14 January 2024

Why landing on the moon is proving more difficult today than 50 years ago. "Lunar landers fell out of favor." But why? So because of this, it's harder to do testing?

––– 良くない –––

Well, OK then? Saw this posting on Reddit:
You can't afford it, and that's my problem...how? Sorry, but this was an unsecured loan. Someone took a risk giving you the loan money. You had a three year payment moratorium and you still can't pay it? Why should anyone trust you with a financial decision anymore?

––– 良くない –––

The Rich Are Different: Personality Traits of Wealthy People. Yes, they do think differently. "They deal with defeats and setbacks differently than other people — they blame themselves, not others or society at large."

––– 凄い –––

What happened to the artificial-intelligence investment boom? It's not over – there's more to come. There's a lot happening now, and it's just that Wall Street isn't really noticing. Much of it is just copycat stuff, but research is going on. Right now, we gotta see who is going to survive the vector database shakedown, and whether the best solution will successfully and seamlessly incorporate semantic search. And how to greatly reduce hallucinations and reduce the need to careful prompting to extract useful information. And last but not least, make it local and private. The best RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) hasn't been identified yet. And it has to be turnkey enough so that the average consumer can really use it. 

––– 凄い –––

Fauci now admits that there was no science behind "six feet of social distancing". I bet there was no science behind stickers on the floor, or plexiglas shields, or allowing only a set amount of people into a store. There was no clear science behind masking either, at least not for SARS-CoV2.

––– 良くない –––


13 January 2024

A warming fire, likely started by a homeless person, resulted in an art gallery catching fire, and priceless artworks being damaged. How much more will Seattle put up with until they start to deal with the homeless problem?

––– 良くない –––

Afterlife Industry? There's a risk that someone may recreate you after you are dead, without your consent. Not likely to happen to me, but there are some for which this might not be desirable. But what are you to do? Especially if the part that is recreated is something that puts you in a bad light?

––– 良くない –––

Jerry Nadler says illegals are needed to do menial tasks. I could easily see Nadler advocating for continued slavery back in the 1850s.

––– 良くない –––

Much ado about probably nothing. There's been so much Omicron floating around that I am quite confident that EVERYONE has been exposed to the virus by now. Everyone. So that if you are unvaccinated (as I am) you have natural immunity. I would be that the ongoing exposure to Omicron variants, which have been everywhere, is the best vaccine you can get. And if you haven't been ill, your immunity is probably very good. So this report that JN.1 is now the dominant variant in Oregon is quite the yawner for me. But if you have had the vax, you probably have the well-described immune imprinting, and can't fully mount a good response against newer variants. The last mRNA vax update from Pfizer was against the XBB.1.5 variant, and XBB variants make up only 16% of all variants in Oregon.
Oh, and Fauci admits he lied. This is why trust in doctors has really declined lately.

––– 良くない –––

SCOTUS is going to review the Martin v Boise case (in the Johnson vs Grants Pass case). Let's hope they rule more sensibly, because the homeless are ruining our cities. Yes, taxpayers have the right to clean cities. Maybe this will force the drug abusers into treatment.

––– 凄い –––

Clackamas County dismantles their DEI Office. Clackamas County was always more conservative than the rest.

––– 凄い –––

Who thought this was a good idea?  Rolling blackouts will be a fact of life on Oahu.  The Kapolei Telsa battery site is online again and Oahu will have to deal with the rolling blackouts. What crap.

––– 良くない –––

The Chinese have developed a nuclear battery, the Betavolt BV100, based on nickel-63.  Nuclear batteries have existed before, but have not been commercially available to regular consumers for various reasons. The Chinese hope this will catch on and sell.

––– 凄い –––

People on Reddit are lamenting that Theo Chocolate is closing. But do they know that Theo Dark Chocolate had high lead and cadmium levels?

––– 良くない –––

Funny. Portland summed up:
––– 凄い –––


12 January 2024

Chinese billionaire Chen Tianqiao owns 198,000 acres of land west of Bend. This is in one of my favorite places to hike and explore. Should this be allowed? Should there be a cap on how much land foreigners are allowed to purchase. I doubt any American could own land in the PRC.

––– 良くない –––


––– 良くない –––

Microsoft and Apple are neck and neck for the title of the world's most valuable company. Microsoft has had forward-looking leadership.  The momentum that Steve Jobs set in motion has finally fizzled out.

