would be very close to that abstract, perfect ideal. Weyerbacher Brewing Co’s XIV (Belgian Wheat Wine / 11.8%) – I have never had wheat wine before, but this is incredibly potent and smooth, and dangerously addictive. 3/4 Berkshire Brewing Co’s Nitro Coffee (Nitrogenated Porter w/ organic coffee beans from Dean’s Beans / 6.2%) – The nitrogenation, I assume, was not of the electrophilic substitution type, but merely the much tamer deaeration process to remove dissolve gasses. At any rate the Coffee was smooth and well brewed, almost like a good cuppa joe, if you could make it with cold, delicious beer instead of hot water. Brewery Ommegang’s Three Philosophers (Abbey Style Quadrupel / 9.8%) – I can remember little more other than mmmm!! and wanting to drink more, more, MOAR!! Paper City Brewery’s Radler Brau (Pale Ale w/ natural lemon flavoring / 6.2%) – Amazingly refreshing and light, and unbelievably drinkable. It did taste, however, like a good ale with lemon dunked in it, just without the pith and seeds to futz around with. 2/4 High and Mighty’s Two-Headed Beast (Chocolate Stout brewed w/ organic raw cacao / 4.8%) – by far and away the best chocolate stout at the festival. The chocolaty flavor stood out very strongly. Left Hand’s Juju Ginger Ale (Herb/Spice Beer / 4.0%) – Yummy. Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project’s Confounded Mister Sisyphus (Saison w/ Balaton cherries / 7.0%) – the cherries added a very pleasant tart berryness to the drink. Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project’s Jack D’Or (Saison Americain / 6.5%) – Light, smooth, and drinkable. Weyerbacher Brewing Co’s Zotten (Belgian-style Pale Ale / 6.0%) – Had a pleasantly strong kick to it. Full-bodied but still eminently drinkable. Woodstock Inn Brewery’s Pigs Ear Brown Ale (4.3%) – Another full-bodied ale that’s fun to down. 1/4 21st Amendment Brewery’s Hell or High Watermelon (Wheat beer / 5.0%) – The watermelon wasn’t as crazy an idea as we’d thought. It was served with a heaped tablespoonful of diced watermelon, which made it gimmicky, but it was a fun drink nonetheless. LR thinks it rates at least a 2/4, partly for the whimsy, but there’s no accounting for tastes. High & Mighty’s St. Hubbins Alley (Unfiltered Golden w/ coriander & orange peel / 5.0%) – light and refreshing, but that was about it. Sixpoint Craft Ales’s Northern Lights (Wormwood saison / 6.3%) – This past weekend was the first time I have had saison, and I have no idea what the wormwood added to this one. It was decent though. Surly Brewing Co’s Coffee Bender (Bender / Guatemalan coffee beans / 5.2%) – My first Bender, although I still have no idea what the defining characteristics of this variety are. LR liked it, and regarded it like a slightly bitterer McCoffee. I didn’t care for the overroasted, burnt taste and dumped the rest of it out. Surly Brewing Co’s CynicAle (saison / 6.6%) – I tried this mostly because I had no idea what a saison was. It was not bad, although LR was unimpressed, and thought it was merely an expensive imitation of Tiger Beer. Missed Connection: we wanted to try Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project’s Baby Tree (Abbey Quadrupel w/ dried plums / 8.7%), but it was all out by the time we got there, which was just one hour after the doors opened! We wondered if it would taste like sng mui, or Yomeishu, or if it were indeed a genuinely better creation than the aforementioned Asian Auntie Articles™. There were many “meh” drinks, and many drinks that were just plain bad. However we also have to give kudos to the few that were genuinely awful: Brookyln Brewery’s Cuvée de Cardoz (Belgian-style Wheat Beer w/ ginger, tamarind, mace, black pepper, coriander, fennel, fenugreek, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, chilies and toasted coconut / 8.0%) – There was only a slim chance of this not turning into some kind of alcoholic herbal poultice-slurry, and indeed our initial expectations were spot on. It was more out of morbid curiosity than optimism that we actually bothered to try this one. As it turns out, cuvée is jargon for beer blended to achieve a particular taste. It’s clear that the intention was to evoke sophisticated reminisces of Indian curry, but in our opinions merely produced a concoction of random herbs a cat knocked off a supermarket spice rack and then proceeded to pee on. Smuttynose Brewing Co’s Gravitation Ale (Belgian quad w/ raisin puree / 8.5%) – tasted like mildly sweetened puke, and has the singular distinction of being the only beer I’ve had so far that elicited a visceral reaction from me – I felt like retching. Southern Tier Brewing Co’s Jah-va (Imperial Coffee Stout w/ Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans) Tasted like soy sauce, and was not unlike expired Bovril too. Tasting notes from the American Craft Beer Festival #acbf Image by znhpics via Flickr One of my longtime readers (LR) came to meet up with me in Beantown and we went to hit the American Craft Beer Festival that happened this past weekend in Boston’s World Trade Center complex. Apparently the turnout for our session (there were three) was 3,300+, and it certainly felt like trudging through a slough of human bodies to get to the goodies. Despite the crowd, the $40 entrance fee was totally worth it. We found quite a few new drinks to our liking. Descriptions from the program and (my) ratings out of four are as follows: 4/4 21st Amendment Brewery’s Brew Free or Die IPA (American India Pale Ale / 7.0%) – I usually don’t like IPAs, but this one had an incredible flavor! Brooklyn Brewery’s Intensified Coffee Stout (Stout w/ coffee from Stumptown Coffee Roasters, raw demerara and Malavi sugar / 8.0%) – a truly excellent coffee stout that, unlike