ColanR

Thanks for the response. I'm curious what your wife thinks about this article [0], mentioned elsewhere in this discussion. It makes the case that the current RDA for Vitamin D is based on a statistical error, and that the recommended dose should be closer to 8000 IU for young adults.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28768407/

There's other studies cited in this discussion. Those are peer-reviewed and do back up what the post is claiming.

I'd tend to agree with you. There's a lot of pharmaceutical money to be made on this crisis, especially if Covid-19 becomes seasonal. Don't want to waste that opportunity by treating it with something cheap like Vitamin D.

In line with how Monsanto covered up studies showing the dangers of Roundup (and faked other studies that indicated no danger, and did a fair bit of astroturfing, iirc), I'd expect to see a lot of misinformation in the future about the ineffectiveness - maybe even the danger? - of Vitamin D supplements.

Right now, I'd rather have a calcium problem than a Covid-19 problem. Also, some of the studies being thrown around in this discussion have mentioned that safe levels of Vitamin D are much higher than a lot of medical professionals actually think.

> there is virtually no risk of toxicity in supplementing up to 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily

https://sci-hub.se/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...

> too much confidence in published research and not enough confidence in your local health officials

I can't figure out if you're being sarcastic, or if you really do think that a local politician knows more about medicine than is contained in actual medical research.

Looks like this has been posted a lot on HN recently [0]. Previous Vitamin D & Covid-19 discussions that garnered some comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23023703

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22463713

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23119949

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23390264

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349962

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23167802

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23188675

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23083619

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22600685

[0] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...

> Although this is a notable finding it's important to remember that it doesn't lead to the conclusion that supplementing vitamin D will be very beneficial here....we don't have a ton of good science to back up if curing a vitamin D deficiency via supplementation of pure vitamin D is really nearly the same as getting it naturally

I don't know what you mean by 'a ton', but there is good evidence that Vitamin D supplements do provide much of the same benefit [0] [1].

> Ultraviolet radiation (either from artificial sources or from sunlight) reduces the incidence of viral respiratory infections, as does cod liver oil (which contains vitamin D).

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16959053/

[1] https://sci-hub.se/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...

That's what I was thinking. At the very least, they'll either have to come up with some very fancy welding rod matrials, or train their welders in some interesting techniques. Reminds me of the difficulties in welding aluminum.

> What's the minimum I need to do to get out of here? Not, "What amazing interesting thing could I explore?"

I totally get it, but it makes me sad. That line, right there, probably explains why it's so few people who actually get to make the big discoveries.

Changed a few colors, and added a background that makes the page lag. Didn't change the text or even the order of the levels. The small size of the bounding box is because he didn't expand it from the original.

That makes more sense, since a similar comment that replied to it was also marked [dead]. Thanks for the clarification.

I use the knockoff chinese batteries for my thinkpads that cost ~ $30. Haven't had a problem.

But that's not what I was talking about. I was referring to the GP comment, about using individual LiOn 18650 batteries that can be individually replaced. Those cost a few bucks each, and your X220 battery has about 6 of them inside. That's what the MNT Reform does, as well, which is what's so cool about their batteries.

Not the best source, but seemed interesting and worth a discussion.

I checked the US version of that site just now - those batteries are really expensive compared to the cells inside.

To whomever flagged the sibling comment by throwaway_drt2: they were not being crude, they were referring to the cell site simulator called the Dirtbox. [1] Don't be so trigger-happy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirtbox_%28cell_phone%29

Don't you love it when people force their opinons on you, 'for your own good'?

> might solve the recirculation issues, no?

No.

Another half-baked 'solution' will cut the infection rate by some fraction of a percent, and we'll be right back where we were before: right here, asking why we aren't being told about proper solutions.

Just like the masks, which as TFA is discussing, don't actually address one of the primary transmission vectors.

Yeah, I noticed and fixed the search.

To the other folks replying: I looked up the protests on ddg images, and about half of the protesters in those photos were wearing masks.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=blm+protest+2020&iar=images&iax=im...

> Making sure everyone wears masks will, at the scale of the general population, reduce the infection rate by some noticable percent.

I said that.

I have several (medical) doctors in my family. They were pretty clear from the beginning that what the WHO was saying was BS. They pretty much agreed with what you're relating; I don't think it's doctors in general who are ignorant of how a virus gets transmitted.

I completely agree with your first point; but what we need to seriously question is the cherry-picking of sources that were paraded in front of us by the media.

We probably aren't hearing about it because it's something we have less ability to protect against.

I remember a popular comment here a while back mentioning that epidemeologists' job is partly public relations, trying to figure out what they can tell the general public that will minimize the viral spread.

Making sure everyone wears masks will, at the scale of the general population, reduce the infection rate by some noticable percent. It's also something everyone can do, and it gives everyone a sense of control over the situation - enough of a sense, at least, to prevent chaos.

Talking about airborne transmission, though? The kind of masks that can protect against that are hard to come by. Not to mention that the virus could enter via the fluid of the eyes (not trying to add conspiracy here, just trying to make a point about the difficult reality of preventing infection [0]). Bio-rated goggles and N95+ rated masks are more than we can expect from a public that's making face masks out of bandannas.

I think we're seeing very pragmatic statements being made, that are tailored to a public that can't enter full biohazard mode and need to not panic.

[0] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.09.085613v2

I love reading that site.

I don't have a great understanding of the algorithms here, but I have a question.

If I had some data encrypted with these tools, which I made public for multiple entities to process, is it possible for me to allow them to add data to the encrypted system? i.e., is there a way for multiple entities to add more data to the encrypted data (and do calculations with the encrypted contents) while only one party is able to extract the results of the whole resulting collection of data?

> It should not be this complicated to respect laws that just enforce minimal good practices.

It's not necessarily the compliance that's the issue, it can also be figuring out how to comply. IANAL, and I can't guarantee to myself that I can implement a site with policies that comply correctly. Better to just geoblock, because it's not necessarily worth the lawyer fees.

For everyone worried about these satellite's effect on astronomy, don't the new satellite launch capabilities that make "internet-from-space" suddenly feasible mean that telescopes could be more easily put in orbit too?

It seems like that would solve the light pollution problem. I have no relevant background, though.

Any recommendations?

I'm really sorry, I linked the wrong article. The quote in my comment is from the abstract of this [1] study. It's a meta-analysis by a professor of epidemiology at Yale. He also wrote an op-ed that ran in Newsweek. [2]

[1] https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/doi/10.1093/aje/kwaa093...

[2] https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exis...

You're deriving way too much from an uninformative article. "Given the drugs by her parents" doesn't mean they were prescribed by her parents. Did the article say whether there was no doctor involved?

Also. The girl had an autoimmune disorder, for which the same drugs are commonly used. Did the article happen to say whether or not she was already on the drugs?

The article also says nothing about whether the drugs had anything to do with her demise. It sure does imply that, though.

This is a cherry picked article.

The specific circumstances where the drugs are effective aren't being met. I didn't look up the details before.

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/doi/10.1093/aje/kwaa093....

> Evidence about use of hydroxychloroquine alone, or of hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin in inpatients, is irrelevant concerning efficacy of the pair in early high-risk outpatient disease. Five studies, including two controlled clinical trials, have demonstrated significant major outpatient treatment efficacy.