Hey, Mom! The Explanation.

Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.

Saturday, January 29, 2022

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2538 - Mass Formation Psychosis isn't real - Weekly Hodge Podge for 2201.29



A Sense of Doubt blog post #2538 - Mass Formation Psychosis is not real - Weekly Hodge Podge for 2201.29

Hello and welcome back to another edition of the NOT SO Weekly Hodge Podge as this is the first one since January Ninth.

Today's HODGE PODGE theme is dedicated to this false idea of MASS FORMATION PSYCHOSIS, which is not a legitimate medically defined psychiatric disorder despite what Joe Rogan says. Because as most people with half a brain who went to college know, Joe Rogan rarely knows what he's talking about or is saying anything worth listening to as most of it is UNTRUE or even offensive or dangerous. Right up there with Alex Jones.

Mass Formation Psychosis is NOT an academic term recognized in the field of Psychology and that's why we have REUTERS to fact check it. REUTERS has one of the best ratings in the world of information for accuracy and lack of bias: CHECK IT OUT.


This rhetoric is total nonsense.


Though famous Psychiatric founder Carl Jung wrote about the Nazism in Germany as evidence of the manifestation of the entire culture's SHADOW, he did not mean to suggest that Germany had collectively gone crazy due to some mass psychosis.

Nope, sorry. Please try again to explain why people are so intensely concerned about Covid-19 and the pandemic.

I don't know could the word "pandemic" have anything to do with it? Could the fact that the United States is very close to ONE MILLION dead since February of 2020, as we approach the two-year anniversary of keeping track? See my stats on those numbers in my regular pandemic report farther on.



Not to be crass (but I am going to be), maybe this Twitter user should change their handle to @beinanidiot because @beinlibertarian may be too tame for this kind of bullshit they are spewing.

This distrust and denial of science should be something we left behind in the 18th Century with the denialism of the Small Pox vaccine or even the early 20th Century with the last great pandemic of Influenza, which has since become an endemic and never left the population. The flu is just an accepted part of life. If people continue to resist the vaccine for whatever often unfounded reasons (only rarely founded in anything legitimate), then the virus will incubate in those hosts, continue to mutate, and we will never be rid of it -- Welcome to the Endemic Jungle.


Reuters also spoke to Steven Reicher, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of St Andrews, who has studied crowd psychology for more than 40 years. He described the concept of a “mass psychosis” as “more metaphor than science, more ideology than fact”.

“It arises out of mass society theories and crowd psychology theories which developed in the 19th century, and which reflected a fear of the masses,” he said. “The claim was that people in the mass lose their sense of identity and their ability to reason, they regress to an inferior mental state where they are manipulable by unscrupulous leaders.

“It has been totally discredited by contemporary work on groups and crowds.”

VERDICT

Missing context. There is no evidence to suggest a “mass formation psychosis” has occurred during the pandemic, experts told Reuters. The term itself is not recognised among academics, and modern research into crowd psychology has shown that crowds do not behave in mindless or non-individualistic ways.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.

MASS FORMATION PSYCHOSIS is just not a thing, people, JOE ROGAN.




KEY POINTS

  • "Mass formation psychosis" is not an appropriate psychiatric term or a clinical diagnosis to describe "groupthink."
  • Terms like "mass delusion" and "mass psychosis" are being used inappropriately as pejoratives to denigrate our ideological opponents.
  • Psychiatric terminology should not be used to advance political agendas.


Can this guy lose his distribution network already?

Neil Young and his fans are helping to pressure SPOTIFY to drop this blowhard and panderer of misinformation that people actually believe.




















And there's a little HODGE and some PODGE in your stream of news about musicians fleeing SPOTIFY.

BUH-BYE!

Either Joe Rogan goes or SPOTIFY becomes musically irrelevant.

I am not for censorship, never have been. But that also doesn't mean people should choose to support financially hateful things or inaction that allows whackos like Joe Rogan to endanger people's live with his lies.

Let's not sugar coat.

HE LIES.

He can be literally fact-checked on his own program, proving what he is saying is wrong, and he will continue to spread his false bullshit. Worse, his audience believes HIM (for some bizarre reason, probably the same reason people believe Trump, which is a reason I will never understand) and not the person quoting the CDC, WHO, Harvard Medical Journal, or whatever two dozen credible sources disprove Rogan's nonsense.

Even cases like this one, do not seem to sway these people so deep in the mindfuck maze that they are completely lost.

https://bnonews.com/index.php/2022/01/former-washington-state-trooper-who-refused-vaccine-dead-of-covid-19/


SAD story.

As glib and angry as I may get here, I do not REALLY want to see people die. That man was someone's father, husband, brother, son. He has an aunt, probably, who thinks of him as her sweet little nephew still, even though he's grown up.

But do stories like that prompt a surge in vaccines getting into people's arms? Nope.

According to reports that are purposefully avoided by the news media and the nation's police forces, COVID-19 was the NUMBER ONE cop killer last year.

That's just wrong.



If only that news could hit like a tsunami caused by the Tonga volcanic eruption.




Scientists in New Zealand who have studied the volcano say that the type of ash and magma coming from the eruption is less toxic than other kinds, but predicted that the main Tongan island will likely be completely covered in a coating of ash. Some news reports described residents of the island having breathing problems. 



But that's nothing compared to the Doomsday glacier.



I am so sick and tired of the in-fighting in Baseball over the election of the PED-era Baseballs players to the Hall of Fame. It's time to revamp HOW these players are inducted and stop this petty bullshit to shut out the greatest of the great. I mean, as disgusting a human as Pete Rose is, and he is, HE SHOULD BE IN. And so should Bonds and Clemens among others (Palmiero, McGwire, ARod). None of these playeres are among my favorite. But so what? Lots of players took PED in that era but we didn't have a dozen hitters vying for the records Bonds set. Just him. He still had to HIT THE BALL. He was still feared and walked more than anyone in the history of the game. And when he did get a chance to hit, he crushed the ball at a rate and with power unseen before. SURE, the power was aided by the PEDs -- no argument. But he still had to make contact and make good contact that had a chance to lewave the park. And both of these guys dominated before they took PEDs, especially Clemens.

And I am not a fan of bullshit asterisks. Just elect them and laud their records. History will still tell the story of that era.

The Hall of Fame is broken. Time for a revamp.

Speaking of Baseball (which I capitalize against grammar rules for a reason), here's a cute feature.


I love stuff like this.

Come on, now, END THE LOCKOUT!






And over in football -- not the headline, clickbait seekers who broke Brady's retirement the night before the CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS rather than waiting for Brady to announce it -- but Kyler Murray is really cool.






And just when I really love Portland, OR...


A presentation included a meme pushing violence against left-leaning demonstrators.







I know there is at least one case of a president who served, then lost, then ran again and won. Yup. Grover Cleveland -- I had to check -- the twenty-second and the twenty-fourth president. But he's the only one, right?


And did he campaign right after losing? Did he hold huge rallies? Did he try to get the attention of the press on a daily basis?

I am going to say no before I even check.

Ironically, "corruption in politics" was the main issue on which he ran in 1884 for his first term starting in 1885.

So, no. He loses to Harrison in 1888, and he becomes a private citizen, moves to New York, and makes a very moderate income. He vowed to run again, but he did not campaign or gin up his base during Harrison administration, at least not until 1892. (all from WIKI)

Then again, Cleveland was a democrat.

Then again, these parties are not at all the same as they were in the late 1800s.

But then there's this asshole:


And his fairy tale story of winning an election he lost that somehow he has conned thousands (maybe millions) of people into believing.

This week, it emerged that the National Archives received formal submissions from GOP officials in seven states—among them, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—falsely claiming Trump won their electoral votes. News of the documents prompted calls, including from Michigan’s attorney general, for federal investigators to undertake forgery or fraud inquiries.

While the Justice Department has launched hundreds of prosecutions targeting Trump supporters who engaged in acts of violence or illegally entered the Capitol during the January 6, 2021 riot, it has given no clear public indication that it is examining the actions of political figures who worked to create a false legal pretense to aid Trump’s efforts to hold on to power. Trump’s rally, the first of many he’s expected to hold in support of Republican candidates in the 2022 elections, is part of a plan to install allies in key positions ahead of a potential 2024 run—allies that could help him emerge on top, even if voters reject him once again.

https://www.distractify.com/p/lets-go-darwin-meaning

In recent months, the phrase "Let's go Brandon" has become a stand-in for "F--k you Biden" among some hardcore conservatives. That phrase originated from an interview during which NBC's Kelli Stavast mistook chants of "F--k you Biden" for chants of "Let's go Brandon" while she was interviewing Brandon Brown. Now, a new variation on the chant has emerged, and some want to know what it means.