––– 良くない –––

91% of small business owners say colleges are giving students 'unrealistic expectations' for life after graduation. College grads are surprised that no one wants to pay premium to buy what they have to sell.
Well, what are they learning in school? Kids in Washington state that have this teacher probably aren't learning anything useful.

––– 良くない –––

Now that the U.S. faces the real prospect of war, the Army wants white men. And they aren't getting enough. White men don't want to sign up.

––– 凄い –––

Banks, Oregon is doomed. It's like those towns in the east that were dependent on the steel mills, or auto manufacturing plants. Really too bad.

––– 良くない –––

Some Oregon voters want to just block Trump, and say they don't actually need to prove harm. We just don't like something, so you can't have it.

––– 良くない –––


11 January 2024

Thousands of Software Engineers Say the Job Market Is Getting Much Worse.  Even Google is cutting engineering positions. Not good.

––– 良くない –––

Majority of debtors to US hospitals now people with health insurance. Something is very wrong. Insurance is supposed to insure you against something like this. That's why it's called "insurance". Market forces are no aligned to fix this problem. Insurance policies need to be owned by the consumer, not someone else. That's why coverage is so expensive and crappy.

––– 良くない –––

––– 良くない –––


10 January 2024

Europe may be heading for something unthinkable? Yeah, it's the NYT. Can't believe that the positions of the Left might not be popular. Heck, Germany is thinking about just banning a political party they don't like. Sorta like the U.S. When you can't win, cheat.

––– 良くない –––

A win for the Navajo. Looks like the Peregrine mission won't be landing on the moon after all.

––– 凄い –––

Petition 47 lives on. Soon, Measure 110 will be defeated.

––– 凄い –––

Forever Lonely. Getting paid to impregnate women? Yeah, it was a fraud, but to think that some young men believed it.

––– 良くない –––

ZIP bombs. Interesting concept. A 4.5 petabyte file can be zipped into a 45k file. Then when a hacker downloads this onto his computer and tries to unzip the file – BAM!

––– 凄い –––

The teen mental illness epidemic. Especially in females. Not enough is written about this, but it is so real. And I suspect this begets the rise in transgenderism. And it's not just teenagers – young adults are affected, too, so even younger teachers could be mentally ill, as we've seen. And since those afflicted don't see themselves as ill, this will be a tough problem to solve, especially since they want power and control, in the name of diversity and equity.

––– 良くない –––

The Rabbit r1. This is an innovative device. The current user interface we have on phones, with icons representing individual apps, came from the Windows interface. But is that the most productive interface. This is probably what Steve Jobs envisioned with Siri, but the tech was not advanced far enough to really make it happen. I get the sense that Apple should be doing this, and would, if Steve were still alive. Instead we were getting thinner phones with increase pixel density that after a certain point, no one could appreciate. And more emoji. And a VR diving mask that only a few will use. Nothing innovative, and this is why Apple stock price has fallen. No one is compelled to buy Apple phones anymore.
I don't really like the toy design of the r1. I would not have approached Teenage Engineering. Some think that the demo reel is staged, like Google's Gemini demo video. I suspect that's true, and will wait for version 2 at least. Still give it a "sugoi", though.

––– 凄い –––

Blue States can't stop taxing. So true. Tina Kotek is floating a $3 billion tax, and California wants a wealth tax, but one that is created not to tax Hollywood wealth, of course. Just everyone else. This idea came from an Asian guy, who should know better, since his parents immigrated from China. Why any billionaire would want to live in New York or California just baffles me.
Update:

––– 良くない –––

And people wonder why Japan wants to keep out certain cultures. This is why. If you can't respect others, you have no business being in places like Japan. That's why they can have nice things and we can't.  GTFO "Johnny Somali".

––– 良くない –––

And now criddlers have something else to spend their "stimulus money" – gas-station heroin. Get it while you can, folks. It's tianeptine, and it'll mess you up, but it's street legal at your local convenience store – for now.

––– 良くない –––


8 January 2024

Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. homes are worth at least $1 million, close to all-time high. In Portland, it's more like 6.7% (Man, even Tacoma is higher). Inventory is low, and there's still enough demand for homes that prices can be this high and people will still buy them. This is the Fed's doing.

