Just saw this on Twitter:
But obviously, reading further down the thread, there are people who think this is a disastrously low number:
I've said before that I like a lot of Noah Smith takes, but I don't agree with all of them:
I've tried watching The Orville, on more than one occasion, and I just find it dull, dull, dull.
And this:
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I like the way that in dispute threads about LOTR, quite a few people will admit the "problem" aspects - "the prose is often clunky", or "you can just skip the poems", yet go on to defend it to death.
Here's an interesting explanation at The Conversation about how the "chemical imbalance" theory of depression caught on, and arguing that just because the theory is wrong, there is still a case for using the serotonin influencing drugs because they do work well enough anyway.
I'm referring to Alex Jones in court. I watched this clip this morning:
You know the bigger thing that bothers me, though: I saw Joe Rogan - who allegedly has a much more "rational" audience - give a quasi defence of Jones not so long ago. Along the lines of "sure, he's made mistakes, and he's battled some addiction and mental health issues, but you know he was right on Epstein." As if Jones is to be pitied or is a genuine truth seeker.
Of course, I can't stand Joe Rogan, but in a way I have more concern about his influence than Jones's.
The other disturbing thing reported is how Jones called for, and has been receiving, donations:
Jones’ Bitcoin windfall roughly coincides with a string of losses in the Sandy Hook defamation case. A judge ruled on May 24 that the suit should be removed from bankruptcy protection and move to a trial in August to determine how much in damages Jones should be made to pay. Jones’ anonymous benefactor gave him roughly 206 Bitcoin worth $5 million on May 19, days in advance of that hearing and following a push for donations on Infowars. Hatewatch previously reported on the same donor delivering to Jones Bitcoin worth $1 million apiece across two separate transactions in April.
America - land of idiots with money.
Update:
I noticed an article at the ABC last week by an Australian professor who developed a heart issue after Covid infection, and it was a bit of a worry:
Last month, US researchers shared the preliminary results of a study looking at the impacts of SARS-CoV-2 infection and reinfection in a cohort of more than 5 five million American veterans.
The researchers examined the health records of more than 250,000 people who had been infected once; 36,000 people who had been infected twice; and 2,000 people who had been infected three times.
They found that for every health outcome measured, the Hazard Ratio — a measure of how often something happens in one group compared to another — increased with each COVID-19 infection.
The risk of cardiovascular disease, for example, increased after one infection, but doubled in people who had two infections, and tripled in those who had been infected thrice.
The numbers translate into 50 extra cases of heart disease per 1,000 people who've had COVID-19 twice.
Unfortunately, vaccination didn't seem to help: the cumulative risk of heart disease was indistinguishable when the researchers split people who'd received two or more COVID-19 jabs and those who hadn't been vaccinated at all.
The researchers found similar cumulative risks with each reinfection for pulmonary disease, clotting and blood disorders, neurological disease, mental health problems, kidney disease, musculoskeletal disease, fatigue, and so on.
These problems occur most frequently in the first month after infection, but can emerge up to six months later.
Soon after, I checked my own blood pressure (I have a machine at home, but the GP also checked it), and was surprised to see that it was much higher than normal. Like, 150/95 on few occasions, although more often around 140/90. (It has also been back in a more comfortable range sometimes - I have been checking morning, noon and night for a few days now. Before this, and I usually would check once a month or so, I was usually at 120-125/85-90.)
Could this be due to Covid? Google says "yes":
A total of 211 consecutive COVID-19 patients who were admitted to Parkhayat Kutahya hospital were retrospectively screened. Information was obtained from the electronic medical records and National health data registry. The study outcome was new onset of hypertension according to the Eight Joint National Committee and European Society of Cardiology Guidelines. Finally, 153 confirmed COVID-19 patients (mean age 46.5 ± 12.7 years) were enrolled. Both systolic (120.9 ± 7.2 vs 126.5 ± 15.0 mmHg, P <.001) and diastolic BP (78.5 ± 4.4 vs 81.8 ± 7.4 mmHg, P <.001) were significantly higher in the post COVID-19 period than on admission. New onset hypertension was observed in 18 patients at the end of 31.6 ± 5.0 days on average (P <.001). These findings suggest that COVID-19 increases systolic and diastolic BP and may cause new onset hypertension.
That seems a pretty small study, but there is at least one other study indicating it may well be right.
There is a large American study noting that hypertension went up in a large group during the pandemic, but they talk mostly about whether it was caused by the stress and isolation (and lack of exercise) caused by the pandemic, rather than the virus directly. But there is still suspicion:
“The disease itself may cause high blood pressure because of the interaction with certain molecules like the angiotensin-converting enzyme receptors. Moreover, many of my patients called to tell me that once they got the vaccines — especially the first dose — their blood pressure went very high, and they ended up in A&E and casualty with systolic blood pressure exceeding 200 in some of them.”
