samedi 31 juillet 2021

Al-Qamar v1-2 (Splitting of the Moon)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_of_the_moon

Followers of the Prophet of the Religion of the Crescent (the PoRC) believe he literally split Earth's moon in two halves, on command.

Miracles were the standard of prophets. God is all-powerful so prophets, with god's backing, were able to override nature to prove themselves in real time.

Hypothetical. If someone commanded Earth's moon literally split in two halves then join back together again and it did so in real time, what effect would that have on Earth, our Solar System and beyond.

What could make the moon appear to become split?


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Framework laptop

https://frame.work/

Basically a laptop that allows greater freedom in build, upgrading and repairing. I'll be taking a look the next time one of us is replacing a laptop.


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How the war against the USA is being waged

How the war against the west is being conducted.


The development of guerilla warfare has been attributed to Mao Tse-tung during his long march where the communist party rose to power in China and the nationalist party retreated to Taiwan. It is a new type of warfare that enables a far smaller weaker group to take over a far greater power . Basically it is a slow incremental operation of a thousand cuts until the defending power is so broken down it no longer has the ability to mount its own defence and thus has to fall.

This type of warfare was employed in many third world countries that used to be aligned with the western colonial powers but are now considered liberated and are largely anti west unless there are free handouts in the form of “AID” employed. The western nations never grasped that they were in fact being out flanked by their enemies !

It turns out that many people in the western nations do not understand that they are in fact under a full attack with this kind of warfare being employed. Lets face it you cannot take out a country like the United States by means of an open frontal attack and expect to actually win. You have to soften it up and wreck it internally first before anything like that can be attempted. For the most part people just think the world has gone bonkers and is being run by clowns.

Now to prove my point lets take a look at the blatantly obvious;

There is no way in Hell that you can look on a patriot as some one bad if viewed from the perspective of someone that is loyal to their own country. But if you are an enemy of that country and want to see it destroyed then yes, you would consider a patriot as dangerous because they are the ones that want to defend and preserve the country you wish to destroy.

Now this gives you an easy reference as to whom the enemies and who the friends of the country actually are. Those that are labelling the patriots as domestic terrorist are in fact the enemies of the country, who want to destroy it. How in Gods name are they being left to roam free, in positions of power and spread their poison ?

It soon becomes obvious that the plans to take down the west has been in operation for over a generation and it is now, only at the end, that it all becomes obvious because it is no longer possible to hide it. In the final push at the end it all has to come out.

So lets define what a nation is;

A nation is a group of families that are bound by a common heritage, language , culture and religion that occupy an area of recognized land and sea that they call their own. The people are the nation, their government only gives representation to the nation on the international stage. You can see this laid out with the different nations of Europe. A Frenchman will not be confused with a German or an Englishman or Spaniard. They are separate nations even though they have all joined together in the European Union.

Now the United States has developed their own history, culture and language even though the people are made up of many other nationals. Because of this it has become easy for other nations to spot a Yank as they pass by. The shades, the camera, the dress and the accent. The United States is its own nation in all ways. Even its gangsters are recognized as uniquely American. Those of other nations definitely have a different flavour.

Now what is being done to take down America;

The first is to dissolve the glue that holds the nation together. The bottom building block of any nation is the basic family structure which is why so much effort has been expended on ripping the families apart and inserting the state into areas where it should never be.

The next structure that is being pulled apart is the culture. The markers of history such as statues are destroyed and literature from different past generations demonized and banned. The education system has been used to dumb down two entire generations, ridicule the concept of the family unit, Stigmatize the national history and rip out the national religion. The youth that would be required to defend the nation if invaded, are indoctrinated into becoming sexual deviants with a Satanist outlook.

One thing every nation needs to defend itself when attacked is economic generators to maintain its war machine and equipment supplies. Fast food stands are just not going to cut it. Through tax manipulations the nations manufacturing industries have been pushed into other countries and the old US industrial centres have collapsed into rust belts. Kind of hard to defend yourself from China if China just happens to be your main supplier of materials and equipment. Basically check mate right there. As a final precaution the other best way to shut down a nations economic infrastructure is to lock down its population so there are not enough people out there left to adequately keep the remaining economic infrastructure functioning. In comes covid. And out goes the nations food security. Also you end up with one hell of an eroded tax base, if there are no incomes to pay income tax on. The crisis on the southern boarder is not about refugees, its to provide cover for invading armies that can lay low until crunch time when they can bring down the nations utility infrastructure at the most critical moments, they do not even need weapons, all they need are hand tool and matches. That’s how guerilla warfare works. Does not take much to cut a telephone cable in order to wreck communications. But I’m sure you have the basic concepts by now.

It has also become very obvious that the nations leadership has been compromised as well. Wether by bribes or blackmail they seem to be doing their best to wreck the nations from within and devastate its economy and currency as a unit of exchange. Not to forget its energy independence as well. Do not think North America will not be subject to direct invasion soon. It has been in the planning for a very long time !


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vendredi 30 juillet 2021

RIP Ron Popeil

Rolling Stone

Quote:

Ron Popeil, the infomercial pioneer and inventor who served as the enthusiastic pitchman for products like Chop-O-Matic and the Showtime Rotisserie, has died at the age of 86.

Popeil’s rep confirmed his death to the Associated Press, noting that Popeil died “suddenly and peacefully” Wednesday at Los Angeles’ Cedars Sinai Medical Center. No cause of death was provided.
Haven't heard about/from him in quite a while but who [that is old enough] can forget those pitches.


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Trumpers don't REALLY believe election was stolen

I don't really think most Trumpers actually believe the election was literally stolen from Trump, in a widespread Leftist conspiracy involving the Chinese, Italy, Canada, Veneuzela, etc.

Why not? Cause if they REALLY did believe that there was a stolen election, they would rise up, seize state legislatures, declare secession, annul all Biden legal orders & declarations, etc etc. But they are doing no such thing.

Sure, maybe 100 or so crackpots really believe this, but most do not.

If an American election was actually stolen by foreign governments, you can be damn sure the people would rise up to resist it.


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jeudi 29 juillet 2021

The Epic of Gilgamesh stone tablet belongs to Iraq, not to Hobby Lobby

This is so ******* cool! And the fact Hobby Lobby is losing a million plus isn't the important point. The fact there is more evidence of this epic story that predates the Bible is the important point.

NBC: NY Judge Approves Forfeiture of 3,500-Year-Old Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet From Hobby Lobby
Quote:

The cuneiform tablet, written in the ancient language of Akkadian and dating from around 1500 B.C., was illegally transported to the U.S. in 2003 and again in 2014, prosecutors said in a federal complaint.

A false provenance letter was used to sell the tablet several times before Hobby Lobby bought it from a London-based auction house in 2014, prosecutors said.

The artifact, known as the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, contains a portion of the Gilgamesh epic, considered one of the earliest surviving works of notable literature.

The tablet was seized in 2019 from the Washington, D.C.-based Museum of the Bible, founded by Hobby Lobby executives, and is now being stored in Brooklyn, prosecutors said.
I know it says the tablet is 1500 years old but the story is much older.


