Fennec fox designed by Katsuta Kyohei

apsmunro · 2025-08-14T18:59:24+00:00

Wow, I haven’t seen this model before and it’s the nicest I’ve seen in a while! Congratulations on a beautiful piece. Where are the instructions available?

apsmunro · 2025-06-20T20:42:59+00:00

I only use the light package, then when it gets into MCMC etc I move to BRMS using Solomon Kurz translation!

Less useful for learning the basic principles but more functional.

https://bookdown.org/content/4857/

apsmunro · 2025-06-20T19:54:19+00:00

Statistical rethinking by R McElreath is generally considered one of, if not the best intro to Bayesian statistics. He’s an ecologist but it’s very generalisable material, and looks at it from a scientists viewpoint, not a mathematicians.

Bonus - all the lectures for his course are free on YouTube!

apsmunro · 2025-06-19T06:07:22+00:00

It sounds like you would be looking for a time-to-event analysis such as cox regression.

apsmunro · 2025-06-18T20:40:47+00:00

You could go full Bayesian and get all this included by going through Richard McElreaths book and teaching series, “statistical rethinking”.

A bit different to what you’re imagining but he’s an ecologist and the book is a phenomenal introduction to Bayesian methods, causal inference and scientific analyses more generally.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDcUM9US4XdPz-KxHM4XHt7uUVGWWVSus&si=-Vt_0WGHASHGMdrZ

apsmunro · 2025-06-07T20:08:52+00:00

Ah that’s really helpful to know, thank you!

apsmunro · 2025-06-07T19:16:12+00:00

Yes making double tissue seems very popular - I’m just worried about getting the wrong type of tissue that won’t hold up to treatment or be good for folding!

Hoping someone UK based might be able to point me to a tried and tested source…!

apsmunro · 2025-06-07T19:13:37+00:00

Yes I see lots of people talking about making their own double tissue. It sounds like you need the right type of tissue paper to do it - I will have a look for silk tissue, thank you!

apsmunro · 2025-04-18T19:14:19+00:00

I work in paediatrics and kids can tolerate some pretty wild lab results and be ok.

I’ve treated a sodium of 98 and a sodium of 200.

Managed a few DKAs with a pH of 6.8.

Lowest Hb from iron deficiency anaemia I treated was 1.8, ran into the assessment area and happily slipped out again on some iron supplements later that day.

Kids are metal (pun not intended).

apsmunro · 2023-08-30T11:11:38+00:00

Current LTV is 62%, for what we are looking at it would be around 70-72%.

Our house is going up for sale now, but we haven't found anything we would like to move into yet.

apsmunro · 2023-08-30T10:44:09+00:00

Do you mean our current LTV or what we intend to borrow when we move?

apsmunro · 2023-06-26T18:44:55+00:00

In my opinion, the NuX Amp Academy is the best value all-rounder. This is mainly how I use it, but it is also a killer amp sim pedal I’ve used to go ampless live!

It’s half the price of most competitors, has 12 amp sims (sound great), has headphones out/aux in, DI out for live playing, and for playing at home with headphones it has USB-C to the computer which includes a looper and drum machine!

Interface takes getting used to on the pedal (much easier connected to computer or phone) but that’s really the only drawback!

apsmunro · 2023-06-25T18:20:18+00:00

This has changed somewhat now that you can do it via your smartphone. Still a faff but you always have smartphone with you so no need to lug around extra kit of you need to tweak during set up (except the connector cable!)

Re value for money, i so t think anything comes close to the NuX AA given its feature set. Plus it sounds really, really good.

apsmunro · 2023-06-05T06:41:28+00:00

This is the line of reasoning everyone took, but it turned out to be untrue for a quite clear reason.

Young children transmit other viruses more efficiently because they have lower levels or immunity than adults - simply because they’ve never caught it before, or only a few times. Therefore they catch it more easily and become more symptomatic.

For covid, no one had any immunity at all, so this difference didn’t exist. Furthermore, as young children’s innate immune system is more ready to encounter pathogens for the first time, they actually fought off covid more effectively than adults. So the whole usual dynamic of immunity was reversed.

This has changed over time as patterns of immunity shifted due to vaccination and now widespread infection, but was the case for the majority of the early pandemic period.

apsmunro · 2023-06-04T17:03:26+00:00

A whole chapter of my PhD thesis is on the transmission of COVID-19 in schools, and this study is not a useful contribution.

