8 November 2023

Now I know why I am not hungry after a strenuous hike. It's lactoyl-phenylalanine, an appetite suppressant which can be found in soy sauce, among other foods. Could this be why asian Asians are so thin, but gain weight when they come to America? As this ronin gets older, it does indeed become harder to maintain his weight.

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El Niño is disrupting the supply chain in unpredicted ways. We're going to be in for a rough winter season.

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Seems like there are shortages of everything - now strike mediators. Not to worry. There was a reason why the public school teachers union donated all that money to Gov. Kotek's gubernatorial campaign. Now they expect to collect. But when there's no money, there's only so much you can do. I'm sure Tina will come up with something. Take money from something else to fund the teachers, who no longer have to make sure that students meet academic standards.

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"I’d love to know how Apple, which famously doesn’t take kindly to iOS apps housing their own app stores, feels about that…" OpenAI wants to be the app store for AI. Too early to tell what will happen. I think that Apple is experiencing what happened when Google was ascendant, and Microsoft could only watch its decline helplessly. Apple doesn't generate the kind of excitement it used to, when Steve Jobs was alive. In fact, during the DevDay talk, I wondered what Jobs would have said/done if he were alive. He'd either try to buy the company or be on the phone with Altman trying to develop an idea. I don't think Tim Cook is doing that. The latest M3 debacle is a clear sign that he's run out of ideas. Nobody cares about new emojis or more pixels or slimmer devices anymore. Tim is a process man, not an idea man.

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A quarter of US medical students consider quitting school and most may not treat patients. The new workforce is not as robust as before, willing to do the hard work, especially considering that conditions have greatly improved since the Libby Zion case. I saw this new A.I. healthcare app that's out. Built by engineers to make medicine work like how engineers would envision it. They have one medical advisor - a primary care professor who works at Harvard. Hardly an example of how things are out in the battlefront. Doctors are taught a certain workflow in medical school, and practice it during internship and residency. Imaging being told that you have to do things a different way, to integrate some company's app in your workflow. Suddenly, instead of just dealing with chart notes and phone calls, you're having to read what all your patients and support staff are writing in the app, too.  While there probably needs to be a revamping of medical care workflow in the age of A.I., it would be ideal to having this introduced during medical school.  And tested in a small implementation before large-scale deployment. Amazon's OneMedical is probably trying to do something like this, but I don't know a physician working there to get feedback. Can someone put something in the comments? Even from a patient's standpoint?

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It never gets easier. No, it doesn't, but where would be the fun if it did?

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Cognitive decline, already a problem in the over 50s crowd, declined even more significantly after the COVID-19 pandemic. Lack of exercise and more alcohol. That'll do it.

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ProPublica has a tool that will help you find out why your medical insurer denied your claim.  Turnaround time is 30 days. Wish it were a bit sooner. Time is of the essence in situations like this.

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Why Has Stoicism Gained Popularity in Modern Times? Stoicism is like Buddhism, but for the Western person. With none of the Eastern mythology and pantheon attached. The ideas are basically the same, though. And it works. And there is an active Stoic community.

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7 November 2023

Newsom signs $25 minimum wage law for all hospital workers, finds out afterward it will cost California $4 billion. This will give Oregonian union workers a higher bar to aim for. Society loses yet again. I have no idea why business continue to operate in California. Or any blue state for that matter.

And Oregon's United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 wants a 42% raise. Why not an even 50%. Ask for the moon! Then, others will demand the same. Soon, we'll have no business and the government will have to run everything. And then when it is unclear that it won't work out financially, everyone's wages will plummet.

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Asian-Americans are becoming less liberal. What took you guys so long? I never understood why Japanese-Americans embraced the Democrat party. Especially in Hawaii.

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Cannabis consumption raises risk of heart attack and stroke by 20%. The next questions are: what component is it?  Is it THC? Something else? What about edibles?
And ketamine is being prescribed more often now. Expect to see more "sedation, dissociation, psychiatric events or worsening of psychiatric disorders", as well as "increases in blood pressure, and lower urinary tract and bladder symptoms". Oh joy. And probably more road accidents, too.

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They're ugly, but they perform. New "super shoes" make for better performance. Next, get some designers.

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Tai chi chuan boosts memory. It's the physical activity. That's already been shown. Moderate coffee and tea consumption helps, too.

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All the ways you can think wrongly. There are names to all the logical fallacies and biased and flawed ways that people think.
I especially like the Woozle Effect. 

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Science still has a problem with fakery.  Fortunately, ChatGPT detector can detect fakery created with ChatGPT, but the results were poor when the fakery was generated by GPT-4.