What does "Let's go Darwin" mean?
"Let's go Darwin" is meant as a direct response to "Let's go Brandon," and is designed to call out groups of Republicans who gather to attack the president without taking any precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The phrase is most commonly used online by people who are sharing clips of massive crowds chanting "Let's go Brandon" even as they fail to wear masks or properly distance from one another.

The phrase is meant to invoke Darwin's notion of natural selection or survival of the fittest, which suggests that those who ignore the science behind COVID-19 are doomed to catch the virus and perhaps become severely ill or even die. "Let's go Darwin" is designed to remind people that science, and the COVID-19 virus, ultimately don't care whether you believe in them or not.

Although the phrase may seem like a justified response to conspiracy theorists who aren't taking steps to protect themselves or those around them from the virus, it's certainly a very harsh rebuke. Some have even questioned whether it's appropriate to implicitly wish for other people to die from COVID-19, even if those people aren't taking precautions like masking or getting vaccinated that offer increased protection.


Twitter has a mixed response to "Let's go Darwin."

There are certainly plenty of people online who are happily using "Let's go Darwin" as a rebuke.

"The correct reply to anyone who says or #’s LetsGoBrandon is #LetsGoDarwin Pass it on," one person wrote.

“Ridiculous as usual. Freedom threat? Let’s go Darwin,” another added.

For some, though, the phrase crosses a line into uncomfortable territory, saying that liberals should not root for the virus, even if it's more likely to target their opponents.

"Let's go Darwin" merch is now available for sale.

Even as some protest the idea of the phrase, others have already taken steps to profit from it. Shirts featuring the phrase are now available for sale on Amazon, as well as from other retailers like Red Bubble, Tee Public, and Etsy. The shirts are for both men and women and can cost anywhere between $20 and $40. Many of the shirts only contain the words, but a few others have graphics like the American flag on them as well.

There's been "Let's go Brandon" merch circulating in conservative circles for months, so it seems like this is yet another way in which liberals and conservatives are hoping to publicly identify themselves. The era when you didn't know who your neighbor voted for is over, and we have phrases like "Let's go Darwin" to thank for that.

The best way to prevent contracting or spreading COVID-19 is to get vaccinated. Thorough hand washing, social distancing, and wearing a mask or cloth facial covering are also extremely important. If you feel you may be experiencing symptoms of coronavirus, which include persistent cough (usually dry), fever, shortness of breath, and fatigue, please call your doctor before going to get tested. For comprehensive resources and updates, visit the CDC website. If you are experiencing anxiety about the virus, seek out mental health support from your provider or visit NAMI.org.


More from Distractify

The "Let's Go Brandon" Meme Has Taken Over the Internet — Here's What It Means

How Real Is the Planetary Defense Coordination Office From ‘Don’t Look Up'?

The New Year's Eve Times Square Ball Drop Has Been Scaled Back Because of COVID

















































































THANK YOU!
Now into the diaspora of the HODGE PODGE.
See you soon.

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/22/01/28/2330206/spotify-support-buckles-under-complaints-from-angry-neil-young-fans

Spotify Support Buckles Under Complaints From Angry Neil Young Fans (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD  from the technical-difficulties dept.
On Monday, famed singer-songwriter Neil Young had his music removed from Spotify as a protest against the platform's distribution of Joe Rogan, who's been widely criticized for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines on his Spotify-exclusive podcast. Now, Neil's fans are taking their frustrations out on Spotify. Ars Technica reports:Though the loss of Young's music likely represents a small percentage of overall streams on Spotify, Young pointed out that "Spotify represents 60% of the streaming of my music to listeners around the world." For Young and his fans, the hit was palpable, and his fans are apparently taking their frustrations out on Spotify. The hashtag #SpotifyDeleted trended on Twitter yesterday, and fans seem to have inundated customer support with so many messages that Spotify has had to take it offline at times. "We're currently getting a lot of contacts so may be slow to respond," a large red banner has read on the support page. Options to message the company, which have previously included live chat with a customer support agent or a chat bot, are now limited to an email address link.

"When I left Spotify, I felt better," Young wrote on his website today. "I support free speech. I have never been in favor of censorship. Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information. I am happy and proud to stand in solidarity with the front line health care workers who risk their lives every day to help others." The artist, who has long criticized audio quality on streaming services, and on Spotify in particular, closed with one last dig. "As an unexpected bonus, I sound better everywhere else," he wrote.


https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2022/01/14/humorous-advice-students-negative-reviews-professors-opinion

 

A Rubric for Students’ Negative RateMyProfessors Reviews

As a teacher, Susan Muaddi Darraj feels compelled, tongue in cheek, to give those who are considering writing such a review some advice.

By Susan Muaddi Darraj  January 14, 2022

Nobody in academe will admit to checking RateMyProfessors, but we all do, secretly, at night, on our smartphones.

I’ve read my reviews, and I can quote some of the lines verbatim, the way I used to memorize poetry in grade school. My personal favorite is a flippant comment by one student: “Does she even like teaching?” One student wrote that I am a terrific professor because I don’t care when people walk in late to my class, which astounds me to have been misread like this. One review stated bluntly, “Buyer beware. Her moods seem to swing.” (I kinda love that one.) Another student wrote that I “go out of my way” to help students, which makes me feel—honestly—fantastic. And I’m going to do it now.

But here’s the deal: negative reviews frustrate me, not because they are attacks on my teaching or that they hurt my feelings. My real problem is that they’re just not written well. As a teacher I feel compelled—even at this point, postsemester—to “go out of my way” and to give those students who are considering writing a negative review some advice.

So, to my students, here’s a rubric (since you’re always asking for one).

GRADING RUBRIC for “Your Negative RateMyProfessors Review”

Your review will be assessed according to the following standards.

The writer has a clear purpose (worth 10 points).

The RateMyProfessors website tells you straight up, “The fate of future students lies in your hands.” You have been to the battlefield and returned alive, and it’s your job to persuade the rest of the troops to march on or retreat. All your comments should focus on this goal. In a negative review, you must ensure that no student would willingly enroll in this professor’s class. Stick to that purpose—forget it not.

You only have 350 characters to use in your review, so include straightforward comments right at the beginning, such as DON’T TAKE THIS PROFESSOR! (The caps will convey authority.) Or “If you’re in this class, drop it now! Don’t wait—drop it!” The sense of urgency can be persuasive.

The writer successfully conceals his or her identity (worth 10 points).

Why write a negative review that gives away your identity? What if you have to take that professor’s class again, especially considering that you didn’t do so well the first time? (No, your D won’t transfer to the state university, so guess what? You’re back in my class.) Keep your identity secret. Think carefully about the way you speak or write: Are there certain phrases you repeat? “Her empathy is lacking.” Don’t you remember that you wrote that in your paper on whaling, that the “empathy of the whale hunters is lacking”? You don’t remember? I do.

In this vein, don’t mention anything exceptional that happened with that professor. “Prof is totally unfair—accused me of plagiarism on my Virginia Woolf paper. Me!” It’s not my fault that I still think “borrowing text” from Sparknotes.com is plagiarism: don’t forget that I’m old. But don’t you see how this line gives you away? Because I didn’t catch anyone else using a website meant for high schoolers.

The writer makes sure to mention something blistering about the professor unrelated to his or her teaching (worth 10 points).

Does your professor dress like a cougar? Or a vagabond? Or like your grandpa? This is why they don’t get your writing: you are attired in Hollister’s fall line, your feet stuffed in your Ugg boots, and your professor looks like he shops at Goodwill. Mention it. “Professor dresses like a weirdo—what’s up with the blazers? Shoulder pads are sooooo ’90s.” (Actually, they’re from the ’80s.) “Hello—the ’70s called and they want their Birkenstocks back.”

RateMyProfessors advises you, in its list of tips, to “keep it profesh,” but you can still throw in something like “Teacher is a dork who talks about Jane Austen EVERY SINGLE CLASS.” Let her have it—don’t feel bad. She failed you! You!

The writer thoroughly reviews all previous RateMyProfessors postings and has successfully refuted the positive ones (worth 15 points).

