15 August 2023

Well, this is interesting. 

Maui Police Chief John Pelletier...was incident commander for the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that left over 50 dead.
One seems to only learn these things by reading conservative media.  Gives support to the theory that this was part of a conspiracy.  Do with this info as you like.

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CRISPR-Cas9 technology can be used against fusion-driven oncogenic cancers.  Not sure how many cancers are fusion-driven.  Many (like chronic myelogenous leukemia) famously are.  But mutations seem to be much more common. 

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Where did all the geniuses go?  Can you name a physics Nobel laureate from the past 30 years.  Well, I knew Roger Penrose and Kip Thorne, but no more.  Even so, much of the physics that earned Nobel prizes seem to be refinements or new confirmations of previous theory done decades earlier.  Yes, Yann LeCun and Geoffrey Hinton are truly geniuses, and you can see this once you study their work. But we do seem to be in a bit of a lull right now. 

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I think these two articles go together.  Why Americans are so mean?  America is becoming ungovernable due to rampant crime.  The whole integration social experiment has failed, sad to say.  We need to have a segregated society.  And I'm not talking about racial divisions.  We need to be able to legally kick out assholes from the society where everyone else behaves.

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UPS drivers make more than your average engineer.  Sounds like engineers need to unionize, too. 

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Oregon rated 13th from bottom in best states to live in WalletHub's best states to live in.  As bad as Seattle is, Washington as a whole is still better than Oregon. 

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China Abandons Clean Energy Goals Making U.S. Efforts Painful and Pointless
This is very much like the decision-making in this post, where "...users noticed the following fact: there is no case where a red pill chooser dies"
China has decided:  "Screw it, we're taking the red pill."

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14 August 2023

The Maui fires may be another coverup fiasco, akin to the Las Vegas shooter or the Nashville shooter manifesto situations.  People on the ground are reporting some disturbing observations (sorry, this is a TikTok video).  The truth is going to be so painful that it will be covered up.

And why didn't the disaster warning sirens go off, as people are wondering.  They were relying on TV, radio and internet.  Well it's too bad that the power went off, along with Internet service.  Did they ever think of that? 

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Zoom supposedly has caved and will not train their A.I. on users' content, based on negative feedback  But who knows if they will anyway?  Trust lost.

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Sometimes, knowledge is too much power.  This is one way that A.I. can bring about the destruction of humanity.  Even Second Amendment enthiusiasts wouldn't advocate for giving everyone nuclear technology.  But that's what A.I. has the power to do.  And it's not going to be easy to stop it.  Meanwhile others seek to make money by exploiting the naïve.  Well, some people think ChatGPT is going to go bankrupt anyway.  And Michio Kaku thinks that quantum computing is going to be more revolutionary than chat, which he calls "glorified tape recorders". 
Another guy (Brewster Kahle) was trying, like Prometheus, to give people knowledge.  Well, that just got him into trouble. 

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Biden's CMS is screwing over doctors, by charging them a hidden fee, costing them millions/year.  One doctor noticed, and is raising the alarm. 

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Can't believe they let this be released.  Latest numbers from the UK suggest that deaths from non-COVID related causes are overwhelmingly high - at least double that of unvaccinated, in the period of 21 days to around 6 months from the mRNA vax.  Take a look at the numbers yourself, espeially Table 1 and Table 5.  See for yourself - the last column is age-adjusted deaths per 100,000.

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Why are younger people getting colorectal cancer?  Spoiler: "scientists have not pinned down a single, definitive cause of early-onset colorectal cancer". 

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We're not ready for driverless cars.

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13 August 2023

She ate her own dogfood.  BioViva CEO got injected with her own company's lifespan-extension product.  That's confidence in one's own reseearch.  Hope it pans out.

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California really is full of mini-dictators, isnt it?  Lawmakers there want to make it a crime to question school boards.  WTF, guys?  It's really becoming a prison state, and they want to be the wardens.  Need any more reasons to move out of the state?

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Gee, small businesses don't want to let Oregon government run their retirement program?  Why not?  Don't you have confidence in the State? /s

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West Nile virus infections are showing up in Eastern Oregon.  Climate change will be blamed somehow.  What else could it be, right?

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And another one goes.  Hoffman Construction will leave downtown Portland when their lease expires in 2025.  Another vote of no-confidence.  And the city is closing public parking spaces, too.  Nice tax-base there, Wheeler.  Be a shame if something happened to it.

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Maui death toll is up to 93 now.  And we read that the disaster warning sirens never went off.  Geez, they go off when there's no danger.  But when there IS danger, nothing. 
But here is a real danger: Lahaina residents are concerned that the rebuild will place the town in the hands of affluent outside developers.  Here's where reality sets in.  That cottage you were living in by the beach might have once been worth $1 million, but it was all "just on paper" and only had that value when there was a Lahaina town nearby.  But now the town needs to be rebuilt, and the developers aren't going to pay market value.  They're going to insist on par value, and that small square of gravel and ash doesn't really have much intrinsic value, does it?  Maybe the community can get together and create some organization that developers will need to negotiate with, instead of just one household individually, where they have no leverage.  Just a thought...

