Covid-19 has stirred up a lot of discussions about the ethics of science. I have written before about experiments on humans to learn more about the virus and help speed up the development of a vaccine. If you are interested in this, you might want to have a look at 1 Day Sooner. They advocate for a quick introduction of human trials, arguing that speeding up the development of a vaccine could help save thousands of lives. Some of … more
Month: July 2020
R Cheat Sheets
I really wasn’t aware of that for a long time, but for anyone who is using R, these R Cheat Sheets can prove tremendously helpful. They have a short overview for functionality in many packages. There is one for ggplot2, one for working with times and dates, one for package development, even one for doing maps in R, and many more.
China’s two Currencies
It was only today that I learned that China, in effect, has two different currencies. I’m not even trying to get the nomenclature right, but the relevant terms are Yuan and Renminbi and they both somewhat overlap in meaning.
What makes China’s system a dual currency system is that they have a separation between onshore currency (that can only be used on the mainland) and offshore currency (used for international transactions, but not on the mainland). The exchange … more
The Effect of Sci-Hub on Science
In 2016 Alexandra Elbakyan was listed as one of the top 10 people who mattered in science by Nature. And indeed, her impact on science was and is profound. Elbakyan is the founder of Sci-Hub.
Sci-Hub is a platform where you can download millions and millions of journal articles for free. These articles are taken from journals that restrict access behind a paywall and are made available to users. Technically, this is not legal, but the … more
Tax the Rich
Apart from doxxing bloggers, the New York Times is known for their rich visualizations. The one in this article on the average tax rate paid by the rich in the US is not disappointing.
The gist is this: tax rates for the rich have fallen while tax rates for the poor have risen. We all know this. But seeing it with your own eyes, is quite a different thing. What is especially puzzling is that we all take this … more