Expert

Open Science (a movement to make all phases of scientific research transparent and accessible to the public) has made great strides in the past decade, but those come with new ethical concerns that the COVID-19 Pandemic has highlighted. Open science promotes transparency in data and analysis and has been demonstrated to improve the quality and quantity of scientific research in participating institutions. These principles are never more valuable than in the midst of a global crisis such as the COVID pandemic, where quality information is needed so researchers can quickly and effectively build upon one another's work. It is also vital for the public and decision makers who need to make important calls about public health. However, misinformation can have a serious material cost in human lives that grows exponentially if not addressed properly. Preprints, lack of data sharing, and rushed peer review have led to confusion for both experts and the lay public alike.

We are a global collaboration that has looked at COVID19 research and potential misuses of basic transparency research principles. Our findings are available as a preprint and all our data is available online. To sum up, our findings are that:

• Preprints (non peer-reviewed manuscripts) on COVID19 have been mentioned in the news approximately 10 times more than preprints on other topics published during the same period.

• Approximately 700 articles have been accepted for publication in less than 24 hours, among which 224 were detailing new research results. Out of these 224 papers, 31% had editorial conflicts of interest (i.e., the authors of the papers were also part of the editorial team of the journal).

• There has been a large amount of duplicated research projects probably leading to potential scientific waste.

• There have been numerous methodologically flawed studies which could have been avoided if research protocols were transparently shared and reviewed before the start of a clinical trial.

• Finally, the lack of data sharing and code sharing led to the now famous The Lancet scandal on Surgisphere

We hope that we can all shed some light on our findings and answer your questions. So there you go, ask us anything. We are looking forward to discussing these issues

This took place about 20 years ago. I worked in the IT department of a national logistics company in Ireland. One of the office women often boasted about how she knew so much about computers (basically because she knew how to use Microsoft Office) and we humored her, because why bother destroy her confidence, right!

As the IT Department, we were having a meeting. It had just started and she interrupted by knocking and coming in. She said she had moved her computer (to clean behind her desk or some other reason) and after plugging everything back in, she could not connect to the network. I told her to check the network cable was plugged in firmly. She insisted that it was - she KNEW THAT! - I said "OK. I will be there in 20mins when we're finished our meeting"

She came back in a few mins and interrupted again asking me to come look at it because she had work to do. I told her there was a 90% chance the cable just isn't plugged in but she claimed it definitely was. I said I'd be down soon.

A third time, after only a few more minutes, she interrupted again, and the IT Manager said to me "Just go look at the computer for her or we will never get any peace" - I was kinda annoyed she had bugged us until she got her own way, so I went down to the main open-plan office where her computer was. The other 5 or 6 people there knew what was going on.

So I asked her, loud enough for everyone to hear, "So you DEFINITELY checked that the network cable is plugged in?" - She replied "Yes! I already told you I did. I'm not stupid!"

I glanced at the back of her computer to see the network cable plugged into the back of the computer, then slowly pulled the other end up from behind it, to reveal it had just been sitting on the floor. I held it up in front of her and demonstrated (in the most obviously sarcastic way I could) the action of plugging the cable into the jack on the wall, and then walked off.

She was SO angry she started shouting at me as I walked away. She filed a complaint against me to the IT Manager for making her look stupid. I didn't really get in trouble. He just laughed and told me to try be more patient with her. Actually we got along well for the most part, but she annoyed me that day, not waiting for a measly 20mins while we finish our meeting.

We are Mary McCord (Legal Director and Visiting Professor, Georgetown Law's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2016 to 2017 and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division from 2014 to 2016) and Elizabeth Goitein (Co-Director, Liberty and National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, former counsel to Senator Russ Feingold, chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice) and members of the non-partisan National Task Force on Election Crises. The violence that we have seen around the election is extremely dangerous for our democracy. It is vital that we all work to prevent it from continuing, and understand what our constitution and laws actually say about how elections and the transfer of power actually work -- and what comes next.

UPDATE: THANK YOU FOR YOUR TERRIFIC QUESTIONS. We had a great time with you. Please continue to support your democracy, stay vigilant, and reduce the disinformation in your own networks as much as possible!

Proof:

• https://i.redd.it/fonn6es6s6a61.jpg
• https://i.redd.it/wn35pmfas6a61.jpg

This thread has been done before and was very successful, so I figured that I would try it again.

Pick your specialty or favorite subject and try to recommend three books for each level of understanding. Feel free to request topics as well. We’ll end up with some nice breadth and depth for each topic!

The refund advance loans are a scam to get you in their doors so they can rob you of your refund. File free, be patient, and you will be much happier with your refund.

To give you a bit of background, my work is in data and everything from gathering requirements, data analysis to Windows Server management which hosts the software.

Increasingly I feel like technology is accelerating and it's becoming hard to keep up.

I work as a freelancer contractor so few things are happening:

• My expertise is providing a steady income, but I want to grow. This usually means I have to put myself on training courses and convince hirers that I can do the job. The problem is hiring managers now all want experience. Something has to give. And usually it means maybe taking a pay-cut to learn it on a contract (if I can phrase things properly to the hiring manager).

• My income isn't going up to cover for inflation. But when I look around for new roles, the pay in more senior positions isn't that high either.

• A lot of the training courses are vendor specific (Microsoft, AWS etc) and they are getting good at adding propaganda and marketing in their "learning" plans so a lot of time is wasted. It also feels like certifications are replacing common sense and transferrable skills. To me it feels like this is purposely developed by the vendors so it's an extra income stream for them.

• As I said in my point above, transferrable skills are not really valued it feels when I interview. Everybody wants a ready-made expert for peanuts pay/salary.

• It's great that there are so many learning help sources online, but right now I have 13 online courses to do and everything is a priority. I try to do things in order, one by one, but the problem is almost all of my personal time is going into it. Weekday evenings and weekends. Gone are the days when I had weekends free and I can relax.

In my jobs I try to put aside 3-4hrs a week to try something new and deliver something practical using a new skill. E.g. I will do a bit of powershell to analyse some logs data, or try to do something in Python that replicates an Excel formula... the goal being get familiar with python coding mindset.

...But it feels overwhelming or demoralising because when I interview the hiring manager will say they want an expert in a SQL, in data software (Qlik, Tableau etc), someone who is hot with Python, R, that can also do Windows Server management, talk the talk with business, and so on, throw in being an Agile expert or a Kanban master as well while we are at it.

On top of that we have some Microsoft MVP contractor in our team that is influencing the manager to go Micro