killjoywashere

I'd like to think that Hanlon's Razor applies, but it appears even the original investigators found faults. I sort of wonder if they were operating under a more restrictive mandate?

Also, it doesn't seem that his errors are any validation of the supplements industry

"Their influential paper in BMC Medicine, and subsequent work based on Newmaster’s approach, found that many supplements lacked ingredients listed on their labels and that toxic contaminants tainted others. Some stores pulled products from their shelves, and several major supplement companies embraced Newmaster’s work, paying large sums for quality testing by companies Newmaster established just prior to the publication of the paper. "

So, he basically generated demand for testing through his own companies. I mean, if this guy was selling cleaning products, tires, or perfume, all's fair in love and war. I think the trick is his academic appointment. If a PhD material scientist or chemist at a university said what the average tire or perfume commercial says, she'd probably find an academic investigation coming down on her head too.

Rich people erecting barricades against the poor. The intelligence services, malign actors, and anyone who's already gotten in (aka, large tech companies) will ignore this to the maximum extent possible. Other rich people (aka, large companies that don't depend on this stuff, like railroads, construction, etc) will also ignore this to the maximum extent possible in order to avoid awkward moments at dinner parties with their rich tech friends.

> The fix is public policy producing housing in order to force a situation of excess supply.

So... we should have paid builders to build more houses during the pandemic?

Another fun bit of biochemical history: Chaim Weizmann (1) was a biochemist and staunch Zionist who gained the attention of First Lord of the British Admiralty, Winston Churchill, for cultivating a bacterium, Clostridium acetobutylicum, that could produce acetone, which was in short supply and required for the production of cordite, the key propellent in naval artillery during World War I. In gratitude for Weizmann's contribution to the war effort, George Lloyd asked him what Britain could do for him, to which he replied "not for me, but for my people", which begat the Balfour Declaration (2) establishing Britain's commitment to provide a Home for the Jewish People (3).

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

(3) It is essentially lost to history that the Balfour Declaration also provided that the Palestinian people should not be displaced. It is also mostly lost to history that there was a great deal of politicking between Weizmann arriving in England and his audience with George Lloyd, including a world tour Weizmann orchestrated to promote one Albert Einstein.

Not sure I entirely agree?

#1 > Or disable a hospital.

The entire Ascension Healthcare system of hospitals (142 hospitals, 2600 total facilities) in on divert since 8 May because they had to switch back to paper records. Change Healthcare has lost $872M since it was attacked in February.

Maybe it's more like the pandemic: seems like nothing, unless it affects you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(healthcare_system)

https://www.wired.com/story/change-healthcare-admits-it-paid...

#2 > Does your stuff need computers working 5,000 kilometers away? [implying that's bad]

What if you live on the Gulf Coast, exposed to hurricanes? You want compute resources warm and ready far away from that region. After Katrina, the Tulane medical school was able to re-form quickly because the noteservice was running a bulletin board forum on a VM in Romania. Everything else was underwater.

#3 > This is the sound-powered phone

Have you used a sound-powered phone? I managed damage control in a ship. Sound powered phones barely works. And the coordination system to actually fight that fire requires radios and making overhead announcements that definitely depend on electrical power.

#4 > They tried to sort of renew this emergency telephone network

When the entire San Diego region lost power during rush hour for 4 hours in 2011, the cell phone system still worked. I was able to email documents to Tokyo from a car despite no traffic lights.

#5 > Because if the cable to the US is down

Sure, but there are a lot of disasters where the cables are fine. Graceful degradation is all about having widely distributed options. Lots of people have What. Signal is even better for people with more serious responsibilities, IMHO. And, friends, if you think IP networks are vulnerable, get yourself a starlink terminal and a HAM radio license.

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

Imagine an eye-tracking loupe function on mobile: fit the same amount of text but bubble up the part under foveolar gaze. Save on readers* everywhere.

* readers are those glasses you can pick up at the drug store for $17.99.

Who incited and funded this? Where's that story?

We adopted a piano while we were overseas and moved it to San Francisco. We ended up giving it to a church after my son decided he couldn't abide the high notes that could never quite get into tune. Still have fond memories of it though.

