board77

I might or might not stop by again, so I might as well post something else that might be inflammatory to some. :D I found it an interesting argument. https://quillette.com/2020/06/19/the-purity-paradox-how-tolerance-and-intolerance-increase-at-the-same-time/ The Purity Paradox: How Tolerance and Int...

I have heard pretty much no one (experts at least) say that wearing a mask will help prevent you getting an infection. Actually, a N95 mask plus eye protection, gloves, good hygiene, etc. (and knowing how to handle PPE and act around infectious individuals) will do a great deal to protect a trained...

Some practical considerations that don't seem to be making the rounds among the proponents of contact tracing by phone. https://quillette.com/2020/05/11/covid-19-and-the-normalization-of-mass-surveillance In the past few months, governments ranging from Australia to the United Kingdom and corporatio...

I found this amusing: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-government-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/ The scientist whose advice prompted Boris Johnson to lock down Britain resigned from his Government advisory position on Tuesday night as The Telegraph can reveal he broke...

As I mentioned before, there is a long-standing debate about how much good surgical masks do against influenza,* but the consensus has been that at least they're helpful if the wearer coughs or sneezes. Turns out that this probably isn't true either. This actually surprised me a bit, though I figure...

FYI, a pertinent scientific paper on models. It's not an easy read (though not especially technical) but important takeaways are: - Modelers speak more confidently to politicians and the public than their models warrant (they don't acknowledge the uncertainties the same way as when they have to talk...

OK, here we go at last. It looks like many of us may have already been exposed to this virus. This suggests the worst case scenarios of the modelers are very unlikely and also that the fatality rates are much lower than previous reports. It would also be a plausible explanation for some of the odd i...

I've been quietly scratching my head for some time over the advice coming from WHO in this pandemic. The WHO's director Tedros Adhanom kept saying bizarre stuff like "the US is now the epicenter of the pandemic" and insisting that every country must do more to contain COVID-19 immediately....

Just dropped by with some things to think about since I briefly broke my moratorium on the internet. The mainstream news media seems to all be playing the same tune. And doing their usual trick of focusing narrowly on the biggest, most dramatic stories even when they don’t represent the whole. To me...

Actually, I was thinking about things and thought I'd add a couple of things that might be helpful to some people. DH is in STEM himself and he didn't know this stuff, though he's inherently skeptical of the hysteria. It’s becoming pretty obvious to me from press conferences that decision makers are...

Thanks, Jude, but I'm taking a break from the internet in general, maybe long term. Might check in at some point, who knows. I made the mistake of getting on today, then I end up reading things and ended up crankily grumbling "You utter morons of reporters - NO, the fact that you have twice as ...

I happen to agree with this person. It doesn't mean we will be right, but I think it's useful for people to see that there are a variety of reactions to COVID-19 and to stop getting outraged when authorities don't respond with extreme measures. https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2020/02/2...

https://quillette.com/2020/03/10/experiencing-romes-first-day-on-coronavirus-lockdown/ Experiencing Rome’s First Day on Coronavirus Lockdown I went out on Tuesday morning wondering what a country on lockdown looks like. I live in the un-touristy Garbatella neighbourhood of Rome, where it was sunny ...

Jude, you know better if you've been reading the news. Iran's response was a limited strike on a US airbase in Iraq, with plenty of warning to Iraq, which I'm sure they knew would be passed on to the U.S. They could have responded far more belligerently. As a result, the tensions between the US and ...

Brilliant. Trump wants to "do something" about the COVID-19 outbreak so, as usual, he does something pointless and dumb. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/487180-former-trump-homeland-security-adviser-little-value-to-european A former homeland security adviser in the Trump admini...

Unbelievable. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-secrecy-exclusive/exclusive-white-house-told-federal-health-agency-to-classify-coronavirus-deliberations-sources-idUSKBN20Y2LM The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classifie...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/course-us-will-have-woman-president/607702/ Sexism Probably Wasn’t What Doomed Warren’s Campaign The belief that female candidates for president face impenetrable barriers does more to perpetuate sexism than dismantle it. With Elizabeth Warren’s dec...

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/486407-trump-admin-hires-another-college-senior-for-top-role-report Trump administration hires another college senior for key role A 22-year-old Iowa State University senior set to graduate in May has been hired for a key position in the Trump administrat...

I stumbled across this paper, this morning, and thought I'd share it in case anyone is interested. It's from our last pandemic, the H1N1 "swine" flu in 2009 (which was, in some ways, the opposite of this one - it unexpectedly hit young people much harder than anyone would have predicted, w...

Long but interesting. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248 I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me. The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous. On August 19...