Do your research. Your goal is to paint a thoroughly horrible portrait of this professor, so make sure nobody has made a claim that could sway the unsuspecting freshman. For example, “I don’t know wtf everyone is talking about. She’s the worst. I emailed her four times on Saturday night and by Monday morning she still hadn’t gotten back to me.” Or how about this: “Not sure why everyone says he’s fair. NOT TRUE! He refused to even accept my paper! How was I supposed to know it has to be typed?” It might take time to review all previous posts, but it will be worth it.

The writer ensures, after convincing his or her friends to also post negatively about this professor, that they all post on different dates (worth 5 points).

Your friends have never had my class, but they’re loyal. Make sure you are strategic in exploiting their enthusiasm. Nothing gives you away more than having 10 negative reviews posted on the same date as yours, which might also be one day after grades come out. Offer a timeline to your friends. “Carrington, you post on Monday, and then Bryce, you wait until Thursday. Got it?” Take charge of the situation and make a schedule.

Also, make sure they don’t repeat the same complaints—vary them slightly. If everyone uses the same wording, as in “Professor has a bit of an attitude,” that indicates that all 10 reviews had the same author. Not everyone uses the phrase “a bit of an attitude”—see? (Refer to No. 2 on the rubric, about concealing your identity.)

The writer successfully pretends that he or she was very interested in the class (worth 20 points).

This is essential. Nothing speaks more about bad teaching than a teacher who completely ruined and destroyed a student’s genuine enthusiasm for a course. “I was so excited to take this class because I love reading Shakespeare. But this professor ruined me forever for English lit. I swear I now suffer PTSD when I open any book at all.” Just don’t take this one too far or you’ll give yourself away. Nobody will believe that you were excited about English 101 or Intro to Physics.

The writer successfully and regularly uses slang and emojis to express ideas that can also be better expressed in actual words (worth 5 points).

Show you know and understand your audience. “UGH!!!! He’s horrible!!!!!! FrownFrownFrown”

The writer reveals information selectively (worth 5 points).

Mention several times that the professor was not helpful to you. “So unhelpful! She doesn’t even care about her students and wants us all to fail.” Do not mention that you only came to class every other week, so that when you did approach the professor for help the week of finals, she did not know who you were.

The writer clarifies that no student can realistically achieve an A in this class (worth 10 points).

It’s true, right? You didn’t take a survey or anything, but nobody who sat in the back row with you got an A, so you know for a fact that the prof doesn’t give them out. The kid with the glasses, who sat in the front and wears Old Navy, probably did, but he’s a geek anyway. He’s wearing Old Navy.

The writer suggests that the professor should retire (worth 10 points).

That’ll really burn them up.

Bio

Susan Muaddi Darraj has taught English at the college level for 22 years. She is the author of the short story collection A Curious Land: Stories From Home, which won the 2016 Arab American Book Award and a 2016 American Book Award, as well as a children’s chapter book series, Farah Rocks. Susan lives in Baltimore and dares you to check out her RMP reviews. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram: @SusanDarraj

 


Danielle Baxter- December 23, 2014  · 
Em and I went to go see Battle of the Five Armies today.  Here's what I learned.  (Note: spoilers may or may not follow.  You have been warned.)  7, 10, and 13 are probably the most important.
1. If you want to have a conversation in the middle of a battlefield, don't worry, everything in your immediate vicinity will stop and no one will attack you.  So go ahead, by all means, hug it out, cousin.
2. If you take the time to put your armor on, especially if you do it in montage fashion, be sure to take it off BEFORE you charge into battle, because being prepared is for suckers.
3.  If your boss is going out of his mind, just let it happen.  It'll work itself out.
4.  You can absolutely hang off of a war bat as a means of transportation.  War.  Bat.
5. If you're directly responsible for unleashing a dragon on a small town, you definitely aren't obligated to do anything about fixing it.  In fact, go to war just so you don't have to pay them, even though you probably have enough money to pay them 100 times.
6. LotR was the prequel to Tremors.
7. If you get thrown off a mountain, that pain you feel isn't your crushed ribs; it's how sad you are because dead dwarf/love/you really should be dead, Tauriel.  No really, how are you alive?
8. If your film franchise is coming to end, don't go all out on the animation; just kind of run with what you've got.
9. While we're on the subject, this movie should have been called "The Hobbit: Thorin's Bad Acid Trip".
10. If you have the potential to be a decent female character, you should abandon that because that dwarf is HANDSOME AND ALL YOU CARE ABOUT.
11. In relation to things you should go to war for, jewelry is definitely one of them.
12. When you kill the boss, be sure to follow his floating corpse for a while instead of getting back to business, because there's no way that could go wrong.
13. The best way to make a pathetic, cowardly character even more pathetic and cowardly is to have him dress like a woman, because that bit never gets old.
14. If you're trying to remind your viewers of things that have been said to a character, make them stare blankly at the screen while playing the audio for ALL of those things.  Make sure to take as long as possible.
15. The moral of LotR is that birds are the real master race.
16. Realistically, they should have just made the Desolation of Smaug 20 minutes longer, killed the dragon, and ended it there.



Fox News All Het Up About Satan Again

Robyn Pennacchia
January 15, 2022 04:00 PM

Earlier this week, news dropped that a school in Moline, Illinois would be hosting an After School Satan Club for elementary school students who choose to attend, following the very predictable Facebook outrage among Concerned Moms Who Can't Take A Joke over flyers they saw around their children's schools — a flyer which painstakingly explains that The Satanic Temple, the group responsible for the club, does not believe in Satan.


At this point, anyone who has been around the internet for more than five seconds ought to be aware of who The Satanic Temple is and what they do. They don't "worship Satan" or any other deities, they're just atheists who like to expose the hypocrisy of those who seek to tear down the wall of separation between church and state. Someone puts a statue of the Baby Jesus on public land, they're petitioning for a statue of Baby Satan there as well. It's a troll.

In this case, the after school programs are being set up directly in response to after school "Good News Clubs," meant to promote Christianity. If those clubs didn't exist, After School Satan Clubs wouldn't exist. The whole entire purpose of these stunts is to demonstrate to people that if church and state are not kept separate, it won't always be their church that gets promoted by the state. It's an important lesson to learn — unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though anyone has learned it.

Fox has so far run several segments on the club, including one in which Tucker Carlson actually interviews Lucien Greaves of The Satanic Temple and still manages to come away not quite getting it.

Tucker takes on Satanic Templewww.youtube.com

Carlson seemed perplexed by the fact that such a thing could exist, comparing it to an "I Hate Gays Club" or a "Black People Are Inferior Club" existing at the schools, both of which would be a very different thing altogether. And besides, many schools have Young Republicans clubs.

He repeatedly stated that it was very unfair because they wouldn't let kids go around quoting from the Old Testament on school grounds or have an after school program for Christian students — but the club was very specifically a response to the fact that Moline had a Good News Club elementary school after school program run by an evangelical group.

It seems highly unlikely that those working Fox don't know what this is about, and very likely that they are playing it up due to the fact that their viewing audience has brought about the second coming of the Satanic Panic in recent years.

Via KWQC:

The After School Satan Club is intended to act as an alternative offer to religious after school programs, especially to kids who may not be able to go home straight after school.

“If you’re going to open the public forum up to one religion, you open it up to all of them,” said Lucien Greaves, Co-Founder of the Satanic Temple.

The Good News Club, a program organized by the organization Child Evangelism Fellowship, is offered at Jane Addams Elementary School in Moline.

Programs such as the Good News Club and After School Satan Club bring up a centuries-old debate--the separation between church and state.

“There have been decades, generations of people trying to encroach religion into public schools and we simply can’t allow the government to pick and choose which religions are worthy of expression,” said Greaves.

Somehow, that part of the story was lost on him. It was also lost on Rachel Campos-Duffy on Fox Primetime, who argued that kids should be more scared of "Satan" lurking in their hallways than of COVID.

TAYLOR MARSHALL INTERVIEW ON FOX NEWS "SATAN IN OUR SCHOOLS"www.youtube.com

She too ignored the fact that this was a response to an evangelical after school club, instead worrying that Satanists were out to take over the culture.

Satanists are taking up cultural space all across America, like in the Illinois state house where they successfully put up a statue of baby Satan. And you have heard of Comic-Con, right? Well, there’s a Satancon taking place next month in Arizona.

