Daniel Westreich

‘Unbelievably dangerous’: experts sound alarm after ChatGPT Health fails to recognise medical emergencies Study finds ChatGPT Health did not recommend a hospital visit when medically necessary in more than half of cases

Study finds ChatGPT Health did not recommend a hospital visit when medically necessary in more than half of cases. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

With everything going on in the world, what better time than now to re-up my thoughts (that is, rant) about scientific posters? (Thread!)

What Elon Has Done Elon Musk's destruction of USAID has faded from public consciousness in America, despite leaving death and destruction in its wake.

“the largest act of mass murder of this decade, and of this century so far, was not perpetrated by militaries or militias, but by the world's richest man in Washington D.C.'s Eisenhower Executive Office Building.” @mckay4senate.bsky.social www.liberalcurrents.com/what-elon-ha...

Local zoning is the way! A lot of these are being stopped or stalled by neighborhood organizing.

These warehouses often need to be purchased, permitted, approved for occupancy and specs. Each one of those steps can be interrupted.

Ppl are pressuring corps not to sell, counties to deny permits, etc

Satellite proposals threaten the night sky In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency responsible for authorizing satellite launches and operations…

The FCC just opened public comments on SpaceX's plan to launch a million satellites to do AI compute in space. Under the current proposal, an environmental review won't be required. Please consider submitting a public comment to oppose this damaging plan.
darksky.org/news/two-sat...

It would be neat if we lived under the rule of law. 🤷‍♂️

If you've made and presented a very weird / non-traditional looking poster - especially with very few words - I'd love to hear about it!

"What about when you're not standing next to your poster?"

Yes, the engagement piece doesn't work then, it's true. But the point remains that asking someone to speed read most of a paper in tiny print in a poster hall is a lot! And if they're intrigued enough they might follow-up with you.

I do think this can be easier with methods work than substantive (disease-outcome-focused) work, in many cases - but I think it can be done a lot.

And *especially* if you're the only one doing it, your poster will stand out and get engagement for that reason alone.

I got great engagement on that poster: I think because it looked different, engaged the audience, and didn't ask people to speed read 2500 words while I stood there awkwardly waiting for them to finish.

This is what my original Table 2 Fallacy poster looked like:

the main part of it was three tables taken from other papers (one of them my own paper!), and then big text reading “What is wrong with these tables?”

What could this look like? Some potential guidelines:

1. Try to use no more than 100 words in the whole poster (outside of text inside of tables and figures).

2. Make the figures giant.

3. Present *way less information.*

4. Ask a question on the poster to engage the audience.

Or, I think better, a trailer for the movie:

something that takes 1-2 minutes to consume (rather than a movie's 90-150 minute runtime); with very few words (some of which don't even appear in the movie!); full of flashy visuals; and (critically) *leaving you wanting to consume the whole thing.*

To the extent all the above is true, are there better ways to think about - or to use - posters?

Specifically - to extend teh metaphor - what if we didn’t treat the poster as the edited-for-TV version of the movie - what if instead we treated it like, I dunno, a movie poster?

Few poeple are going to retain much from skimming such a poster!

What most people seem to retain - in my experience - is “I should read that paper later." Or they have a vague sense of "that was good / interesting work."

What this means is: in a poster session, you’re effectively asking someone to read (skim?) a whole research paper…

while standing in a crowded, very noisy conference hall, having consumed too much caffeine…

oh, and yours is the 37th research paper they’ve skimmed in the last two hours.

Given this baseline, most people treat scientific posters as the edited-for-TV version of the movie: it has a different aspect ratio, some of the curse words have been edited out, but it’s *pretty much* the same thing.

My central metaphor is this: think of a peer-reviewed scientific manuscript as a movie. It is a collaborative endeavor, full length, edited, with great visuals and sound design.

With everything going on in the world, what better time than now to re-up my thoughts (that is, rant) about scientific posters? (Thread!)

a man in a suit sitting at a table with the words he admit it written below him Alt: a man in a suit sitting at a table with the words he admit it written below him

"It's true"

Donate to Support Anita’s Fight Against Leukemia, organized by Vicky Hidalgo Hi, my name is Anita. I’m 18 years old, and I was just diagnosed with leukemia (A… Vicky Hidalgo needs your support for Support Anita’s Fight Against Leukemia

Emergency healthcare funds needed: A Twin Cities 18-yr old student, w/ parents unable to work because of ICE, suddenly diagnosed with leukemia. She is uninsured, has huge bills, and can't help support her family. Please help if you can. (I confirm this is genuine) www.gofundme.com/f/support-an...

Tag yourself I’m “continvoucly”

I just heard someone say on TV that use of the term "concentration camps" to describe ICE facilities was "very strong language."
I think ICE's concentration camps are very strong abuses of human rights.

Yesterday morning kids were sent running from their bus stop in panic because ICE showed up. This guy at today’s ICE Out of Lindenwold protest is a must watch 😭. @maddow.bsky.social

And I think I was a little aggressive in tone earlier in this thread; my apologies for that.

Hmmm, this reads like a claim that risk ratios are in general less prone to variation between populations than risk differences - is that what you're saying? If so, what's your empirical evidence for that?

(Also have to go make dinner so may take a bit to reply, but thank you for chatting.)

Sorry for messing up the thread with that deletion!

Yes, perhaps I'm caught up in the analogy incorrectly; I do not think the emergency care in general is a good comparison because emergency care in general has hundreds of useful effects, and doesn't have to be justified on the basis of heart attack care alone.

Sure, agreed. My point is that you only know what 26% means (8-10k deaths) because you know underlying incidence. Which is information you can also get from the risk difference. Which I think you should always report as well.

Ah! Okay, very sorry that I was reading what you said more broadly than you meant it. Apologies.

That said, what is the case where communicating a risk difference (perhaps *in addition to* a risk ratio, rather than alone) is a bad thing, that leads people to make a less-informed choice?