There comes a point in every person's life when this kind of thinking becomes important. If you're fortunate, you might be able to have this conversation early in life. Before you go too far down the path when it doesn't matter anymore.
The boiling frog of digital freedom. Makes you wonder if totalitarianism is the natural order of things, and eventually mankind tends to this over time.
Amazon is selling mushroom foraging books written by A.I. that advises unsafe practices, such as tasting a mushroom for identification. It's actually OK to taste a very tiny piece of a mushroom as long as you spit it out. But do this only to test a suspicion that requires taste confirmation, such as the peppery taste of a peppry bolete (Chalciporus piperatus). I would not do this with some like Inocybe pudica or Galerina autumnalis, for example, which are deadly poisonous without any reason you'd want to taste it for ID.
The COVID song and dance is returning. This time, the risk of contracting the EG.6 and BA.2.86 variants is higher in the vaxxed, according to the CDC.
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Increasing commercial surveillance. Someone else has noticed that more companies are encouraging use of their own mobile phone apps. What better way of tracking your consumption and habits? Like the Internet in general, it was all innocent in the beginning. Having an app was fun and cool. Now it's creepy and dangerous.
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Organic Maps. This is really cool. I'll be spending time with this, seeing if it can replace Gaia Maps or Caltopo Maps for hiking and outdoors activities. It's free and you don't need a subscription. Wow!
The last of the fungus. The economy built around the Cordyceps fungus constitutes a tenth of Tibet's GDP. And it's being harvested to extinction. Read this - fascinating writing.
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Killed by Google. All the apps, services and hardware Google created or bought out, then later killed. One person in a forum said that the difference between Microsoft and Google is that when you try to connect to someone a few years later at Microsoft regarding a project, that person is still there.
How A.I. will destroy us. This article is probably true. We will see demoralization as A.I. can generate higher quality stuff than humans (provided someone knows how to generate it), and A.I. threatens to lessen actual human interaction (not a universal thing, but I can see it happening to some degree). So why do we continue to develop this potentially harmful technology? "Short-term profits." Spot-on. Who wouldn't pursue near-term monetary gains. Down the chute we go.
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Although ChatGPT can pass medical knowledge assessment tests and can sound more empathetic than some humans, it seems that it won't yet replace human physicians. The A.I. app Babylon couldn't make a go of it, and is shutting down. But what led to its demise? Sure it lost some contracts, but was it just bad timing? Something else? Perhaps replicating the skills of a real physician is more than A.I. can achieve just yet. We'll see if its buyer, eMed, succeeds.
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How to use ChatGPT to teach you Spanish. This tells you what prompts to use to let ChatGPT correct your mistakes and act as a private tutor. This is s great example of what A.I. can do to help humans.
We also advocate for the suspension of gene-based COVID-19 vaccines and
lipid-nanoparticle carrier matrices, and other vaccines based on mRNA or
viral-vectorDNA technology. A safer course is to use vaccines with
well-tested recombinant protein, attenuated or inactivated virus
technologies, of which there are now many for vaccinating against
SARS-CoV-2.
Hubris syndrome. That's what they're calling acquired narcissistic personality disorder. Yes, and COVID-19 seems to bring it out. So many mini-dictators came to the fore. It gives them a thick skin and resilience. With power, they don't care what you think.
Could it be this easy?Recent research with tetrataenite, such as found in certain meteorites, it may be possible to mass-produce this iron-nickel-phosphorus alloy with magnetic properties similar to that of rare earth magnets.
“By nearly every measure, compared to 2020, things are better,”
McMillan said. And I think one of the opening messages in our kickoff
was our intent is to come alongside the good work that’s already
happening at the city, at the county and elsewhere and to help. And this
is very much a collaborative partnership in the work that we’re doing,
and we think that theme in terms of the work itself is going to be very
important.” He also says there needs to be optimism for the future of Portland.
Optimism won't cut it. I think everyone would rather turn time back to 2019, before COVID-19 and George Floyd.
An article in JAMA decries doctors that "spread misinformation". Even criticizing physicians who said that the virus originated from Wuhan because they didn't accept the narrative at the time that it didn't. Imagine – doctors who think for themselves! Criticized! And more blame for doctors who pointed out that the ones getting sick are the vaccinated, not the unvaccinated. Just because there are more vaccinated folks. Not realizing that the vaccine is supposed to prevent this. Or that doctors expressed "reliance on natural immunity". Horrors!
Peace Health Hospital in Eugene is the city's only hospital, and it's shutting down. Financial reasons. People will have to go to the hospital of neighboring city, Springfield, but it's more inconvenient. Nursing jobs will be lost, and maybe some hospitalist positions. This may be the first of the dominoes to fall. Legacy Systems is trying to merge with OHSU to avoid the same fate.
Youngman said nurses would be responsible, under OHSU’s proposal, for patting down and disarming patients, while ONA wants those tasks to be handled by trained security staff only.
OHSU denies that they said this, but who knows? And once the merger takes place, I suspect the nurses will have much less leverage in making demands.
Huh? You get a diagnosis of cancer, and now your choices might be to take a severe financial hit, or die soon. Liz Weston suggests a honest discussion with the doctor about how much treatment will extend life. The truth is, the doctor can't really know with the desired accuracy. There are too many variables, and all the doctor can do is look at the literature and see what was reported, and make a best guess. But there may be other treatments that the doctor is not aware of, including clinical trials. Sometimes people do better than you would expect. But sometimes, just looking at numbers and deciding to forego therapy is deeply unsettling. And when you see insurance companies (and their executive) make obscene amounts of money, it is easy to wonder why money is going towards their mansions and expensive cars instead of giving you a shot at a longer life. While pooling risk can be a way to defray the cost of treatment to an individual facing huge expenses, one must recognize that it is a middle-man entity, which controls the physician-patient interaction. We need consumer-owned policies, not employer-owned policies, and more competition.
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Some thoughts about Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki. Most of Miyazaki's films are about capturing the essence of life in Japan, a land steeped in mysticism, and how it interacts with the issues of more modern life.
The people elected and selected to run Portland, Oregon, are like kids
who get their first car and never think to change the oil. The city is led by a cadre of ardent leftists who thought they could just rev the
engine, ignore maintenance, and see the city magically run itself.
Canada is turning into Terry Gilliam's Brazil. What a dystopian nightmare it's becoming. What a mistake it was to vote for Trudeau. But like voting for Biden, I doubt they will be given a chance to vote for the alternative ever again.
“Despite our best efforts, we have been faced with some unique complexities on the Kleenex business,” Fisher said.
“This
decision is one that will allow us to shift our resources to better
focus on other brands in Canada and meet the needs of our consumers with
continued innovation and value,” he added.
Speaking of drugs, people are noticing that the FDA is getting to be more relaxed about the drug approval process. Fewer clinical trials are being conducted prior to approval - 65% are approved one the basis of just one study. Less information is provided to the public - the FDA can access the study results, but the public cannot. Only 72% post results within 9 months from approval. Even your doctor may not have access to the study data for scrutiny.