Oh no, whatever shall we do?

Campos-Duffy addressed the issue again on Fox and Friends Weekend, bringing in Alveda King (Martin Luther King Jr.'s wacky niece) to comment. King's take was that they should fight back by having an evangelical after school program, which, again, already exists.

The thing is, if Christians want to "take up cultural space," they have to allow people of other religions, even fake religions in which everyone is actually an atheist, to take up cultural space as well. And if Christians are going to push to be allowed into schools and state houses and other public areas, they won't always get to be the only religion there. That's the point. The hope, obviously, is that they see the error of their ways and stop doing that and we all get to believe what we believe without anyone getting in anyone else's face about it. It's not that hard.

Anyway, this is now your open thread, you may talk amongst yourselves!

Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons.



Forgetful Capitol Rioters Called Pelosi's Office Looking For The 'Lost And Found'

Robyn Pennacchia
January 15, 2022 02:00 PM

In yet another unbelievable yet extremely believable and on brand development, re: the January 6 Capital Riots, it turns out that after the dust had settled, many of the rioters went back to their respective hotel rooms and called Nancy Pelosi's office, demanding to speak to the manager about where the "Lost and Found" was. Because they left their stuff there while they were illegally invading the Capitol building, and they wanted it back.

Naturally, the police were more than happy to take down their info and "get back to them later."

"The officers quickly got on the phone and said, yeah, just give us your name, your address, your social, you know, and we'll tie up those loose ends," Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said in an interview with Insider. "But what's so fascinating to me about that there really were people who felt as if they had been summoned to Washington by the president."

Of course they did — he's the one who told them to march down there in the first place. And more than that, these people have been told, for decades, by those they trust the most, that it is not just their right but their obligation to overthrow the government when the government doesn't do what they say, as well as Nancy Pelosi's office's obligation to hang on to their missing scrunchie until they can swing back around to get it tomorrow afternoon.

They are, after all "We the People."

Via Insider:

Raskin added that the "lost and found" episode also demonstrates a challenge facing the House select committee investigating January 6, where Raskin is one of the Democratic members.

"And when they were told that they were trespassing and invading the Capitol, they said the president invited them to be there," he said. "They didn't have any kind of subtle understanding of the separation of powers. They just thought that the number one person in the US government had invited them to be there, and therefore they had a right.

"It underscores the central role that Donald Trump played in it," Raskin continued. "But it does create a problem for assigning guilt at different levels of conduct."

I don't know that it was exactly that.

There were some very clear signs that these people were not welcome, number one being the number of windows they had to break in order to get in. Number two would be the police and the barricaded doors. They also did not behave like esteemed, invited guests of the President of the United States. They smeared their feces on the walls, broke into people's offices, tried to steal podiums, broke a ton of shit and caused $30 million in damages to the Capitol Building.

What it was, I believe, is that they truly thought that what they were doing was going to be successful. Trump told them they had a shot, that all they had to do was convince Mike Pence to refuse to certify the election and he would be President again and they'd all be "the happiest people."

He said:

I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.[...] States want to re-vote, the states got defrauded. They were given false information, they voted on it. Now they want to recertify; they want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president, and you are the happiest people.

They didn't act like people who thought they were going to get in trouble because they didn't think they would get in trouble, because they really, really thought they were going to win. Many of them also believed that even if things didn't work out the way they wanted them to on that day, that "something" would happen and Trump would be reinstated as President in the near future anyway. Their leaders told them this. None of it worked out the way they hoped or believed it would, but it doesn't make them any less culpable than anyone else who thought they were going to get away with a crime of some kind.

Calling Nancy Pelosi's office for the Lost and Found, however, does make them a little more inept.

[Insider]







Dec 17, 2008


poesiaenobras

A fourteen-minute video splitted in two parts where we can see Anne Sexton at home reading, talking about poetry and about her family. Most of the material is showed in public for the first time. Spanish subtitles. 




poesiaenobras



I subscribed to an RSS feed for OPEN CULTURE, and I had a lot of links open in one of my browser windows. Here's a sample.




https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/the-origins-of-the-word-gaslighting-scenes-from-the-1944-film.html


https://www.openculture.com/2021/12/is-there-life-after-death-john-cleese-and-a-panel-of-scientists-discuss-that-eternal-question.html








Omicron is Spreading at Lightning Speed. Scientists Are Trying To Figure Out Why
NPR reports: In late November, more than 110 people gathered at a crowded Christmas party at a restaurant in Oslo. Most of the guests were fully vaccinated. One had returned from South Africa just a few days earlier and was unknowingly carrying the omic...

CES's Justification for Keeping the Show IRL is Absolutely Unhinged
An anonymous reader shares a report: Somehow CES 2022 is still happening in a little over a week, despite the single-largest surge in COVID-19 cases ever recorded in the United States. The electronics show will be far less enormous than usual, but not n...

'Year 2022' Bug Breaks Email Delivery For Microsoft Exchange On-Premise Servers
Kalper (Slashdot reader #57,281) shares news from Bleeping Computer: Microsoft Exchange on-premise servers cannot deliver email starting on January 1st, 2022, due to a "Year 2022" bug in the FIP-FS anti-malware scanning engine.

Start...

Scotland Will Pardon Thousands of Witches
Thousands of people — included hundreds of men — were accused of witchcraft in Scotland, the Guardian reports, "from allegations of cursing the king's ships, to shape-shifting into animals and birds, or dancing with the devil."

Many w...

4,346 Flights Cancelled on New Year's Day
4,346 flights were cancelled worldwide by this morning, including 2,508 in the U.S. Airlines have been blaming cancellations on increasing Covid-19 infections among flightcrews creating staffing shortages, the Associated Press reports.

"More ...

Studies Suggest Why Omicron Is Less Severe: It Spares the Lungs
A spate of new studies on lab animals and human tissues are providing the first indication of why the Omicron variant causes milder disease than previous versions of the coronavirus. From a report: In studies on mice and hamsters, Omicron produced less ...

Russia To Require Netflix To Stream State Television Broadcasts
Russia's state media watchdog will require Netflix to offer state television channels to its Russian customers after it added the U.S.-based streaming service to its register of "audio-visual services" this week. From a report: Roskomnadzor's register, ...




Washington State To Require Internet Service Disclosure When Selling House in New Year
It's hard to imagine home life without the internet, particularly amid the coronavirus pandemic. Now a law going into effect in Washington state is acknowledging that. CNET News: Starting in the new year, home sellers in Washington will be required to s...

With Webb Telescope's Mid-Booms Extended, Sunshield Takes Shape
"With the successful extension of Webb's second sunshield mid-boom, the observatory has passed another critical deployment milestone," NASA announced Friday, adding that the sunshield "now resembles its full, kite-shaped form in space..." The completio...

China Is Harvesting 'Masses' of Data on Western Targets from Social Media
The Washington Post reports: China is turning a major part of its internal Internet data surveillance network outward, mining Western social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to equip its government agencies, military and police with information o...

NASA's Retiring Top Scientist Says We Can Terraform Mars, and Maybe Venus Too
"Since joining NASA in 1980, Jim Green has seen it all," writes the New York Times. He has helped the space agency understand Earth's magnetic field, explore the outer solar system and search for life on Mars. As the new year arrived on Saturday, he ba...

Book Publishers Fight Libraries Demanding a New Deal on eBooks
2021 saw record numbers of people checking out ebooks from libraries, reports the Boston Globe — 500 million, according to figures from the ebook-lending platform OneDrive.

Five of World's Most Powerful Nations Pledge To Avoid Nuclear War
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Five of the world's most powerful nations have agreed that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought" in a rare joint pledge to reduce the risk of such a conflict ever starting. The pled...




People Have Been Having Less Sex
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Human sexual activity affects cognitive function, health, happiness and overall quality of life -- and, yes, there is also the matter of reproduction. The huge range of benefits is one reason...

Chinese Fusion Reactor Maintains 70 Million Degrees Celsius For More Than 17 Minutes
spth writes from a report via German publisher Heise: The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in Hefei, China has maintained a temperature of 70 million degrees celsius for 17 minutes at the end of 2021. It had previously held 120 milli...

Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Found Guilty
After deliberating for more than 40 hours over six days, jurors in the Elizabeth Holmes criminal trial have found Holmes guilty on four of 11 charges of defrauding the company's investors and patients. She was found not guilty on four counts. NPR reports: ...

