Sugoi & Yokunai

Recipe for chaos.  Google is testing having A.I. write news articles.  Although with the recent decline in quality of journalism, I can understand.

––– 良くない –––
You don't just want to be rich.  You want to be rich and anonymous.

––– 凄い –––
Legacy Health is in dire straits.  They're having to sell assets.  OHSU and Providence have deeper pockets, and the state legislature will always bail out OHSU.  But Legacy seems to be the most vulnerable.  

––– 良くない –––
I kid you not.  Multnomah County spent money purchasing pamphlets instructing people how to enjoy stuffing drugs up their butt.  How long are Portland tax payers going to put up with this crap?  Who thought this was a good idea?

––– 良くない –––
In Portland, you can't enjoy a nice day at a street fair without getting your eye blown off.

––– 良くない –––
The consequences of letting the homeless set things on fire.  Homes in the surrounding neighbood might have been exposed to toxic fumes.  How long is it going to be before people have had enough?

––– 良くない –––
Labeling too simplistically.  Introvert vs extrovert.  What if there was an in-between?  Ambivert?  Maybe Mesovert?  Both could be correct, depending on the context.

––– 凄い –––

Modern education.  Apparently in Texas, you can get a degree in Victim Studies.  Would like fries with that order?

––– 凄い –––
Color me surprised.  Biden's latest student loan forgiveness was supposed to cost "only" $39 billion.  Well, it's actually $475 billion - yeah, nearly half a trillion.  So what will Congress do? 

––– 良くない –––
Good luck with that.  Portland homeowner wants to sue city because he can't sell his home.  No one wants to buy.  We'll definitely see more of this.

––– 良くない –––
––– 凄い –––
Honeymoon's over.  GPT-4 is getting worse.  People have different ideas of why this might be.  Well, it was fun while it lasted.  Hey, Priya, maybe you can keep your job?

––– 凄い –––

It's a new world for doctors.  Unionizing - who would have thought doctors would do this?  But lately, doctors are finding that they are on the short end of things.  There is no reduction in demands placed on them, yet since the government has taken over their reimbursement, they are facing things like a pay cut - to good doctors and bad doctors alike.  There is no difference in quality of doctors in the system.  Unless you really screw up, everyone is all the same.

––– 良くない –––
COVID vaccine related lawsuits are increasing, and the media is taking notice.  All the vaccine defenders are crying foul, as they see their message being cast by the wayside, as people realize the damage that has occurred by the vaccine and vaccine policy.

––– 凄い –––
Playing chess and doing crosswords can stave of dementia.  Probably anything that requires concentration and mental effort will do this, but it's good to get confirmation. 

––– 凄い –––
Yet another article claiming that many clinical trials in medicine are probably junk.  Here's another article about using Photoshop to cheat.  Whereas I had been thinking that artificial intelligence would help to eliminate the bad studies, I'm afraid that many bad actors are using A.I. to actually add to the junk.

––– 良くない –––
Which scientists have saved the most human lives?  Yeah, we've heard of Pasteur and maybe Jenner, but the ones the saved the most lives - unless you studied biology, physics or engineering, you've probably not heard of them.

––– 凄い –––
"Helping cops spy better".  While I'm glad it's being used to catch crooks more efficiently, any tech like this can be abused.

––– 凄い –––

Portland is the Number 2 wild party city in the nation.  Huh?  Maybe this is why:

According to The Online Betting Guide, which gathered data from City Data, County Health Rankings and The Ultimate Strip Club List, 22% of adults in Portland “heavily binge drink/drink heavily” and 21.3% of people in the city have admitted to doing cocaine while 64.2% have admitted to using cannabis.

That's what a party city is?  Sounds like a city that needs an intervention.

––– 良くない –––

Harney County is the site of an 18,000 year old human site.  This would be the oldest in at least western North America.  Cool.

––– 凄い –––
Jack Reacher famously could measure time in his head down to the minute.  This is how the brain measures time.  Can this be enhanced? 

––– 良くない –––
Portland's racial demographics are changing.  There was still a numerically greater influx of whites, but clearly the trend is towards more diversity.  Hope that this will be a good thing, but that isn't guaranteed.

––– 凄い –––
Australlia is on the move.  The tectonic plate movement is amazingly fast.

––– 凄い –––
Near the bottom.  Here's a ranking of downtown recovery ratings.  Portland is third from the bottom.  Just a little better than San Francisco and Cleveland. 

––– 良くない –––
Two agencies with lousy reputations disagree on whether aspartame is a cancer risk.  Who do you believe?  The WHO or the FDA?  Given how they performed during the coronavirus epidemic, I'm not sure.

––– 良くない –––
How to use A.I. to do stuff - an opinionated user guide.  There is no user guide on A.I. - just a bunch of Twitter feeds by "influencers".  Well this is one attempt to be that guide.

––– 凄い –––

More indoctrination.  The gaslighting continues.  First we have to buy in to other people's delusions, deny biology, subvert English grammar to suit someone else's whims.  Now doctors are told that they can't view medicine as a science because the notes they write may trigger someone.  This nonsense needs to stop.  No one is telling transgenders that they can't be transgender.  They need to stop telling the rest of us how to live our lives.