“What is also interesting is that for many of [my patients], the blood pressure did not settle down and remained high — not as high as 200, but higher than it was before. I am doing some research now to look at the effects of vaccination on blood pressure. And I have at least nine patients who had the same reaction: [their] blood pressure went up, and they ended up in casualty at St George’s [hospital].”
“Since then, there have been two publications — oneTrusted Source from Lausanne in Switzerland and the second from Italy — that describe exactly this. Especially with the BioNTech vaccine, the blood pressure goes very high. What we don’t know is why this happens and why it does not settle down,” said Dr. Antonios.
Dr. Antonios also said there could be a connection between long COVID and hypertension. However, this required more research.
So, this is an incentive for me to actually start getting some exercise. And drinking beet juice. (There is a cheap juice mix which is half beet juice. Can't hurt.) I'll be watching my readings closely - I've got a blood pressure tracking app on my phone to help with that.
My Twitter feed is full of promoted tweets for some mad person's* idea to build a mirrored city in the Saudi desert that will look like this:
You know what it reminds me of? The over-the-top illustrations for O'Neill space colonies in the late 70's and 80's:
And I would say the chance of it being actually built is about the same...
* (likely an architect who has gone on a bender after being told by a Saudi Crown Prince to dream up something different in which money is no object)
Interesting article about the latest outcome of investigation into alleged voter fraud in Arizona:
This wasn’t enough to shift the results in Maricopa, where Joe Biden won by 45,000 votes. It was, however, an important part of the narrative: Here was a place where suspect ballots were cast, amplifying questions about the level of confidence one could have in the election results. The report recommended that “the Attorney General further investigate this finding to confirm the validity of this finding.”
Arizona’s attorney general did investigate the finding — and found that the finding had no validity. Of those 282 dead voters, only one was dead. Many of those contacted by his office, Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) said in a letter, “were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased.”
The probe was yet another massive waste of state employees’ time and taxpayers’ money. There’s some slight benefit to the state in establishing that the allegation made by the auditing firm, Cyber Ninjas, had no merit. But Brnovich’s probe will not diminish skepticism about election results. Those who believed that the firm had uncovered dead voters solely on the basis of the presented evidence — which, despite all of those complicated numbers, was just a rough match of two lists of identities — will simply shift their assumptions about rampant fraud to one of the Ninjas’ other claims. That’s why the “audit” existed in the first place: to surround the election tally with as much just-asking-questions fog as possible.
It’s very easy to simply wave this away, to shrug at another claim of fraud falling apart. Why even bother covering it?
The answer is simple. As often as possible, we should highlight the fact that despite all of this attention and focus, no more than a dozen or two cases of fraud have come to light. The past 21 months have seen a flurry of allegations of varying complexity, asserting that statistical or circumstantial evidence shows that rampant fraud occurred. And every single time, those assertions crumple under scrutiny. This is not only the perpetual endgame for the claims, it’s the predictable one — as we keep seeing.
Trump is really looking physically unimpressive in his recent golfing appearances:
Google made me ponder recently, after making me watch videos from the Youtube channel FlyEast, like this one:
that it seems the Chinese have an irresistible urge to build on top of tiny, tiny precipitous heights. I can imagine them looking at the Three Sisters at Katoomba and thinking "why isn't there at temple on top of at least one of them, and stairway access?"
Not only that, it would seem that a lot of the population is missing the "fear of heights" gene. I find it hard to imagine the same tourist enthusiasm here for scrambling up near vertical stairs to get to small peaks with little standing space. Even with bridges, look at the tourists happy on this one, which I would go on too, I suppose, but not entirely without nerves:
Youtube is full of examples of precipitous buildings in China, and of course, horrendously scary mountain roads in China adjacent places. I know there are examples in Europe of buildings on scary heights too, but I still don't think that Westerners have quite the same enthusiasm for building things in such difficult and dangerous locations.
So why do they want to build structures up on tiny, tiny peaks anyway? Because of proximity to heaven or gods, I suppose, but I would like to know for sure.
Update: OMG, look at this video, which is incredibly beautiful, and has only had 23,000 views:
You can view the same temple complex in summer here.
Interesting:
Parts of the moon have stable temperatures fit for humans, researchers find
The moon has pits and caves where temperatures stay at roughly 63 degrees Fahrenheit, making human habitation a possibility, according to new research from planetary scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Although much of the moon's surface fluctuates from temperatures as high as 260 degrees during the day to as low as 280 degrees below zero at night, researchers say these stable spots could transform the future of lunar exploration and long-term habitation.
The shadowed areas of these pits could also offer protection from harmful elements, such as solar radiation, cosmic rays and micrometeorites.
For perspective, a day or night on the moon is equivalent to a little over two weeks on Earth — making long-term research and habitation difficult with such extremely hot and cold temperatures.
As someone who has had to "prep" for colonoscopies maybe 4 or 5 times, and recently got invited to have another:
Albanese is just coming across as very competent and down to earth, without the ego of Rudd or some other past Labor figures. Indeed, all of the new cabinet is doing very well, especially in comparison with the Morrison government.
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