Read the comments. They are fantastic.
According to an index developed in 2015, Earth is not the most habitable planet found yet.
Kepler-442b, a rocky near-Earth-sized exoplanet that is 1206 light-years away from Earth, has a rating of 0.836. On the other hand, Earth has a rating of 0.829.
The paper introducing the… pic.twitter.com/A98Z4pyb24
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) November 30, 2023
80 years ago today, Pearl Harbor was attacked and many people lost their lives.
I hope to never see that kind of violence perpetrated on another group of people as long as I live. That is asking for a lot because human beings love to kill each other. Our answer to all of the Pearl Harbor deaths? How about a couple of nuclear bombs?
The official Pearl Harbor tourism site can be found here.
Time has a site devoted to the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki here.
The human race needs to collectively grow up.
That is me. Quoting myself.
Photo credit: Wikipedia.
This is click bait and the advertiser can go fuck themselves. This is basically saying that they have a list of restaurant chains that will be closing and use an image of a chain that isn’t.
You think it is on the list and click the link.
No, not illegal. It should be.
Is it wrong to hope that aliens will swoop in and anally rape the person that came up with the idea?
I have personally felt that there was something just a bit off about the whole Bitcoin craze. While I am usually hesitant to jump on bandwagons anyway, I couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong with blockchain in general.
It seems I am not the only one.
I happened across a great story from the Netherlands on this very topic. The author explains…
That’s why I wrote this article. I can tell you upfront, it’s a bizarre journey to nowhere. I’ve never seen so much incomprehensible jargon to describe so little. I’ve never seen so much bloated bombast fall so flat on closer inspection. And I’ve never seen so many people searching so hard for a problem to go with their solution.
…and this exactly describes my problems with it. I didn’t do the research this guy did but I just had a feeling.
I guess someday a problem will come along and someone will dust off the blockchain box and say “oh yeah! I got the solution for that right here!”
Article here.
Analogy time: This is what I think of when I see that schools want to open.
Me: I realize the room is full of toxic gases but there is a cute girl in there and I just want to say “Hi” to her.
Friend: You DO realize that the room is full of dangerous gases and you will probably die.
Me: Isn’t she so cute!
Friend: Again. Gases, danger, boom. Hello?
Me: I’ll be right back.
Friend: No. No you will not.
This is important.
Summer heat is upon us. Remember, the effects of heat are more severe on children and pets because their bodies warm at a faster rate than adults. Never leave children or pets in a car. #notevenforaminute pic.twitter.com/uoEYcXlO0T
— National Weather Service (@NWS) July 4, 2020
Sad that the words “Never leave children or pets in a car” must be spoken out loud.
If you are looking for evidence to suggest that this drug helps with COVID-19 treatment, you’d be hard pressed to find it. You can draw your own conclusions from the following…
From the BBC…
The death rates of the treated groups were: hydroxychloroquine 18%; chloroquine 16.4%; control group 9%. Those treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in combination with antibiotics had an even higher death rate.
via BBC
From MySanAntonio…
The dangerous side effects of the drugs are much better known. Most seriously, the drugs can trigger arrhythmia, which can lead to a fatal heart attack in patients with cardiovascular disease or who are taking certain drugs, including anti-depression medications. Doctors recommend screening with an electrocardiogram to prevent the drug from being given to the 1% of patients at the greatest risk of a cardiac event. The drugs also can cause vision loss called retinopathy with long-term use, and chloroquine has been associated with psychosis.
via MSA…
From The Journal of the American Medical Association…
Findings In this phase IIb randomized clinical trial of 81 patients with COVID-19, an unplanned interim analysis recommended by an independent data safety and monitoring board found that a higher dosage of chloroquine diphosphate for 10 days was associated with more toxic effects and lethality, particularly affecting QTc interval prolongation. The limited sample size did not allow the study to show any benefit overall regarding treatment efficacy.
