The long and costly shadow of COVID-19 Infected Canadians are still suffering from symptoms, but we don’t know how many

The long and costly shadow of COVID-19 continues to haunt us. The pandemic will have an impact on our economic and personal health for years to come, by @picardonhealth.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/0fc7a92... via @theglobeandmail.com

"Protocol fidelity matters and trial findings are valid only if what was planned was actually implemented and measured as described. Transparency is essential for credibility." From "When the SPIRIT moves you: protocol changes can introduce bias in non-inferiority trials," new at BMJ.

A short piece that packs a big punch.

It discusses the potential weakness of non-inferiority trials.

Many of us have witnessed the harm a trial with bias can do, especially if it is disseminated globally & during a volatile time - difficult to correct once it’s out in the wild.

We must do better.

Study links long COVID in kids to worse grades, attention, and social life

Wondering if it will wind up the parent chat group enough to get me booted out if I put the article about long COVID and school grades in there... 👀

www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/stu...

The Humanities: 5 Leadership Skills That Business Schools Don't Teach We were told to hire for efficiency. Optimization. Scale. And yet the five most important skills I look for in a leader rarely come from a business background at all.

“The most sophisticated organizations I know are quietly recalibrating what they value in hiring. They are looking for thinkers who can synthesize across domains. Who can write clearly. Who can question assumptions. Who can detect hypocrisy. Who can imagine second-order effects.” #cdnpse #nspse

www.bmj.com/content/393/...

New piece in BMJ by @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social, Sam Lovell, @jvipondmd.bsky.social, @mjnabuurs.bsky.social and myself on how poor quality trials can bias evidence against respirator use.

www.bmj.com/content/393/...

A really important critique of the flawed @AnnalsofIM masks vs respirators trial. Good on
@bmj_latest for publishing it

www.bmj.com/content/393/...

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity Great swathes of rock music since the nineteen-sixties would never have existed, we're sometimes told, were it not for the recordings of Robert Johnson. Certainly the likes of Keith Richards, Eric Cla...

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity

“Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc.”

AI can’t take a simple step and four humans have to clean up the mess…

And, boy, did they!!!

Thanks to all who worked on this piece.

Hopefully, its contents will be heeded, and used to clarify or correct some pretty substantial (and sometimes dangerous) narratives that come out of some studies, like the Loeb et al. one 🙏🏻.

Integrating design-of-experiments (DOE) optimization and risk assessment towards a safe and simplified electroporation protocol for Toxoplasma gondii Author summary In this study, we report a novel electroporation buffer that significantly simplifies Toxoplasma electroporation by using a convenient, off-the-shelf medium, while maintaining transfect...

My posts around risk management and biological hazards often relate to #COVID and #misinformation, as public health and infection control leaders have botched those so badly, however I also see critical importance in integrating system #safety directly into biotech research. Our latest in that area:

new short Opinion piece in the BMJ today.
When the SPIRIT moves you: protocol changes can introduce bias in non-inferiority trials
W/@trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social @mark-ungrin.bsky.social @mjnabuurs.bsky.social and my nursing colleague Sam Lovell
www.bmj.com/content/393/...

"Protocol fidelity matters and trial findings are valid only if what was planned was actually implemented and measured as described. Transparency is essential for credibility." From "When the SPIRIT moves you: protocol changes can introduce bias in non-inferiority trials," new at BMJ.

How Big Tech Lobbied the EU to Hide Data Centers' Environmental Toll The European Commission has adopted industry-drafted language shielding data center emissions data from public view, report Nico Schmidt and Ella Joyner.

Microsoft and other US tech companies successfully lobbied the EU to hide the environmental toll of their data centers, Investigate Europe reports in collaboration with Tech Policy Press and other media partners.

Thou shalt not commit blasphemy against Samuel L. Jackson’s monologue in Pulp Fiction, motherfucker.

The hollowing out of public postsecondary education: What do we have to lose? - CCPA Is post-secondary education in Canada a pipeline to train students for jobs or a source of critical perspectives essential to a healthy society?

“Historically, a distinguishing strength of Canada’s postsecondary system has been a broad equality of educational opportunity. . . . Underfunding combined with privatization and marketization threaten that.” #cdnpse #nspse

C'mon. Everyone knew they were going to start charging for AI, right? This is how tech works: first get everyone hooked (note: it doesn't matter whether it works or not), then ratchet up the price. Remember when you could *buy* AdobePro? www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6x8...

Perhaps Magyar's most important promise, and the one that certainly resonates with voters: "never again a country without consequences!"

The crowd chants: "To prison! To prison!" [with the corrupt officials of the outgoing government]

Scientists invented a fake disease. AI told people it was real Bixonimania doesn’t exist except in a clutch of obviously bogus academic papers. So why did AI chatbots warn people about this fictional illness?

I have concerns... This isn't about medical mechanisms: it's about AI and comms. Running the experiment in this way affected AI users--people. I'd suggest that this badly needed both an ethics check and the involvement of AI and cultural researchers. The result seems completely predictable, IMHO.

