Jacob Witten

Postdoc at MIT, interested in computational biology and bioengineering and volleyball and basketball

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

Excited to share my work now published in @NatureBiotech, with @MananRajith, Idris Raji, Dan Anderson, and many others: AI and lipid nanoparticles are two great tastes that taste great together!

https://t.co/InQPhsEnlZ

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@WestCoastPhilo @SashaGusevPosts @calicodusty Cynical and possibly inaccurate belief about differences is norms from field to field is philosophy is just generally more rigorous?

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@WestCoastPhilo @SashaGusevPosts @calicodusty Yeah makes sense. Philosophy methods section would be pretty funny though all papers should have one, "Thoughts were produced by sitting in a chair (Ikea) and drinking coffee (Starbucks)..."

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@WestCoastPhilo @SashaGusevPosts @calicodusty Can't think of a single reason why anti-plagiarism norms would apply to methods though yeah they do apply to the main text

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@WestCoastPhilo @SashaGusevPosts @calicodusty Hmmm I don't know that philosophy has something similar to a methods section which is maximally dry details "We cloned our gene into the IVT vector using Golden Gate cloning then performed in vitro transcription (NEB T7 Polymerase) using CleanCap (Trilink)..."

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@WestCoastPhilo @SashaGusevPosts @calicodusty Yes! In journals I've submitted to, it's explicitly prohibited to just say "we did X as described previously(cite)" and also explicitly prohibited to copy the methods!

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@SashaGusevPosts @calicodusty Yeah prohibiting self-plagiarism for Methods is so bad! Nothing more annoying than having to figure out exactly which wording changes on a previously published, perfectly good Methods section make it "not self-plagiarism" while minimally sabotaging clarity

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@Bluebearmonkey @teortaxesTex One of the best things about the US, maybe the most important driver of our success, is we attract the most talented people from all over the world, thanks for noticing

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@teortaxesTex @Bluebearmonkey scoreboard

Anyway I wish the wealth of America on China but not the pathologies, and I wish becoming less of an angry jerk on you in particular, have a nice day

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@Bluebearmonkey @teortaxesTex To the extent that continued flip flop making is not due to manufacturing prowess but to artificially holding down the Yuan + state-backed loans and subsidies, I think that's bad!

Very unclear the balance of those factors

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@Bluebearmonkey @teortaxesTex I'm unsure if you're attributing that belief to me but to the extent that free market is leading China to continue making flip flops there is no criticism to make

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@teortaxesTex @Bluebearmonkey You're so obsessed with being mad at China haters that when I am making a pro-China point you call me names

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@teortaxesTex @Bluebearmonkey I predict that conditional on no ASI, the time will come when it makes economic sense for all of China to drop nitrile manufacturing capacity, but that time is probably decades away

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@frontiernovasw @phl43 Well in the ideal case China would have developed like Taiwan (or South Korea or Poland or the Baltics or...), but in practice it developed pretty well so it would not be close to worth the risk to re-roll the die. This is why interventionism is appealing but usually bad

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@teortaxesTex @Bluebearmonkey This is of course a pro-China take, it's what should happen given successful industrialization. Failure would be the government forcing Shenzhen to keep making latex or whatever

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@teortaxesTex @Bluebearmonkey As it happens I am mostly correct and this pretty solid dunk is wrong, Shenzhen has outsourced the low-cost commodity manufacturing aspect:

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@MichaelMjfm @afeihua @teortaxesTex @CNLiberalism Obviously, but it's easily checkable and correct

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@MichaelMjfm @afeihua @teortaxesTex @CNLiberalism As it happens I appear to be correct and everyone dunking on me is wrong, Shenzhen has outsourced most of the lower margin aspects of glove manufacturing supply chain (from incognito window) to inland China and other countries

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@MichaelMjfm @afeihua @teortaxesTex @CNLiberalism I save knowing what I'm talking about for my real job! I might be wrong here!

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@teortaxesTex @CNLiberalism Obviously America's system has also gotten worse over time and the bad institutional design is already biting. I just wouldn't waste much breath saying that to you since you seem, perhaps, too aware of that fact

[Jacob Witten @JacobWitten1]

@teortaxesTex @CNLiberalism China's clearly been run not that badly all things considered since 1979 and allowing capitalism to go brrrr there is maybe the best thing that's ever happened for humanity but leadership has gotten worse over time and the succession problem will start to bite eventually