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mercredi 28 juillet 2021

The Jan. 6 Investigation

I think it's time to have a separate thread about the Congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Yesterday, four Capitol police officers gave emotional and detailed accounts of what they experienced during the riots. Included in that testimony, were detailed descriptions of the wounds they received, what they heard from the insurrectionists which included racial epithets, pro-Trump rhetoric, what weapons they saw and were used against them, and how they feel about the insurrectionist deniers in Congress and elsewhere. What they said was directly contrary to what Trump has claimed:

Quote:

“These were peaceful people, these were great people.”
“The crowd was unbelievable and I mentioned the word ‘love,’ the love in the air, I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said of his rally on the Ellipse. “That’s why they went to Washington.”
“Too much spirit and faith and love, there was such love at that rally, you had over a million people,”
GOP Rep. Andrew Clyde said:

Quote:

“It was not an insurrection and we cannot call it that and be truthful. The House floor was never breached and it was not an insurrection. This is the truth: There was an undisciplined mob, there were some rioters and some who committed acts of vandalism. But let me be clear. There was no insurrection and to call it an insurrection is in my opinion a bold-faced lie. Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes, taking videos and pictures. You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”
When asked about this statement, Capitol Police Officer Daniel Hodges, who was the officer being suffocated by a door, had his gas mask ripped off and was punched by a rioter, said:
Quote:

"If that's what American tourists are like, I can see why foreign countries don't like American tourists.”
Rep. Mo Brooks gave an incendiary speech at the rally, screaming that it was time to "“start taking down names and kicking ass.” It's also been reported that he was wearing body armor under his windbreaker:
Quote:

“I was warned on Monday that there might be risks associated with the next few days,” he said. “And as a consequence of those warnings, I did not go to my condo. Instead, I slept on the floor of my office. And when I gave my speech at the Ellipse, I was wearing body armor.

“That’s why I was wearing that nice little windbreaker,” he told me with a grin. “To cover up the body armor.”

He didn’t say who warned him, or what the “risk” was that he’d been warned about. There were probably a “half-dozen different motivations that affected people in varying degrees” to engage in insurrection. He named, for example, “financial losses suffered because of the government’s reaction to COVID-19,” “the belief that there was significant voter fraud and election theft activity,” or “a great love and respect for President Trump.”
We can expect subpoenas being issued to such people as Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Ivanka Trump, Kevin McCarthy, Mo Brooks*, and even D. Trump himself. They can no longer hide behind a compliant DOJ. Expect a lot of "I don't recalls" from this motley crew.

*The Justice Department on Tuesday night rejected a request by Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks for legal protection in court against a lawsuit linking him to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Brooks claimed he is protected because the speech was within his duties as representative. The court said:“The record indicates that the January 6 rally was an electioneering or campaign activity that Brooks would ordinarily be presumed to have undertaken in an unofficial capacity,” Justice Department civil attorneys said in a 29-page filing late Tuesday."


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California lays suit against Blizzard after two-year investigation

On Tuesday July 20, the state of California filed a lawsuit against Activision-Blizzard, citing a 'frat-boy' culture that oversaw massive discrimination against women working for the company (and specifically the WoW division), including being passed over for promotions, lower pay, and retaliation for complaints to HR. As expected, more has come out since then, and Blizzard released a damning statement quoted in the Polygon article about the case accusing the state of lying about a problem that didn't reflect today's company. A couple of law-trained players dissected the statement on the forums showing which parts were probably written by lawyers, and which parts would make lawyers seriously consider dropping Blizzard as a client.

Most recently what came out was tweets and pictures from Blizzcons where the developers showed off their consequences-free frat house by having a room nicknamed the Cosby Suite [pictured here] with lead developer Greg Street (known as Ghostcrawler) tweeting another picture of himself with the Cosby portrait and "There must always be a Cosby suite". Another developer, Alex Klontzas, tweeted that anyone concerned about delays in game development due to the lawsuit was "part of the problem". The tweet was limited to friends shortly after, but was still screenshot first.

There's a lot up in the air right now, accusations flying freely (woke, metoo, 'one woman complains') but with the amount of time the investigation covered, and how many of the Old Guard (original developers) are involved, the very continued existence of the game could be in doubt.


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Pandering to other cultures beliefs through some guilt

Quote:

Originally Posted by cullennz (Post 13551151)
Apologies in advance as this might be too long an OP.

Long story short. Our current annoyingly touchy feely govt, led by every other countries poster child leader Jacinda has decided that the Maori view of the world should have equal footing with a concept they call "Western science" in school teachings, in some kind of pandering patronising to the group they are doing it with way.

Putting aside the stupidity of making up the dumb **** term "Western science", like science isn't fricken global.

And putting aside they also want to lift numbers of Maori in STEM fields and they can't see this just makes it stupidly complicated for actually getting a job. We now have this.

Apologies for the rant but geez this govt gets on my tits. And I fully have respect for others choice to believe in stupid stuff, which is why I don't care if others are religious etc, but there are limits.

Man, you've posted this on a forum dominated by social justice warriors. Do you really think you're going to get any significant agreement with your position?


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Fyre Festival for Ultrarunners ?

This is a very peculiar story about a super-luxury ultrarunning event.

Quote:

Highland Kings Ultra, a four-day camping race covering 120 miles on the west coast of Scotland, costs £15,499 per person to enter.

In contrast, the 95-mile West Highland Way Race costs just £120.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57975285

In my experience, ultra-runners like to rough it and don't tend to be multi-millionaires so this would likely be a *very* niche market.

Will this turn out to be like the Fyre Festival ?


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Pandering to other cultures beliefs through some guilt

Apologies in advance as this might be too long an OP.

Long story short. Our current annoyingly touchy feely govt, led by every other countries poster child leader Jacinda has decided that the Maori view of the world should have equal footing with a concept they call "Western science" in school teachings, in some kind of pandering patronising to the group they are doing it with way.

Putting aside the stupidity of making up the dumb **** term "Western science", like science isn't fricken global.

And putting aside they also want to lift numbers of Maori in STEM fields and they can't see this just makes it stupidly complicated for actually getting a job. We now have this.

Apologies for the rant but geez this govt gets on my tits. And I fully have respect for others choice to believe in stupid stuff, which is why I don't care if others are religious etc, but there are limits.


Quote:

Auckland University professor resigns over letter claiming Māori knowledge isn't science


A University of Auckland professor has stepped down as acting dean of science after backlash to a letter he co-authored claiming Māori knowledge "is not science".

Professor of Psychology Douglas Elliffe emailed the science faculty to say his role in writing the letter meant his leadership had the potential to "increase division" among the university's scientific community.

Elliffe was one of seven professors to sign the letter published in the Listener magazine last week in response to proposed changes to the Māori school curriculum.

Those changes are meant to put mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) on a par with other types of knowledge, particularly Western knowledge.

However, the academics - drawn from biological sciences, psychology, philosophy and education - claimed that although indigenous knowledge contributes to our understanding of the world, "it falls far short of what we can define as science".

The letter met widespread backlash, with the New Zealand Association of Scientists saying they were "dismayed" by it.

Elliffe subsequently emailed the science faculty to say that he had decided to step down.

"I now think that my leadership of the faculty has the potential to increase division and divert attention from the real issues that face us," he said.

"The future of the faculty is more important to me than my own ambitions, although I will greatly miss the opportunity to make more faculty-level contributions."

He said the decision to step down was his and that he hadn't been pressured by the university's leadership.

"I also want to express my deep gratitude for the messages of support that I've had, including pleas for me not to step down, from so many of you."

He said society needed to ensure it fostered robust debate.

"I think there is a journey that society, and the university as its critic and conscience, needs to take towards robust discussion and debate within a culture that doesn't assume disagreement must imply disrespect," he said..........





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mardi 27 juillet 2021

Julian Assange's Ecuadorian citizenship revoked

"Ecuador has revoked the citizenship of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who remains in a British prison."

"Ecuadorian authorities say Assange's naturalization letter had multiple inconsistencies, different signatures, the possible alteration of documents and unpaid fees, among other issues."