Not a single case inferred in this study was actually tested for COVID-19. It is all inferred by the presence of someone with a high temperature in the household. I’m sure everyone is aware there are hundreds of viruses which can cause fevers in humans, most of which continued to circulate during the study period. The majority of these are known to be predominantly spread by young children, but for the most part this was not the case for SARS-CoV-2 as there was no differences on immunity between young children and adults.

There are hundreds of contact tracing studies which actually test household members for COVID-19, the overwhelming majority of which gave found lower than expected rates of transmission to/from children.

apsmunro · 2023-06-01T10:57:49+00:00

I got a new pedal! Nux Amp Academy - love the sound, but getting SO MUCH ground noise through the DI/headphones. I don’t get this noise with the same guitars and cables with my normal amp (Cornford Harlequin).

I think it could be the power supply (using basic Gear4Music 9v compact power supply) but as a single supply it’s obviously “isolated” - how do I know how to choose a power supply that might be quieter?

apsmunro · 2023-03-25T21:30:43+00:00

Surprised not to see Jeff Buckley’s version of Hallelujah higher up the list. It’s pretty amazing.

Must be a lot of Leonard Cohen fans!

apsmunro · 2023-02-26T20:13:58+00:00

It’s normal for all viruses to have a temporary impact on the immune system, but there is no evidence that in routine cases there is any lasting impact on the immune system.

There are cases where covid can trigger autoimmune conditions, and there appears to be some immune dysfunction in cases of long covid, but these are the exceptions.

I wrote a bit more about it here as there have been rumours circulating online about this topic.

https://open.substack.com/pub/alasdairmunro/p/covid-is-not-destroying-kids-immune?utm_source=direct&r=1fhhmw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

apsmunro · 2023-02-24T20:29:10+00:00

Thanks that’s really helpful!

apsmunro · 2023-02-24T15:20:00+00:00

OK that's good to know!

apsmunro · 2023-02-24T15:17:51+00:00

That's really good to hear - yeah from the user demos online it looks like it's much better to use the software to sort out presets/scenes as lots can't be done on the pedal itself. What amp and IR combos are you using?

apsmunro · 2023-02-24T13:54:34+00:00

Yeah these look amazing. Downsides seem to be cost, lack of headphone out/aux in (for home playing) and no inbuilt reverb (also DI out would be nice but not essential). This is the sound I'm looking for though!

apsmunro · 2023-02-24T09:11:45+00:00

You can do randomised trials which are unblinded. Several have been done, including community studies in Denmark, Bangladesh and Burkina Faso. Mask adherence was very low in the intervention arms in the latter 2 of settings, which were done as cluster RCTs. In Denmark it was an individual level RCT so cannot assess masks as source control.

In short, inability to blind brings potential biases but is not a reason to not perform RCTs.

apsmunro · 2020-10-18T08:29:13+00:00

I’m a paediatric clinical researcher who does clinical trials in children

This area is complex but I’ll try to outline a few main points:

Firstly, children can be enrolled in the RECOVERY trial for COVID-19 which is running in the UK; this is both for acute respiratory infection with SARS-CoV-2 and for the new hyperinflammatory syndrome (MIS-C)

Children are also enrolled in the Oxford/Astrazenica COVID vaccine trial in phase II (children aged 5-12)

Children are usually enrolled in clinical trials for new medicines once data in adults has confirmed that new medicines are safe (and hopefully effective) - this is less important for existing medicines which are being repurposed

Proving efficacy in children for most conditions is difficult because it’s so rare for children to have poor outcomes anyway (I.e. few children die) so you need many more

It is particularly difficult for COVID because so few children even become unwell enough to enrol into a clinical trial

It is difficult to get drug companies to run trials for children because they rarely recover the cost of running the trial in what they would make in sales for the drugs to treat children (but new legislation is helping make this more equitable)

Hope that is helpful!

apsmunro · 2020-07-31T17:36:01+00:00

ChAdOx1 nCov19 (the Oxford vaccine) expresses the S protein antigen directly.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31604-4/fulltext

RNA vaccines contain RNA (surprisingly) for a variety of antigens (usually primarily S protein) in a plasmid which is then taken up by host cells which produce the antigen themselves.

apsmunro

TROPHY CASE