Sugoi & Yokunai

Legislating nurses workloads.  Gov. Kotek signed a bill that would mandate that nurses not be overworked.  So nice.

––– 良くない –––

––– 凄い –––
So despite all the praise heaped on the Scandinavian Way, it looks like the wealthy Norwegians are moving away, due to being tired of the high taxes.  Soon, the money will have to come from the middle class.  Money to pay for all that "free" stuff that Bernie Sanders likes to point out. 

––– 凄い –––
Informational No-Man's Land.  COVID-19 transformed our media.  And not in a good way.

––– 良くない –––
Mayor Dan Holladay was right.  He was strongly against lockdowns and closing business.  He was against the BLM protests and supported the police.  He supported fireworks on the Fourth of July.  And they voted him out.  Here's to you, Dan - you were right all along.

––– 凄い –––
I've seen some people feel that the drive to have people return to the office is because companies have these buildings that need to be occupied.  They look at articles like these, and feel that by resisting going to the office, they are "sticking it to the man" and it makes them happy.  The truth is that lease contracts have been made, and whether they return or not doesn't impact these.  But if these office buildings end being abandoned, as they are in San Francisco, then cities will lose a large part of their tax base, and services and just about everything else will decline for those who choose to live there.  No raindrop thinks its responsible for the flood.  Same with these workers.  Cities will then become the dystopian hellholes you currently see only in movies.  We're seeing it already.

––– 良くない –––

Case in point as to why developers are leaving Portland.  What a loss.

––– 良くない –––

When using encryption is criminal.  In France, 7 people are in legal trouble because they encrypted their communications.  Some governments feel so insecure that they have to know everything you say. 

––– 良くない –––
Rethinking climate change. Volcanic eruptions have been greater contributors to global warming than expected.  Yeah, they say it doesn't get man-made warming off the hook, but how well do they really know?

––– 凄い –––
Good rules to follow.  What not to post on social media.

––– 凄い –––

Man, not even a recent stress test can tell if you're going to die suddenly.  Condolences to Oscar Cabrera's family.  This shouldn't have happened.

––– 良くない –––

This is what I tell myself to make me feel better. 😉 Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems. Yeah, that's gotta be the answer.

––– 凄い –––Archie Bleyer from OHSU:
"Bleyer says the increased use of diagnostic imaging such as CT scans and X rays, which expose patients to low levels of carcinogenic radiation, could be contributing,"
"When it comes to the uptick in testicular cancer, meanwhile, he says rising cannabis use is likely the leading culprit. "  (Well not everyone agrees, Archie)
"People growing taller could also be a risk factor for several cancer types, he says."   (Now THAT'S a stretch!)
But then other physicians continue to be puzzled:
"Ugai tells me there’s speculation changes in our sleep patterns could be involved."
"Marios Giannakis, a medical oncologist and researcher at the Dana-Farber Gastrointestinal Cancer Center, says changes in the microbiome — the community of microorganisms that populate the body — have been “implicated”.
––– 良くない –––

––– 凄い –––
Well it's a start.  Measure 110 notwithstanding, possession of at least 1 gm of fentanyl could land you in jail.  But 1 gram of fentanyl is still a lot.  Doctors typically give fractions of a milligram of fentanyl to patients. 

––– 良くない –––

Firefighters are quitting in droves.  The article never mentions a major factor for this.  Just like with nurses.

––– 良くない –––
Washington's overdose deaths rising the fastest in the nation.  Hey, maybe eastern Washington can join Greater Idaho.  Just a thought.

––– 良くない –––
The COVID-19 vax mandates were based on a lie.  Yeah, those of use who paid attention knew this.  Nothing new.

––– 凄い –––
Cliff Mass sets us straight.  Whatever is happening with Mt. Rainier's glaciers is not due to climate change.  We need objective scientists like Cliff.