Actually, seems like the opposite is true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18885149

Like probably everyone, probably up to and including Sundar Pichai (I suspect), I have a love hate relationship with Google. In this case, I thought it would be interesting to ask the question, does Google Fi sell user real-time location data? I will let the Leviathan speak for itself:

https://www.google.com/search?q=does+google+fi+sell+users%27...

Of all the people in this thread swearing they don't use Google, I wonder how many are writing their comments using Chrome (or Chromium, or Edge, or Brave, or Opera, or any other browser that uses the guts of the Chromium project)

I don't know the rules for the Port of Baltimore, but tugs aren't generally required for channel transit. It's the berthing where tugs are generally used: the ship needs lateral thrust to lay alongside a pier or quay wall. Some ships have bow thrusters or APUs but a ship this size would definitely have tugs for the mooring.

My kids are 19 and 22. I saw them go through this at a time when we just didn't know. Now, I advise friends with young children: you don't want your kids to be the last to get phones, or the first to get phones. But you should be in explicit competition with your fellow parents to be second-to-last. Sort of a Dutch auction situation.

I've driven a number of vessels, ranging from a 17' dinghy to a nuclear aircraft carrier and have a number of friends who have been involved in accidents one way or another. I have personally not had the conn during disaster, but have been an engineering officer and a legal officer responding to them, on my ship. To be honest, steering a ship under most conditions is not hard. The anxiety-provoking issues are 1) poor bridge team management (aka toxic leadership) and 2) engineering disasters, which this appears to be.

This

> Similar to a car that hits ice, wheels have arbitrary alignment when they reengage road, when power starts being delivered again, car swerves towards concrete barrier even with brakes. Driver with limited crash experience is mostly just panicking and stomping.

is almost certainly not the case on a large ship. The rudder is rotated hydraulically. Loss of power simply causes the rudder to stop moving, it's effectively "stuck". Some ships have manual override using a massive wrench, but it takes hours to move the rudder meaningfully in that situation.

As for this:

> How many pilots, trained or not, really have any experience with a 100,000 ton ship in a crash situation with responses where seconds matter?

Probably way more than you think. This is a significant reason why they seem so calm when they show up on the bridge. They just hopped from a relatively tiny pilot boat or tug onto a massive ship, possibly with significant sea state. This can be some Indiana Jones level crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18VF8WXWfZw

https://youtu.be/C8ER9Ladqg4?si=Ijwhu90iJi8WPAas&t=226

Pilots are very seasoned mariners who have seen multiple losses of power, and pretty much everything.

Now, back to point 1: bridge team. I have seen a captain the crew trusts execute flawless maneuvers even in exigent circumstances. I have seen a captain the same crew doesn't trust fail repeatedly at everyday things.

We don't have the whole story yet. What happened on the bridge? What happened in the plant? Why did power drop? Did they flood an online generator with diesel oil? I ask because I've seen that happen. Did they blow an exhaust manifold? Seen that. Did they trip the plant by getting preparatory checklist work backward? Seen that. Did they go all back full immediately? Possible that they couldn't ring the order if they dropped power. Was there panic on the bridge (bad sign) or was there grim fortitude to process checklists that would never help (better sign). In any case, no doubt the captain is done. Probably happy to never drive a ship again after that, tbh.

It’s the old county fair analogy: the rich kids get shots on goal until they hit. Middle class kids get one shot. The poor get no shots, they’re working the fair. There are progressively fewer middle class kids getting their one shot. And some of them used to get two.

</pull paper>

> Despite the reduced dimensionality of the feature representation, application of standard clustering methods remains problematic due to the high dimension of features (30) relative to the sample size (159). To mitigate this,

and I'm done.

I participated in a couple Vision Pro demos at Apple HQ prior to launch day. One with a security focus, one with a health applications focus. The security profile, btw, is super boring: on the network, it looks like an iPad.

Health applications: pretty cool for education, maybe other things, eventually.

What I think would be compelling, for me, is the ability to use it on travel. To be on a plane and not have to worry about breaking a laptop screen when the person in front of me tips their seat back, not have to worry about someone shoulder surfing me. In yet another boring hotel room? Let's escape!