––– 良くない –––

Crime Rate by State. Oregon is 9th in the nation, and I bet that if you removed the City of Portland, it would drop down dramatically. And Oregon is 3rd poorest in the nation when it comes to income left over after taxes. Is there ANY good news about Oregon these days?

––– 良くない –––

The Crypto Con. This situation in Texas is crazy. So far, there hasn't been any plans to develop a crypto mining company in Oregon (that I know of). These mines consume so much energy, and the greenies aren't even aware. It's off their radar.

––– 良くない –––

Universities are not on the level. There has been an insidious decay into the lofty standards of academia. Many institutions are resting on their reputations. Trust, once lost, is difficult to regain. And they don't realize it, because of the effort to replace meritocracy with diversity.

––– 良くない –––

Scum human beings. Cyber criminals hacked into the records of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and are demanding money. In order to light the fire, they are swatting the cancer patients to make their lives miserable.

––– 良くない –––


7 January 2024

Today is January 7.  Time to burn (or salt) the Kadomatsu.

––– 凄い –––

The Lancet published a curious article stating that not using hearing aids when you're hard of hearing leads to dementia. Now they've retracted the article, saying that it was phony research. But that was only after other experts called them on it.

––– 良くない –––

Someone broke into the Seattle Betsuin and burned it much of the interior. Documents dating to 1901 were destroyed, as the arsonist chose to start the fire in the archival area.
Seattle can't get rid of homeless encampments. They keep coming back.

––– 良くない –––

Looks like no progress is being made regarding the Shigella epidemic in downtown Portland. It's probably on buses and other public transportation. On park benches and other things that the homeless touch. The city was more concerned about COVID-19 than they are with this. What's it going to take to get Portlanders to do something? Or demand that city leaders stop sitting on their hands about the homeless?
And the city can't get its beloved statues back because some DEI official things that restoring them "undermines an equity-driven process". "Equity" is one of the main reasons nothing gets done around here. Diversity is not our strength.

––– 良くない –––

Care is super expensive at OHSU. Things shouldn't be costing this much, but hey, someone's got to pay for all those higher nursing salaries. And soon, the advanced practitioner salaries. This lady should have gotten Medicare supplemental insurance, which would have taken care of what Medicare didn't cover. And I think OHSU expected that this would be in place. 
a quick search of the internet shows that Prevnar 20 is cheaper elsewhere, though how much cheaper varies. GoodRX.com lists it for $270 at various pharmacies. A list maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Prevnar 20 has a private sector cost of $253.21. And the Walgreens on Northeast 33rd Avenue in Portland offers it for $307.99, with no charge for the jab.

Davis’s shot is just one of thousands given at OHSU, but her bill raises questions about a health care provider that will become the largest in the state—and the biggest employer in the Portland metro area—if regulators allow it to buy crosstown rival Legacy Health.

––– 良くない –––

NYT filed a complaint against Microsoft and OpenAI. This will be interesting to watch. If the NYT wins, then it's basically saying that A.I. can't be trained on anything, because you never know when someone will claim that they need compensation. Copyrighting intellectual property is getting to be really difficult to defend now, with so much being derivative on something else. Only the lawyers win. Japan's approach makes more sense.

––– 良くない –––

Another article describing amyloid deposition in the muscles of those with LongCOVID.  And this article from a few days ago reports other findings of LongCOVID but focuses on blood abnormalities, and does not mention amyloid. Nice that there are more publications on this condition lately.

––– 凄い –––

Veterans have to face endless delays for their cancer treatment due to delayed pre-approvals. With all the billions going overseas to support other countries, can't we give the veterans' doctors the benefit of the doubt and automatically approve diagnostics and treatment?

––– 良くない –––

More patients are losing trust in their primary care physician. Not only did this stem from the coronavirus epidemic debacle, but doctors are increasingly employees of hospitals and business-owned clinics. Freestanding clinics, owned by physicians, are getting to be rare now. So every doc must spew the party line. The narrative. Or be disciplined or let go. Physicians are acting like employees now. And they have no control over employees, who are often unionized. They don't have anything to do with billing problems or scheduling delays. The changes started with Obamacare.