many others, tastes of both coffee and stout, yet without the ridiculous overdose of hops that predominates the American stouts Cambridge Brewing Co’s Biére de Miel (Belgian-style Honey Ale / 8.6%) – the accent is wrong (it should have been bière), but the taste is spot on – light, yet full of yeasty and meady goodness Sherwood Forest Brewers’ Maiden’s Blueberry Ale (5.3%) – Most decidedly not a fruit bomb – has incredible aroma of blueberries, and drinks like a real ale with just a hint of fruit. I could drink this one all day. Southern Tier Brewing Co’s Mokah (Imperial Stout brewed w/ coffee & chocolate / 11.0%) – If you could distill all the yumminess of quality dark, 70% chocolate into an abstract taste and fragrance, and brew it with a rich, full-bodied (but not burnt!) arabica coffee, and make stout of it, this would be very close to that abstract, perfect ideal. Weyerbacher Brewing Co’s XIV (Belgian Wheat Wine / 11.8%) – I have never had wheat wine before, but this is incredibly potent and smooth, and dangerously addictive. 3/4 Berkshire Brewing Co’s Nitro Coffee (Nitrogenated Porter w/ organic coffee beans from Dean’s Beans / 6.2%) – The nitrogenation, I assume, was not of the electrophilic substitution type, but merely the much tamer deaeration process to remove dissolve gasses. At any rate the Coffee was smooth and well brewed, almost like a good cuppa joe, if you could make it with cold, delicious beer instead of hot water. Brewery Ommegang’s Three Philosophers (Abbey Style Quadrupel / 9.8%) – I can remember little more other than mmmm!! and wanting to drink more, more, MOAR!! Paper City Brewery’s Radler Brau (Pale Ale w/ natural lemon flavoring / 6.2%) – Amazingly refreshing and light, and unbelievably drinkable. It did taste, however, like a good ale with lemon dunked in it, just without the pith and seeds to futz around with. 2/4 High and Mighty’s Two-Headed Beast (Chocolate Stout brewed w/ organic raw cacao / 4.8%) – by far and away the best chocolate stout at the festival. The chocolaty flavor stood out very strongly. Left Hand’s Juju Ginger Ale (Herb/Spice Beer / 4.0%) – Yummy. Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project’s Confounded Mister Sisyphus (Saison w/ Balaton cherries / 7.0%) – the cherries added a very pleasant tart berryness to the drink. Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project’s Jack D’Or (Saison Americain / 6.5%) – Light, smooth, and drinkable. Weyerbacher Brewing Co’s Zotten (Belgian-style Pale Ale / 6.0%) – Had a pleasantly strong kick to it. Full-bodied but still eminently drinkable. Woodstock Inn Brewery’s Pigs Ear Brown Ale (4.3%) – Another full-bodied ale that’s fun to down. 1/4 21st Amendment Brewery’s Hell or High Watermelon (Wheat beer / 5.0%) – The watermelon wasn’t as crazy an idea as we’d thought. It was served with a heaped tablespoonful of diced watermelon, which made it gimmicky, but it was a fun drink nonetheless. LR thinks it rates at least a 2/4, partly for the whimsy, but there’s no accounting for tastes. High & Mighty’s St. Hubbins Alley (Unfiltered Golden w/ coriander & orange peel / 5.0%) – light and refreshing, but that was about it. Sixpoint Craft Ales’s Northern Lights (Wormwood saison / 6.3%) – This past weekend was the first time I have had saison, and I have no idea what the wormwood added to this one. It was decent though. Surly Brewing Co’s Coffee Bender (Bender / Guatemalan coffee beans / 5.2%) – My first Bender, although I still have no idea what the defining characteristics of this variety are. LR liked it, and regarded it like a slightly bitterer McCoffee. I didn’t care for the overroasted, burnt taste and dumped the rest of it out. Surly Brewing Co’s CynicAle (saison / 6.6%) – I tried this mostly because I had no idea what a saison was. It was not bad, although LR was unimpressed, and thought it was merely an expensive imitation of Tiger Beer. Missed Connection: we wanted to try Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project’s Baby Tree (Abbey Quadrupel w/ dried plums / 8.7%), but it was all out by the time we got there, which was just one hour after the doors opened! We wondered if it would taste like sng mui, or Yomeishu, or if it were indeed a genuinely better creation than the aforementioned Asian Auntie Articles™. There were many “meh” drinks, and many drinks that were just plain bad. However we also have to give kudos to the few that were genuinely awful: Brookyln Brewery’s Cuvée de Cardoz (Belgian-style Wheat Beer w/ ginger, tamarind, mace, black pepper, coriander, fennel, fenugreek, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, chilies and toasted coconut / 8.0%) – There was only a slim chance of this not turning into some kind of alcoholic herbal poultice-slurry, and indeed our initial expectations were spot on. It was more out of morbid curiosity than optimism that we actually bothered to try this one. As it turns out, cuvée is jargon for beer blended to achieve a particular taste. It’s clear that the intention was to evoke sophisticated reminisces of Indian curry, but in our opinions merely produced a concoction of random herbs a cat knocked off a supermarket spice rack and then proceeded to pee on. Smuttynose Brewing Co’s Gravitation Ale (Belgian quad w/ raisin puree / 8.5%) – tasted like mildly sweetened puke, and has the singular distinction of being the only beer I’ve had so far that elicited a visceral reaction from me – I felt like retching. Southern Tier Brewing Co’s Jah-va (Imperial Coffee Stout w/ Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans) Tasted like soy sauce, and was not unlike expired Bovril too. Commencement Obligatory camwhoring resulted in this neat photo: From Commencement Congratulations to all my fellow