Now, the problem is that, in many meetings, a laptop is barely acceptable as it is (in some cases, not at all acceptable). So, I still have to bring a laptop. So, my backback is now ... heavier? I'm already carrying multiple devices required by various security policies.

Is this juice worth the squeeze? I can't bring myself to spend my own money on this. And I helped develop an AR device. I'd be happy to use it if the company bought it. But you're in for almost $5k after applecare, accessories, etc.

I've done a fair number of autopsies and have never even heard of someone ending up on the autopsy table secondary to an appendectomy. I'm sure it's happened, but, on balance, if the docs say you need an appendectomy, they're probably right.

> metadata.

Exactly. Sort of like getting a picture and the metadata says "Nikon". Probably that picture didn't come from midjourney.

> nasty bacteria C. diff tend to be higher in people who have had their appendix removed.

Uh, because people undergoing appendectomy are, almost by definition, more likely to receive antibiotic treatment, which is a far-better documented basis for C. diff infection. This article is catastrophe.

Returns 1 would be cancer, autoimmune disease, or malformation.

The appendix does not evolve. The organism evolves. Logically, the genes encode proteins that respond to the local microenvironment. And that's it. The cells have no idea where they are, other than subtle cues from their neighbors. Imagine trying to build a city with no localization input except accelerometry. Theoretically, works fine. In practice, eh, there are some odds and ends left over.

GP here (GGP?), I read the whole article.

Once you understand the embryology, there are actually a variety of things like the appendix: they're just the ends of things that come together. The uvula is a great example: embryologically, the two sides of the face separate very early as an opening, then develop a lot of complicated anatomy and fuse back together. The uvula is where that fusion completes and the fusion process completes (returns 0) when the microenvironment variables get to a certain state.

The vermiform appendix is where the three tiniae coli come together. Unsurprisingly, the other, rectal, end the tiniea coli don't so much end as they spread out into the longitudinal muscular layer of the rectosigmoid.

And of course the wall of the vermiform appendix is full of lymphoid tissue. The whole colonic wall is full of lymphoid tissue!

Source: I'm a pathologist. I have looked at way too much colon. And uvula, and pretty much every other bit of tissue you can imagine, under gross exam, under a microscope, and in situ (live in ORs and dead in autopsy suites).

This idea that the vermiform appendix is some deep evolutionary mystery is sort of a low point of medicine that occasionally pokes its head up. It ranks up there with male pregnancy, and various birth defects that have given rise to stories of monsters, like Cyclops. Fun stories, completely useless. Please don't invest in anything related to any of those. If you have money burning a hole in your biomedical investment pocket, feel free to reach out.

You know, why the fuck is DEFCON in August, in Vegas? Like, you know a nice place to visit in August? Kodiak, Alaska. Portsmouth, Maine. Sydney. List of places I would never want to visit in August? Vegas. Houston. Vegas. New Orleans. Vegas. Mumbai? Maybe. Baghdad? Definitely not. Also, Vegas. My friends in Christ, why, does anyone, think Vegas is a good idea in August?

This seems less about should it be open source, and acknowledging the scripting language as an increasingly desired user interface

If you can erase the past, you can control the population by influencing their collective memory.

The US Government is a well-armed insurance company. Most of the money goes to healthcare and retirement benefits. As a fraction of national GDP, the US isn't in the top 10.

Fluorite lenses are incredible, but not a critical win until you get to high mag or up against the speed limits of your system. When it really becomes apparent is when coupled with VR stabilization, which can get you 4+ EV stops of speed. When the subject is that crisp, the chromatic aberration is significant, or, with fluorite, not. Interestingly, modern photography suites offer both correction of effects of lenses (e.g vignetting and pincushion) and chromatic aberration in silicon. Compared to where I started with a circa 1989 Nikkor 70-210 f/4 and film, the pictures I can take today are incredible. The real problem, for me, is editing down to a digestible number of eye-poppingly good shots. I imagine kids these days are thoroughly unimpressed, but I'm humbled by the incredible amount of engineering that has gone into photography.

The modern military has little cash to spare on looking good. Where it's critically important, the impact is measured: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27215881/