––– 良くない –––

Wrong Axios, it's not because prices are too low. It's because drug companies want to maximize profit. Low supply costs from overseas sources allow them to maximize what they get from sales. It can be done in the U.S., and prices don't have to rise if the middlemen would just take lower profits.

––– 良くない –––

––– 凄い –––

6 January 2024

Holographic camera turns any window into an invisible camera. Could this tech be abused? I could see some disadvantages to being able to turn any glass plate into a camera. Yes, it could streamline some things, especially in the automotive world, but there are definite potential privacy issues.

––– 凄い –––

Zosurabalpin: a new macrocyclic antibiotic. Highly specifric for carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, so there is still a need for other resistance-overcoming antibiotics. Mechanism is novel: works by inhibiting a bacterial protein complex called LptB2FGC, which prevents the bacteria from synthesizing its outer membrane.  FDA-approved.

––– 凄い –––

Brain tissue on a chip achieves voice recognition. Now we're getting into sci-fi territory. Specialized stem cells were grown into neurons that formed a ball called an "organoid". Electrodes were hooked up, and responses were decoded using machine learning algorithms. They call it "Brainoware". And it recognized the voices of eight subjects with an accuracy of 78%.  This may be the start of real artificial intelligence.

––– 凄い –––

600+ nurse practitioners at OHSU want to unionize. NPs were brought on as a cost-savings over paying doctors. Now since doctors have been hesitant to unionize, I wonder if the pay of NPs will be higher than that of the research doctors, who typically don't have as much clinical obligations, and get pay off their research grants.

––– 良くない –––

Yeah we already knew this. Number of people moving to Oregon plummets, U-Haul data shows. So the rest of the poor slobs who can't leave will have to pay more taxes to keep the government in business.

––– 良くない –––

Now there's data. When hospitals are taken over by private equity, hospital-acquired adverse events increase.

––– 良くない –––

Insight as to the cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It seems that the babies have seizures. Next step is to figure out why this happens.

––– 凄い –––

Even paper straws are problematic. "Forever chemical" plasticizers are the problem. Only metal straws were safe. But they're too expensive, and we'd have streets littered by metal straws, anyway.

––– 良くない –––

How well are existing parking garages able to handle modern vehicles?. Look at how heavy those EVs are.
––– 良くない –––

5 January 2024

A survey of 2700 A.I. researchers found that there is a 5% change of humans becoming extinct because of A.I.  But don't worry. The folks at Google DeepMind have written a robot constitution that should prevent this from happening. Whew! I was worried.

––– 凄い –––

HKDC1 signaling prevents senescence in mitochondria and lysosomes, which may help attenuate the aging process. I wouldn't read too much more into that right now. The article's headline is a bit sensational.

––– 凄い –––

ChatGPT fared poorly in making a correct diagnosis of 100 pediatric cases.  Still not ready for general usage. The article does not provide information about retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which is a necessity now. This technology is still in development, and requires knowledge of optimal segmentation, and the selection and configuation of vector databases. Maybe the good doctors didn't do any of this.

––– 良くない –––

All those monoclonal antibodies (aducaumab, lecanemab, and donanemab) against amyloid-β are not very effective. But with ultrasound treatment to break down the blood-brain barrier, they might be. More details here.

––– 凄い –––

The reality of Danish healthcare and economy. Everything comes at a price. I doubt this system would work in America. This article is good to bookmark to show people who think that socialized medicine will solve our healthcare delivery problems.

––– 良くない –––

Free bulk photo compressor. I use Optimzilla, which works well.

––– 凄い –––

FDA authorizes Floridians to purchase drugs through Canadian pharmacies. This is great for now. Hope other states do the same.

––– 凄い –––

ZeroHedge has an interesting article about Bidenomics. It contains this interesting statement that "not only has all job creation in the past 4 years has been exclusively for foreign-born workers, but there has been zero job-creation for native born workers since 2018!"  All those new jobs that Biden brags about have net gone to foreign-born workers. For native-born Americans, the net jobs created has been a wash. It's really that bad. Does anyone really want four more years of this?
––– 良くない –––

Ohio Gov Mike DeWine Signs ‘Emergency’ Executive Order Banning Transgender Surgeries for Minors After Vetoing Similar Bill.  He saw the light, I guess. Bravo for him for seeing the light at last.

––– 凄い –––