graduates! Commencement Obligatory camwhoring resulted in this neat photo: From Commencement Congratulations to all my fellow graduates! Ng E-Jay: histrionics based on sloppy data Image via Wikipedia Lee Wei Ling recently wrote to the Straits Times’s forum, suggesting to relax quarantine policies in response to the inevitable spread of the current swine flu virus. In response, Ng E-Jay writes what presumably was intended as a scathing indictment of a member of the Lee family, by accusing her of “practicing bad statistics and horrible science”. Nothing could be further from the truth. While Professor Lee is not an epidemiologist, her suggestions are in accord with (and indeed, come directly from) the current prevailing opinions of leading epidemiologists. According to spokesman Gregory Herzl, the World Health Organization’s post mortem analyses of the most recent avian flu outbreak showed that policies designed to curb international travel were completely ineffective in halting the transmission of avian flu. Lee’s suggestion is quite simple: since such policies don’t work, we might as well accept the inevitable; besides, there is a side benefit in exposing the population to a mild virus since they are then prepared for related but more deadly viruses in the future. This is essentially the same idea behind vaccination, translated from the individual level to that of entire populations. Let the current H1N1 flu virus vaccinate people against more deadly and virulent forms that are more likely to evolve and arise in the future, and if enough people are resistant, there won’t be enough chains of infection for an epidemic of the deadlier (and as yet hypothetical) virus to develop. In contrast, Ng E-Jay doesn’t like this idea at all, and the raison d’être for his Lee-bashing post appears to be his claim that contrary to claims by the media and the health care professionals, the H1N1 influenza virus is actually 100 times more fatal than the common flu. To substantiate this claim, Ng computes the fatality rate of the current swine flu outbreak as 56 reported deaths in Mexico out of 2,003 confirmed cases = 2.8%. To estimate the fatality rate of the common flu, Ng estimates “conservatively” that 150 million Americans get the common flu annually, and based on CDC estimates of 36,000 deaths in the US annually as a result of flu, gets a rate of 0.024% for the common flu. Unfortunately, it is clear that Ng didn’t do his homework. His analysis is greatly flawed for a number of reasons which are outlined above. The actual number of H1N1 infections in Mexico is likely to be much greater than the officially reported numbers. To count as a documented case, a number of things must happen: A person is infected by the H1N1 virus. The infected person gets sick and exhibits flu symptoms. The sick person goes to the doctor. The doctor diagnoses flu and suspects H1N1. The doctor sends samples out to labs for a microbiological assay. The lab result must turn out positive for H1N1. All these events must happen to count. Unfortunately, they don’t always happen. Infected persons don’t necessary become sick, sick people may not have access to reliable health care or choose not to see a doctor, doctors need to decide if it’s worth the extra trouble and money for extra testing, and labs can make mistakes. This is discounting other important distorting factors such as the incubation time of a disease and sometimes even deliberate cover-ups by various authorities, as did occur in China during the SARS outbreak not too long ago. A useful rule of thumb was posited by Dr. Gordon Dickinson, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and the Miami Veterans’ Association, who noted that “For every confirmed case, however, there are probably hundreds of unconfirmed cases”. [ref. 6] When an epidemic first gets going, cases are underreported. The Mexican data are severely skewed because when a breakout first occurs, people aren’t prepared to document a new epidemic. In fact, virologists estimate that the current H1N1 flu virus arose as early as September 2008, and thus at least half a year’s worth of cases went unreported in Mexico. Furthermore, the first reported cases in Mexico were thought to have originated in the commuter town of La Gloria, Veracruz, a remote mountain town that nonetheless has a large transient workforce that works in Mexico City. If this is indeed the origin of swine flu, it is likely that many of these patients could have sustained many lines of transmission before they became documented cases of swine flu. The demographics also suggest that these people may have been too poor to afford the time or money to seek health care. Ng should have compared US data for common flu with US data for swine flu, not Mexican data for swine flu. A far more accurate comparison of the type Ng is attempting can be made using US data because Mexico’s current estimate of the fatality rate is 2.8%, but this is likely to be a severe overestimate because many cases would have gone unreported. Such a comparison controls for other important factors such as the accessibility of health care, demographic variations in age (and thus resistance to disease), and geographic distribution, etc. that vary greatly from the US to Mexico. The US health care system is better equipped for accurate reporting and dissemination, and they have also been alerted by the outbreak in Mexico and have been on full alert since very close to the onset of outbreaks within the US. In fact, the CDC’s latest numbers suggest that the US fatality rate is 4 deaths / 4,714 cases = 0.085%, which is far less than the 3% that Ng bandies about. This number isn’t too accurate because more sick patients may die as the disease progresses, which would raise the