"In January, a lower court judge refused an American request to send Mr Assange to the US. But earlier this month, Britain's High Court granted the US government permission to appeal a decision that Mr Assange could not be sent there to face espionage charges."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-...oked/100328868


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lundi 26 juillet 2021

Florida "pre-crime" program selects citizens for relentless police harassment.

https://www.tampabay.com/investigati...ccountability/

Quote:

It starts like an offer of admission from a prestigious university.

“We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected…” it says.

But the four-page letter from the Pasco Sheriff’s Office goes on to tell recipients they will be facing enhanced police scrutiny under the agency’s controversial intelligence program.

“You may wonder why you were enrolled in this program,” the letter continues. “You were selected as a result of an evaluation of your recent criminal behavior using an unbiased, evidence-based risk assessment designed to identify prolific offenders in our community. As a result of this designation, we will go to great efforts to encourage change in your life through enhanced support and increased accountability.”

Last year, a Tampa Bay Times investigation revealed that the Sheriff’s Office creates lists of people it considers likely to break the law based on criminal histories, social networks and other unspecified intelligence. The agency sends deputies to their homes repeatedly, often without a search warrant or probable cause for an arrest.

Targets and their relatives, including four who are now suing the Sheriff’s Office in federal court, described the tactics as harassment and a violation of their constitutional rights. National policing experts drew comparisons to child abuse and surveillance that could be expected under an authoritarian regime.

The sheriff also has a program to monitor school children and label those with poor grades, attendance, and history of abuse as "future criminals".

Quote:

The Times found being named a Sheriff’s Office target could have serious consequences. Deputies showed up at homes at all hours of the day and night, writing tickets for violations like overgrown grass and making arrests for any reason they could find.
Algorithm identifies people as criminals and cops harass them with petty arrests and citations, which produces data that validates the decision to prejudicially declare them criminals. Lovely.


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NYC's cop-free mental health emergency response pilot showing positive results.

Quote:

A New York City pilot program to respond to 911 calls for mental health crises with social workers instead of cops appears to be reducing unnecessary hospitalizations, while increasing the percentage of people who accept help when offered.

The Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division, or "B-HEARD" program, which started in a portion of Harlem a month ago, has already responded to about 110 calls where there was no weapon or imminent risk of violence, according to summary data provided by the city on Thursday.

Instead of cops and paramedics responding to 911 mental health calls, three-person teams of social workers and paramedics respond instead. In 95 percent of those cases, the city said, the subject of the call accepted the team's offer of assistance.

In the old cop-EMS model, that rate was 82 percent.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/investiga...-show/3165520/

Probably makes sense to defund police services being used on inefficient responses and funding programs that actually work.


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dimanche 25 juillet 2021

Shocked to hear Jackie Mason is dead...

...shocked because I didn't know he had still been alive.

Link


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minimum requirements for new computer

Hello everyone,
I'd love to get some advice of what should be the minimum specs I should be looking for in a new computer.
I'm fine with getting a Desktop, but if I can get similar hardware for not that much more in a notebook (maybe 17") that would be great.

my requirements:

- play current games (no need to be at Ultra settings)
- run Win 11 (guess that one is simple)
- not fall apart right after warranty expires

let me know what other info you need to make suggestions.

Many thanks!


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samedi 24 juillet 2021

Any Orthopedics or Physios on here?

Sorry for the blatant call for free advice. :)

Long story short, busted elbow. Op means plates holding it back together.

Read the elbow can be one of the most annoying things to physio back from after being in a cast for about 6 weeks.

Is there any pre-emptive methods I can do to try to keep it active but not mess with it to make this process easier later?

Keeping it raised, flexing it as much as I can in the cast, continually twiddling fingers etc?

Bit wishful thinking I know, but you don't bother asking you might miss something obvious.

Cheers


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Regenerative Medicine - Save Yourself From Joint Surgery Sel

I've had a failed/botched hip replacement as I trusted what the outcome could/would be. Learned a hard lesson.

I've been doing Prolotherapy off and on for 10+ yrs in my shoulder and knee.

Just heard my great MD with info on saving one from elective joint surgery. He's been doing this work for over 22 yrs and even teaches at UCLA for those coming up and are sick of injuring people with unnecessary surgeries. Surgery is Dinosaur medicine.

And yes surgeries are necessary, breaks and other health issues but all this Elective surgeries in probably the last 30 yrs or so.


https://www.getprolo.com/


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‘Fyre Fest’ of Summer Camps Shut Down After Parents Spend Thousands

Right here in New Hampshire no less!

Camper Brawls, Uncooked Meatballs: ‘Fyre Fest’ of Summer Camps Shut Down After Parents Spend Thousands

Quote:

An expensive sleep-away camp in New Hampshire was such a disaster that it was forced to shut down after just one week earlier this month, leaving eager campers and their parents in the lurch.

Kids and staffers at Camp Quinebarge—a decades-old program in Moultonborough trying to make its comeback after a canceled summer season last year—described six days of chaos to the Boston Globe, which likened it to the doomed “Fyre Festival,” with undercooked food, quarantined and vomiting campers, staffing shortages, and brawls.

“We have been in tears, bored, and devastated the whole day,” one camper wrote to his parents in a letter that was shared with the newspaper, adding that the camp director was “lying to you all.”
Quote:

A summer adventure at Quinebarge costs $3,400 for two weeks, and an eye-popping $9,800 for the full eight-week program, according to the camp website. Carlson told The Daily Beast in an email that families from its first session “mostly received a pro-rata refund” for the debacle this year, although some received full refunds.

All families who had registered for the camp’s upcoming sessions will be receiving full refunds, Carlson said.
Unlike Fyre Festival, at least people got refunds.


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Cannabis proven to cause harm

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/shocking-m...080238443.html

Alternate thread title - Moron falls off roof.


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I have a new friend.

Sorry may not hang out here much anymore as I will be rich. It has been great though.

Can't remember meeting Fred but sunds like a great guy and I am in.

If anyone needs an urgent operation or anything PM me and if you beg enough I might help.

Quote:

Greetings,

I have a mandate to seek for an individual or corporate entity, that can help channel funds into profitable investments.

The said Funds cannot be traced because it was deposited in a bank and she wants the funds channeled into investments of value or real estate as an anonymous investor either in your Country or any country of your choice under your supervision, If you are interested in assisting, kindly send me an email so we can conclude on the modalities. She is offering you 30% of the total amount for your kind assistance and cooperation.

My Client, Isabel dos Santos is an Angolan businesswoman, Africa's richest woman and the eldest child of Angola's former President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the country from 1979 to 2017. In 2013, according to Forbes, her net worth had exceeded US$2 billion making her Africa's first female US dollar billionaire.

All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through. I will also guarantee you that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law here or in your country.

Contact me via ( fgrenville7@gmail.com ).

Regards
Fred Grenville


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vendredi 23 juillet 2021

"DeepMind says it will release the structure of every protein known to science"

https://www.technologyreview.com/202...-proteome/amp/

Quote:

Now the firm has announced that it has used its AI to predict the shapes of nearly every protein in the human body, as well as the shapes of hundreds of thousands of other proteins found in 20 of the most widely studied organisms, including yeast, fruit flies, and mice. The breakthrough could allow biologists from around the world to understand diseases better and develop new drugs.

So far the trove consists of 350,000 newly predicted protein structures. DeepMind says it will predict and release the structures for more than 100 million more in the next few months—more or less all proteins known to science.

“Protein folding is a problem I’ve had my eye on for more than 20 years,” says DeepMind cofounder and CEO Demis Hassabis. “It’s been a huge project for us. I would say this is the biggest thing we’ve done so far. And it’s the most exciting in a way, because it should have the biggest impact in the world outside of AI.”
This seems to me to be huge news. What are the implications over the next decade or so?