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Tech giants are threatening to leave the UK.  Can't blame them this time.  The UK wants all encryption hobbled.  They want a key to a backdoor so they can snoop on their citizens.  And with the way they've been behaving lately, I wouldn't give an inch to the government.  What a bleak dystopian nightmare the UK has become.  It's the Democrat FBI/DOJ/CIA in miniature, although still worse in some ways. 

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12 August 2023

This is big.  Long-term follow-up of those who got vax-related myocarditis,  It was found that in those where a cardiac MRI was obtained, 2/3 were found to have abnormalities, and a year later, 58% of those still had late gadolinium enhancement, which is a sign of myocardial dysfunction, heart failure and sudden cardiac death.  This study was done in Hong Kong, where the Sinovac and Pfier vax products were available, and it is not clear which vax was given to these patients.  Someone should do a similar study here.  This could explain why we are seeing so many sudden deaths.

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You can't drink or smoke marijuana in public.  But fentanyl or meth?  That's OK.

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  • Harboring disdain for Pope Francis.
  • Rejecting the theological precepts of the Second Vatican Council.
  • Criticizing pro-choice advocates on Twitter.
Is this something the FBI needs to be involved in?

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Oregon legalized medical marijuana in 1998, and in 2015 it legalized recreational use, yet policymakers still know relatively little about the impact of the latter. A recent study by Oregon State University researchers and others shows that cannabis use has increased among college-aged Americans in states that legalized recreational use.

Cannabis use disorder (defined as users having difficulty stopping or having marijuana use control their lives) stayed the same among college students – at 10%. But rates increased among non-college participants from 12% to 15%.
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Zoom is crazy.  They reserve rights to train on your sessions, but say they won't without your permission.  However, permission is at the level of agreeing to join the sesssion, or quitting.  In other words, if other if the meeting goes on, someone agreed to give Zoom permission to use the video session.  Better not discuss anything confidential.

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Scientists can use reporter bacteria to detect the presence of tumor DNA.  Acinetobacter baylyi can perform horizontal gene transfer with foreign DNA that it encounters (like tumor DNA) and incorporates into its own chromosome.  By designing primers for the KRAS gene, with a tetR repressor between the primers, the bacteria performs the transfer with KRAS genes from tumor cells that it encounters.  A CRISPR-Cas effector complex, called Cascade, will degrade unmutated KRAS and the cell will die, but will not touch the mutated KRAS.  Since the tetR repressor is no longer in place, the bacteria activates an output gene, which in this case conferred kanamycin resistance.  Therefore, the appearance of bacteria thriving on kanamycin impregnated petri dishes indicates the presence of the target gene.  Nice!

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Speaking of gene transfer, brain cells can communicate by transferrring mRNA to each other.  Is that crazy, or what?  The special Cre mRNA is enclosed in brain-derived extracellular vesicles (bdEVs).  We're learning more each day.

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In other neuroscience developments, the center for libido in male mice is in the preoptic area of the hypothalamus.  Stimulating it with Substance P really makes them horny. 

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Capitalism works!  Providence nurses score a 26% raise in salary.  Good for them, but hospitals will suffer even more.  It shows you how difficult it is to hire more nurses in Portland.  The situation seems to be different for doctors, however.  They have no political power and are less mobile than nurses, and not as able to just quit and live off their spouses income.  Nearly all are just employees of large organizations, so the most they can usually do is jump from one org to another.

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Texas judge gets the FDA to admit that doctors have the ability to prescribe ivermectin if they feel it is the best for their patients.  This probably won't change anything in blue states just yet.  If you prescribe IVM in Oregon or Washington, you might still get in trouble with the medical boards. 

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11 August 2023

I can relate.  This was me in middle school.  Still had fun with friends, though. 

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I've long suspected that genetics played a role in who got really sick with COVID-19 and who didn't.  Now there seems to be a genetic underpinning as to who gets LongCOVID.  But I do suspect that getting the vax has something to do with the inability to recover. 

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Climate change?  Causing Mesoamerican Kidney Disease?  That's a bit of stretch.  But then, CC gets blamed for all kinds to things, doesn't it?

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Some celebrities are posting links to help fund Maui's recovery efforts, such as this one. But I haven't seen that those celebrities are donating themselves.  Jeff Bezos and his partner just donated $100 million, which will help.  This ronin also donated, but couldn't match Bezos, though.  Oh well.  A lot of celebrities have homes on Maui, and should help with donations as well.

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This amused me in 2004, but today's version just brings me joy.  What a guy!