Disgraced former Manitoba law school dean disbarred in U.K. over 'blatant and sustained dishonesty' | CBC News Former University of Manitoba law school dean Jonathan Black-Branch, who was disbarred in Manitoba in 2024, has now also been disbarred in England and Wales.

But... would anything have happened (publicly, anyway) if he hadn't been a lawyer? #cdnpse www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

I have read a statement
that “a whole civilization
will die tonight,
never to be brought back again,”
and as I read that statement
and as I reread that statement
I cannot shake the feeling
that the civilization
from which that statement comes
is one that is already dead.

An Office 365 menu (on my employer's site), offering to install "Microsoft 365 apps" or "Get More Apps" with two Copilot tabs: "Microsoft 365 Copilot desktop app / Boost your productivity with our free Microsoft 365 Copilot desktop app" and "Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app / Take your productivity on the go with our free iOS and Android app." (It's "free" to users, presumably, not my employer.)

So, I'm curious how their terms can say that copilot is "for entertainment purposes only" and that copilot makes mistakes while they also push us to use it at work for "productivity." That seems a tad contradictory... #cdnpse #0365

Folks at such universities might ask how much their administration pays for copilot. Rumor has it that it isn’t free.

Microsoft says Copilot is for entertainment purposes only, not serious use — firm pushing AI hard to consumers and businesses tells users not to rely on it for important advice These might be boilerplate disclaimers, but they kind of contradict the company's ads and marketing. . 23 hours ago PCMag Copilot Terms Claim Microsoft's AI Is for 'Entertainment Purposes Only' The update flew under the radar, but cropped up on social media this week, with some users noting that the disclosure is similar to what you... . 11 hours ago XDA Microsoft quietly buried 'for entertainment purposes only' in Copilot's Terms of Use It feels like AI companies have two contradictory masks they try to wear at the same time. The first is the one you see in the... . 18 hours ago The Register Even Microsoft knows Copilot shouldn't be trusted with anything important A recent surge of interest in Microsoft's Terms of Use for Copilot is a reminder that AI helpers are really just a bit of fun.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES & WARNINGS Copilot may include advertising. Copilot may include both automated and manual (human) processing of data. You shouldn’t share any information with Copilot that you don’t want us to review. We plan to continue to develop and improve Copilot, but we make no guarantees or promises about how Copilot will operate or that it will operate as intended. Sometimes, we may offer certain features or services as part of “Copilot Labs.” These features and services are highly experimental and may not always work as intended. We may add, modify, or remove features or services from Copilot Labs at any time for any reason. We may limit the speed or performance of Copilot as we think necessary. When you request that Copilot take Actions on your behalf, you are solely responsible for those Actions and any results or consequences. Copilot is for entertainment purposes only. It can make mistakes, and it may not work as intended. Don’t rely on Copilot for important advice. Use Copilot at your own risk. WITHOUT LIMITING SECTION 12 OF THE MICROSOFT SERVICES AGREEMENT IN ANY WAY, BUT FOR THE SAKE OF CLARITY, WE DO NOT MAKE ANY WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION OF ANY KIND ABOUT COPILOT. For example, we can’t promise that any Copilot’s Responses won’t infringe someone else’s rights (like their copyrights, trademarks, or rights of privacy) or defame them. You are solely responsible if you choose to publish or share Copilot’s Responses publicly or with any other person. You agree to indemnify us and hold us harmless (including our affiliates, employees and any other agents) from and against any claims, losses, and expenses (including attorneys' fees) arising from or relating to your use of Copilot, including without limitation your use, sharing, or publication of any Prompt, Responses, or Creations, or your breach of these Terms or violation of applicable law.

Microsoft CoPilot isn't meant for real work. Even Microsoft says so.

Any university that pushes it as an analysis tool needs to wake up.

Someone needs to tell @dalhousie.bsky.social too. For a while, we couldn't even turn Copilot off--I had to switch to a non-MS wordprocessor to avoid Copilot.

And we know people in Admin are using AI apps (partly because #nsgov is demanding an avalanche of paperwork without $$ for staff to do it).

AI-run war for AI resources leads to threats against AI infrastructure. Sounds about right.

Adults in the room might take a step back and contemplate the human cost of this tech war, including the climate effects of massive oil fires to get control of energy for AI to burn at massive rates.

As the article itself points out, the pandemic is ongoing. We’re just post-public-health-doing-much-about-it—and we continue to pay for that inaction in illness and lives lost.

We have good tools—including testing, data-collection, ventilation/filtration, comms—but public health has to lead.

Dalhousie faculty raise concerns over university AI integration Dalhousie University is seeking to employ AI tools “more robustly,” Cathie O’Toole, the university’s vice-president of finance and administration, told the board of governors at a recent meeting.

I'm moving back to writing notes on paper like it's 1994 because of all of the auto-nagging to use AI. Today a message app suggested I use AI to summarize a message that took half of my phone's screen. Multiply that by every user of the app and the energy + potential cognitive costs are enormous.