My layman's understanding has been that protein folding has been a major problem of molecular biology. "Solving" it seems like a huge breakthrough.

Of course, these things are never quite as "solved" as the press release usually makes them seem. For instance:

Quote:

In the new version of AlphaFold, predictions come with a confidence score that the tool uses to flag how close it thinks each predicted shape is to the real thing. Using this measure, DeepMind found that AlphaFold predicted shapes for 36% of human proteins with an accuracy that is correct down to the level of individual atoms. This is good enough for drug development, says Hassabis.

Previously, after decades of work, only 17% of the proteins in the human body have had their structures identified in the lab. If AlphaFold’s predictions are as accurate as DeepMind says, the tool has more than doubled this number in just a few weeks.
So there's still considerable room for improvement. Still, a major breakthrough.


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GA insurance Commissioner guilty

Jim Beck (R), Commissioner of Insurance for Georgia, has been found guilty on 37 charges of fraud and money laundering.

"A public office is a public trough."


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jeudi 22 juillet 2021

Flawed Conspiracy Theorist logic

Had an encounter with some Global Warming Deniers today. Something struck me about their tactics and logic, that I think apply to many other CTists.

#1- Attack the opposition. The guys I was talking to referred to Liberals as "gullible" and "authoritarian" and "sheep".

#2- Lay seeds of baseless speculation. The guys I talked to asked "who is funding these climatologists who believe in man-made climate change???". They had no evidence of any funding sources that would lend to their motivations being dishonest or nefarious, but they still left their little baseless speculation for people to play with.

#3- Make it about Freedom of Speech. The guys, claimed this was about Freedom of Speech. Not science, or data, or facts, or research. They argued that disputing or disregarding their ideas, is an afront to free speech, and America was supposed to be all about free speech. So I guess we should therefore listen to their ideas, just because.

#4- Disregard consensus. The guys claimed that it doesn't matter that most climatologists and related scientists believe that man-made climate change is real. The mere fact that some obscure meteorologist or civil engineer or dentist thinks that climate change is a natural, cyclical event or isn't even happening, is enough reason to doubt the whole thing.

Seems that all conspiracy theorists use these tactics in one form or another. Whether its 9-11 Deniers, Holocaust Deniers, Moon-Landing Deniers, Flat-Earthers, they all use these tactics and flawed logic.

Why is this? What is it about the psychology of these tactics that CTists find so appealing?


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Vaccinated spreading virus & variants?

OK, so we know that vaccinated people can get the virus. We have a few newsworthy breakthrough cases.

Is it possible that many more vaccinated people are getting infected, but since we have so many antibodies against it, we are mostly asymptomatic and not getting tested, and therefore not going into quarantine and spreading it around?

Obviously as an intelligent person I would much rather get Covid while vaccinated then without the vaccine, as I am much less likely to get sick, go to the hospital and die. But does the vaccine REALLY prevent infection, or does it simply reduce the symptoms of infection, and does it also reduce transmitability?


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Biden is stumbling/fumbling on so much

I posted this stuff in Conspiracy area and I don't find it. Why?
'
Now he's going off on his early life, his first wife's father and his business and so much of his early life. Yikes...


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The Official Marcel Bessette Thread

Marcel Bessette is a Sovereign citizen from Canada(used to live in Winnipeg, but he moved a few months ago and I'm not sure where he lives now) and one of the most aggressive people I've seen on Youtube.

This guy also believes that the Canadian government is a corporation that is in hands of the US or some **** (it's really weird. :boggled:).

And he's the owner of Peace Maker Society, which is basically Scientology minus the murders, religious stuff and stalking.

His site.

Some stuff from the site worth mentioning:

Quote:

YOUR FREEDOM IS IN DANGER!
Don't Know Your Rights?
They DO NOT COME from the State
They Are Within YOU! USE THEM!
Enroll RIGHT NOW!
Become A Student Member!
3 Letter 50 Day Process
Fill In The Blank Templates (EASY)

YOU MUST JOIN TO LEARN
Members Only!
And three "Click here" links underneat.

Quote:

You will get rich with this
You will help yourself/family
You will help save freedom
You will know your rights
You will be a Competent Heir
You will regain honour
You will help finance freedom
You will get Sovereign Bank Acc.
Become Our Student NOW!
And this picture (sorry, couldn't get it in bigger resolution).

And he's also in the "Top 10 most dangerous people in Canada" list, if memory serves. I'll post some interesting vids from youtube, like the one where he proudly says that he got into 500 street fights.

I hope his YT still exist, since I can't find his channel anymore...

Here's an example of him: [yt]6wHwc8zrfXQ[/yt]

EDIT: his old channel got banned (gee, I wonder why... :rolleyes:), but he has a new one: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVZ...owqUIw30GZ0BRg


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Penniless: why a Victoria man has gone two decades without money

Penniless: why a Victoria man has gone two decades without money

Quote:

As David Arthur Johnston takes a seat next to me on a bench in the courtyard of the Greater Victoria Public Library’s main branch, I can see that his greying beard is so long and bushy it hides his neck and that his eyes are a light shade of blue, but it’s his coffee that has caught my attention. It’s in a to-go cup. A to-go cup.

I ask him how he got the coffee. I realize it's an abrupt conversation starter, but it’s also a fair question for someone who claims not to ever use money. He answers without hesitation: “The 9-10 Club. It's a kitchen that's open on weekday mornings for the homeless. They have food and coffee there.”

Throughout our conversation, and in many later conversations as well, I repeatedly find myself asking where or how he’s acquired something. Not because I’m looking for a gotcha moment, but because Johnston has organized his life around something that seems impossible and I want to know how he pulls it off.

For those of us who struggle to make ends meet or who are disorganized or negligent with personal finances, or who can’t seem to ever create a cushion for unexpected expenses, the idea of doing away with money might seem spectacularly appealing. We all know financial problems can wreak havoc, leading to health-compromising stress, divorce, homelessness. Who but the wealthy hasn’t had to rack their brain to figure out how to bring in more money?

But what if instead of always trying to figure out how to get more money, you could figure out how not to need it? What if it were possible to sever your dependence on it? To banish it completely from your life?
tl/dr version: He leeches off taxpayers, churches and individuals.


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Planets, Moons and planetoids we could teraform besides Mars or Venus

What are good candidates for human habitation outside of Mars, Venus or own own planet earth? How about the moons of Jupiter or Saturn? How about Ceres? Pluto has whole mountains of water ice. Mercury?


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Odd USB problem

I've been building my own machines for decades, but this one has me stumped. One of my spare machines is(was) a dual-boot Win10/Linux Mint box. Recently it stopped seeing the USB ports in both OSes. I have several spare keyboards/mice which are known to work and it wouldn't see any of them, on any of the ports (front or back). It got to the point where booting into Win10 put me into a 'repairs needed' loop which I was never able to get out of. Okay, fine, I didn't use Windows on that box very much anyway, so blow out the drive and go with a fresh install of the newer version of Mint.

The USB problem persisted so I didn't bother with the reinstall. Here's the odd bit - the USB ports work perfectly fine in the BIOS, just not when it tries to launch any OS. I repeatedly did the 'reset to defaults' option in BIOS, and fiddled around with the legacy mode options, all to no avail. The PS2 ports for keyboard and mouse do work, but I don't want to have to use those old wired devices just to make the box work.

