Tom Chivers
"Far too nice to be a journalist": Terry Pratchett. DMs open, chiversthomas(a)gmail tomchivers.com Order my first book, The AI Does Not Hate You, below
Thought Leader
| #426 | The New Center |
Last synced from Twitter 125d ago
Truth, lies and statistics - Rafael Behr meets Tim Harford | Politics on the Couch
Politics on the Couch looks at the way our minds respond to politics and the way politicians mess with our minds.
In each episode award-winning political columnist Rafael Behr is joined by a distinguished expert drawn from the world of...
Why it pays to believe obviously untrue things - UnHerd
We can handle the truth — we just don't want to
4
Tom Chivers
On how people are often less interested in believing true things than in professing socially advantageous ones, and how that leads to apparently ridiculous beliefs
126d
The Internet Speaks American
Sharing the internet with America is like sharing your living room with a rhinoceros. It’s huge, it’s right there, and whatever it’s doing now, you sure as hell know about it.
How the experts messed up on Covid - UnHerd
How did all the leading health authorities get it so wrong back in March?
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Tom Chivers
This is really, really good by @StuartJRitchie and @MWStory on expert overconfidence: the early insistence that masks don’t work (rather than that there wasn’t good evidence for them) probably cost lives
127d
Kevin McCarra: a pioneer who changed football journalism
The former Guardian football correspondent, who has died aged 62, was crisp, prescient and transformative in his writing
1
Tom Chivers
This @jonawils tribute to Kevin McCarra, the late Guardian football writer, is really lovely
128d
The Bluestocking, vol 160
Let's voyage back to 1997, and perhaps the worst newspaper front page in history.
Tom Chivers
talking of Helen's, in her latest (helenlewis.substack.com/p/the-bluestoc…) she links to this great @waitbutwhy piece from January which will make you all feel really old, which apparently is something we all enjoy? waitbutwhy.com/2020/01/its-20… pic.twitter.com/qCSbMBixjY
130d
It's 2020 and you're in the future
Some people are young, just not you.
Tom Chivers
talking of Helen's, in her latest (helenlewis.substack.com/p/the-bluestoc…) she links to this great @waitbutwhy piece from January which will make you all feel really old, which apparently is something we all enjoy? waitbutwhy.com/2020/01/its-20… pic.twitter.com/qCSbMBixjY
130d
Mea culpa: Maybe Donald Trump's travel ban wasn't stupid - The Post
A few months ago I wrote a short piece with the trenchant headline “Memo to Donald Trump: travel bans don’t work”, about the US blocking travel from mainland Europe early in the pandemic. I wanted to revisit it, and see whether I still agreed with...
3
Tom Chivers
I wrote a thing a few months ago about Trump's travel ban, and said that bans didn't work. Now I'm not so sure, so I've revisited it; I worry I may have made the old "the stupidest man in the world says the sun is shining, ergo it must be dark" mistake
130d
HS5G2
5G is back in the news, now that the new iPhones are hitting shelves. They're not the first devices to have the tech – not by a long shot – but Apple being Apple, they're likely to be the first owned by normal people. (Competitors such as Samsung...
Tom Chivers
I never understand how my journalist friends have the excess ideas and spare time to do newsletters AS WELL AS their reporting/columns/etc, but I'm glad that @alexhern does, because it's always really interesting, this time on parallels between HS2 and 5G
130d
AstraZeneca's U.S. coronavirus vaccine trial may resume as soon as this week, sources say
AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine trial in the United States is expected to resume as early as this week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration completed its review of a serious illness, four sources told Reuters.
Tom Chivers
inconveniently timed reports suggest that the FDA may approve the AstraZeneca vaccine and restart the US arm of the trial this week, so that middle section of the piece may become less relevant in a few days
133d
Will a vaccine cure Covid? - UnHerd
Even if it's effective, the logistics of delivering it are monumental
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Tom Chivers
Quite a long piece by me on the vaccines in development and the challenges in getting them produced in billions and delivered to the world
133d
We're hiring: Apply to be our Bureau Local Editor
The Bureau Local is looking for a senior editor to take over the editorial direction and output of our small but ambitious team
John Snow Memorandum
John Snow Memorandum
Tom Chivers
It seems plausible to me, and I know and trust several of the names on the piece, although I am, of course, not an expert. They want healthcare professionals to sign the memorandum
134d
Scientific consensus on the COVID-19 pandemic: we need to act now
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected more than
35 million people globally, with more than 1 million deaths recorded by WHO as of
Oct 12, 2020. As a second wave of COVID-19 affects Europe, and with winter...
2
Tom Chivers
In the Lancet, a consensus statement from experts (virologists, epidemiologists &c) on Covid strategies – essentially, short-term restrictions so we can build functioning TTI systems, because they won't work in an uncontrolled outbreak. Via @bealelab thelancet.com/journals/lance… pic.twitter.com/d9N1p0ykYp
134d
Bush Did North Dakota
Continuing yesterday’s discussion of fake news: Guess et al says that 46% percent of Trump voters endorsed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Does this mean fake news is very powerful? We can c…
1
Tom Chivers
re QAnon. I just read a piece about it saying it was spreading to the UK, etc, but it included no numbers. I just think it's worth remembering that 33% of people polled think Bush covered up the North Dakota crash, and *there was no North Dakota crash"
137d
Will this new ‘lockdown’ make any difference? - The Post
It’s just been announced that London is moving into Tier 2 restrictions, meaning (in short) that people can no longer meet people from outside their household or bubble indoors. Which means my plans to play Warhammer in a bar in Stratford next...
Photoshops
Tom Chivers
just been reminded of the photoshops I used to do c.2013-14 for Telegraph Blogs. They're both a funny little time capsule of what we cared about back then, plus entertainingly incomprehensible because totally out of context tomchivers.tumblr.com pic.twitter.com/y4mEnyt4A4
138d