New French Law Requires Car Commercials To Tell People To Walk or Bike Instead
An anonymous reader shares a report: Whether it's cigarettes or alcohol, many governments have legislated that companies must warn consumers of the negative effects of their products. This is often achieved on packaging or required in advertising. Franc...




James Webb Space Telescope: Sun Shield Fully Deployed
"On Tuesday morning, all five layers of the James Webb Space Telescope were fully locked into place," writes Slashdot reader quonset. The BBC reports: There were many who doubted the wisdom of a design that included so many motors, gears, pulleys and c...

Canada Considers Making Vaccines Mandatory
New submitter nuckfuts writes: Canada's Minister of Health is signalling that provinces may make vaccines mandatory in the coming months as the only way to deal with surging COVID-19 caseloads. It will be up to individual provinces to decide. Alberta's ...





US COVID Hospitalizations Hit New Record High, Raising Risks for Patients
The omicron-driven surge has sent COVID-19 hospitalizations skyrocketing across the U.S., reaching a new pandemic high this week with 145,982 patients hospitalized. From a report: This exceeds the previous high recorded in January last year, according t...

Protein From Gorse Bushes Could Feed Millions of People, Says Expert
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The gorse bushes that have invaded many Scottish landscapes could produce enough protein to feed millions of people, according to the leader of a Scottish government research program. The surprising...

Podcasting Hasn't Produced A New Hit in Years
An anonymous reader shares a report: Dawn Ostroff wants to find more hits. The chief content officer of Spotify is upset that her company isn't producing enough new popular podcasts, and has been putting pressure on her in-house studios to deliver. I've...

Smart Guns Finally Arriving In US
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Personalized smart guns, which can be fired only by verified users, may finally become available to U.S. consumers after two decades of questions about reliability and concerns they will usher in a new w...

Google Says iMessage Is Too Powerful
Google took to Twitter this weekend to complain that iMessage is just too darn influential with today's kids. Ron Amadeo writes via Ars Technica: The company was responding to a Wall Street Journal report detailing the lock-in and social pressure Apple...

Study Finds Cannabinoids Prevent COVID-19 Infection
MachineShedFred shares a report from Forbes: Compounds in cannabis can prevent infection from the virus that causes Covid-19 by blocking its entry into cells, according to a study published this week by researchers affiliated with Oregon State Universit...

January 6 Committee Subpoenas Social Media Giants In Probe of Capitol Attack
The House select committee investigating the deadly Capitol riot has subpoenaed social media giants Twitter, Reddit and the parent companies of Facebook and Google, the panel's chairman said Thursday. CNBC reports: The select committee had asked a trov...

Germany Raises Prospect of Shutting Telegram Over Hate Threats
Germany raised the prospect of closing down the Telegram messaging service over concerns about its use as a platform for extremist groups. Bloomberg reports: The country could seek to block the service if the government reaches the conclusion that it b...

Federal Investigators Say They Used Encrypted Signal Messages To Charge Far-Right Militia Group Leader
JoeyRox shares a report from CNBC: Federal investigators claimed to access encrypted Signal messages used to help charge the leader of the Oath Keepers, an extremist far-right militia group, and other defendants in a seditious plot on Jan. 6, 2021. It's...




More Than 1 Million Fewer Students Are In College, the Lowest Numbers In 50 Years
More than 1 million fewer students are enrolled in college now than before the pandemic began. NPR reports: According to new data released Thursday, U.S. colleges and universities saw a drop of nearly 500,000 undergraduate students in the fall of 2021,...

Tesla Removes 2022 Production Date From Cybertruck Website
X2b5Ysb8 shares a report from The Verge: Tesla has never been fantastic at meeting deadlines, so it's not too surprising that the company's ambitious electric pickup -- the Cybertruck -- is running a little late. Recently, reference to a 2022 production...

The Hottest Eight Years On Record Were the Last Eight Years
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The last eight years have been the eight hottest years on record, NASA and the National Oceanic Administration (NOAA) confirmed today. 2021 ranks as the sixth hottest year on record, the agencies said...

Social Media Bans of Scientific Misinformation Aren't Helpful, Researchers Say
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The Royal Society is the UK's national academy of sciences. On Wednesday, it published a report on what it calls the "online information environment," challenging some key assumptions behind the movement...





Three Large Studies Show COVID Vaccines Fight Omicron - With Booster Shots
"Three studies released Friday offered more evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are standing up to the omicron variant, at least among people who received booster shots," reports the Associated Press: They are the first large U.S. studies to look at vaccin...

Why Netflix's Stock Dropped 41% in Two Months
"Netflix's stock has tumbled 41% from the all-time high it hit just two months ago," reports CNN Business.

"It's gaining subscribers at a painfully slow pace. Competition is heating up. The company's answer to all that: It just raised prices on ...

2022 Could Be a Turning Point In the Study of UFOs
In 2021, there was an upsurge in peculiar sightings reported, thanks to people with smartphones or other video gear that captured these strange glimmers in the sky. In 2022, UAP will get more attention from both the scientific community and the federal gov...

In High-Tech San Francisco, a Pilot Program Tries Guaranteed Incomes for Artists
In 2015 the San Francisco Arts Commission surveyed nearly 600 local artists. "More than 70% of them had either already left San Francisco or were about to be displaced from their work, home or both," reports SFGate.com, adding "The pandemic has only intens..





https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/01/11/2248212/google-says-imessage-is-too-powerful

Google Says iMessage Is Too Powerful (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD  from the public-shaming dept.
Google took to Twitter this weekend to complain that iMessage is just too darn influential with today's kids. Ron Amadeo writes via Ars Technica:The company was responding to a Wall Street Journal report detailing the lock-in and social pressure Apple's walled garden is creating among US teens. iMessage brands texts from iPhone users with a blue background and gives them additional features, while texts from Android phones are shown in green and only have the base SMS feature set. According to the article, "Teens and college students said they dread the ostracism that comes with a green text. The social pressure is palpable, with some reporting being ostracized or singled out after switching away from iPhones." Google feels this is a problem.

"iMessage should not benefit from bullying," the official Android Twitter account wrote. "Texting should bring us together, and the solution exists. Let's fix this as one industry." Google SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer chimed in, too, saying, "Apple's iMessage lock-in is a documented strategy. Using peer pressure and bullying as a way to sell products is disingenuous for a company that has humanity and equity as a core part of its marketing. The standards exist today to fix this."

The "solution" Google is pushing here is RCS, or Rich Communication Services, a GSMA standard from 2008 that has slowly gained traction as an upgrade to SMS. RCS adds typing indicators, user presence, and better image sharing to carrier messaging. It is a 14-year-old carrier standard, though, so it lacks many of the features you would want from a modern messaging service, like end-to-end encryption and support for non-phone devices. Google tries to band-aid over the aging standard with its "Google Messaging" client, but the result is a lot of clunky solutions that don't add up to a good modern messaging service. Since RCS replaces SMS, Google has been on a campaign to get the industry to make the upgrade. After years of protesting, the US carriers are all onboard, and there is some uptake among the international carriers, too. The biggest holdout is Apple, which only supports SMS through iMessage."Google clearly views iMessage's popularity as a problem, and the company is hoping this public-shaming campaign will get Apple to change its mind on RCS," writes Amadeo in closing. "But Google giving other companies advice on a messaging strategy is a laughable idea since Google probably has the least credibility of any tech company when it comes to messaging services. If the company really wants to do something about iMessage, it should try competing with it."






Posted by EditorDavid  from the rage-quitting dept.
"In recent months, at least half a dozen game studios have revealed plans to add NFTs to their games or said they were considering doing so," reports the New York Times.

Then they were confronted by gamers like 18-year-old Christian Lantz, who for years has played GSC Game World's first-person shooter game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.Mr. Lantz was incensed. He joined thousands of fans on Twitter and Reddit who raged against NFTs in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s sequel. The game maker, they said, was simply looking to squeeze more money out of its players. The backlash was so intense that GSC quickly reversed itself and abandoned its NFT plan.

"The studio was abusing its popularity," Mr. Lantz, who lives in Ontario, said. "It's so obviously being done for profit instead of just creating a beautiful game...."