Meaning The preliminary findings from the CloroCovid-19 trial suggest that higher dosage of chloroquine should not be recommended for the treatment of severe COVID-19, especially among patients also receiving azithromycin and oseltamivir, because of safety concerns regarding QTc interval prolongation and increased lethality.
via JAMA…
And last but not least, from the New England Journal of Medicine…
Of 1446 consecutive patients, 70 patients were intubated, died, or discharged within 24 hours after presentation and were excluded from the analysis. Of the remaining 1376 patients, during a median follow-up of 22.5 days, 811 (58.9%) received hydroxychloroquine (600 mg twice on day 1, then 400 mg daily for a median of 5 days); 45.8% of the patients were treated within 24 hours after presentation to the emergency department, and 85.9% within 48 hours. Hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were more severely ill at baseline than those who did not receive hydroxychloroquine (median ratio of partial pressure of arterial oxygen to the fraction of inspired oxygen, 223 vs. 360). Overall, 346 patients (25.1%) had a primary end-point event (180 patients were intubated, of whom 66 subsequently died, and 166 died without intubation). In the main analysis, there was no significant association between hydroxychloroquine use and intubation or death (hazard ratio, 1.04, 95% confidence interval, 0.82 to 1.32). Results were similar in multiple sensitivity analyses.
via NEJM…
LONDON (Reuters) – Fans of Michael Jackson honored the “King of Pop” on what would have been his 60th birthday on Wednesday by gathering at a temporary monument in the shape of a crown erected in his honor in London.
Story is here.
I’m writing this post because a lot of people (Google) seem to have an issue with understanding what birthdays actually are.
Their own definition is…
A birthday is the anniversary of the birth of a person or an institution. Birthdays are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with gifts, cards, a party, or a rite of passage.
Two words are missing. Living and Existing. A “living” person and an “existing” institution.
Birthdays are a celebration of life. If you have 5 birthdays than that means that you have been alive for at least five years.
If you die at the age of five then you will never be able to have a 6th birthday. You know…because you are DEAD.
Google loves to put up a birthday celebration honoring a particular figure in history. The problem is that they are usually dead.
It is impossible for any of these people to have birthdays past their death date.
For example, Princess Diana is not 56 years old. She only ever made it to 36.
The story that I found this little nugget of wisdom in is most certainly tragic. A mother killed herself and probably her son. The story seemed a bit unclear about that.
It’s not clear how the child’s mother got a gun into the hospital. Banner Health has a policy — which is posted at entrances — against carrying firearms and weapons into its facilities, Lozano said.
This makes it sound like either the poor mother didn’t know how to read or that signs will solve everything. Just post a sign and people will do exactly what it says.
Or, in this case…not.
If you are still using Adobe Flash for critical pieces of your website, I’d say that logic dictates that you change to HTML 5 or something that most all devices can play.
For example, I just visited WGAL 8 here in Lancaster. They have slideshows that require Adobe Flash to play them. Guess what? I’m using an iPad tablet. I don’t have Flash and will never have it on this tablet.
I’m not alone. Apple has just announced that it sold 3 million iPads in 3 days. That is on top of all of the other iPads that are already out in the wild. Let’s face facts. Its the dominate tablet. Chances are…it will be the dominate tablet for a long time to come.
That means that most people are choosing iPads which means that most people who use tablets can’t view your Flash content.
What do I do in those cases when I come across a site that requires Flash?
I go somewhere else.
I’m pretty sure that we’ve come to the point in this relationship where using Adobe Flash for critical parts of your website means a loss of traffic for you.
I’m not exclusing myself either. I currently have an MP3 player that uses Flash to function on one of my sites. However, I am quickly moving to an HTML 5 alternative.
Someday we’ll look back on this Adobe Flash nonsense and… [fill in the blank]…
Perhaps you are following the desperate story of the innocent hikers that got too close to the Iranian border and then got arrested? (via CBS)
You know.
Because they were just hiking and happened to get too close to the Iranian border completely by accident.
Could happen to anyone. I’m sure.
Bullshit.
Hikers my ass.
I love hiking and I can tell you that the first place that pops into my mind for some great hiking does NOT happen to be anywhere NEAR Iran.
If you were “hiking” too close to Iran it was probably because you actually were spying because no sane person in their right mind would hike that close to the Iranian border. It’s amazing these idiots are still alive.
If I am from the United States, why would I spend all of that money for air fare to go that close to Iran to hike? The answer is that I wouldn’t.
So here we are listening to the American media and shedding a tear for these poor American boys who made just one little mistake. Those Iranian bastards had the nerve to capture “hikers” and prosecute them as spies?
Who are the unreasonable people here? I don’t like Iran at all. I’m not defending Iran here and that is not my intention but what I am defending is simple common sense.
We can’t admit that the kids are spies.
Logic can’t defend the “innocent hikers” meme.
