2021-08-22

Cool

• How to Fairly Share a Watermelon

Worthy

• Very good; read the rest too Desystemize #1 - by collin - Desystemize

  We proved one system (field counts) wrong by creating another system (pan counts) with a design that guaranteed it was more accurate, then showed that the numbers were dramatically different. But field counts would be wrong even if we didn’t have pan counts to replace them. It’s easy to wean people off of a bad number when you made a good number to refute it; far harder to make the case when there’s no replacement. When thinking about desystemization, a replacement system is a luxury, not a guarantee. The far more common outcome is simply walking away with humility that the thing you’re investigating is too slippery for systemization.

etc

• 8 dead and 40 missing in Humphreys County after extreme floods rock Middle Tennessee

  • Tennessee Floods: 8 Killed, Dozens Missing : NPR

  • Catastrophic Floods Decimate Two Tennessee Towns; 10 Killed, Dozens Missing | ZeroHedge

• Why More Happy, Healthy Couples Are Sleeping in Separate Bedrooms

• The Peril of Politicizing Science

Horseshit

• A scandal in Tedhemia: Noted study in psychology first fails to replicate (but is still promoted by NPR), then crumbles with striking evidence of data fraud « Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

  The one thing I don’t quite understand is why this latest case got so much attention. It’s an interesting case, but so were the Why We Sleep story and many others. Also notable is how this seems to be blowing up so fast, as compared with the Harvard primatologist or the Cornell Food and Brand episode, each of which took years to play out. Maybe people are more willing to accept that there has been fraud, whereas in these earlier cases lots of people were bending over backward to give people the benefit of the doubt? Also there’s the dramatic nature of this fraud, which is similar to that UCLA survey from a few years ago. The Food and Brand Lab data problems were so messy . . . it was clear that the data were nothing like what was claimed, but the setup was so sloppy that nobody could figure out what was going on (and the perp still seems to live in a funhouse world in which nothing went wrong). I’m glad that Uri et al. and Retraction Watch did these careful posts; I just don’t quite follow why this story got such immediate interest. One person suggested that people were reacting to the irony of fraud in a study about dishonesty?

  • comment:

  What's the purpose of this? It will just give ammo to anti-science Trump like people. It's harmful. This kind of stuff should be handled as quietly as possible, and definitely not in public. Science is already under attack, we need not undermine it from the inside too.

• We Weren’t Happy Before the Pandemic, Either

• Is the Pandemic Ruining Our Empathy?

• Malware Slows Your Computer According to Local Covid-19 Infection Rates

celebrity gossip

• Rev. Jesse Jackson, wife Jacqueline hospitalized for COVID

• Abbott tests negative for COVID-19 four days after positive test

• Gimmicky Musk Hits the Skids

• Apple ordered by Russia to take down Navalny app

• Trump's Border Wall Torn Apart by Arizona Monsoon Rains

• Trump booed after telling supporters to get Covid vaccine

Obit

• Pierre Sprey, Pentagon analyst who battled brass to produce A-10 warplane, dies

• Conservative Radio Host Who Mocked Vaccines Dies of COVID-19

• Don Everly, Older Brother in Groundbreaking Rock Duo, Dies at 84

Culture War / Re segregation / Identdoctrination

• Can you collect unemployment benefits if you're fired for not being vaccinated?

• University of Virginia Disenrolls 238 Unvaccinated Students | PEOPLE.com

• The Vaccinated Are Worried and Scientists Don’t Have Answers

• Evolution is now accepted by a majority of Americans

• The More Masks Fail, The More We Need Them - by IM - Unmasked

  But everywhere you look, the cultural groupthink is dramatically failing. Counties and states following the CDC’s new guidance are not succeeding, and those ignoring it are faring no worse. Locations that never removed masks, such as Hawaii and Japan, are seeing their highest numbers of the pandemic, but manage to escape the vitriol and hatred leveled at Ron DeSantis because they’re following orders and implementing what the hive mind of acceptable opinion mandates.

Media / Many Ministries of Truths / Censorship

• Even my bigoted critics deserve free speech - spiked

• Did 'the Wuhan lab' spend $606 mln on air conditioning/ventilation? - by Zichen Wang - Pekingnology

• Constant craving: how digital media turned us all into dopamine addicts

TechSuck

• Elon Musk unveils Tesla Bot, a humanoid robot that uses vehicle AI

  • Elon Musk's 'Tesla Bot' Is a Shitpost

• Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

• Waymo has lost its CEO and is still getting stymied by traffic cones

Economicon

• Facebook abandoning Libra/Diem

  Facebook’s WhatsApp application has Novi icons inside the binary file, though they’re not in use at present. (In case you ever wondered why Facebook apps are so fat.) Earlier in August, those icons were changed to remove the three wavy lines from the Libra/Diem branding. The public Novi website hasn’t changed (yet)

  • also some gossip:

  Soulja Boy reacted very angrily in a video where he showed the contract he had with Atari. (linked in TFA) Twitter user Cynn Smith zoomed in on the contract: “It says ‘Atari Tokens’ on the contract he screen shotted. Not Atari shares in the company. Atari Tokens are their crypto currency. Like a Bitcoin competitor. So it was a promo deal they wanted to pay with their own crypto. Nothing to do with shares or ownership.”

