We want the first derivative to be positive

December 28, 2023 10:34 AM

Title is Destin "SmarterEveryDay" Sandlin's hopes for the recovery [YT 15min] of his friend and fellow youtube science advocate Dianna "PhysicsGirl" Cowern. In mid-2022, Dianna . . . a) married Kyle Kitzmiller; b) launched her new science talk-show "Proof of Concept" as part of Curiosity Stream c) copped a 'Rona which led to the debilitating devastating Up and Down of long CoViD. Destin's quote is nerd-speak hoping for more Up and less Down. Quick text-based source for the story so far [cw: GoFundMe link]. Simone "Queen of the Shitty Robots" Giertz, not without her own medical problems, gave a health update [YT 5min] on Dianna in Feb 23.
posted by BobTheScientist (13 comments total)

Reading the medical conditions as described in the GoFundMe link is upsetting. Apparently Cowern was hit with basically every possible immune complication from long COVID, with intestinal issues besides.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:44 AM on December 28, 2023

I had to shut off the Destin video when I watched it a few days back. No, Destin, that's not engineering. That's nursing. You've never seen it before because up until now it was done by people you don't notice.
The charts? The planning? The dedication? If you have to call that engineering to respect it then newsflash: nurses are "engineers".
posted by tigrrrlily at 12:03 PM on December 28, 2023 [33 favorites]

Yeah, he's also recently mansplained the Apollo program's lessons-learned to an aerospace engineering audience. The dude has such reach that now every yahoo is suddenly proclaiming "but does NASA know about this 1960s document??!!1!!?!". This health update video is the latest thing that Youtube's algorithm is amplifying, right alongside SSSniperWolf and MrBeast.

Above snark aside, I do wish Ms. Cowern the best.
posted by intermod at 12:48 PM on December 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm a fan of Physics Girl and I'm glad to get an update and hope she recovers fully and soon.
posted by mmoncur at 1:50 PM on December 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

What RD signed off on keto for long covid
posted by fluttering hellfire at 1:50 PM on December 28, 2023

That video from Simone Giertz was heartwrenching. I wish I had the scratch to help. It's terrifying to see a young, vital person become so debilitated. But I hope that her future is as bright as Simone's.
posted by rikschell at 1:53 PM on December 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have watched a number of Destin's videos and he does not at all seem like the type of person to denigrate or disrespect nursing. Finding the links between everyday actions/observations and engineering principles is kind of his thing, so I don't see it as a knock that he notices the parallels here. The focus of this particular video is supporting his colleague, Diana. Her condition seems very worrying and I hope she recovers.
posted by Ausamor at 1:56 PM on December 28, 2023 [15 favorites]

What RD signed off on keto for long covid

She also has digestive issues, and certain foods (and scents and clothing materials and even bright sunlight, sometimes) can cause her immune system to go haywire.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 2:06 PM on December 28, 2023

She also has digestive issues, and certain foods (and scents and clothing materials and even bright sunlight, sometimes) can cause her immune system to go haywire.

These are cardinal signs of a severely overactive immune system, and I’m not surprised she's having such a bad time post Covid, but that doesn’t make it any less awful.
posted by jamjam at 6:38 PM on December 28, 2023

Destin called it engineering because Kyle is literally a published engineer. It is nothing to denigrate nursing. Maybe Destin knows Diana and Kyle better than some Metafilter commenters? Just a thought
posted by dantheclamman at 11:04 PM on December 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

It is really hard for creators when they get hit like this because YouTube stops monetizing your channel if you don’t publish videos often enough. So even if you have a bunch of older videos that are still giving you a trickle of income you can’t just coast on it. So she’s got to have friends post videos on her channel and recycle her old content into shorts and other edits just to try to keep going.
posted by interogative mood at 6:28 AM on December 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

That is diabolical - thanks for that insight interogative mood. It also explains the update video length - it has to be the current YT feature length. Which is what 15? 18? My YT algorithm only suggest videos of at least 8 minutes through to around 20.
posted by zenon at 8:35 AM on December 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

From the fore fore times, Diana playing Isaac Newton in a Tim Blais pastiche of Wicked's Defying Gravity called "Defining Gravity".

I hope she is able to get at least back to some level of normal one day.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:30 PM on December 29, 2023 [1 favorite]