9 March 2024

Seems that Tolkien hated a lot of things. Just found out he hated Dune.

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Asian-American women are at increased risk of getting lung cancer. The study was done in women from Northern California, so it may be a local phenomenon. I can't access the study since it's behind a paywall, but I'd like to know when this trend started.

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This has to be one of the greatest unintentional pro-Trump ads I watched. Love it!
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Scar-free surgery might be a thing soon. It uses 3-D printing of dermal tissue.

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Sabine Hossenfelder takes on those self-taught physics wackos who claims to have proven Einstein wrong, solved a long-standing physics problem, or something like that. Brave of her to interact with the potentially mentally-ill. You never know what they might do. It's a different world today.

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Oregon Medical Board Loosens Restrictions on Opioid Prescribers. This is good because it was making patients endure pain unnecessarily because doctors would be afraid to get their licenses yanked. Better to just target the few doctors who were abusing the system than to punish everybody.

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Newsweek says that OMSI is the best science museum in the nation. Hmm, I've been to the Exploratorium in San Francisco and thought it was way superior, but that was some years ago. Maybe things have changed, especially in SF.

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Personal and economic freedom in the United States - a rating. No surprise that all the western states (including Hawaii) rank towards the bottom. I'm surprised Arizona and Nevada beat Idaho – you sure that's right? It explains why so many in New York are moving to Florida. Colorado should be lower, with their wacko leadership.

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DEI killed the CHIPS Act. I remember a Democrat I met was so proud that his party passed the CHIPS Act, and that this would help boost the semiconductor industry in the U.S.  Leave it to the Dems to blow a good deal. 
The Biden administration recently promised it will finally loosen the purse strings on $39 billion of CHIPS Act grants to encourage semiconductor fabrication in the U.S. But less than a week later, Intel announced that it’s putting the brakes on its Columbus factory. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has pushed back production at its second Arizona foundry. The remaining major chipmaker, Samsung, just delayed its first Texas fab. 
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Fake Starbucks Opens 50 Branches in China, Wildly Earns 40 Million in Half a Year. Boy, I haven't been to Starbucks that looked likw that in a LONG time. That's how it used to be, and the Chinese have captured the atmosphere. Starbucks has pared down the aesthetic, and now it's just an afterthought installment in Safeway stores. I miss the neighborhood coffee shop with the inviting atmosphere and coffee smells, the conversations, people reading or working on their laptops. Now it's just some GenZer behind the counter, and some cups for sale. Hey, I'd go to a Starper Coffee shop anytime.

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Be careful if you use Google and search for doctors and doctor's offices. You're being tracked, and your browser credentials (and probably your identity) is being sent to data brokers.

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