• Hospitals and Insurers Didn’t Want You to See These Prices. Here’s Why

• Samsung sprints past Intel to become world's semiconductor sales leader

• Record rise in U.S. rents

Poilitcks

• Watch Live: President Biden To Speak About Afghanistan And Tropical Storm Henri : NPR

• Amtrak Joe vs. the Modern Robber Barons | Washington Monthly

  the Biden administration will need to do more than invest more public money in train travel. It will also need to reverse decades of deregulation, lax antitrust enforcement, and other policy blunders that left latter-day robber barons in control of nearly all the nation’s highly monopolized railroad infrastructure, just as they were in the worst days of the Gilded Age. This time, the financiers aren’t presiding over an expanding rail system; they’re selling it off and permanently liquidating its assets for short-term economic gain.

• A Seattle mecca for running goes dark as the city continues to fall short on homelessness | The Seattle Times

Crime / Police

• Unruly air passengers hit with $500k in new fines

• Nigerian National indicted for fraud on Covid-19 economic relief programs

• ShotSpotter / chicago A man spent a year in jail on a murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence. Now the case has been dropped • The Register

Security / Militaria

• Cyber Attack, Possible Serious Breach, at U.S. State Department | Hacker News

Afghanistan

• Biden says safe zone around Kabul airport extended

  He said the Taliban had been helpful in "extending some of the perimeter."

• More than 20,000 are in and around Kabul's airport trying to board flights

• Taliban websites and WhatsApp groups suddenly go dark

• Pentagon Unaware Of State Department Security Alert Telling Americans Not To Come to Kabul Airport | ZeroHedge

• Taliban Reportedly Sets Woman On Fire Because They Were "Dissatisfied With Her Cooking"

• Anti-Taliban leader Massoud wants to talk but ready to fight

• Pentagon compels commercial airlines to help with Afghanistan evacuation | Fox Business

  Eighteen aircraft will be used, including 3 from American Airlines, 3 from Delta Air Lines, 3 from Atlas Air, 3 from Omni Air, 2 from Hawaiian Airlines and 4 from United Airlines. The planes will not be going to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement, but will transport people from “temporary safe havens and interim staging bases.”

• Biden Closes Kabul Airport and order private airlines to assist – PJ Media

  The US State Department announced it was closing the airport for at least 48 hours to concentrate on processing the hundreds already inside. With the scenes outside the besieged airport growing ever more desperate, the US military had resorted to dispatching helicopters into the Afghan capital to ferry terrified evacuees unable to reach the terminal. On Saturday afternoon it locked the airport gates, saying no more people would be allowed in until the huge backlog of refugees and fleeing nationals had been cleared.

• Taliban Fire In The Air, Use Batons To Control Crowd At Kabul Airport Day After Stempede Kills Seven | ZeroHedge

• Liberal Lawyer Freed Taliban Commando on Frontlines of Kabul Surge

• Former Afghan Minister of Communications is now delivering food in Germany

• Homegrown app helping Kabul residents steer clear of danger

• Biden administration activates Civil Reserve Air Fleet, ...

• Kabul airport chaos: At least 7 more civilian deaths reported

• Clubhouse in Afghanistan is removing users photo and bio for users safety

• Pentagon Confirms Americans Have Been Beaten In Afghanistan | ZeroHedge

• Why Americans may ultimately not care about Biden's Afghanistan performance - CNNPolitics

• US considers ordering commercial airlines to help in Afghan evacuation | Fox Business

• US Warns American Citizens To Avoid Kabul Airport One Day After Biden Reassures That All Is Well | ZeroHedge

  "Because of potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport, we are advising U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so," the embassy posted Saturday morning.

• Taliban seizing Afghan-American’s US passports outside airport

World

• In Melbourne, Australia, a protest against Covid restrictions turned violent.

  • Covid: Australian police clash with anti-lockdown protesters

• Rescue dogs shot dead by NSW council due to Covid-19 restrictions

  Bourke Shire Council, in the state’s north-west, killed the dogs to prevent volunteers at a Cobar-based animal shelter from travelling to pick up the animals last week, according to council’s watchdog, the Office of Local Government.

• 'Unmute us': Marchers demand return of Dutch music festivals

• In China, GitHub Is a Free Speech Zone for Covid Information

• Russian Military Hails Syria’s Successful Intercepts Of 22 Of 24 Missiles In Latest Israeli Attack | ZeroHedge

Health / Medicine / COVID

• The Wuhan lab leak theory is more about politics than science

• Coronavirus: Finding Answers with Philip D. Zelikow, Head of 9/11 Commission

• Breakthrough Covid infection: What to do if you're vaccinated and test positive - CNN

• Why the coronavirus has changed as it has, and what it means going forward

• Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

• CDC Buries Study Finding That Student Masking Has 'No Statistically Significant Benefit'

• The Unwelcome Return of Norovirus

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The Middle East is running out of water, and parts are becoming uninhabitable

• Why Japan Is Holding Back as the World Rushes Toward Electric Cars

• Starlink satellites cause 1,600 close passes a week

• Hydrogen lobbyist quits, slams oil companies’ “false claims” about blue hydrogen | Ars Technica

  Chris Jackson, who this week stepped down as chair of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association. Jackson, who founded a green hydrogen company two years ago, was head of the industry group for a little over a year.

• Forecasters Warn That Henri Could Be The Worst Storm To Hit The Northeast in 30 Years

  • Live updates: Henri downgraded to tropical storm

• Wildfire Smoke: An Emerging Threat to West Coast Wines

• Many invasive plants are still being sold at garden centers

• note source Why are fires getting worse? These scientists explain