Off Topic Thread 4.0

swiwi_

Ooooh! I have just seen one of the first patients placed on the Glivec (imatinib) trial back in 2001. This medication is for patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia, which back in 2001 had a life expectancy of < 5 years, unless you underwent bone marrow transplantation.

And here we are in 2018, with the patient alive and well.

I hadn't even finished university in 2001, and I remember this medication being the new wonder drug. One of the greatest medical discoveries of the 20th century.

Smile on the dial, I must say.

irishbucsfan

Amazing to hear

dregin

Was listening to Tommie Gorman on Morning Ireland talking about the Good Friday Agreement. I never realised that the cancer he was diagnosed with in 1994 was incurable and he still has it. Has to have treatment and surgery regularly to keep it at bay. Mad stuff.

mfceiling

molloyjh wrote: »

It often depends on the tests themselves. I've never been a fan of the MB stuff myself, but I (and everyone I worked with at the time) did do an EQI test last year that was quite in depth and very accurate. We all agreed it was very useful. MB is far too high level to be hugely meaningful in my experience.

For the "unoffice" "unacronym" brigade....what are EQI and MB tests?

irishbucsfan

mfceiling wrote: »

For the "unoffice" "unacronym" brigade....what are EQI and MB tests?

Pseudo-psychology

errlloyd

mfceiling wrote: »

For the "unoffice" "unacronym" brigade....what are EQI and MB tests?

It's basically confirmation bias dressed up as tarot card reading.

Stheno

mfceiling wrote: »

For the "unoffice" "unacronym" brigade....what are EQI and MB tests?

Emotional quotient intelligence (i think) how warm and fluffy you are basically.

Mb is myers briggs its a personality test where you end up as one of 16 types

mfceiling

So it's basically crap?

I like being self employed cause I know that I'm already crazy and that's something everyone else has to live with.

Stheno

mfceiling wrote: »

So it's basically crap?

I like being self employed cause I know that I'm already crazy and that's something everyone else has to live with.

It can have uses. My personality is both introvert and judging and knowing that has been useful

errlloyd

mfceiling wrote: »

So it's basically crap?

I like being self employed cause I know that I'm already crazy and that's something everyone else has to live with.

It's a good way for you to tell management what you already know about yourself.

Most of the MB questions have a sort of obvious angle to them, so if you're a lone wolf IT hot shot and you'd rather be left to your own devices, you can sort of answer in a way that gives you an INTJ type (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking and Judging). Maybe HR see that and stop trying to force you into teams.

That is basically my only use for it anyway.

stephen_n

Psychometric testing is fine for a very broad baseline of human behavior. Though as it is subject to a huge amount of perception bias, it’s more a toy than a scientific tool. It’s only really popular with HR staff, because most of them did a psychology degree before realizing it was fundamentally useless.

Zzippy

errlloyd wrote: »

It's a good way for you to tell management what you already know about yourself.

Most of the MB questions have a sort of obvious angle to them, so if you're a lone wolf IT hot shot and you'd rather be left to your own devices, you can sort of answer in a way that gives you an INTJ type (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking and Judging). Maybe HR see that and stop trying to force you into teams.

That is basically my only use for it anyway.

It's collecting personal data for unknown purposes that can be used at any time in the future. I was being flippant earlier, but I have refused to do in-house psychometric testing before. I realise if you're going for a job you haven't much choice, but once in a job they can get stuffed. I've had ample experience of how utterly useless and inept our HR dept is so there's no way I'm giving them more of my personal data.

pickarooney

Only marginally less ****ing stupid than graphology then.

Zzippy

Zzippy wrote: »

It's collecting personal data for unknown purposes that can be used at any time in the future. I was being flippant earlier, but I have refused to do in-house psychometric testing before. I realise if you're going for a job you haven't much choice, but once in a job they can get stuffed. I've had ample experience of how utterly useless and inept our HR dept is so there's no way I'm giving them more of my personal data.

I'm emailing this to your HR department.

Zzippy

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm emailing this to your HR department.

Nothing I haven't told them before!

prawnsambo

pickarooney wrote: »

Only marginally less ****ing stupid than graphology then.

HR departments love it. Beats having to talk to people and having to do any real work or gain any real insights. :rolleyes:

molloyjh

MB tries to categorise people into nice neat little boxes with some really basic high level questions. It gives you no real insight into your personality.

The EQI thing I did was far more comprehensive and didn’t try and box people off. Instead it just examined your abilities in various areas he as empathy, logical thinking, social responsibility etc. I initially thought it was another MB type waste of time, but it hit the nail very much in the head for everyone, some uncomfortable truths included.

stephen_n

Just drove through Bray and every second lamppost has a no campaign poster. Not one yes campaign poster in the entire town. The No campaign are definitely winnng this from a funding perspective.

irishbucsfan

stephen_n wrote: »

Just drove through Bray and every second lamppost has a no campaign poster. Not one yes campaign poster in the entire town. The No campaign are definitely winnng this from a funding perspective.