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Millions of Retired Americans Aren't Coming Back to Work as Predicted. The article cites atrophy of skills, fading work connections, and ageism.  But another reason is that retirement has been good. It's so nice not to be able to be part of the rat race now. I wouldn't become an employee again. I love being able to read, learn, create, doing what I love best.

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6 November 2023

"If you want less of something, tax it."  Jeff Bezos’ move to Miami will cost Washington state millions in tax revenue. 
Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation, stated in a Thursday blog post that Bezos would have been on the hook for about $1.44 billion a year under the proposed wealth tax. That would have made up about 45% of the projected $3.2 billion a year the tax was projected to bring in.
Nice move, Bezos. Sometimes Dems need to be taught a hard lesson.

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Doctors have no power. Medicare cuts doctor and hospital payments.  Since many physicians became employees of hospitals or private equity firms, they are no longer masters of their destiny. Although there is inflation and everyone else is getting pay raises, doctors will see a 1.2% pay cut. Some docs will still make out OK, but others will struggle. It's a slap in the face for the docs. I know that many people will get out the tiny violins, but they will have to deal with the doctor shortages.
Mercury News is recommending that people get second opinions. Good luck with that, when you have to wait a several months just to get an appointment. 
Meanwhile, Medicaid enrollees are decreasing as several states are dropping Medicaid now that the government rules prohibiting this have dropped. Hospitals hate Medicaid because it pays poorly, but it's better than no money at all. But the greater the proportion of Medicaid patients, the lower the hospital revenue. 
In Hillsboro, things have gotten so bad that OHSU/Tuality has set up a food pantry for hospital employees. Because they just can't raise their pay? Really sad.
But if you worked for a California hospital with unionized workers, you'd get a minimum $25/hour wage. If hospitals had to pay this much, they'd have to make deep cuts. But this gives union members a new benchmark for their next strike.

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Health misinformation and lack of confidence in vaccines continue to grow, years after the Covid-19 pandemic, survey shows. No one wants the vax products now.  In fact a quarter of Americans say they know someone personally killed by COVID jab.  It's over folks.

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Seattle's trying to lure people back to Seattle Center by having a European-style Christmas Market.  This would have been nice in days gone by, but I still wouldn't venture downtown.

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5 November 2023

Super-melanin cream developed to protect against skin damage and lower cancer risk? This is a nanoscale Synthetic Melanin Particle (SMP), and yes, from the pictures, it looks like it will make the applied area more darkley pigmented. But it's non-toxic, so it may be better than those orange fake tans.

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Marvel/Disney is really desperate.  No one wants to see their superhero movies anymore.

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Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hisen Loong just released a C++ coded Sudoku solver.  He's also a former Senior Wrangler and a former Brigadier General. A real badass!  Since he has IQ points to spare, could he donate some to our president? 

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The site 12ft.io, which promised to bypass paywalls, was taken down.  Now a replacement site, 1ft.io, has taken its place. I don't see anything suspicious in its source code. Might give it a try.

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Bruce Reed is the guy who is behind the Administrations A.I. Executive Order. So it's probably a good idea to find out how he thinks. The article is pretty bland and nothing stands out, but it's good to see a face connected to the policy.

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ODOT is going to remove parking spaces and convert them to charging stations which hardly anyone will use. Bad idea.  Let those EV owners go to charging stations and let us park.

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Here we go again.  There's talk again about having a permanent DST.  Twice every year.  And nothing happens.  There should be permanent standard time, by the way.  Makes more sense. People didn't like permanent DST when it was passed in the past.

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Strike Nation! Now Providence Everett nurses are striking. Will more hospitals close?

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A.I. is being weaponized by the military. Mainly computer vision applications, but this will allow the military to make sense of what they are seeing. 

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4 November 2023

Another one bites the dust. 4th Wall Café closes. Seemed like a fantastic idea, but this isn't the time to introduce a new business in Portland, especially designed to cater to the young crowd with disposable income.

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So 14% of Americans have LongCOVID? Seems rather high, but the study was survey-based, so people were taken at their word. Still, it would explain the large number of those on disability, right?

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The Supreme Court will decide whether it will be legal to tax unrealized gains.  Seems like it should be obvious, but for desperate Democrats who need money, legality be damned.

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This is Sam Bankman-Fried's greatest fear about being in prison. No it's not dropping the soap bar in the shower, getting his preferred selection of vegan meals, which is what I thought it would be.