It's a spare so not something I'm too worried about, I've just never seen this sort of behavior before - USB devices work fine in BIOS, but none of three different OSes see them. If the board were going bad I'd have thought the ports would simply fail outright, not work only when poking around in BIOS.

Anyone see anything like this before? I've found refurb versions of the board for sub-$100, but I don't want to drop that to fix a spare machine if the problem is something CPU (or other) based. Don't recall the specific model number but it's a Gigabyte GA-Z97 socket 1150 if that matters.


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Frito-Lay strike

Didn't find a thread on this one.

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/21/10186...-working-condi

Quote:

Employees say sweltering 90-degree temperatures on the picket line are preferable to the 100-degree-plus heat that awaits them inside the manufacturing warehouse on any given summer day. They're demanding an end to mandatory overtime and 84-hour weeks that they argue leaves little room for a meaningful quality of life. They're also seeking raises that match cost-of-living increases.

The company, which is owned by PepsiCo, disputes their claims, calling them "grossly exaggerated" and says a recent contract offer delivered earlier this month more than met the terms put forward by the workers' union, Local 218 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union.

Meanwhile, workers say they want more concessions before heading back into the factory. They have also called for a national boycott on Frito-Lay products, as well as those produced by PepsiCo, for the remainder of the strike. If successful, the boycott would mean living in a world without Doritos, Cheetos, Fritos, Tostitos and Sun Chips. Temporarily, at least.
There are a whole slew of horrifying allegations beyond the basics.

https://www.cjonline.com/story/opini...ns/7838411002/

Quote:

• Making us work in dense smoke and fumes during and after a fire because as you stated, "It's just smoke."

• When a co-worker collapsed and died, you had us move the body and put in another co-worker to keep the line going.

• During the COVID-19 lockdown, a co-worker's father passed away in another state. You told her since there wasn't a funeral she didn't qualify for bereavement time. She had to take off two of her own days to grieve.

• We worked during the entire COVID-19 quarantine while office personnel worked from home. We didn't get hazard pay, bonuses, rewards or recognition.

• We worked through the deep freeze struggling keep warm and everything running, getting forced over and into the weekend again, while an upper manager received a recognition award for "his dedication to come in on his weekend to keep our plant running."

• How you fill our warehouse with carts of cardboard and product blocking walkways, exits and work areas. When we point out it's not safe, you shrug your shoulders and say, "It's push week."

• How you bring in inexperienced temporary drivers leading to two injuries, one of them major, and numerous accidents, including a hit to a major structure beam, bending it and damaging the forklift.

• The fact you offer paternity leave to all employees except those at union plants.

• Your negotiator told us that it isn't that Frito-Lay can't afford to give us raises, it's that he is there to protect the stockholder investments.


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Choose Your Cold Treats Wisely

10 injured in explosion at Dippin' Dots factory

The flavor just explodes in your mouth.

Quote:

Kentucky authorities on Thursday were investigating the cause of an explosion at a Paducah Dippin’ Dots factory that injured 10 people.
Possibly that nasty old liquid nitrogen again..


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Post Brexit UK, what do UKians think about immigration policy towards EU citizens

Like the Title says, what is the UKian perspective regarding the difficulties apparently being experienced by EU citizens, being held in Detention etc?


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Shane Sonderman gets 5 years for SWATting Death

Courtesy of The Register a quasi-satiric tech newspaper.


Quote:

A teenager in the US has been jailed for five years for his role in the harassment and swatting of the owner of a desirable Twitter handle – a swoop that led to the netizen's death.

Shane Sonderman, of Lauderdale County, Tennessee, wanted the username @Tennessee that had been registered on Twitter years prior by Mark "Sparky" Herring, 60, of Bethpage, Tennessee. Herring is known to bulletin-board users as the inventor of the widely used offline mail reader format QWK.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/...watting_death/


While I'm glad to see someone got jail time for this, how did society get to the point that somones online 'nym' was worth driving someone to their death over?


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mercredi 21 juillet 2021

Win10 HP laptop *will not* install Canon printer driver

Longish story, but MrsB's old HP laptop, Win10, has been playing up for quite a while. We decided to invest in a similar model, but it had no driver for our Canon Pixma MG2550S scanner/printer. Easy, yeah, just visit the Canon website, download and install?

The download works (though bloated) and the install begins. It gets close to the end and asks us to plug in the printer and switch on. OK, it then tells us "Printer detected ... completing the installation" or words to that effect. Sometime later we're told "Installation almost complete ... just a little longer"
After a while it says "Printer not detected" even though the printer hasn't been touched.

The only exit is to "Start over". Tried this, but with exactly the same result.

Now I'm officially stuck and mystified. Any suggestions gratefully received, but if CE says "Use Ubuntu" I'll ******* scream ;)


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Liverpool loses UNESCO World Heritage status

Liverpool has been stripped of its World Heritage status.

It comes after a Unesco committee recommended the city be removed from the list due to developments on the city's waterfront which had resulted in "irreversible loss of attributes".
In a meeting on Sunday, the committee said Everton's new stadium, officially due to start construction on 26 July, could have a "major adverse impact".
The decision was made following a vote by the committee at a meeting in China.

Liverpool was awarded the much-coveted title in 2004 in recognition of its historical and architectural impact.
It recognised the city's history as a major trading centre during the British Empire and its architectural landmarks.

Liverpool is the third site to lose its World Heritage status since the list began in 1978 - the other two being Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in 2007 and the Dresden Elbe Valley in Germany in 2009.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...yside-57879475


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mardi 20 juillet 2021

Indiana man dies of son methamphetamine for 52 months

Indiana man dies of son methamphetamine for 52 months

Quote:

Portland, Indiana (AP) — A man in eastern Indiana, whose infant son died of methamphetamine poisoning, was sentenced to more than four years in prison on Monday for his role in the death of a child.

A Jay County judge sentenced Ryan A. Markle of Portland to 52 months in prison, followed by 18 months of probation due to Haydanel’s death last three months. ..

Markle, 40, pleaded guilty to possession of stimulants based on a plea bargain with a prosecutor. Star press report.

In March 2020, police were called to an apartment in Portland following reports that the baby was not breathing.

According to court records, an autopsy revealed that the baby died as a result of “acute methamphetamine poisoning” after Haydanel was sentenced to death in the hospital.

In May, the child’s mother, Jennifer F. Young, 35, was found guilty of neglecting her dependents, died, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

OK, notice the parts I highlighted. They make no sense, nor does the headline.

Now let's look at the original source:

Indiana man gets 52 months in son’s methamphetamine death

Quote:

PORTLAND, Ind. (AP) — An eastern Indiana man whose infant son died from methamphetamine intoxication was sentenced Monday to more than four years in prison for his role in the child’s death.

A Jay County judge sentenced Ryan A. Markle of Portland to 52 months in prison, followed by 18 months of probation stemming from 3-month-old Hayden Markle’s death last year.

Markle, 40, had pleaded guilty to a meth possession charge under a plea agreement with prosecutors, who dropped charges of neglect of a dependent resulting in death and possession of paraphernalia, The Star Press reported.

Police were called to an apartment in Portland in March 2020 on a report of a baby not breathing.

After Hayden Markle was pronounced dead at a hospital, an autopsy determined the infant died as a result of “acute methamphetamine intoxication,” according to court records.

In May, the child’s mother, Jennifer F. Young, 35, pleaded guilty to neglect of a dependent resulting in death, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Ryan Markle was convicted of dealing in meth in 2013, the same year that Young was also convicted of dealing in meth and two counts of neglect of a dependent.
So it appears that this "Ohio News Time" site takes a story from another site, and using some algorithm, chops it up and spits it out on its own site. Now, I know this has been going on for some time, and there's lots of these alleged news sites that are nothing but ad farms. "Ohio News Time" has many such news stories that are similarly stolen and chopped up like this. Is this some way of changing the story just enough to get around the copyright?

