• Chart of the week: Evolution of the alphabet. There was another good chart this week too, and probably more consequential.
• Discussion of the week: Branko Milanović and Russ Roberts mostly on the Nobel prize
• Letter of the week: Lunch is bad for me
• Tech tip of the week: Uninstall Google Chrome and the malware that comes with it (bonus life tip of the week: Write better notes)
• Thread of the week: The future of work(?)

• A depressing truth which reminded me that season 2 of the Leftovers is the best season of any show ever made.
• Discussion of the week: Is “Finite and Infinite Games” a masterpiece or dangerously delusional (after reading the replies I favor the latter, and this is a good reason why)
• Software of the week: CellPAINT-2.0, and I had to pick up my jaw off the floor after seeing what it can do (this tweet also made my jaw drop but for all the wrong reasons).
• Article of the week: Shedding of viable SARS-CoV-2 after immunosuppressive therapy for cancer.
• Thread of the week: David Steensma’s best one yet — A brief history of aspirin (bonus thread: Accidental renaissance photos)

• The nightmare continues. Novartis should ask for its money back.
• Thread of the week: some RECOVERY trial updates. And if you prefer vaccines, there is a thread for that.
• Tool of the week: SciTLDR. Turns your abstracts into tweetable one-liners. Not sure it’s a positive development but it’s interesting.
• Taleb tweet/video of the week: discussing the Danish mask study with Yaneer Bar-Yam. Here is the paper if by some miracle you’ve missed it.
• More Prince, less Covid-19, please.

• A toddler’s giggle
• A third-grader’s pout
• Foam mat floor tiles
• Child locks
• Apple TV+, including but not limited to Ted Lasso, Tiny World, Mythic Quest, Fireball, and Wolfwalkers which even before being released has provided hours of entertainment for my children by the virtue of its most excellent trailer
• Essential workers
• A working internet connection, on weekday mornings in particular
• My coworkers, each and every one
• Overcast
• Belgian beer, more specifically Duvel and Chimay Tripel (aka Chimay White)
• Wireless buds, even though they remind me of that one episode of Doctor Who
• Fresh towels
• Reliable pens (this one too, and here’s a good mechanical pencil)
• Good journalism
• Blurred backgrounds (but I may soon start using these instead)
• Physical mute buttons
• Reliable cars
• Fast pipelines
• Thoughtful interviewers
• Saturday afternoons when we’re all back from a long walk outside and tired enough to have a good appetite but not too tired to spend the evening doing something fun knowing there’s also Sunday to look forward to
• Long sentences
• Good endings

• USMLE Step 2 CS is now virtual. I am trying hard to find reasons for this other than the purely cynical and so far I’m failing.
• ABIM has its issues too.
• Idea management tools. I was using Roam Research this time last year and stopped as soon as it became clear privacy would always be an issue with an online-only tool.
• Article of the week: Exceptional responders.
• Taleb tweet of the week: Eggs!

• Remember how people blamed sugar for tumor growth? Well, they can now start blaming fat as well.
• Life is complex.
• Article of the week: super-spreader parties.
• Taleb tweet of the week: if you are in six+ sigma territory time and again, your probability distribution is wrong.
• Quote of the week: “Live your life honestly and make sure you are never caught”. Truly a quote for our times.

• Abolish time zones! (I’ve had this idea for a while, glad I wasn’t the only one)
• Taleb on 538’s election model
• Knowing the result ≠ counting all votes, legal or not
• I finally understand Bayesian statistics.
• RIP Sean Connery and Alex Trabek.

• David Bowie was a genius
• Why telemedicine can’t replace in-person visits
• Why I don’t write as much
• Paper of the week: a review of hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma
• Thread of the week: the story of warfarin

Bonus: I may finally learn how many people actually read this blog.

• The known unknowns of Covid-19
• The blue checkmark correlates with not distinguishing correlation from causation. (or does it actually cause the ignorance?)
• Someone at DHS hasn’t thought through the second order effects of their stupendously inept J-1 policy change.
• The best essay I read this week was written in 1944.
• Zombie starfish and mutant crayfish. Halloween must be near.

• The true value of Twitter: one misspelled, 2-like post can lead you down some magnificent rabbit holes. Bonus: An introduction to mathematical oncology, which is part of this JCO compilation.
• Median time from application submission to drug approval was 3.3 months (range 0.4 to 5.9 months) with real-time oncology review. Hard to get much faster than that, so why do some economists still want to speed up review?
• Another top physician-scientist leaves academia for industry, and announces it in style.
• Nassim Taleb doesn’t know that DOs and MDs are nowadays functionally equivalent but Twitter quickly sets him straight.
• Thread of the week: Sarajevo assassination 1914 — what really happened.