We are left with the scenario that our boys are innocent hikers and the Iranians are bastards for arresting them and the real crime here is that neither statement is true.
Warning: This post is just a vain attempt of venting on my part. I personally am sick and tired of this “pussy” culture I find myself living in. I may just call the string of these writings “The Pussy Chronicles” because there are just so many examples of how “pussified” our society has become that I could be adding to this series many times daily. My qualification for using the term “pussy” is my military background. That means that if I say you are a pussy you indeed are a pussy. Now, on with my rant…
A.D.H.D. (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is not a medical condition.
It is an environmental condition.
Your child isn’t suffering from A.D.H.D. you just feed them too much sugar. Now they are bouncing off of the walls and you don’t quite know why? You want to blame this on a non-existent disease designed and conceived to prevent Pediatric professionals from being sued because you are an extremely bad parent. A.D.H.D. is also a big business now. People make money from telling you that your child has it. You or your insurance company pay the doctor who diagnoses it and the pharmaceutical companies make money from the medication that the doctor you just saw will prescribe to treat the symptoms of it.
A.D.H.D. can’t be “cured” because it’s not a real disease. The medication they prescribe for this is a legal version of what the sixties crowd used to call “downers.”
People who medicate their children because they believe they have A.D.H.D. need to take a good hard look at themselves. Those folks created the problem and should probably sterilize themselves immediately.
I remember thinking as a kid that those folks who beat their kids or at least gave them a smack on the ass every now and then were bad parents. They were not. Before it was called A.D.H.D. it was called a “failure to pay attention.” A smack on the ass, a ruler across the fingers, or perhaps a strong comment designed to embarrass you in front of your classmates was enough to “cure” this affliction.
It is about controlling your child’s environment. When I was a kid we played outside. We played outside everyday and for as long as we could get away with (which was typically about dinner time). We ate candy throughout the day as well. That was the extent of it. Yes, we took in a fair amount of sugar but we were also burning it off by running around and playing outside. Being sent to your room was considered serious punishment and something that we as kids seriously tried to avoid.
Today, kids sit in front of their computers for fun. Being sent to their room is welcomed. Why? All of their stuff is there. Television, computer and internet, game consoles, and cell phones (in a lot of cases smartphones) are also a part of the modern child’s environs. They watch enormous amounts of television and they eat very badly because parents just don’t seem to give a shit about that sort of thing anymore. They are driven to the bus stop or even back and forth to school. Those kids aren’t even being given the opportunity to get exercise by moving themselves around. Of course, the parents will say that it’s a safety issue, they are worried about predators, or they just can’t stand the thought of their child standing out in the rain waiting for the bus. Instead of teaching kids about what they should do in a worse case scenario, modern parents think it’s much easier to just shuttle their children around. This is a short term solution for the parents that causes long term damages to the kid.
I remember my father telling me to stop doing something. He only ever gave me one chance to actually stop. It was usually a better situation if I stopped rather than having him do it for me. It also usually ended painfully for me when he made me stop. What I see these days in the grocery store is some out of control kid with a parent standing there trying to “reason” with them. “Oh, Jeffrey please stop doing that. Now, I’m going to count to ten…” The worst thing the kid has to put up with is listening to his parent drone on and on.
Parents these days want to be their children’s friend. You can’t. Sure, when you kids have grown into adulthood you can be “friends” with them. Just imagine what kind of Army we’d have if all of the drill instructors wanted make nice and be friends with the recruits. The same goes for child rearing. Growing up in a home with “rules” is a boot camp of sorts for life. The tougher the boot camp the more likely it will be that your child will succeed. Incidentally, this also includes a regiment of exercise. Our children are fat and overweight because we’re making them that way.
See? It’s not really a disease unless you consider the parents to be the disease.
I do.
This morning (first post of 2011 huh?) I got to thinking about what was wrong with Caprica.
Why did the Sy-Fy Channel cancel it?
Of course, they’ll site viewer numbers and say that people weren’t watching it. I think that would be partially accurate. People didn’t watch it because they didn’t know when it would be on. One of the common problems of networks in general is that they advertise the hell out of everything on their networks which means you have to be watching their networks to see when certain shows will be on.
At least, that’s how it used to work.
Now, I don’t watch any of your network nonsense. In fact, I didn’t watch a single episode of Caprica on Sy Fy. I downloaded the shows from iTunes. I never had any intention of watching Sy Fy to see the show nor did I ever do so. That makes me wonder if Sy Fy ever included those folks when they factor in the numbers?