I don't think this is really important, but it has made me curious, and if anyone has more knowledge about this sort of thing, please share it with me.

Disclaimer: I found the "Ohio News Time" version of the story linked on fark.com.


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Bezo's Joyride In Space Slammed by NGO

Sick sick sick as I see it but it's what is happening in our country. The filthy rich continue with their joyrides. I don't support Bezo, my principles.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/d...4-cb95564b6be3


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The Regime in Cuba: Totalitarian Police State? Good thing? Both? Neither?

Not a totalitarian police state, and this is mostly good.

Not a totalitarian police state, and this is mostly bad.

A totalitarian police state, and this is mostly good.

A totalitarian police state, and this is mostly bad.

Planet X: Por que no los dos?


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Bezos and Blue Origin blast off into space.

Launch is in just a few minutes.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57849364

Granted, "Form follows function." But did no one pull the designers aside and say "Ummm... got a moment?"

Attached Images
File Type: jpg bezos_blueorigin_ns12_liftoff.jpg (98.1 KB)


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lundi 19 juillet 2021

Norwegian women's handball team try to destroy the very fabric of their sport

This is more Social to me than sport but feel free to move if mods disagree.

How dare these women?!!!

https://www.insider.com/norwegian-ha...uniform-2021-7

Quote:

Norwegian women's beach-handball team forced to pay fines after players wore shorts — instead of bikini bottoms — during a game

The Norwegian women's beach-handball team is facing fines for choosing to wear shorts at the European championship instead of bikini bottoms, according to a statement issued by the European Handball Federation (EHF) on Monday.

The statement said that "in the bronze medal game against Spain on Sunday the team of Norway played with shorts that are not according to the Athlete Uniform Regulations."

"The Disciplinary Commission decided to impose a fine of €150 per player, for a total of €1,500," it added. The amounts equal about $177 and $1,770, respectively.

Regulations for women's uniforms at the tournament, which took place in Varna, Bulgaria, from July 13 to 18, say players must comply with clothing specifications as defined in the International Handball Federation beach-handball rule book.

"Women should wear a bikini where the top should be a tight-fitting sports bra with deep openings at the arms. The bottom must not be more than ten centimeters on the sides," the regulations say....

...Meanwhile, regulations for men's uniforms say that participants must wear "tight-fitting tank tops" and longer shorts "that are not too baggy" but "should be 10 centimeters above the kneecap."



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General Republicans are nuts.

I couldn't decide whether to post this in the Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Green threads. Decided we need a general thread fir the crazy Republicans.

[YT]5bw7e_Bgd0A[/YT]


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HELP!

While checking my spam folder, I found a disturbing email. The person has my pass word here - yes, I am changing it - and said that if I don't send him $2683, he will infect my entire contact list. He claims to have screen shots of me looking at porn on pornhub, and will send them to my contacts prior to infecting them.

Please, other than changed my password, what should I do?! Thank you.


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DeSantis: Whoopsie

Politico: DeSantis asks protesters to stay out of Florida roads in reversal on anti-riot law

Quote:

On Tuesday, DeSantis sidestepped a question about whether authorities should arrest people blocking roads as part of protests in solidarity with Cuba. Those demonstrations popped up in several cities as Cuban Americans voice their support to Cuban protesters who are demanding an end to the authoritarian regime that has controlled the island nation for the past six decades.

On Thursday, the governor reversed course and said that authorities could not “tolerate” people blocking roads.
I think he's created trouble for defending the new Florida law in court--despite hastily backing away from selective enforcement, he demonstrated how easy it is for selective enforcement to occur.


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Mystery illness strikes down birds across US south and midwest

Quote:

A mysterious illness is killing birds across several states in the south and midwestern US, and wildlife scientists are rushing to try to find the cause, with many victims suffering from crusty eyes, swollen faces and the inability to fly.
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-south-midwest

Birders have been asked to take down bird feeders and baths in an effort to hopefully reduce the spread.

:(


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dimanche 18 juillet 2021

Is it bad manners to take your own lunch to hospital?

Have an urgent op' tomorrow but have visions of only getting that weird dark brown vegan bread with soething vaguely resembling a processed meat and carrot in it, when it is a bit up in the air and cooked food isn't organised?


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Steve Pinker is a Blank Slater, he just hasn't realised it yet.

Here is what Steve Pinker writes in his article "The Blank Slate" for the magazine "General Psychology":

Quote:

What all this suggests is that children are shaped not by their parents, but in part—but only in part—by their genes; in part by their culture, both the culture of the surrounding society and the children’s own culture, which we condescendingly call their peer group; and in large part by sheer chance—chance events in the development of the brain in utero, such as whether some neurons zigged or zagged at a particular day in brain development, and perhaps chance events in life, such as whether at some point you were chased by a dog, or inhaled a virus, or were dropped on your head, or got the top bunk bed as opposed to the bottom bunk bed.
Now, help me out here, how is that not a "Blank Slate" position?

There is no-one in the social sciences, as far as I am aware, that suggests that genetics has nothing to do with how we turn out. For as long as I have been talking to people in the social sciences they have said that how someone turns out is partly due to their genes and partly due to their environment, culture, society, physical environment etc.

Pinker tries to pretend that there is a difference between what he is saying and what the social sciences say in general by picking someone with an extreme position, Ashley Montagu, and claims that this view is 'typical'. In fact it is not even typical of Montagu's claims as you can easily find him clarifying that things like laughing and crying are genetically programmed just as they are in other animals.

And, as I said, Montagu's claims are not typical for the social sciences.

The other example Pinker gives in this article is Arnold Schwartznegger. I am not sure how Pinker could have concluded that Arnie is the exemplar of the social sciences.

What the social sciences tend to reject is the "breeding is everything" opinion which says that poor people are poor because they have inferior breeding and that rich people are rich due to superior breeding and that everybody should just know their place and not try to get above themselves. I don't think that Pinker is defending that view.

So let's get away from this idea that Pinker's view is any different to the view that has been taken by the social sciences since at least the 1960's



PS Incidentally, I am confused as to why Pinker believes that the only part of a child's culture, society and behaviour that doesn't influence them is the part that they have spent most time with, ie their parents.


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Testing 123

Testing. Don't respond.


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Katie Hopkins only lasts one day in Australia before being spat out.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/k...18-p58aps.html


Quote:

Far-right commentator Katie Hopkins has been dumped from Channel 7’s Big Brother VIP a day after boasting about flouting infection controls while in hotel quarantine in Sydney.
Ms Hopkins told her 261,000 Instagram followers she had opened her door to guards naked and not wearing a mask to “call out” Australia’s quarantine system and lockdowns.

:thumbsup:


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samedi 17 juillet 2021

Neti pot- Actually rinsing sinuses?

On occasion I have actually managed to get the saline to actually flow into/out of my sinuses. Feels weird. Really cleared my sinuses. For a while.(MRI showed fluid in sinuses, plus constant feeling of drainage into throat)

But is it safe ? The saline first flows through the dirty ole nasal passages before I can suck/blow it into the sinuses.


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Magician irony

Matthew Furman seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxM6FBXB-ik


Without any irony rips into another magician
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWP87XWZnwc


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Woman lets ‘God take the wheel’ as a test of faith in Beachwood high-speed crash

Woman lets ‘God take the wheel’ as a test of faith in Beachwood high-speed crash

Quote:

BEACHWOOD, Ohio (WJW) – Beachwood police are investigating a crash that happened just before midnight on June 15.