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The District Judge confirmation hearings reveal a lot about why Oregon is the hotbed of lunacy it is. Heaven help the unfortunate white defendant going before Eugene judge Mustafa Kasubhai.  Listen as Ted Cruz gets to the bottom of this:



And John Kennedy:

And in Oregon, OPB and the NEA want this judge appointed. THIS is why Oregon is in such deep sh#t that it is. And why no one wants to live in this state.
Oregon can't find enough public defenders, so they have to set jailed defendants free after 7 days. This is now a matter of public safety.  And the Oregon Health Authority struggles to find competent leadership, with three  leaving the job in a year. 

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Hate crime related to illegal immigration? Hate the influx of fentanyl? Hate having to spend increasing amounts of your tax money having to be the social support system of Central America? Then watch Tom Homan's recent speech.

3 November 2023

How embarrassing. Okta is an identity security company, yet it had to announce that 5,000 of its own staff had their data accessed in a third-party breach. Can you trust a company that can't even protect itself?

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Nurses and doctors would be advised on getting this app. It may come in handy for those times when you are called. I've often wondered if radiologists and nuclear medicine physicians answer the call of "Is there a doctor in the house?" 

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What would happen if the Earth had rings like Saturn? Wonder no more.


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Maybe we could get this guy to run Portland. You know, if he isn't able to run for re-election in El Salvador.
Before Bukele took office, El Salvador had one of the highest murder rates in the world, posting 103 murders per 100,000 people in 2015, according to government statistics. This was mainly due to the rampant MS-13 gang problems in the countryside, where corrupt officials allowed these gangs to take root and harass local citizens and tourists. Those numbers have fallen drastically during Bukele’s tenure, as the president built a mega-prison to hold criminals and deployed the nation’s military to crack down on gang activity.

In 2022, El Salvador’s murder rate dropped to 8 per 100,000, which is less than a third of what Mexico posted in the same period and down 92% from when Bukele took office, making it one of the safest countries in Latin America. With this shocking data, it appears safer to travel to San Salvador than Los Angeles, California.

Bukele’s popularity goes beyond the safety, however, as he’s built highways and hydroelectric dams, cleaned up litter and trash around the famous beach tourist attraction, Surf City, and changed the country’s official currency to the U.S. Dollar, also adopting Bitcoin as a second currency to make tech-friendly commerce easier. He’s also put forth initiatives where technology companies pay zero taxes to incentivize businesses to come to El Salvador.  

However, the liberal American media has tried to diminish Bukele’s accomplishments, calling him “authoritarian” and saying his re-election campaign is “raising concern.” The same mainstream media outlets have called his efforts to clean up El Salvador “human rights violations” as he has had publicly harsh displays of what happens to criminals, including posting a video of the Salvadoran National Guard dragging a convicted pedophile into his prison cell, where soldiers forced the criminal to cower on the concrete floor.
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The City of Portland is considering a sales tax. Great, that will accelerate the move out of the city. Now you can't be certain that you can use the streets anymore, because protestors may be blocking the road or someone may be street-sliding. And the City wastes what money they have because they're so disorganized.

I'll bet high taxes are the main reason why Jeff Bezos is moving out of Washington to Florida, where the tax rate is low.  Washington loses the third richest guy in the world. Oh well, huh?
And now many of those thought to be wealthy because they lived in lavish estates are not feeling so rich.  Robert Kiyosaki was right. Cashflow is what matters. If you don't have that, you are in trouble.

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Strike Nation! Portland teachers continue to strike, and Oregon legislators have signaled that there is no money to meet their demands. And today Yamhill County employees are striking, too.  Everybody wants more money! Strike!  And now hospitalists at Legacy Healthcare facilities are unionizing, joining their Providence colleagues.
Unions don't always deliver. They should be reminded that union activities can bring destruction and grief, and the members are left to pay for it.

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Here's a map of the state of democracy around the world. In some places, the local people and culture wouldn't be able to handle democracy, and only a strongman authoritarian can maintain a semblance of structure and societal stability. In other places, it is just unfortunate that the system allowed a takeover by a power-hungry minority.  Northern Europe looks great, but as the migrant population increases, this will likely change.

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Amazing that a penthouse in today's downtown Portland is considered worth $9 million, when a nice, peaceful, secure and clean lakefront home in Lake Oswego is worth $10.5 million.

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2 November 2023

Dot wants to be your smart best friend.  Built by an Apple alum, it is an app that you can share your life with, converse with, get information from. And it has a memory, so it remembers things from session to session, like a "living history of your life". I would be really concerned about privacy, since all the storage and computations are done on the cloud. Intriguing concept, but I'd rather have everything run and stores on my local device, something that will not happen for a while. Right now, it seems creepy.