––– 良くない –––
Unlike other tech fields, majoring in Computer Science is cyclical.  Dan Wang explains why.  Of course, there is an upswing again due to interest in artificial intelligence. 

––– 凄い –––
Student loan borrowers will have to repay their loans starting October.  Some of them are upset that they have to pay back a loan they signed on the dotted line saying they would.  Articles like this say that it's a 5% pay cut.  But they haven't had to make a payment for three years!  I never got such a deal.  It's like they got a free 5% raise for 3 years.  I find it hard to dredge up any sympathy. 

––– 良くない –––

Homicide rate nearly double after gun control measures put into place.  Hey, Dems, isn't it supposed to be the other way?

––– 良くない –––
Guess where Oregon is in cannabis use?  Number 2.  With Washington at Number 4.  Is this why we have so many crazies around here?  So many schizophrenics?  I could swear many hold political office.

––– 良くない –––
Biden wants a 40% reduction in A/C use, starting next year.  Wanna bet D.C. will be exempt? 

––– 良くない –––

About a year ago, Peter Schiff debated Alex Mashinsky about which is the better investment - gold or cryptocurrency.  What a difference a year has made.  Gold is about $200/oz higher than a year ago, and the SEC filed suit against Mashinsky and now he has reportedly been arrested.  Schiff has shown time and again that he has a better, more practical, sense about what's going on in the economy.

––– 凄い –––
FDA approves first OTC birth control pill.  It's a "mini-pill" - low-dose progestin only.  Less likely to cause blood clots, but you have to be super-compliant with taking it, same time, everyday, else your pregnancy rate will be 6% to 9%. 

––– 良くない –––
Chemically-induced reprogramming to reverse cellular aging.  Sounds good, doesn't it?  They used a cocktail of two special compounds, CHIR99021 and E-616452, along with valproic acid, sodium butyrate, and forskolin.  What they really did was just change the DNA methylation patterns to get the transcriptome of older fibroblasts to resemble that of younger fibroblasts.  The constitution of the transcriptome was obtained from the KEGG database.  Whether this truly indicates age-reversal remains to be seen, inasmuch as cosmetic surgery doesn't make you younger.  But it's a start.

––– 凄い –––
Hospitals were sued by using Meta's Pixel for analytics, not knowing that they were sending sensitive information to Zuckerberg's company.  Taxpayers, like H&R Block did not read this news, apparently, and used Pixel themselves. 

––– 良くない –––
If you're asymptomatic, taking a SARS-CoV2 rapid antigen test is worthless.  "Only 7.2% of the 69 participants with RT-PCR–positive results for shorter than 48 hours tested positive by Ag-RDT within 1 week; those with Delta infections remained consistently negative on Ag-RDTs."  Are people still testing themselves for this virus?

––– 凄い –––
Palestinian boy suffers decapitation.  Israeli physicians re-attach it.  Wow, is that not the best story of the day?

––– 凄い –––

The U.S. now has to import even more uncertified chemo agents from China.  India is no longer a reliable source.  Heck, they can't even meet their tomato demands now.  Yes, India is undergoing change right now.  Not good to be an unskilled worker there. 

––– 良くない –––
Portland social services are like the "best friend" you thought was helping you.  Only to find out they made your life worse in the long run.  The city is turning into one big drug den.

––– 良くない –––
What is the heat-emitting blob on the far side of the moon?

––– 凄い –––
Bullshit blindspot.  This study claims that those who think they can't be fooled fall the hardest.  It basically compared motivational quotes with made-up pseudo-profound BS, and asked people if they could tell which is which.  Those who thought they could tell, failed the test to a greater degree.  Looking at the questions in the study, it seems pretty clear which are which.  It can be harder to detect bullshit when it really matters.

––– 凄い –––
Genetic variants associated with the FOXP4 gene are associated with LongCOVID, according to a genome-wide association study. This is the first step in figuring out what is causing the disease and how to clearly identify it. 

––– 凄い –––
People are fleeing Oregon.  Actually the whole West Coast.  Looks like they're going to Idaho.

––– 凄い –––

Multnomah County reverses decision to hand out tinfoil and plastic straws.  Public National ridicule works.  This is why Portland fails.

––– 凄い –––
Fish is generally good for you, but be careful about eating fish (and shellfish) from around Oregon.  Mercury and PCB levels are elevated now.  And folks around HIllsboro are getting exposed to a lot of airborne lead.  Yikes!

––– 良くない –––
Electrons are really, really round.

––– 凄い –––
Why are so many people on disability?

––– 良くない –––
Portland writer advocates for not using the Ring doorbell security camera, because it's racist.  Is she implying that people who commit crimes might more likely to be "of color"? 

––– 凄い –––
Yikes!  It appears we have our own mini-Chernobyl out in Richland.  Thankfully it's not in the groundwater (yet) but they'd better not delay any longer.

––– 良くない –––
Do other people have a right to take some of your earned income?  Well, thanks to Oregon's liberal healthcare insurance law, they will.  Even illegal immigrants.  (Remember when they said that wasn't going to happen?)

––– 良くない –––