NuCypher Discord #urandom

NuCypher Discord #urandom
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[01:57] jMyles: Oh my goodness.

Have you seen that the code that produced the Imperial College model, on which essentially all of the world's lockdowns are based, has been released?

https://github.com/jMyles/covid-sim

The tests do not actually test any particular unit of logic of epidemiology at all.  I am astounded at the poor quality on display here.  It is heartbreaking.
GitHub
jMyles/covid-sim
Contribute to jMyles/covid-sim development by creating an account on GitHub.

[01:58] damonC: Oh I heard it's pretty inelegant.  Is that true?
[01:59] damonC: i dunno there's a lot of stuff here
[01:59] damonC: all done for free I imagine
[02:04] michwill: Heh. Anyone surprised?
I think, there is a scandal in UK now about the author of the research not following the lockdown rules at all. He probably has a reason
[02:06] damonC: I feel like anyone equipped to make these complaints is complicit.  I didn't help.  I probably could have in some way.
[02:09] jMyles: @michwill he stepped down.
[02:09] jMyles: @damonC: No, this a a taxpayer-funded project.
[02:26] tux: Lockdowns are literally a symptom of the state going, “We have no idea what to do.” Nothing more. There is no grand science behind them.
[02:27] damonC: That's a good point.  It's basically like society going into the fetal position because it can't deal
[02:27] tux: It’s laughable to me to hear people say that central organizing and states are good for cases of pandemics and using lockdowns as evidence of that when it’s quite literally evidence of the inverse.
[02:32] tux: @jMyles this code is hilarious.
[02:32] jMyles: we laugh to avoid crying
[02:33] tux: These fucking people are basically charlatans and scam artists
[02:34] tux: These models have the same value as the YouTube stock technical analysts :joy:
[02:40] jMyles: I'm thinking about opening an issue called,

"We, the undersigned software engineers, call for any papers based on this codebase to be immediately retracted."
[02:40] jMyles: Fuck, I'm doing it.
[02:41] michwill: How about lockdowns and destructed economies based on this codebase?
[02:42] michwill: I guess, those are fine?
[02:43] tux: Just your average academiaware tbh

[02:44] michwill: thatsfine.jpg
[02:47] jMyles: Add your usernames and share!  Quick! :slight_smile:
[02:47] jMyles: https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165
GitHub
We, the undersigned software engineers, call for any papers based o...
The tests in this project, being limited to broad, "smoke test"-style assertions, do not support an assurance that the equations are being executed faithfully in discrete units of...

[02:49] jMyles: @tux @michwill @damonC
[02:49] jMyles: Don't just thumbs-up it; add your username (and anything else you want to say) as a comment
[02:50] michwill: waait
[02:51] michwill: Are the tests just checking checksums of the results???
[02:51] jMyles: YES!
[02:51] michwill: OMG
[02:51] jMyles: OF AN EXCEL FILE!!
[02:52] jMyles: (will y'all add your usernames as commetns?  somebody's gotta be first)
[02:54] michwill: I commented
[02:57] jMyles: https://twitter.com/PintSzPorcupine/status/1258214309173161987

Justin Holmes (@PintSzPorcupine)
The Imperial College study was based on logic that does not support its conclusions (and based the quality of the code, cannot reliably support any conclusions with certainty).

I have opened a github issue calling for its retraction. Please sign:

https://t.co/8AI6Mu3Y9x

Twitter
[02:57] jMyles: Wow, I emailed Jay Bhattacharya (world class Stanford epidemiologist) about this and he immediately emailed me back.  He's curious.
[03:00] Carter Klein: I know I'm very new here but I just shared this in an open-source project relating to COVID-19 I'm helping lead the engineering of (~300 people). The project is in part trying to stop the spread of misinformation... and this is really disappointing to see
[03:04] tux: I really hope tenured professors would lose their jobs over this kind of professional negligence.
[05:21] michwill: What we saw wasn't the worst. The Code which the lockdown is based on is worse than that
https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/
[06:27] jMyles: same codebase
[06:27] jMyles: I forked it
[06:28] jMyles: Or are you saying that it was an earlier, even shittier version?
[06:28] jMyles: Because that appears to be trrue
[06:28] jMyles: I submitted it to HN "GitHub issue calling for retraction of Imperial College study for codebase flaws"
[06:29] jMyles: (if anybody wants to find and upvote)
[06:33] michwill: Yes, that. Earlier was all in one huge file
[06:34] michwill: Which obviously doesn't generalize to Imperial College at all. For example, they have awesome things like http://www.pyfr.org/
[09:32] tux:
Right, but this is still an obvious step up from no science influencing public policy.
Making Nassim Taleb disappointed lol