fatality rate by ca. 0.02% per new death; however, the US is much better prepared to make accurate records of documented cases, and the error in the denominator is likely to be quite small. Interestingly, there are more documented cases of swine flu in the US than in Mexico, but again this is to be expected because of underreporting in Mexico. Ng overestimates the number of common flu cases in the US. The CDC website provides numbers to suggest that the actual number of common flu cases to be 5 – 20% of the population annually, which translates to 15 to 60 million cases annually. Thus the fatality rate of common flu in the US is about 36,000/15,000,000 to 60,000,000 = 0.06% to 0.24%. Thus Ng’s use of 150 million cases is off by a factor of 2.5 to 10 – not too bad for a number pulled out of thin air, but still not great. Summary and Conclusion Ng’s main bone of contention is that swine flu is more deadly than regular flu, and therefore it makes no sense to abandon our current policies to risk exposure to the current H1N1 epidemic. Furthermore, Ng estimates the fatality rate of swine flu to be 3% and that of common flu to be 0.024%. In contrast, an analysis based on available data online, which took all of ten minutes to collect and verify, gave rates of 0.08 – 0.1% for swine flu versus 0.06% – 0.24% for common flu in the United States. While some of these numbers are quite rough, this shows quite conclusively that there is no compelling evidence to support the claim that swine flu is significantly more fatal than the common flu. The person who is really doing “practicing bad statistics and horrible science” is not Lee, but Ng, for his incredibly sloppy comparison of apples and oranges, and using very poor estimates to boot. Disclaimers I am not an epidemiologist, nor am I a doctor. My qualifications in microbiology and epidemiology are limited to a term paper on the mathematics of epidemic spreads and conversations with PhD students in those fields If you experience flu-like symptoms, call a doctor. References Lee Wei Ling, Straits Times, Let it in while benign to develop herd immunity, 2009-05-12. Ng E-Jay, Sgpolitics.net, Prof Lee Wei Ling is practicing bad statistics and horrible science, 2009-05-15. Latin American Herald Tribune, Swine-Flu Deaths Reach 56 in Mexico. CDC H1N1 Flu Update, accessed 2009-05-15. Joe Cohen and Martin Enserink, Science, As Swine Flu Circles Globe, Scientists Grapple With Basic Questions, 324 (5927), 2009, 572-573. doi:10.1126/science.324_572. HealthDay news, Study Supports Swine Flu’s Pandemic Potential, 2009-05-12. Ng E-Jay: histrionics based on sloppy data Image via Wikipedia Lee Wei Ling recently wrote to the Straits Times’s forum, suggesting to relax quarantine policies in response to the inevitable spread of the current swine flu virus. In response, Ng E-Jay writes what presumably was intended as a scathing indictment of a member of the Lee family, by accusing her of “practicing bad statistics and horrible science”. Nothing could be further from the truth. While Professor Lee is not an epidemiologist, her suggestions are in accord with (and indeed, come directly from) the current prevailing opinions of leading epidemiologists. According to spokesman Gregory Herzl, the World Health Organization’s post mortem analyses of the most recent avian flu outbreak showed that policies designed to curb international travel were completely ineffective in halting the transmission of avian flu. Lee’s suggestion is quite simple: since such policies don’t work, we might as well accept the inevitable; besides, there is a side benefit in exposing the population to a mild virus since they are then prepared for related but more deadly viruses in the future. This is essentially the same idea behind vaccination, translated from the individual level to that of entire populations. Let the current H1N1 flu virus vaccinate people against more deadly and virulent forms that are more likely to evolve and arise in the future, and if enough people are resistant, there won’t be enough chains of infection for an epidemic of the deadlier (and as yet hypothetical) virus to develop. In contrast, Ng E-Jay doesn’t like this idea at all, and the raison d’être for his Lee-bashing post appears to be his claim that contrary to claims by the media and the health care professionals, the H1N1 influenza virus is actually 100 times more fatal than the common flu. To substantiate this claim, Ng computes the fatality rate of the current swine flu outbreak as 56 reported deaths in Mexico out of 2,003 confirmed cases = 2.8%. To estimate the fatality rate of the common flu, Ng estimates “conservatively” that 150 million Americans get the common flu annually, and based on CDC estimates of 36,000 deaths in the US annually as a result of flu, gets a rate of 0.024% for the common flu. Unfortunately, it is clear that Ng didn’t do his homework. His analysis is greatly flawed for a number of reasons which are outlined above. The actual number of H1N1 infections in Mexico is likely to be much greater than the officially reported numbers. To count as a documented case, a number of things must happen: A person is infected by the H1N1 virus. The infected person gets sick and exhibits flu symptoms. The sick person goes to the doctor. The doctor diagnoses flu and suspects H1N1. The doctor sends samples out to labs for a microbiological assay. The lab result must turn out positive for H1N1. All these events must happen to count. Unfortunately, they don’t always happen. Infected persons don’t necessary become sick, sick people may not have access to reliable health care or choose not to see a doctor, doctors need to decide if it’s worth the extra trouble and money for extra testing, and labs can make