––– 凄い –––
Ranked-choice voting - where idiot voters get a second chance to vote again.  Anyone who understands RCV knows that losers lose for a reason, and that those that vote for them should get taken out of the voter pool.  But RCV essentially lets them vote again, usually to the advantage of looney lefties, and to the detriment of the top candidates. 

––– 良くない –––
So funny.  I just read this article on Oregon's peculiar problem with technology.  Then I read that there was an Internet outage at the Capitol.  Just hilarious.

––– 凄い –––

It's A.I. Ashley!  Oregon has an A.I. radio station jockey at 95.5.

––– 凄い –––
A robot that can read you mind?  Try the Mind Reader.

––– 凄い –––

I've been seeing a lot of MVA crashes lately.  I suspected that increased marijuana use would be one of the reasons. It's been reported before.

––– 良くない –––
What makes a song a hit?  Can machine learning predict?

––– 凄い –––
A.I. is only as good as its training.  And who will do the labeling of datasets for accurate training?  The new underclass, that's who.  And if you take shortcuts, you get crappy A.I.

––– 良くない –––

Slowly, Portland disintegrates.  You can no longer depend on ambulance service in the city.  Why should people pay taxes to the city anymore.  The money needs to go to a private organization that can get things done.  Also, a separate police force that actually gets crime off the streets.  And private jails to put criminals in. We can no longer depend on the city to do this.  A parallel government, since the first one is almost useless, too busy being diverse and full of equity and other bullsh#t.

––– 良くない –––
Climate change is just a 71 year old guy named Ed.  Who knew, huh?

––– 凄い –––
For those keeping track, another study showing that bivalent boosters don't last very long.  Only 30% efficacy at 4 weeks, then downhill from there.  Why bother. 

And a German study supports the contention that natural immunity is best. 

––– 凄い –––

This is just dumb. Facebook/Meta is going to offer free A.I. as part of their platform.  As if most people really know what to do with A.I. right now.  People who know a thing or two are already noticing that the quality of GPT is going downhill.  ChatGPT and similar models are like dating apps.  They seemed great at the beginning, when the content was good and just a minority of people were using it.  But as more people started using it, the quality eventually degraded it to where it's barely usable.  The low-hanging fruit stage has come and gone.  And A.I. is using A.I. to train itself, so soon the digitial world will be filled with A.I. content, good or bad. Meanwhile, Meta's Yann Le Cun is working on other aspects of A.I.  Just wish he wasn't working for Facebook.

––– 良くない –––
What's the difference between Google and Microsoft?  Here's an insight.

––– 凄い –––
Remote working and the coronavirus epidemic messed up a lot of people.  Nobody wants to go back to the office anymore, but bosses want this.  Both sides have their arguments.  Eventually, the labor force will re-adjust.

––– 良くない –––
This is crap.  Hospital forced to shut down because of ransomware.  Lives disrupted in so many ways.  Horrible.

––– 良くない –––
Well, the BRICS countries had their meeting.  We're one step closer to the dollar not being reserve currency.  Haven't we had enough to worry about for 2023 so far? 

––– 良くない –––
Doorknobbing.  Another reason to avoid downtown Portland.

––– 良くない –––

Toyota has developed a solid-state lithium battery design that will charge in 10 minutes and last 932 miles.  But cars using it won't be available until 2027.  Hope they build up the electrical grid by then.

––– 凄い –––
People Can Be Convinced They Committed a Crime That Never Happened.  Fascinating.

––– 凄い –––
AI is filling itself with garbage.  Model collapse, huh?  ChatGPT is kinda like how dating apps were.  Sounded pretty good when they first started, but as more people started using them...well, we know what happened, right?

––– 良くない –––
Testosterone therapy has had a bad rap, probably people didn't know how to prescribe them, or use them safely.  It's not as dangerous, but you still have to be careful.

––– 凄い –––
Everything must be paid for twice.  Great article.  Never thought of it that way, but it's true.

––– 凄い –––