Gongol.com Archives: June 2020
June 26, 2020
Election interference didn't stop in 2016
Russia, China, and undoubtedly others haven't been made to stop their efforts to influence and interfere with the US electoral process. ■ To quote Federalist Paper No. 41: "Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union."
What implicit assumptions are you carrying in your head?
The implicit-association tests offered through Harvard are a worthwhile exercise. Most people of goodwill want to think of ourselves as unbiased, but there's nothing like getting an objective measurement of what's inside our heads. You don't have to tell anyone your results, but it's worthwhile knowing if you're truly approaching people with the open mind you know you should be.
Babies need to sleep -- alone -- on their backs
Polk County health officials note with alarm the local deaths of seven babies in the last three months
The Rosetta@Home project needs more computers to help run computations like the ones that have resulted in experimental drugs now being tested for effectiveness against coronavirus. ■ Ideally, we'll get a vaccine sooner than expected, it will be overwhelmingly effective, 7.6 billion doses will be produced overnight, and everyone will gladly get vaccinated. But those are a lot of preconditions that all have to come together just right to get us out of trouble. So, just in case that doesn't come true, let's find effective therapies ASAP. Everyone's computer can help. So can everyone's mask.