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But X/Twitter has agreed to allow PragerU to run an ad for a documentary discussing de-transitioning, which apparently is garnering more interest. Good on Elon Musk.

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California ranks near bottom for high schools offering computer science classes. 11th from bottom actually. You'll never guess the top state - it's Arkansas.  Things have gotten better since Sarah Huckabee-Sanders became governor.  Good on her. Oregon is in the middle, surprisingly, and surprisingly, Washington state is 13th from bottom. 

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I came across this interesting study, that water can evaporate with light only, and that heat is not necessary for evaporation to take place. I wonder how much water vapor is produced just due to light, and not heat? Because water vapor is the most predominant greenhouse gas. Could it be that the reason why we have more global warming is because there has been an increase in water vapor production due to increased global lighting? Well in Boulder, CO, at least, there has indeed been an increase in water vapor over the years.

But here's a graph that shows that water vapor concentrations have increased over the oceans as well.

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Portland Metro is in 51st Place in the Urban Land Institute's rankings of metro areas with real estate development potential.  It used to be 56th place.  And to think that in 2017 Portland was in 3rd place. How far it has fallen.  Remember, Ted Wheeler took office in 2017. This is your legacy, Ted.
And guess which city has the highest cancer rates in Oregon? Yup, it's Portland.

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Mobile phone use may affect semen quality. Doesn't matter where you keep your phone. The study was done on Swiss men at military recruitment centers. Men who used their phones more had less sperm that those who didn't. But it was done in 2005 - 2018 when there was 2G service, and they didn't specify what kind of phones were used. The effect was lessened in the time period when 4G networks were available. So many questions. Was this a real effect, or just happenstance - epiphenomenon.

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Improving deep sleep may prevent or delay dementia. Makes sense.

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Imaging with A.I. may obviate the need for biopsies in some cases. I'd be nervous about recommending treatment based on what an A.I. model said. A lot is riding on the correct diagnosis being made. Histology from a biopsy is still necessary in most cases, but I suppose that in those cases where biopsy is impossible or too hazardous, it could help. Like deep within a scarred lung, where percutaneous biopsy would be fraught with danger.

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Why do doctors in American earn so much?  It's supply and demand, and the article asserts that the supply is restricted because medical schools are like cartels. So we're going to see more nurse practitioners and physician assistants, and also foreign graduates. I think that some clinical tasks could be handled by those with less training, but medicine is getting complicated, and the reason why there are fewer medical school graduates is that the curriculum is getting to be more challenging. The article doesn't acknowledge this, and focuses more on the expense of a medical education, and the willingness to make the monetary and time investment.
But many people won't see their doctor until they first consult with Google. Yes it's true that the higher ranking articles are not the most accurate.

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Racist hiring practices seem to be alive and well with respect to University of Washington faculty hiring, according to the report. And it's not the kind of racism you might be thinking.

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1 November 2023

Vigorous running causes your body to look for energy sources, and so it taps into the fat-containing myelin in the brain. Seems scary, but apparently things go back to the way they were (at least on MRI scans) by two weeks. I wished it tapped into other fat stores first.

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This really reminds me of the dotcom craziness of 1999. Remember when it seemed like money came out of the air? When the San Francisco offices had all kinds of crazy game rooms and amenities to attract and entertain the instant-millionaire techies? Seemed like it was to good to be true, didn't it?  Well, a company called Expensify opened a lounge in downtown SF where techies could go to hang out, work, chill, socialize, whatever. That was borne out of the COVID restrictions, and now that we're over COVID (or should be), that effort has shut down. But Expensify has opened a somewhat similar thing in downtown Portland, called the Midtown Beer Garden. It's not exactly the hub of the Portland techweenie crowd, but it's where a food cart center is located, and the local hipsters are invited, too. It's near Expensify's Portland headquarters, in case you were wondering.

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Kamala Harris opened up an A.I. summit meeting in London earlier today. No snide jokes, folks. But the part that struck me was the negative tone of her comments. Stressing all the potential harms that could come from A.I., and how she called for all the attendees to work with government to control and contain it. She said all the expected buzzwords, like how we need "legislation that strengthens AI safety without stifling innovation" and that we must "reject the false choice" as to "either protecting the public or to advance innovation".  It reminds me of how the the government messed things up all the hard work of the Ghostbusters' crew because they couldn't understand and only sensed that there was some potential danger involved. Perfect analogy. 
Meta's Yann LeCun warns about some of A.I.'s leaders trying to take over the technology and seize power, calling it the real doomsday scenario. 
Edit:
Ignorance.ai has a nice write-up of Biden's recent executive order.  To me, it really looks like the military and Homeland Security played a major role in drafting the document. Their influence is clear in reading the Immediate Actions and Future Planning sections. I groaned at mention of the creation of Chief A.I. Officers everywhere, and the establishment of A.I. research institutes, which will likely compete with startups, and provide an extra impediment to those that are thinking of starting something soon. Talent will get sucked up so quickly, and the government will provide more money than the startups can dream about.