What about Hulu or TV.com?
(Update: I just stumbled upon this great article about people leaving their cable and television providers in favor of internet based solutions.) The whole story link is here.
The proliferation of viewing devices — including a new generation of TV sets that connect to the Internet — could boost the chances that viewers will do what cable and satellite companies fear most: cancel their $70-a-month subscriptions in favor of cheaper Web options.
People want to watch your shows just like they always have except now they want it delivered their way and not yours.
They are not going to watch your channel but they do want to watch your shows and that is what you need to monetize.
As I said in a couple of paragraphs above, we never knew when the show was going to be on. That is bad. It’s the same rule for podcasts. People stop listening when you stop delivering your show on some kind of schedule. Caprica was horrible in this regard. Do you remember when TV seasons were about 24 episodes long and were fairly dependable? I miss those days.
I could write a big long post about this. Maybe I will.
People who watch funny videos on the internet at work aren’t necessarily wasting time. They may be taking advantage of the latest psychological science — putting themselves in a good mood so they can think more creatively.
That’s a great discovery except for one small factor…
…the “getting fired for screwing around at work” thing.
Other than that…solid.
This Lifehacker Article that claims that idling your car is bad.
For those readers in chillier climates it’s a common to see people trudging out to their cars to warm them up early in the morning. It turns out all that idling isn’t just ineffective but a waste of money too.
The common belief is that you have to start a car ahead of time in cold weather or else the engine won’t be warm enough and you could damage it. It turns out that engines only require around a half minute of idle time to warm up; excessive idling decreases the life of your engine and unnecessarily kludges things up.
If you really want a good laugh at the expense of the author read the comments below the article. For example…
It’s not just your engine that needs a warm up. You want the fluids circulating freely through the automatic transmission and through the power steering system before driving off. They don’t need to be at operating temperature, but a couple of minutes to let the fluids flow and move about can save wear and tear.
The article is easily defeated by simple common sense.
Yes. The article was written with an obvious “green” bias.
Check out this excerpt from Paul Carr at TechCrunch…
Rule One: The next time one of you asks the rhetorical question “why is this news?” I swear to God I will come round to your basement, gather up all of your Wil Wheaton action figures and melt them down into a giant plastic phallus. If you’ve ever seen the Miriam Karlin scene in A Clockwork Orange, you know what happens next. Save us both a trip and next time you find yourself asking “why is this news?”, instead ask yourself “why do I still live with my parents?”. It’s news because people better than you said so.
Fortunately for me, I am smart enough to decide what’s news and what’s not.
Some dipshit at TechCrunch sure as hell isn’t.
Here it is…
There isn’t any.
There will never be any as long as Israel and “Palestine” exist at the same time.
Ever.
Just send me money for my wisdom.
Thanks.
Tip#3,512
You should never make a lifestyle change based on an idea, a theory, or a principle that doesn’t pass through a common sense filter or doesn’t seem logical.
Case in point:
Which do you think is healthier, butter or margarine? Butter is made out of natural ingredients and margarine is not.
Which do you think is healthier, Sweet and Low or sugar?
There is a synergy between human beings and their environment. We co-exist and nourish each other. Life is ongoing and always moving. When our bodies die, we provide nutrients to the plants and animals around us.
With that being said, does it really make sense to put anything in your body that doesn’t come from nature?
I believe that diabetes is a common problem because we eliminated a natural element from our diet at some point. It’s the law of intended consequences. We make a change to one area and end up inadvertently effecting something else.
If you combine what I’ve just said with “so-called” medical advances that are loosely based on proper scientific procedures and methods then you can easy see how much trouble we’re in.
The human life span isn’t growing. It’s receding. It’s getting smaller.
The more unnatural crap we put in our bodies the closer to the end we’ll be.
Ok, I’m done ranting now.
What started this? The guy in the office next to mine is into making smoothies. Healthy smoothies or so he tells me. He puts mix into it that looks like concrete and it made me wonder how healthy the whole thing could actually be.
Remember folks, all of this health crap is relatively new. It has not really been time tested. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years!” Ah, NO you haven’t.
Question: There doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day. How do I get more time?
Answer: Stop watching television.
You are welcome.
Wonder how much information you really put out there through Facebook?
This information can be had by anyone who can build an application using the Facebook API.