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10 August 2023

A metaphor for how Portland manages our resources.  Trees Planted by the City in East Portland Two Years Ago Are Dead Because the City Didn’t Water Them.  Federal infrastructure dollars – wasted.  That's the city, folks.

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When you know just enough to be dangerous.  This guy thinks Hawaii should "take the lead" in regulating A.I.  He says: "I’m working with Hawaii state legislators to create a new Office of AI Safety and Regulation."  "The new office would follow the 'precautionary principle' in placing the burden on AI developers to demonstrate that their products are safe for Hawaii before they are allowed to be used in Hawaii."  Is someone going to tell him that:
1.  A.I. is already in Hawaii.  You may just not realize it.
2.  Bigger thinkers than this guy have already acknowledged that there is no clear path to "regulating" A.I. 
3.  Who's going to be on the board making these decisions?  Hawaii politicians?  Is this going to be the new meme? 
4.  Heavy-handed regulation (because you know they'll have to come up with something) will just put Hawaii further behind in the technology arena.  So Hawaii residents won't be able to purchase the new iPhone because Apple hasn't submitted a paper demonstrating that it's safe for the state?  Is that it?

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This, I believe.  Over half the world's population will have a mental disorder by age 75.  It's seems like that it should be age 20 if you take all the gender craziness and pedophile grooming into account.  But maybe that's just in the U.S.

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About that devastating fire in Lahaina – I've read reports that it's related to climate change (of course).  No, that's a stretch, and they know it.  What probably caused it, is that power line poles on Maui are old and it is credible that they fell in the unusually strong winds.  But also likely, probably more so, is that a fire in a homeless camp spread due to those same winds, and that the dry grasses caught fire.  This is way more credible.  No way to prove or disprove these theories now, though.

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So Seattle would like to implement a special tax on large corporations that make payroll of ≥ $8.1 million annually, and will tax employees of those companies that make over $174,000.  They call it a "JumpStart Tax" and need the money to plug a budget hole.  So if you were a worker at Amazon, why would you want to work there when you could work elsewhere at your salary and not get taxed that amount?  Are companies like Amazon going to stand for this?

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9 August 2023

Hope someone listens.  Healthcare staffing burnout - those interviewed said they would rather administration do something to fix the workplace instead of just offering resilience training and wellness programs.  Heh, I know how that goes.

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Ride the light rail, and you might just have to pitch in, stop a stabbing and prevent a murder.  Part and parcel, as someone said.

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No surprise.  After encampment removals, only 15% go to shelters.  And that's best case scenario.

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Andy Ngo can't get justice.

At what age are you the smartest?  I hesitated to click, but was relieved that there was no clear answer. 

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New bacteria discovered from a stray cat bite.  Globicatella.  Gotta remember that one.

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A.I. is ruining the Internet.  From more complicated CAPTCHAs, to more scraped content, to your favorite sites being shut down or cloaked, to avoid A.I. bot stealing their content for training, to "news" sites that don't know if they're hallucinating, to more sophisticated email phishing scams.  The Internet has been invaded and there's little we can do about it now.  Now you all know how the geeks felt when AOL introduced the world to the Internet.

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8 August 2023

Uh-oh.  Young Asians don't want to work in factories anymore.  Get ready for higher prices.

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Portland's wealthier taxpayers are fleeing - not just the poorer folk.  Portland's budget is $7.1 billion, so that $1 billion loss will definitely be noticed. 

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Gresham tells Multnomah County to get its act together regarding ambulanes.  Everything is crumbling.  Police response is essentially non-existent.  If people have a choice, why would they want to move to Multnomah County to live and work?

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Shark attacks, earth's rotation slowing down, the southern border breaking down, bad acne - all these things are the fault of man-made climate change.

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7 August 2023

1 million OHP members affected by the zero-day MOVEit exploit.  The state found out about this when the third party contractor PH TECH notified them about this after a security sweep conducted July 25.  That's late, considering that Progress Software, makers of MOVEit, released a security patch by 13 May 2023.  I suspect that their security team didn't get around to installing the upgrades.  Shame.  The Oregon DMV database was breached on 1 June 2023, which is more forgiveable.

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The Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital case has garnered national attention.  I'm reading some details of which I was previously unaware, thanks to the light-on-details reporting of local news outlets.  The hospital still won't allow its guards to have real weapons.  Only stun guns, as if they were worried about being raped.  I'll bet the criminals appreciate having this information.

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Saw this article in the Wash Post about how doctors make on average $350,000 /year.  The question asked was why?  The comments are enlightening.  Then I came across this article, about someone who decided to leave surgical residency.  The article leaves out the reasons that I wanted to know, and mainly thanks all the people she worked with.  Being a good doctor, a really good one, requires a skillset that very few have, and I fear that in the drive to have more doctors (now called "healthcare providers"), we will have to lower the bar to get bodies. And the field is getting to be more complicated – the field definitely needs an overhaul.  One example of what I mean by this is - well, watch this video to get an idea of what I mean. 

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