Officers responded to the 2900 block of Richmond Rd. where a car had knocked down several power lines, a utility pole, and crashed into a house.

According to a police report, a woman, 31, approached the officers and told them she was driving the car and that her daughter, 11, was in the front passenger seat.
Quote:

Traffic cameras showed the woman’s vehicle headed south on Richmond Rd. at more than 100 mph and drive through a red light at Shaker Blvd.
Quote:

The woman told police that she intentionally drove at that high rate of speed and through the red light to “test her faith with God,” according to the report.

She told police she’s been going through some “trials and tribulations” and was recently fired from her job.

The woman said she “let go and let God take the wheel,” according to the police report.


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Crucibles for casting small quanties of metal

This is usually a pretty educated and diverse crowd. Maybe someone will be able to shed some light on an issue.

Last year, my "quarantine project" became metal casting. I wanted to make jewelry, buttons, and robot parts out of cast metal. So, I got a casting furnace, and some sand, and the equipment, and made a test piece out of cast bronze. It's pretty cool.

As with most projects, it didn't go as far as I would like, because all the usual reasons, but there was one thing that puzzled me.

On our robotics team, we frequently make housings for electronics, standoffs, and occaisionally interesting custom made joints for our robot. We usually either 3D print them out of plastic, or machine them on a mill or lathe out of aluminum. Sometimes, though, the plastic isn't as strong as we need, and the aluminum can't get the exact shape with our mill. What if we could cast them?

I think aluminum or zinc would be the right metal. Maybe copper for some pieces. It isn't super expensive, but it could still be 30 bucks or so for the largest pieces we could cast in my furnace. Zinc might be better. Strong enough, but very cheap. The melting point is low enough we could even do it without the furnace, but the furnace would work very nicely ..... except.

The furnace came with a graphite cylindrical crucible. In the instructions, it says to only use it for "noble metals"....it mentions copper, silver, and gold. I assumed that bronze would be just fine, and it was. However, is there some reason I couldn't use zinc? Is there some reason molten zinc and graphite wouldn't play nice together? If I recall correctly, aluminum has other issues when casting, but I don't think it has anything to do with the crucible.

So, how about it? Is there some reason that a crucible would only be used for "noble metals". It seems to me that if it can cast bronze, it ought to be able to case metals with a lower melting point, specifically zinc.


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I built a new computer yesterday

I know that a few of you are interested in this sort of thing, so here's my parts list.

I wanted to move a backup dataset from an external HDD enclosure to a server, and I decided to combine that with a desktop, which led to this hybrid. The idea is that I can use it all day long as a desktop in my library as long as I leave it running to do its 30-minute rsync at 2am. I already had four of the 6T Ironwolfs, so I just had to buy one more.

I want this machine to run cool (well, I always want that), but I intend to never shut it off. The original idea was to go with Intel mainly to get the IGPU, and also because I'm familiar with them, but I forgot that the AV receiver I use is a pig with computers, so I reluctantly added the GT 710. Basically, I need separate audio and video outputs to run the way I want.

I put it together, moved it to the library, and nothing happened at first, or so I thought. First POST does lag a bit, but this computer is the quietest desktop I've ever built, and I didn't know it was on until the BIOS screen came up. I haven't added the HDDs yet, because I'm waiting on the last one to arrive (today). These will add some noise, because Ironwolfs do. Anyway, it's fast enough and runs at 27-31C even while watching videos -- not bad at all.

Now I have to find something else to fuss over.


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The Freedom Phone!

https://gizmodo.com/maga-branded-fre...d-b-1847299215

Quote:

Be it Parler, Gab, or GETTR, recent times have seen no shortage of dollar-sign-eyed entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on conservative America’s disdain for “liberal” Silicon Valley. It was only a matter of time before someone tried to invent the MAGA phone.

Er, make that...the “Freedom Phone.” The device, which launched Thursday, is the product of Erik Finman, a 22-year-old crypto-millionaire who says that he wants America’s patriots to take “back control” of their lives from the tech oligarchy. Finman’s phone, which costs $499, claims to offer conservatives a way to be free of Big Tech’s “spying” and “censorship”—though it is radically vague on the details. Like a random handgun, the phone should be treated as if it were loaded and dangerous because we simply don’t know what’s in the chamber.

Freedom Phone claims that it can protect users from the data collection that comes with an iOS or Android operating system (it has something called a “FreedomOS”—which, ironically, just appears to be a modified version go Google’s Android OS). The phone is also meant to liberate users from Big Tech’s alleged ideological preferences: it has an “uncensorable app store” (called the “PatriApp,” lol), where it is apparently impossible for apps to get booted no matter how unsafe or horrendous they are.
Hilariously, Candace Owens posted a tweet in which she says that she's partnered with the company and gives out a code to get 10% off. She posted the tweet from her iPhone.


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Floods in Germany, Belgium & the Netherlands

So, we are at the height of summer in Europe, which of course, also means summer storms. Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands have seen some particularly severe flooding as a result.

Quote:

The death toll from catastrophic floods in western Germany and Belgium has risen to more than 150, local authorities have said, as emergency services continued their search for hundreds still missing.

Authorities in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate said on Saturday morning that 93 people had died there, including at least 12 residents of an assisted living facility for people with disabilities, while neighbouring North Rhine-Westphalia put the death toll at 43.

Officials warned the figures could rise further. About 1,300 people in the Ahrweiler district of Rhineland-Palatinate remain unaccounted for, although efforts to contact them were being hindered by damage to phone networks.

Experts said the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) issued an extreme flood warning earlier this week and questioned why the toll was so high. Hannah Cloke, a hydrologist, told Politico the disaster was “a monumental failure of the system”.

The German weather service DWD said it had passed on the warning to local authorities, who should have been responsible for organising any necessary evacuations. The interior minister, Horst Seehofer, said Germany “must prepare much better” in future, adding that “this is a consequence of climate change”.



GUARDIAN

Of course, the third world has always suffered from natural disasters but now that it hits Europe the mass media takes full notice.


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vendredi 16 juillet 2021

What Makes a Champion? Early Multidisciplinary Practice, Not Early Specialization...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs...45691620974772

What Makes a Champion? Early Multidisciplinary Practice, Not Early Specialization, Predicts World-Class Performance

Quote:

Abstract
What explains the acquisition of exceptional human performance? Does a focus on intensive specialized practice facilitate excellence, or is a multidisciplinary practice background better? We investigated this question in sports. Our meta-analysis involved 51 international study reports with 477 effect sizes from 6,096 athletes, including 772 of the world’s top performers. Predictor variables included starting age, age of reaching defined performance milestones, and amounts of coach-led practice and youth-led play (e.g., pickup games) in the athlete’s respective main sport and in other sports. Analyses revealed that (a) adult world-class athletes engaged in more childhood/adolescent multisport practice, started their main sport later, accumulated less main-sport practice, and initially progressed more slowly than did national-class athletes; (b) higher performing youth athletes started playing their main sport earlier, engaged in more main-sport practice but less other-sports practice, and had faster initial progress than did lower performing youth athletes; and (c) youth-led play in any sport had negligible effects on both youth and adult performance. We illustrate parallels from science: Nobel laureates had multidisciplinary study/working experience and slower early progress than did national-level award winners. The findings suggest that variable, multidisciplinary practice experiences are associated with gradual initial discipline-specific progress but greater sustainability of long-term development of excellence.
A couple of years ago after reading the book "Range" I brought up this issue with a friend of mine who is a former internationally competitive gymnast, and whose daughters are high level youth athletes (the elder daughter is a national champion synchronized swimmer in her age group). He was convinced that the opposite is the case, that the way to excellence is complete early specialization. During the somewhat heated discussion I tried only to suggest that he check out the book and make up his own mind, as he certainly knows more about the topic than I do. But he was pretty convinced that there's no point in doing so.