[C]lashes over crypto have increasingly erupted between users and major game studios like Ubisoft, Square Enix and Zynga. In many of the encounters, the gamers have prevailed — at least for now.... Players said they see the moves as a blatant cash grab. "I just hate that they keep finding ways to nickel-and-dime us in whatever way they can," said Matt Kee, 22, a gamer who took to Twitter in anger this month after Square Enix, which produces one of his favorite games, Kingdom Hearts, said it was pushing into NFTs. "I don't see anywhere mentioning how that benefits the gamer, how that improves gameplay. It's always about, 'How can I make money off this?'"

Much of their resentment is rooted in the encroachment of micro transactions in video games. Over the years, game makers have found more ways to profit from users by making them pay to upgrade characters or enhance their level of play inside the games. Even if people had already paid $60 or more for a game upfront, they were asked to fork over more money for digital items like clothing or weapons for characters.... Merritt K, a game streamer and editor at Fanbyte, a games industry site, said gamers' antagonism toward the companies has built up over the last decade partly because of the growing number of micro transactions. So when game makers introduced NFTs as an additional element to buy and sell, she said, players were "primed to call this stuff out. We've been here before."

That has led to bursts of gamer outrage, which have rattled the game companies. In December, Sega Sammy, the maker of the Sonic the Hedgehog game, expressed reservations about its NFT and crypto plans after "negative reactions" from users. Ubisoft, which makes titles like Assassin's Creed, said that it had misjudged how unhappy its customers would be after announcing an NFT program last month. A YouTube video about the move was disliked by more than 90 percent of viewers. "Maybe we under-evaluated how strong the backlash could have been," said Nicolas Pouard, a Ubisoft vice president who heads the French company's new blockchain initiative.

Game companies said their NFT plans were not motivated by profit. Instead, they said, NFTs give fans something fun to collect and a new way for them to make money by selling the assets. "It really is all about community," said Matt Wolf, an executive at the mobile game maker Zynga, who is leading a foray into blockchain games. "We believe in giving people the opportunity to play to earn."
The article also rounds up examples of game companies it says have "come out against crypto."
  • "Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox, told Axios in November that some games centered on earning money through NFTs appeared 'exploitative' and he would avoid putting them in the Xbox store."
  • "Valve, which owns the online game store Steam, also updated its rules last fall to prohibit blockchain games that allow cryptocurrencies or NFTs to be exchanged...."
  • "Tim Sweeney, the chief executive of Epic Games, the maker of the game Fortnite, said his company would steer clear of NFTs in its own games because the industry is riddled with 'an intractable mix of scams.' (Epic will still allow developers to sell blockchain games in its online store.)"
  • The blowback has affected more than just game studios. Discord, the messaging platform popular with gamers, backtracked in November after users threatened to cancel their paid subscriptions over a crypto initiative."



Posted by EditorDavid  from the rise-of-the-machines dept.
Slashdot reader DevNull127 shares this transcript of James Cameron's new interview with the BBC — which they've titled "The Danger of Deepfakes."

"Almost everything we create seems to go wrong at some point," James Cameron says...James Cameron: Almost everything we create seems to go wrong at some point. I've worked at the cutting edge of visual effects, and our goal has been progressively to get more and more photo-real. And so every time we improve these tools, we're actually in a sense building a toolset to create fake media — and we're seeing it happening now. Right now the tools are — the people just playing around on apps aren't that great. But over time, those limitations will go away. Things that you see and fully believe you're seeing could be faked.

This is the great problem with us relying on video. The news cycles happen so fast, and people respond so quickly, you could have a major incident take place between the interval between when the deepfake drops and when it's exposed as a fake. We've seen situations — you know, Arab Spring being a classic example — where with social media, the uprising was practically overnight.

You have to really emphasize critical thinking. Where did you hear that? You know, we have all these search tools available, but people don't use them. Understand your source. Investigate your source. Is your source credible?

But we also shouldn't be prone to this ridiculous conspiracy paranoia. People in the science community don't just go, 'Oh that's great!' when some scientist, you know, publishes their results. No, you go in for this big period of peer review. It's got to be vetted and checked. And the more radical a finding, the more peer review there is. So good peer-reviewed science can't lie. But people's minds, for some reason, will go to the sexier, more thriller-movie interpretation of reality than the obvious one.

I always use Occam's razor — you know, Occam's razor's a great philosophical tool. It says the simplest explanation is the likeliest. And conspiracy theories are all too complicated. People aren't that good, human systems aren't that good, people can't keep a secret to save their lives, and most people in positions of power are bumbling stooges. The fact that we think that they could realistically pull off these — these complex plots? I don't buy any of that crap! Bill Gates is not really trying to microchip you with the flu vaccine! [Laughs]

You know, look, I'm always skeptical of new technology, and we all should be. Every single advancement in technology that's ever been created has been weaponized. I say this to AI scientists all the time, and they go, 'No, no, no, we've got this under control.' You know, 'We just give the AIs the right goals...' So who's deciding what those goals are? The people that put up the money for the research, right? Which are all either big business or defense. So you're going to teach these new sentient entities to be either greedy or murderous.

If Skynet wanted to take over and wipe us out, it would actually look a lot like what's going on right now. It's not going to have to — like, wipe out the entire, you know, biosphere and environment with nuclear weapons to do it. It's going to be so much easier and less energy required to just turn our minds against ourselves. All Skynet would have to do is just deepfake a bunch of people, pit them against each other, stir up a lot of foment, and just run this giant deepfake on humanity.

I mean, I could be a projection of an AI right now.


FSB Arrests 14 Members of REvil Ransomware Gang (therecord.media)

Posted by msmash  from the moving-forward dept.
An anonymous reader writes:The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said today that it has raided and shut down the operations of the REvil ransomware gang. Raids were conducted today at 25 residents owned by 14 members suspected to be part of the REvil team across Moscow, St. Petersburg, Leningrad, and the Lipetsk regions. Authorities said they seized more than 426 million rubles, $600,000, and 500,000 euro in cash, along with cryptocurrency wallets, computers, and 20 expensive cars. The REvil gang is responsible for ransomware attacks against Apple supplier Quanta, Kaseya, and JBS Foods.



New Study of 1980s Mars Meteorite Debunks Proof of Ancient Life On Planet (theguardian.com)





Posted by BeauHD  from the sorry-to-burst-your-bubble dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:A four billion-year-old meteorite from Mars that caused a splash here on Earth decades ago contains no evidence of ancient, primitive Martian life after all, scientists have said. In 1996, a NASA-led team announced that organic compounds in the rock appeared to have been left by living creatures. Other scientists were skeptical and researchers chipped away at that premise over the decades, most recently by a team led by the Carnegie Institution for Science's Andrew Steele. Tiny samples from the meteorite show the carbon-rich compounds are actually the result of water -- most likely salty or briny water -- flowing over the rock for a prolonged period, Steele said. The findings appear in the Science journal.

During Mars' wet and early past, at least two impacts occurred near the rock, heating the planet's surrounding surface, before a third impact bounced it off the red planet and into space millions of years ago. The 4lb (2kg) rock was found in Antarctica in 1984. Groundwater moving through the cracks in the rock, while it was still on Mars, formed the tiny globs of carbon that are present, according to the researchers. The same thing can happen on Earth and could help explain the presence of methane in Mars' atmosphere, they said. But two scientists who took part in the original study took issue with these latest findings, calling them "disappointing." In a shared email, they said they stand by their 1996 observations."While the data presented incrementally adds to our knowledge of (the meteorite), the interpretation is hardly novel, nor is it supported by the research," wrote Kathie Thomas-Keprta and Simon Clemett, astromaterial researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "Unsupported speculation does nothing to resolve the conundrum surrounding the origin of organic matter" in the meteorite, they added.





Space Anemia Is Tied To Being In the Void and Can Stick Around Awhile (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD  from the heads-up-space-farers dept.
fahrbot-bot shares a report from Ars Technica:Space isn't easy on humans. Some aspects are avoidable -- the vacuum, of course, and the cold, as well as some of the radiation. Astronauts can also lose bone density, thanks to a lack of gravity. NASA has even created a fun acronym for the issues: RIDGE, which stands for space radiation, isolation and confinement, distance from Earth, gravity fields, and hostile and closed environments. New research adds to the worries by describing how being in space destroys your blood. Or rather, something about space -- and we don't know what just yet -- causes the human body to perform hemolysis at a higher rate than back on Earth.