mistakes. This is discounting other important distorting factors such as the incubation time of a disease and sometimes even deliberate cover-ups by various authorities, as did occur in China during the SARS outbreak not too long ago. A useful rule of thumb was posited by Dr. Gordon Dickinson, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and the Miami Veterans’ Association, who noted that “For every confirmed case, however, there are probably hundreds of unconfirmed cases”. [ref. 6] When an epidemic first gets going, cases are underreported. The Mexican data are severely skewed because when a breakout first occurs, people aren’t prepared to document a new epidemic. In fact, virologists estimate that the current H1N1 flu virus arose as early as September 2008, and thus at least half a year’s worth of cases went unreported in Mexico. Furthermore, the first reported cases in Mexico were thought to have originated in the commuter town of La Gloria, Veracruz, a remote mountain town that nonetheless has a large transient workforce that works in Mexico City. If this is indeed the origin of swine flu, it is likely that many of these patients could have sustained many lines of transmission before they became documented cases of swine flu. The demographics also suggest that these people may have been too poor to afford the time or money to seek health care. Ng should have compared US data for common flu with US data for swine flu, not Mexican data for swine flu. A far more accurate comparison of the type Ng is attempting can be made using US data because Mexico’s current estimate of the fatality rate is 2.8%, but this is likely to be a severe overestimate because many cases would have gone unreported. Such a comparison controls for other important factors such as the accessibility of health care, demographic variations in age (and thus resistance to disease), and geographic distribution, etc. that vary greatly from the US to Mexico. The US health care system is better equipped for accurate reporting and dissemination, and they have also been alerted by the outbreak in Mexico and have been on full alert since very close to the onset of outbreaks within the US. In fact, the CDC’s latest numbers suggest that the US fatality rate is 4 deaths / 4,714 cases = 0.085%, which is far less than the 3% that Ng bandies about. This number isn’t too accurate because more sick patients may die as the disease progresses, which would raise the fatality rate by ca. 0.02% per new death; however, the US is much better prepared to make accurate records of documented cases, and the error in the denominator is likely to be quite small. Interestingly, there are more documented cases of swine flu in the US than in Mexico, but again this is to be expected because of underreporting in Mexico. Ng overestimates the number of common flu cases in the US. The CDC website provides numbers to suggest that the actual number of common flu cases to be 5 – 20% of the population annually, which translates to 15 to 60 million cases annually. Thus the fatality rate of common flu in the US is about 36,000/15,000,000 to 60,000,000 = 0.06% to 0.24%. Thus Ng’s use of 150 million cases is off by a factor of 2.5 to 10 – not too bad for a number pulled out of thin air, but still not great. Summary and Conclusion Ng’s main bone of contention is that swine flu is more deadly than regular flu, and therefore it makes no sense to abandon our current policies to risk exposure to the current H1N1 epidemic. Furthermore, Ng estimates the fatality rate of swine flu to be 3% and that of common flu to be 0.024%. In contrast, an analysis based on available data online, which took all of ten minutes to collect and verify, gave rates of 0.08 – 0.1% for swine flu versus 0.06% – 0.24% for common flu in the United States. While some of these numbers are quite rough, this shows quite conclusively that there is no compelling evidence to support the claim that swine flu is significantly more fatal than the common flu. The person who is really doing “practicing bad statistics and horrible science” is not Lee, but Ng, for his incredibly sloppy comparison of apples and oranges, and using very poor estimates to boot. Disclaimers I am not an epidemiologist, nor am I a doctor. My qualifications in microbiology and epidemiology are limited to a term paper on the mathematics of epidemic spreads and conversations with PhD students in those fields If you experience flu-like symptoms, call a doctor. References Lee Wei Ling, Straits Times, Let it in while benign to develop herd immunity, 2009-05-12. Ng E-Jay, Sgpolitics.net, Prof Lee Wei Ling is practicing bad statistics and horrible science, 2009-05-15. Latin American Herald Tribune, Swine-Flu Deaths Reach 56 in Mexico. CDC H1N1 Flu Update, accessed 2009-05-15. Joe Cohen and Martin Enserink, Science, As Swine Flu Circles Globe, Scientists Grapple With Basic Questions, 324 (5927), 2009, 572-573. doi:10.1126/science.324_572. HealthDay news, Study Supports Swine Flu’s Pandemic Potential, 2009-05-12. End of Chapter III The PhD dissertation has been deposited, and I am officially a PhD degree recipient. All the ridiculous naysayers have thus been Officially Proven Wrong and can Go Fug Themselves. You know who I’m talking about. For the rest of you who have been tireless supporters of the AcidFlask banner, thank you! Your support over the years have been very much appreciated. It is also time to retire the old blog address and move to this shiny new address at acfsk.com, hosted by NearlyFreeSpeech.net. Hopefully all the redirections have been done correctly to make this move as painless as possible. And so Chapter III of the AcidFlask Chronicles is hereby concluded. End of Chapter III The PhD dissertation has been