The yes campaign only started fundraising for those posters yesterday, and they've done pretty well to be fair. €312,000 as of now. That's a lot of dead tree and ink!

errlloyd

I just don't get posters. They're a little bit useful for local elections, where potentially new members of the constituency don't even know the names of the councillors and could benefit a bit from the reminder.

But this is a referendum. What are the posters meant to be. Some sort of dick measuring competitions to show who got more money from US interest groups. No one is going to make a decision on whether they think its a baby or bunch of cells based on a red poster that says vote no.

irishbucsfan

errlloyd wrote: »

I just don't get posters. They're a little bit useful for local elections, where potentially new members of the constituency don't even know the names of the councillors and could benefit a bit from the reminder.

But this is a referendum. What are the posters meant to be. Some sort of dick measuring competitions to show who got more money from US interest groups. No one is going to make a decision on whether they think its a baby or bunch of cells based on a red poster that says vote no.

Yeah I'm completely with you there.

I donated because I'm sound and also definitely not a dickhead because I have cool and trendy beliefs, but I have to wonder if the marginal benefit between €100,000 and €200,000 on posters might pale in comparison to other potential avenues. Surely there's some dodgy Canadian digital PR company we could be giving this money to!

prawnsambo

irishbucsfan wrote: »

The yes campaign only started fundraising for those posters yesterday, and they've done pretty well to be fair. €312,000 as of now. That's a lot of dead tree and ink!

Posters are made from corrugated plastic now. No trees have to die any more.

molloyjh

errlloyd wrote: »

I just don't get posters. They're a little bit useful for local elections, where potentially new members of the constituency don't even know the names of the councillors and could benefit a bit from the reminder.

But this is a referendum. What are the posters meant to be. Some sort of dick measuring competitions to show who got more money from US interest groups. No one is going to make a decision on whether they think its a baby or bunch of cells based on a red poster that says vote no.

I think you're looking at this through the prism of rational thinking. Some people who are on the fence may only need a little nudge in one direction or the other. Tugging at heart strings with emotive imagery and language can do just that for a lot of people, regardless of fact or reason. And this may come down to that couple of percent one way or the other....

irishbucsfan

molloyjh wrote: »

I think you're looking at this through the prism of rational thinking. Some people who are on the fence may only need a little nudge in one direction or the other. Tugging at heart strings with emotive imagery and language can do just that for a lot of people, regardless of fact or reason. And this may come down to that couple of percent one way or the other....

Yeah, but nowadays there are far, far more efficient ways of delivering emotive imagery and language to people and even accounting for their engagement with it. There's an entire industry around it, which employs extremely attractive and cool people.

errlloyd

molloyjh wrote: »

I think you're looking at this through the prism of rational thinking. Some people who are on the fence may only need a little nudge in one direction or the other. Tugging at heart strings with emotive imagery and language can do just that for a lot of people, regardless of fact or reason. And this may come down to that couple of percent one way or the other....

I'd be fairly happy if we banned or heavily restricted election posters in referendums. I don't think people should vote on something this emotive based on what on a lamppost tells them. More importantly though, I don't think the posters are aiming to convince people of the merit of their side, they're aiming to convince people of the popularity and power of their side. The poster arms race is volume rather than quality.

Zzippy

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Yeah I'm completely with you there.

I donated because I'm sound and also definitely not a dickhead because I have cool and trendy beliefs, but I have to wonder if the marginal benefit between €100,000 and €200,000 on posters might pale in comparison to other potential avenues. Surely there's some dodgy Canadian digital PR company we could be giving this money to!

I'm already sick of sponsored posts ads popping up on my FB feed for the no campaign. I report them as inappropriate to me but they keep popping up. As far as I can see the no campaign is already spending heavily on social media targeting.

Zzippy

Zzippy wrote: »

I'm already sick of sponsored posts ads popping up on my FB feed for the no campaign. I report them as inappropriate to me but they keep popping up. As far as I can see the no campaign is already spending heavily on social media targeting.

Spotted a few of those myself.

The most notable part of either campaign I've seen out and about so far are repeal t-shirts and badges. Few pro-life posters on the way into town this week alright.

For the most part though - I'm not touching this debate with either side of a 10 foot barge pole.

irishbucsfan

Deleted User wrote: »

Spotted a few of those myself.

The most notable part of either campaign I've seen out and about so far are repeal t-shirts and badges. Few pro-life posters on the way into town this week alright.

For the most part though - I'm not touching this debate with either side of a 10 foot barge poll.

Why?! Do you hate barge polls?!

irishbucsfan

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Why?! Do you hate barge polls?!

It's my barge pole and my choice.

kuang1

I opted out very deliberately from following Irish based news 7 years ago.
Hence my ignorance on this...but what are current polls suggesting?
If the vote was held today do we have a fair idea of which way it would go?