This phenomenon, called space anemia, has been well-studied. It's part of a suite of problems that astronauts face when they come back to terra firma, which is how Guy Trudel -- one of the paper's authors and a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation at The Ottawa Hospital -- got involved. "[W]hen the astronauts return from space, they are very much like the patients we admit in rehab," he told Ars. Space anemia had been viewed as an adaptation to shifting fluids in the astronauts' upper bodies when they first arrive in space. They rapidly lose 10 percent of the liquid in their blood vessels, and it was expected that their bodies destroyed a matching 10 percent of red blood cells to get things back into balance. People also suspected that things went back to normal after 10 days. Trudel and his team found, however, that the hemolysis was a primary response to being in space. "Our results were a bit of a surprise," he said. [...]

Trudel's team isn't sure exactly why being in space would cause the human body to destroy blood cells at this faster rate. There are some potential culprits, however. Hemolysis can happen in four different parts of the body: the bone marrow (where red blood cells are made), the blood vessels, the liver, or the spleen. From this list, Trudel suspects that the bone marrow or the spleen are the most likely problem areas, and his team has plans to investigate the issue further in the future. "What causes the anemia is the hemolysis, but what causes the hemolysis is the next step," he said. It's also uncertain how long a person in space can continue to destroy 54 percent more red blood cells than their Earth-bound kin. "We don't have data beyond six months. There's a knowledge gap for longer missions, for one-year missions, or missions to the Moon or Mars or other bodies," he said.





https://science.slashdot.org/story/22/01/13/2330245/astronomers-have-found-another-possible-exomoon-beyond-our-solar-system


Astronomers Have Found Another Possible 'Exomoon' beyond Our Solar System (scientificamerican.com)


Posted by BeauHD  from the extrasolar-astronomy dept.
Astronomers say they have found a second plausible candidate for a moon beyond our solar system, an exomoon, orbiting a world nearly 6,000 light-years from Earth. Scientific American reports:Called Kepler-1708 b-i, the moon appears to be a gas-dominated object, slightly smaller than Neptune, orbiting a Jupiter-sized planet around a sunlike star -- an unusual but not wholly unprecedented planet-moon configuration. The findings appear in Nature Astronomy. Confirming or refuting the result may not be immediately possible, but given the expected abundance of moons in our galaxy and beyond, it could further herald the tentative beginnings of an exciting new era of extrasolar astronomy -- one focused not on alien planets but on the natural satellites that orbit them and the possibilities of life therein.

Kepler-1708 b-i's existence was first hinted at in 2018, during an examination of archival data by David Kipping of Columbia University, one of the discoverers of Kepler-1625 b-i, and his colleagues. The team analyzed transit data from NASA's Kepler space telescope of 70 so-called cool giants -- gas giants, such as Jupiter and Saturn, that orbit relatively far from their stars, with years consisting of more than 400 Earth days. The team looked for signs of transiting exomoons orbiting these worlds, seeking additional dips in light from any shadowy lunar companions. Then the researchers spent the next few years killing their darlings, vetting one potential exomoon candidate after another and finding each better explained by other phenomena -- with a single exception: Kepler-1708 b-i. "It's a moon candidate we can't kill," Kipping says. "For four years we've tried to prove this thing was bogus. It passed every test we can imagine."

The magnitude of the relevant smaller, additional dip in light points to the existence of a moon about 2.6 times the size of Earth. The nature of the transit method means that only the radius of worlds can be directly gleaned, not their mass. But this one's size suggests a gas giant of some sort. "It's probably in the 'mini Neptune' category," Kipping says, referring to a type of world that, despite not existing in our solar system, is present in abundance around other stars. The planet this putative mini Neptune moon orbits, the Jupiter-sized Kepler-1708 b, completes an orbit of its star every 737 days at a distance 1.6 times that between Earth and the sun. Presuming the candidate is genuinely a moon, it would orbit the planet once every 4.6 Earth days, at a distance of more than 740,000 kilometers -- nearly twice the distance our own moon's orbit around Earth. The fact that only this single candidate emerged from the analysis of 70 cool giants could suggest that large gaseous moons are "not super common" in the cosmos [...].


Posted by BeauHD  from the more-data-needed dept.
After analyzing powdered rock samples collected from the surface of Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover, scientists today announced that several of the samples are rich in a type of carbon that on Earth is associated with biological processes. From a report:While the finding is intriguing, it doesn't necessarily point to ancient life on Mars, as scientists have not yet found conclusive supporting evidence of ancient or current biology there, such as sedimentary rock formations produced by ancient bacteria, or a diversity of complex organic molecules formed by life. In a report of their findings to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal on January 18, Curiosity scientists offer several explanations for the unusual carbon signals they detected. Their hypotheses are drawn partly from carbon signatures on Earth, but scientists warn the two planets are so different they can't make definitive conclusions based on Earth examples.

The biological explanation Curiosity scientists present in their paper is inspired by Earth life. It involves ancient bacteria in the surface that would have produced a unique carbon signature as they released methane into the atmosphere where ultraviolet light would have converted that gas into larger, more complex molecules. These new molecules would have rained down to the surface and now could be preserved with their distinct carbon signature in Martian rocks.

Two other hypotheses offer nonbiological explanations. One suggests the carbon signature could have resulted from the interaction of ultraviolet light with carbon dioxide gas in the Martian atmosphere, producing new carbon-containing molecules that would have settled to the surface. And the other speculates that the carbon could have been left behind from a rare event hundreds of millions of years ago when the solar system passed through a giant molecular cloud rich in the type of carbon detected.




Posted by EditorDavid  from the sunken-treasures dept.
"A race against time is under way for the U.S. Navy to reach one of its downed fighter jets — before the Chinese get there first," reports the BBC:The $100m (£74m) F-35C plane came down in the South China Sea after what the Navy describes as a "mishap" during take-off from the USS Carl Vinson. The jet is the Navy's newest, and crammed with classified equipment. As it is in international waters, it is technically fair game. Whoever gets there first, wins.

The prize? All the secrets behind this very expensive, leading-edge fighting force....

A U.S. salvage vessel looks to be at least 10 days away from the crash site. That's too late, says defence consultant Abi Austen, because the black box battery will die before then, making it harder to locate the aircraft. "It's vitally important the U.S. gets this back," she says. "The F-35 is basically like a flying computer. It's designed to link up other assets — what the Air Force calls 'linking sensors to shooters'."
The BBC describes the plane as the U.S. Navy's first "low observable" carrier-based aircraft, "which enables it to operate undetected in enemy airspace." And it's also "the most powerful fighter engine in the world," flying at speeds up to 1,200 mph, or Mach 1.6.

After the $100 million warplane crash-landed onto the deck of an aircraft carrier — and then tumbled into the water — images of the crash appeared on social media, reports CNN.

Thanks to Slashdot reader Thelasko for submitting the story!



Posted by EditorDavid  from the project-management dept.
Wikipedia defines youtube-dl as "a free and open source download manager for video and audio from YouTube and over 1,000 other video hosting websites." It was created in 2006, and "According to libraries.io, 308 other packages and 1.43k repositories depend on it." The project now has over 106,000 stars on GitHub, and by one calculation it's their fourth-most starred project that's written in Python.

A new issue today describes the project as "Under new management."

I hope that we'll be able to make a new release soon and subsequently keep the program more up-to-date than has been the case for the last few months.

The project has a fork https://github.com/yt-dlp that offers a lot of extra functions but demands an up-to-date Python version. This project will continue to target Python version 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+, at least until no-one complains about 2.6 compatibility.

Pull Requests are very welcome, although there is a significant back-log to be handled. Back-ports of yt-dlp features are also welcome.

Finally, I'd encourage anyone else who is interested in sharing maintenance duties to establish a track record and make themselves known. We want to keep this popular project alive with a community of future maintainers.












https://science.slashdot.org/story/22/01/15/0140252/despite-cannabinoids-study-odds-arent-fantastic-it-will-ever-treat-covid

Despite Cannabinoids Study, 'Odds Aren't Fantastic' It Will Ever Treat Covid (slate.com)

Posted by EditorDavid  from the up-in-smoke dept.
While a recent study found that cannabinoids protected cells in a petri dish from SARS-CoV-2 infection, "working in a petri dish is a relatively low bar for a drug to clear," Slate points out.

