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Topic: Today's Good News (Read 179562 times)

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #650 –
That depends on what you mean by ads. I like contextually relevant ads perfectly fine, as is typical in magazines. Those are what I'd like to call actually targeted ads. They don't seem to invade; they almost fit in with the content. Good ads are informative in a slightly biased manner. "Look, there's a new variety of peanut butter!" (What about the already existing variety that's similar and cheaper? Well, it is an ad…) Would any of this cause me to say I like ads when only given a black or white choice, whether now or 20 years ago? Hard to say. It's not like radio and TV ads weren't mostly shouty and obnoxious already.

Newspaper ads are a lot more random but you know, whatever. By contrast, "targeted" ads are nearly random nonsense that pretty much persecutes you for once having clicked on something, possibly even worse if you were actually thinking about buying it. And they pop in after the page already loaded. And sometimes they move. And they're never clever or relevant to anything. YouTube makes sure to play you an extra ad if you paused the video for ten minutes.

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #652 –
Received my 2nd dose of the Moderna Covid vaccine today. :cheers:

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #653 –
Congrats, Col.! (Think there's any chance the current admin. will -if the facts do- admit that Fla. and Tx.got "it" right; while Ca. and NY/etc. got "it" wrong? :)
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"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #656 –
Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
Congrats, Col.! (Think there's any chance the current admin. will -if the facts do- admit that Fla. and Tx.got "it" right; while Ca. and NY/etc. got "it" wrong? :)

? These four states are all middling, Texas lowest among them with 13.2%, California highest with 16.9%, but no massive difference. 

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #657 –
Ah! You want rates of vaccinations... (Like they wanted rates of infection, earlier...; whichever number is scarier, it seems.) Not concerned for economic and social repercussions from over-reactions by political hacks, and their hangers-on... Which is to say, you didn't understand the question!
The Col. did.

Are you the sort of Dr. who considers death a "cure" of disease, jax?:)  It's a Rational Argument; it just happens to miss the the main connotation of the word.The lockdowns were and are good for political shenanigans; not much else. You've heard the expression "throwing out the baby with the bathwater"? How about "cutting off one's nose, to spite his face"?
Let's try just one more: "You reap what you sow..."

Fauchi is a dawdling doddering old fool who aught to have been put out to pasture a decade and a half ago; his minions can easily come up with bad and contradictory advice without him. But I'm sure he and Biden get along famously: Neither should be allowed out off his leash.

Cheers! (You don't live here.)
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #658 –
The virus kills people, not the vaccine. The virus kills the economy, not the lockdowns.

There are plenty of givens, citizens' health, age, and resources; level of overcrowdedness, quality of and access to the health system, and so on. Based on your givens, and available information, you try to shape the best policy.

You don't want to cede control to the virus, because when you do, health system is overrun, carnage follows and death and disability spikes. When that happens lockdown is the only option. Even when this hasn't happened, lockdown may be the best or necessary way to prevent this from happen (where "lockdown" these days seems to be anything from an actual Wuhan-style lockdown to modest constraints on business or personal activities).

The cure is not worse than the disease, except in a handful cases, but there have been plenty cases where the cure has been wrong, badly timed, or ineffectual. The opportunity cost, the pandemic not handled, has generally been higher than the cost of this cure.



Re: Today's Good News

Reply #659 –
Quote from: jax on
The virus kills the economy, not the lockdowns.
Yes, if.
If transmission is the way it is said to be, yes. But I doubt very much that transmission occurs that way.

New "waves" of disease appears, with numbers rising geometrically, without people changing nothing in their behavior.
"Waves" also displace geographically, appearing and disappearing, regardless local government's impositions.

Therefore, I doubt very much that transmission occurs the way it is said and the lack of freedom imposed it's a farce and very probably a social engineering experiment.

A matter of attitude.

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #660 –
Quote from: Belfrager on
New "waves" of disease appears, with numbers rising geometrically, without people changing nothing in their behavior.
Just because the rules haven't changed doesn't mean people haven't changed anything in their behavior.