deposited, and I am officially a PhD degree recipient. All the ridiculous naysayers have thus been Officially Proven Wrong and can Go Fug Themselves. You know who I’m talking about. For the rest of you who have been tireless supporters of the AcidFlask banner, thank you! Your support over the years have been very much appreciated. It is also time to retire the old blog address and move to this shiny new address at acfsk.com, hosted by NearlyFreeSpeech.net. Hopefully all the redirections have been done correctly to make this move as painless as possible. And so Chapter III of the AcidFlask Chronicles is hereby concluded. The Acidflask AWARE Awards I haven’t had this much fun in a long time, and it certainly felt awesome to be following the news on Twitter, almost instantaneously. There were lots of fantastic, historic moments, which I have decided to commemorate with the Acidflask AWARE Awards. Best moments Best Rosa Parks tribute: NMP Siew Kum Hong, for having been asked by Josie Lau to sit in the area reserved for associate members, and refusing, thus precipitating the first open scuffle of the meeting between the Old Guard and New Guard. Most quotable New Guard: Sally Ang, for her “shut up and sit down” outburst. Most poignant audience address: A tudung clad Malay-Muslim woman, expressing her discomfort over AWARE being led by an exclusively Chinese, predominantly Christian exco. “Where’s the diversity?” Honorable mention: Irene Ang, “I have no confidence and just for the record, I’m a Christian and I love God like you do.” Most offbeat moment: A man taking the audience microphone, only to announce that he was looking for his mother. Honorable mention: the man who complained that for the $40 he paid, the food wasn’t that great. Honorable mention: the woman who knitted her way through the fracas surrounding Josie Lau’s opening speech. Greatest advance in homophobia research: The former AWARE Exco and organizers, for having the microphones mysteriously switch off in the middle of questions about the new exco’s policies and attitudes toward homosexuality. Best epic delusion: Thio Su Mien: “I believe I’m a feminist mentor because you have put me in your book! All of you have been asked to read about women who are (sic) first in the field, and I’m so charmed when I discovered that I’m even in this book! – it was the one given to me – that I’m in this book on page 73! So you may have to tear this book up – [our article - hope you've all read it]* And also [interrupts self] Please be polite, people. Show some respect for your elders, OK?” The entire speech on Vimeo is just priceless. (Disclaimer: my transcription, made harder by the heckling. Sentence in [*] is my wild guess at what was actually said.) The Page 73 Speech from missbossy on Vimeo. Most embarrassing leak: Josie Lau admitting that Thio Su Mien was responsible for masterminding the takeover and controlling much of the new committee. Most persistent question: the woman who got escorted out after asking repeatedly for the new exco to disclose how much they spent on the meeting. Best vanishing act: Josie Lau and the Pussy Cats, for sneaking out of the meeting by the back door after losing the vote of no confidence. Most afflicted English accent: Josie Lau. Enough said. Best twitter coverage: @patlaw. This one was really tough – other very close honorable mentions: @dominicsoon @kaitentoshi @Germaine @euniqueflair @unfluff. Best liveblog: Wayang Party blew The Online Citizen out of the water for its meticulous transcripting, whereas the latter’s site succumbed more often to bandwidth quota errors and server crashes. Best photographic coverage: @gniliep’s blow-by-blow twitpic stream. Best video coverage: @stuartkoe, for his youtube vids. Most exotic correspondence location: @skinnylatte, for following the news all the way from Damascus, Syria! Most irrelevant news coverage: CNA for being quick to file the opening report, having it picked up by the local news twitbots, then have it rapidly fall off the radar into obsolescence. Funniest twit: @feministmentor. Worst pun: @jerrzt, replying to @mrbrown “I am suprised police never make folks at AWARE EOGM surrender their shoes. Heels can hurt leh”, with “heels don’t matter when their soles are at stake! ” Entrepreneurship awards Most enterprising twit: @bionic_creative for masterminding the AWARE EGM T-shirts. Get them from a Singapore or US supplier. Most profitable venture: Suntec City, for taking $18k in booking fees for 3 hours of Rm 402, plus presumably a whole lot more for the 4+ hours of overtime. Most unexpected benefactor: Harvey Norman. as @JoeAugustin put it, “In unrelated news Harvey Norman does brisk business in Suntec as hundreds of husbands and boyfriends wait around for other halfs.” (sic) The Acidflask AWARE Awards I haven’t had this much fun in a long time, and it certainly felt awesome to be following the news on Twitter, almost instantaneously. There were lots of fantastic, historic moments, which I have decided to commemorate with the Acidflask AWARE Awards. Best moments Best Rosa Parks tribute: NMP Siew Kum Hong, for having been asked by Josie Lau to sit in the area reserved for associate members, and refusing, thus precipitating the first open scuffle of the meeting between the Old Guard and New Guard. Most quotable New Guard: Sally Ang, for her “shut up and sit down” outburst. Most poignant audience address: A tudung clad Malay-Muslim woman, expressing her discomfort over AWARE being led by an exclusively Chinese, predominantly Christian exco. “Where’s the diversity?” Honorable mention: Irene Ang, “I have no confidence and just for the record, I’m a Christian and I love God like you do.” Most offbeat moment: A man taking the audience microphone, only to announce