"The conventional wisdom in pharmaceutical sciences holds that, of every 10,000 drugs that shows potential effectiveness, only one will make it to market."Dish experiments need to be followed up with animal studies, and then comes the rigorous gauntlet of human trials. And between cells and humans, there's a lot that can go wrong. In a dish, scientists can deliver a drug precisely to where it is needed, but it's difficult to know ahead of time how drugs will move through a body and whether they will reach their intended targets, such as the lungs and the upper respiratory tract. At this stage, it's impossible to know how CBDA and CBGA will fare, but the odds aren't fantastic.

Other drugs that showed similar early promise for treating COVID have since failed spectacularly, harming users and sowing political discord in the process. Ivermectin, azithromycin, and hydroxychloroquine all fought coronavirus infection in cells, but we now know that they do nothing to prevent or treat COVID in humans.

But at least cannabinoids are largely safe; humans have been guinea pigs in their Phase 1 trial for millennia.
Another important caveat: even the researcher's study was only proposing cannabinoids "as a complement to vaccines."

https://science.slashdot.org/story/22/01/20/0153228/antimicrobial-resistance-now-a-leading-cause-of-death-worldwide-study-finds

Antimicrobial Resistance Now a Leading Cause of Death Worldwide, Study Finds (theguardian.com)

Posted by BeauHD  from the urgent-action-needed dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:Antimicrobial resistance poses a significant threat to humanity, health leaders have warned, as a study reveals it has become a leading cause of death worldwide and is killing about 3,500 people every day. More than 1.2 million -- and potentially millions more -- died in 2019 as a direct result of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, according to the most comprehensive estimate to date of the global impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The stark analysis covering more than 200 countries and territories was published in the Lancet. It says AMR is killing more people than HIV/Aids or malaria. Many hundreds of thousands of deaths are occurring due to common, previously treatable infections, the study says, because bacteria that cause them have become resistant to treatment.

The new Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (Gram) report estimates deaths linked to 23 pathogens and 88 pathogen-drug combinations across 204 countries and territories in 2019. Statistical modeling was used to produce estimates of the impact of AMR in all locations -- including those with no data -- using more than 470m individual records obtained from systematic literature reviews, hospital systems, surveillance systems, and other data sources. The analysis shows AMR was directly responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths worldwide, and associated with an estimated 4.95 million deaths, in 2019. HIV/Aids and malaria have been estimated to have caused 860,000 and 640,000 deaths, respectively, in 2019. While AMR poses a threat to people of all ages, young children were found to be at particularly high risk, with one in five deaths attributable to AMR occurring in children under the age of five.Some of the actions policymakers can take, as mentioned in the report, include "optimizing the use of existing antibiotics, taking greater action to monitor and control infections, and providing more funding to develop new antibiotics and treatments."

PANDEMIC

THE WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT

Photo of flu patients during the First World War



If you prefer your data in a visual format, here's the current map from COVID Exit Strategy, using data from the CDC and the COVID Tracking Project.

I want to add this link to the weekly report. It's important to remember:

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1983 - Is Coronavirus more contagious and more deadly than the flu? YES.



ALSO... I am seeing a big discrepancy between the Johns Hopkins data in death totals and WORLDOMETER data, which aggregates data from many more sources. Could this be the slow down due to the change in how the CDC obtains the data, having it filter first through Health and Human Services department.

WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT - JOHNS HOPKINS

Anyway, as usual, here's the weekly links to the data about cases (lower than reality) and deaths (lower than reality, also) due to COVID-19.



Data can be found here, as always: 

As of 2201.29 - Johns Hopkins has a total of 882,886 US deaths - you may have trouble reading the image.


This is also a good data site:
Worldometer - Coronavirus info

Last updated: January 29, 2022, 16:10 GMT

 United States

Coronavirus Cases:

75,271,402

Deaths:

905,661

Recovered:

45,806,388

About Worldometer
Worldometer manually analyzes, validates, and aggregates data from thousands of sources in real time and provides global COVID-19 live statistics for a wide audience of caring people around the world.
Over the past 15 years, our statistics have been requested by, and provided to Oxford University Press, Wiley, Pearson, CERN, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), The Atlantic, BBC, Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology, Science Museum of Virginia, Morgan Stanley, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Dell, Kaspersky, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Amazon Alexa, Google Translate, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the U2 concert, and many others.
Worldometer is cited as a source in over 10,000 published books and in more than 6,000 professional journal articles and was voted as one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library association in the world.
THE CORONAVIRUS IS MUTATING NOW WHAT?

Coronavirus Is No 1918 Pandemic - The Atlantic

A Red Cross worker in the United States, 1918


Good morning. The U.S. may soon offer booster shots to every adult. We’ll explain why.

Receiving a booster in Anchorage.Ash Adams for The New York Times

Boosters for all?

The federal government’s guidance on Covid booster shots has often been confusing, but it looks as if it’s about to become much simpler.

The F.D.A. appears to be on the verge of authorizing Moderna and Pfizer booster shots for all adults in the U.S. If it does, anyone over 18 can get a booster, as long as it’s been at least six months since their last shot. (The C.D.C. has said that adults who received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine should get a booster at least two months later.)

Dr. Anthony Fauci has become “a very, very relentless advocate” for boosters, The Times’s Sharon LaFraniere, who covers the federal government’s response to the pandemic, told us. “He keeps pointing out that the data is getting stronger.”

Today we’ll walk you through what’s compelling regulators to widen eligibility, who needs the shots most and how to get one.

Why now?

First, immunity is waning. While experts debate the pace at which the vaccines become less effective, there’s strong evidence that they do lose some of their ability to prevent Covid infections. (These charts show the decline.) While the vaccines’ protection against severe disease mostly holds, some studies suggest they become somewhat less effective at doing so, particularly for older people or others with underlying medical conditions.

Second, expanding booster access is simpler than asking Americans to consult a list of rules to determine whether they’re eligible. As our colleague Apoorva Mandavilli put it, “It’s easier to just tell people to get them.”

Third, broadening eligibility to all adults would bring the U.S. in line with the approach of other countries, including Israel and Canada. Several U.S. states have begun expanding booster access on their own, essentially declaring that they couldn’t wait for the federal government.

“Critics would say that the C.D.C. is starting to look more like a caboose than a locomotive,” Sharon says. If the agency recommends boosters for all adults, “they’re just authorizing what’s already happening.”

Who should get one?

The government has already recommended that older adults, people 50 and up with underlying medical conditions and those who are immunocompromised get an additional shot. And the C.D.C. has allowed boosters for many others.

“I’ve urged everyone I know who is higher risk to get a booster,” Zeynep Tufekci, the sociologist and Times Opinion columnist, writes.

Some experts believe that the urgency for younger, healthier Americans to get a booster is lower. But others have started to make the case for it. “All vaccinated adults would benefit from a booster,” Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University wrote yesterday in The Atlantic.

Why? Cases are rising again — as of Wednesday, the U.S. was averaging over 88,000 new cases a day, up 23 percent from two weeks ago — and another winter surge seems possible, particularly in parts of the country with lower vaccination rates. (Look up your county’s numbers.) That increases the urgency of getting more Americans as much protection as they can.

Chart shows 7-day daily average.Source: New York Times database

And although new infections are concentrated among the unvaccinated, Jha notes, breakthrough infections have become more common. For younger and healthier adults, getting a booster can lessen the chances of getting sick and of spreading the virus to someone more vulnerable.

And boosters appear to work. Evidence from Israel, which has offered extra shots to all adults, suggests that a third Pfizer dose increases protection against infection to a level similar to the vaccine’s initial efficacy.

How do I get one?

Once the government broadens eligibility, you’ll be able to go to your local pharmacy, a doctor’s office or anywhere else where vaccines are available.

Mixing and matching different types of vaccines seems to provide a stronger immune response, Apoorva says, especially if you get a Moderna one after two Pfizer shots or following the single-dose of J.&J.

Is it ethical?

Some public health experts have urged the U.S. and other countries not to make boosters widely available. They argue that doing so will limit the supply of shots for the rest of the world, especially for residents of less wealthy countries.

But as Sharon notes, the U.S. government has already stockpiled enough vaccine doses to give boosters to the adult population. And the Biden administration, under pressure to increase the supply to poor nations, is planning to expand manufacturing capacity with the goal of producing at least a billion more doses a year.

Millions of doses have already been distributed to pharmacies and clinics around the U.S. “They cannot be recaptured and sent abroad,” Jha writes. “Either we use those doses here or we throw them away.”

More on the virus:


No image available


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2201.29 - 10:10

- Days ago = 2402 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)