Anyway, the idea that, at least in youth, multidisciplinary study leads to slower but better long term results is interesting to me. Sport seems like a good test case for the hypothesis, though the sentence about Nobel laureates is interesting as well.


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A Modest Proposal: Let’s Change Earth’s Orbit

"What’s the worst that could happen?"
Generally speaking politicians need scientific literacy, but the proposal by Republican Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas reaches the sub-basement of illiteracy.
Quote:

During a congressional hearing last week, Republican Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas asked a U.S. Forest Service official if her organization or the Bureau of Land Management could change the orbit of the moon or Earth to reverse the effects of human-caused climate change.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...rbit/?amp=true


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Efficacy of Vaccination.

As a person of limited medical science knowledge I am puzzled by what I read about the different vaccines and their efficacy.

What I read about the covid vaccines suggests to me, that they do not stop the vaccinated from being infected, but stop or lessen the severity of the effects of the disease. This is contrary to my previous understanding of how vaccines work.

I was always given to understand, that if vaccinated and exposed to a virus, your antibodies would slaughter the nasty germs, and you would be rid of them. If the effect is just to lessen the severity of the virus effect, then do you still have those germs in you, so that you can pass them on to some other dude?

The above seems contrary to the notion that we can achieve herd immunity and the effectiveness of vaccination to achieve this.


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Not vaccinated=selfish & irresponsible?

Science seems to be clear that as long as there are sizeable numbers of people who are not vaccinated, Covid-19 will continue to mutate into more transmittable and more deadly variants.

That being the case, and more than 600,000 people dead in the USA, is it a selfish and irresponsible act to NOT be vaccinated if you have no health issue preventing vaccination?

I think it is. This is a team effort and you are LITERALLY part of the problem if you are not part of the solution. You're either on Team Vaccine or Team Covid-19.


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Wealthy benefactor of American fascist movement dead at 80

Quote:

William H. Regnery II, a racist, reclusive multimillionaire who used his inherited fortune to finance vile white supremacist groups in the hopes of one day forming an American whites-only ethnostate, died earlier this month, his family and associates confirmed. He was 80 years old.

Regnery, whose family amassed riches from its right-wing publishing empire, died on July 2 in Florida after a “long battle with cancer,” his cousin Alfred, the former head of Regnery Publishing, confirmed to HuffPost.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/willi...b01f118957ee93


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Prisoners court-ordered to work community service under serial rapist

Quote:

Originally Posted by DOJ
Former Tennessee County Official Indicted for Kidnapping and Sexual Assault

Today, the Justice Department announced the unsealing of a nine-count indictment charging Michael Harvel, 59, of Crossville, Tennessee, with civil rights violations for kidnapping and sexually assaulting women that he supervised during his tenure as the Cumberland County, Tennessee, Solid Waste Director. FBI agents arrested Harvel at his home earlier today, and he will appear before a U.S. Magistrate Judge later this afternoon.

According to the indictment, Harvel’s official duties as the former Solid Waste Director included supervising women who served their court-ordered community service time or worked as paid county employees. The indictment alleges that, from 2015 to 2018, Harvel sexually assaulted seven women under his supervision. Two counts charge that Harvel kidnapped and sexually assaulted women he supervised, and a third count charges him with committing aggravated sexual abuse by forcibly raping a woman in a dark office. The indictment alleges several other incidents of sexual assault, including Harvel fondling the breasts and genitals of women against their will.

The recycling center was the only option available for those sentenced to community service.

Quote:

"Community service workers were assigned to the Recycling Center to perform community service through the court system or as a condition of probation… the Recycling Center was the only placement option…”
https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/stat...51464259219457


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Today's right-wing stochastic terror incident

Seems appropriate to have a running thread for the various attempted and realized incidents of stochastic terror committed by right wingers. There's no indication that this is going to slow down in the foreseeable future.

To kick things off:

Quote:

An extremist supporter of former President Donald Trump is facing federal charges after law enforcement raided his home and business in Napa County, California, and discovered dozens of weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and materials that could be used to build pipe bombs.

Ian Rogers, a 44-year-old auto repair shop owner previously charged with state offenses after his Jan. 15 arrest, is charged with the federal crime of unlawful possession of unregistered destructive devices after he admitted to authorities that he built pipe bombs.

Rogers, according to an FBI affidavit, claimed the pipe bombs were for entertainment purposes. But authorities said he had a sticker for the extremist group the “Three-Percenters” and had “intent to attack Democrats and places associated with Democrats in an effort to ensure Trump remained in office.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ian-r...b61cb953506bda


In related news:

Quote:

CAMPBELL, Calif. - Police investigating a call about an alleged prowler in Campbell found that the suspect was heavily armed and had a handwritten manifesto detailing his plans to target minority groups, authorities said.

The truck driven by Wesley Charles Martines contained AR-style rifles, a Glock 9 mm handgun, and ammunition that was personally inscribed with sayings such as "Cop Killer," "To a widow from the Grim Reaper," and "A Good Start," the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office said.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/campbell-a...sto-police-say


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Television coverage of the Apollo 11 liftoff

52 years ago today, Apollo 11 with its three astronauts lifted off for its journey to the Moon. You can watch the CBS News special coverage with Walter Cronkite (and the original advertisements too) below.

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jeudi 15 juillet 2021

This really made me angry.

I was on another forum, either Quora or Reddit, and was reading comments about the condo collapse. Someone posted that she had located her cat after several days, and had already given up looking for him. When she found him, he had crawled into a small space that wound up protecting him. Lots of tears when she and the cat were reunited. OK.

Then I started to read the comments. Several people told her that it was "proof" that "everyone has a "guardian angel"! And it was the guardian angel that reunited the cat with his owner.

I think I had steam coming out of my nostrils. So, apparently all of the other pets and people that did die, or the people who were never reunited with their pets, begs the question - where were their guardian angels? Tied up in traffic? Taking a day off?

OK, I have vented. Thanks!


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The Trumpster Question

(I wanted to call the thread "The final solution to the Trumpster question" but thought that might be a bit too clickbaity.)

There's been quite a bit of discussion about how evidence can't convince someone who hasn't reached their current position through evidence, and that seems mostly true.

Trump supporters seem to be on that boat because the world is changing in ways they can't deal with, and in response keep becoming more and more radicalised, now calling for the execution of basically anyone with liberal leanings, and espousing nonsense conspiracies like Qanon. I think it gives them a new sense of "belonging", which is definitely hard to break.

So how does the US deal with this threat to democracy and law and order? If evidence, discussion and compromise won't work, then what? They can't just be ignored, can they? And of course the other extreme (the classic: concentration camps and mass executions) is unthinkable. So what's the solution? How can the Trump supporters be brought back from the dark side, or otherwise neutralised as a political force?


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Not the best way to promote Kid's Literacy

This story has gone all over the right-wing online sphere since it broke. Here is one of the few reports from a newspaper on this:


Quote:

A London library has apologised for holding an event to encourage children to read during which an actor dressed in a bare-bottomed monkey costume with a fake penis.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/l...t-b945272.html


I can only assume that the people who made the decision spoke with everyone who agreed with them and since no-one disagreed decided it was O.K. to go ahead.


Other places carrying this story are Spiked!, RT, and a legion of clearly right-wing sites including Stormfront.


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