that he was looking for his mother. Honorable mention: the man who complained that for the $40 he paid, the food wasn’t that great. Honorable mention: the woman who knitted her way through the fracas surrounding Josie Lau’s opening speech. Greatest advance in homophobia research: The former AWARE Exco and organizers, for having the microphones mysteriously switch off in the middle of questions about the new exco’s policies and attitudes toward homosexuality. Best epic delusion: Thio Su Mien: “I believe I’m a feminist mentor because you have put me in your book! All of you have been asked to read about women who are (sic) first in the field, and I’m so charmed when I discovered that I’m even in this book! - it was the one given to me - that I’m in this book on page 73! So you may have to tear this book up - [our article - hope you've all read it]* And also [interrupts self] Please be polite, people. Show some respect for your elders, OK?” The entire speech on Vimeo is just priceless. (Disclaimer: my transcription, made harder by the heckling. Sentence in [*] is my wild guess at what was actually said.) The Page 73 Speech from missbossy on Vimeo. Most embarrassing leak: Josie Lau admitting that Thio Su Mien was responsible for masterminding the takeover and controlling much of the new committee. Most persistent question: the woman who got escorted out after asking repeatedly for the new exco to disclose how much they spent on the meeting. Best vanishing act: Josie Lau and the Pussy Cats, for sneaking out of the meeting by the back door after losing the vote of no confidence. Most afflicted English accent: Josie Lau. Enough said. Best twitter coverage: @patlaw. This one was really tough - other very close honorable mentions: @dominicsoon @kaitentoshi @Germaine @euniqueflair @unfluff. Best liveblog: Wayang Party blew The Online Citizen out of the water for its meticulous transcripting, whereas the latter’s site succumbed more often to bandwidth quota errors and server crashes. Best photographic coverage: @gniliep’s blow-by-blow twitpic stream. Best video coverage: @stuartkoe, for his youtube vids. Most exotic correspondence location: @skinnylatte, for following the news all the way from Damascus, Syria! Most irrelevant news coverage: CNA for being quick to file the opening report, having it picked up by the local news twitbots, then have it rapidly fall off the radar into obsolescence. Funniest twit: @feministmentor. Worst pun: @jerrzt, replying to @mrbrown “I am suprised police never make folks at AWARE EOGM surrender their shoes. Heels can hurt leh”, with “heels don’t matter when their soles are at stake! ;)” Entrepreneurship awards Most enterprising twit: @bionic_creative for masterminding the AWARE EGM T-shirts. Get them from a Singapore or US supplier. Most profitable venture: Suntec City, for taking $18k in booking fees for 3 hours of Rm 402, plus presumably a whole lot more for the 4+ hours of overtime. Most unexpected benefactor: Harvey Norman. as @JoeAugustin put it, “In unrelated news Harvey Norman does brisk business in Suntec as hundreds of husbands and boyfriends wait around for other halfs.” (sic) The Acidflask AWARE Awards I haven’t had this much fun in a long time, and it certainly felt awesome to be following the news on Twitter, almost instantaneously. There were lots of fantastic, historic moments, which I have decided to commemorate with the Acidflask AWARE Awards. Best moments Best Rosa Parks tribute: NMP Siew Kum Hong, for having been asked by Josie Lau to sit in the area reserved for associate members, and refusing, thus precipitating the first open scuffle of the meeting between the Old Guard and New Guard. Most quotable New Guard: Sally Ang, for her “shut up and sit down” outburst. Most poignant audience address: A tudung clad Malay-Muslim woman, expressing her discomfort over AWARE being led by an exclusively Chinese, predominantly Christian exco. “Where’s the diversity?” Honorable mention: Irene Ang, “I have no confidence and just for the record, I’m a Christian and I love God like you do.” Most offbeat moment: A man taking the audience microphone, only to announce that he was looking for his mother. Honorable mention: the man who complained that for the $40 he paid, the food wasn’t that great. Honorable mention: the woman who knitted her way through the fracas surrounding Josie Lau’s opening speech. Greatest advance in homophobia research: The former AWARE Exco and organizers, for having the microphones mysteriously switch off in the middle of questions about the new exco’s policies and attitudes toward homosexuality. Best epic delusion: Thio Su Mien: “I believe I’m a feminist mentor because you have put me in your book! All of you have been asked to read about women who are (sic) first in the field, and I’m so charmed when I discovered that I’m even in this book! - it was the one given to me - that I’m in this book on page 73! So you may have to tear this book up - [our article - hope you've all read it]* And also [interrupts self] Please be polite, people. Show some respect for your elders, OK?” The entire speech on Vimeo is just priceless. (Disclaimer: my transcription, made harder by the heckling. Sentence in [*] is my wild guess at what was actually said.) The Page 73 Speech from missbossy on Vimeo. Most embarrassing leak: Josie Lau admitting that Thio Su Mien was responsible for masterminding the takeover and controlling much of the new committee. Most persistent question: the woman who got escorted out after asking repeatedly for the new exco to disclose how much they spent on the meeting. Best vanishing act: Josie Lau and the Pussy Cats, for sneaking out of the meeting by the back door after losing the vote of no confidence. Most afflicted