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Some used to joke that if the Republicans liked water, the Democrats would ban it and advocate for deserts. Now the Republicans want to fund Israel with money that would have gone to the IRS, and suddenly the Democrats love the IRS.  You can't make this up.

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Sad. Things seemed to have been going well, but the second pig heart transplant patient has died after rejection-preventing drugs were withdrawn. He was a courageous pioneer.

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31 October 2023

Every time the DST transition takes place, we get articles about its eradication. Here's one recently, about why it's not happening. It requires Congress to vote, and the issue just never gets taken up on the floor. But it's been tried twice before, and supposedly it got changed back quickly. I can't believe the people wanted it changed back, but I was too young to remember what happened then.
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The Suzuki Go! is a nifty-looking mobility scooter for the elderly. It's too small for many of the morbidly obese folks I see using the American variety, so it probably won't catch on in America. They'll need a more open, less confining design. Oh well.

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Those Boston Dynamic dogs are getting closer to their Black Mirror counterparts. They seem cordial and accommodating, but I'd hate to piss-off one of them.

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China took Israel off Baidu Maps today. Not good. Sides are being taken. 

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How to Avoid a Presidential Succession Nightmare. Yeah, the Speaker of the House shouldn't be third in line of succession to the Presidency. I didn't realize that this was determined in 1947 - I thought it was drafted back in 1776. But it wouldn't be good for separation of powers to have the Speaker be the President. Especially not some of the Speakers we've had. But we haven't had great Cabinet members either.  The real problem is that our forefathers probably never dreamed that there would be professional politicians. I think they figured people would do the work and go back home to their businesses. The priority becomes one of staying in office with the most power, rather than doing what's best for the country when they become private citizens again.

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You know about the third rail.  Here's another one. The author thinks that colleges are encouraging students to believe that being exposed to controversial topics is harmful, and that one needs "reverse Cognitive Behavioral Therapy".  This could explain why they place so much importance to empty gestures, such as symbols (rainbow flag, LGBT flag, yard signs, bumper stickers, etc), renaming building, taking down statues, wearing certain clothing or body adornments. All empty symbols. But of importance to them.

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30 October 2023

Not another one! 23andMe suffers another data breach. More sensitive info leaked. For most people, the leaked data is "who cares"? But there might be some for which the information might be a good thing for the public to know.

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The 2030 Problem.  It's coming up soon. This ronin hopes he's ready. But who knows?

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CRISPR technology cures 3 people of HIV.  Yes, it had to be something like CRISPR to eradicate a retroviral infection such as HIV. Glad it was a success. Congrats to the scientists and the patients.

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First in human ImmunoPET scans.  A novel imaging modality is here. I can see it opening up whole new fields of investigations, just like immunohistochemistry. Very nice.

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A wild consumer spending boom just happened (did you feel it?). But it was based on credit. Not healthy. Somewhat related to this, Japan is reporting a sharp increase in bear attacks as they run out of food, and must move into populated areas. What will humans do when they run out of food?

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Have you noticed? Portland traffic fatalities increasing at record pace. This ronin has noticed. Portland is going to break a record soon. What could be the cause? Legalized mind-altering drugs, especially marijuana? Or is it from sudden cardiovascular events from having been jabbed?

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Biden to Issue First Regulations on Artificial Intelligence Systems. They plan to see if any A.I. system can be used to develop weapons.

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79% of surveyed tech developers are interested in another type of job. Maybe they are seeing the future in the world of A.I. Related: NYT tech workers are striking today, but mainly over being told they needed to return to the office. Can't blame them – would you want to walk in downtown NYC?

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The Google Incognito Mode lawsuit is still ongoing. It shouldn't have been called Incognito Mode. More like clear your own computer of traces of website surfing. Because you are not incognito to the outside web. It only prevents cookies, local DOM storage and service workers from staying on your computer, and lingering in your browser history. That's all. What you did while you surfed is still visible to the outside.

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That's why it's called the liver. The liver can live to over 100 years if you take care of it.  They found this out by tracking transplanted livers.  But having the right kind of gut microbiome is also essential. That includes viruses as well as bacteria. And it was found that the gut microbiome of centenarians produced a lot of hydrogen sulfide. That's right - the gas that makes farts smell bad. So there you go.

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