English accent: Josie Lau. Enough said. Best twitter coverage: @patlaw. This one was really tough - other very close honorable mentions: @dominicsoon @kaitentoshi @Germaine @euniqueflair @unfluff. Best liveblog: Wayang Party blew The Online Citizen out of the water for its meticulous transcripting, whereas the latter’s site succumbed more often to bandwidth quota errors and server crashes. Best photographic coverage: @gniliep’s blow-by-blow twitpic stream. Best video coverage: @stuartkoe, for his youtube vids. Most exotic correspondence location: @skinnylatte, for following the news all the way from Damascus, Syria! Most irrelevant news coverage: CNA for being quick to file the opening report, having it picked up by the local news twitbots, then have it rapidly fall off the radar into obsolescence. Funniest twit: @feministmentor. Worst pun: @jerrzt, replying to @mrbrown “I am suprised police never make folks at AWARE EOGM surrender their shoes. Heels can hurt leh”, with “heels don’t matter when their soles are at stake! ;)” Entrepreneurship awards Most enterprising twit: @bionic_creative for masterminding the AWARE EGM T-shirts. Get them from a Singapore or US supplier. Most profitable venture: Suntec City, for taking $18k in booking fees for 3 hours of Rm 402, plus presumably a whole lot more for the 4+ hours of overtime. Most unexpected benefactor: Harvey Norman. as @JoeAugustin put it, “In unrelated news Harvey Norman does brisk business in Suntec as hundreds of husbands and boyfriends wait around for other halfs.” (sic) The Acidflask AWARE Awards I haven’t had this much fun in a long time, and it certainly felt awesome to be following the news on Twitter, almost instantaneously. There were lots of fantastic, historic moments, which I have decided to commemorate with the Acidflask AWARE Awards. Best moments Best Rosa Parks tribute: NMP Siew Kum Hong, for having been asked by Josie Lau to sit in the area reserved for associate members, and refusing, thus precipitating the first open scuffle of the meeting between the Old Guard and New Guard. Most quotable New Guard: Sally Ang, for her “shut up and sit down” outburst. Most poignant audience address: A tudung clad Malay-Muslim woman, expressing her discomfort over AWARE being led by an exclusively Chinese, predominantly Christian exco. “Where’s the diversity?” Honorable mention: Irene Ang, “I have no confidence and just for the record, I’m a Christian and I love God like you do.” Most offbeat moment: A man taking the audience microphone, only to announce that he was looking for his mother. Honorable mention: the man who complained that for the $40 he paid, the food wasn’t that great. Honorable mention: the woman who knitted her way through the fracas surrounding Josie Lau’s opening speech. Greatest advance in homophobia research: The former AWARE Exco and organizers, for having the microphones mysteriously switch off in the middle of questions about the new exco’s policies and attitudes toward homosexuality. Best epic delusion: Thio Su Mien: “I believe I’m a feminist mentor because you have put me in your book! All of you have been asked to read about women who are (sic) first in the field, and I’m so charmed when I discovered that I’m even in this book! – it was the one given to me – that I’m in this book on page 73! So you may have to tear this book up – [our article - hope you've all read it]* And also [interrupts self] Please be polite, people. Show some respect for your elders, OK?” The entire speech on Vimeo is just priceless. (Disclaimer: my transcription, made harder by the heckling. Sentence in [*] is my wild guess at what was actually said.) The Page 73 Speech from missbossy on Vimeo. Most embarrassing leak: Josie Lau admitting that Thio Su Mien was responsible for masterminding the takeover and controlling much of the new committee. Most persistent question: the woman who got escorted out after asking repeatedly for the new exco to disclose how much they spent on the meeting. Best vanishing act: Josie Lau and the Pussy Cats, for sneaking out of the meeting by the back door after losing the vote of no confidence. Most afflicted English accent: Josie Lau. Enough said. Best twitter coverage: @patlaw. This one was really tough – other very close honorable mentions: @dominicsoon @kaitentoshi @Germaine @euniqueflair @unfluff. Best liveblog: Wayang Party blew The Online Citizen out of the water for its meticulous transcripting, whereas the latter’s site succumbed more often to bandwidth quota errors and server crashes. Best photographic coverage: @gniliep’s blow-by-blow twitpic stream. Best video coverage: @stuartkoe, for his youtube vids. Most exotic correspondence location: @skinnylatte, for following the news all the way from Damascus, Syria! Most irrelevant news coverage: CNA for being quick to file the opening report, having it picked up by the local news twitbots, then have it rapidly fall off the radar into obsolescence. Funniest twit: @feministmentor. Worst pun: @jerrzt, replying to @mrbrown “I am suprised police never make folks at AWARE EOGM surrender their shoes. Heels can hurt leh”, with “heels don’t matter when their soles are at stake! ” Entrepreneurship awards Most enterprising twit: @bionic_creative for masterminding the AWARE EGM T-shirts. Get them from a Singapore or US supplier. Most profitable venture: Suntec City, for taking $18k in booking fees for 3 hours of Rm 402, plus presumably a whole lot more for the 4+ hours of overtime. Most unexpected benefactor: Harvey Norman. as @JoeAugustin put it, “In unrelated news Harvey Norman does brisk business in Suntec as hundreds of husbands and boyfriends wait around for other halfs.” (sic) All but deposited Call me a doctor! All but deposited Call me a doctor!