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #661 –
Quote from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 influenza pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. Lasting from February 1918 to April 1920, it infected 500 million people – about a third of the world's population at the time – in four successive waves. The death toll is typically estimated to have been somewhere between 20 million and 50 million, although estimates range from a conservative 17 million to a possible high of 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.
The Spanish flu was devastating because there were no countermeasures taken. The Spanish flu was named the Spanish flu because Spain was the first and almost only country where the press freely reported on the pandemic and where the authorities attempted countermeasures.

The current pandemic with countermeasures attempted by most countries seems to end up about as devastating in terms of absolute numbers as the Spanish flu was, but quite different against the proportion of population of the globe. Around 1918-1920 the estimated world population was much below 2 billion.

Personally, I am not sure that it is quite the same disease. Amazingly, in my extended family (which happens to be quite numerous), not a single person has caught covid even while Estonia is spearheading the contagion in relative terms. However, there are a few cases among colleagues.

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #662 –
Quote from: ersi on
Amazingly, in my extended family (which happens to be quite numerous), not a single person has caught covid even while Estonia is spearheading the contagion in relative terms. However, there are a few cases among colleagues.
I'm not aware of any cases either. My colleague's sister apparently caught it though.

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #663 –
My sister caught it and was in hospital for two weeks. Then my Brother-in-law caught it and he has been seriously ill in hospital for over a 100 days now. Three times my sister has had a call to go into the hospital to say her final goodbyes, but he's still fighting.
The start and end to every story is the same. But what comes in between you have yourself to blame.

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #664 –
Ah, the dreaded after effects. :/

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #665 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
Ah, the dreaded after effects. :/
Seizures, Kidney failure, Immune system non-existent, to name a few, Think it's fortunate that he was in an induced coma for most of it.
The start and end to every story is the same. But what comes in between you have yourself to blame.

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #666 –
Biden recognizes atrocities against Armenians as genocide
Quote from: https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-turkey-government-and-politics-middle-east-europe-dbe6bc9ddac90c1393e6c33ff2220781
The systematic killing and deportation of more than a million Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in the early 20th century was “genocide,” the United States formally declared on Saturday, as President Joe Biden used that precise word after the White House had avoided it for decades for fear of alienating ally Turkey.

Turkey reacted with furor, with the foreign minister saying his country “will not be given lessons on our history from anyone.” A grateful Armenia said it appreciated Biden’s “principled position” as a step toward “the restoration of truth and historical justice.”
A can of worms, but I prefer a frank head-on fact-based constructive solution-oriented can of worms.

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #667 –
"Ah feel your pain! All better now? :)" (Just another instance of the Clash of Prejudices. Seems racism is somewhat more widespread than some would have us believe...)
I think back to what Jimmy "J.J." Walker said: They keep fighting in Ireland, a land with no blacks and no Jews... White people are creative!
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #668 –
Genocides, and their recognition, matter. Though it should really be a matter for lawyers, not historians. The Armenian genocide is at that cut-off point. It matter much in my home town too, as Seyfo is a connected genocide in the transition from the Ottoman empire to the Turkish nation-state, and Södertälje is a major Assyrian city. Another Swedish city, Hässleholm, has taken in many of the diaspora from the genocide on the Yazidi.

The utility of the Genocide Convention, in my opinion, depends on genocide being a separate crime in kind from other atrocities. That might be hard in practice. 

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #669 –
I stand, nodding, rebuked...
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"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #670 –
Turks have been genocidal against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and more recently Kurds. The issue with Kurds has been problematic in fighting against ISIS, making Turkey a weak link in NATO. If the issue does not get resolved, the weak link may break at some critical point. In fact it should, because it's weak. These issues with Turks are enough of a reason why they cannot ever join the EU.

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
I stand, nodding, rebuked...
I doubt it. You don't learn even from yesterday, much less from history. On a good note, for the time being it appears that at least you are not a holocaust denier.

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #671 –
Quote from: ersi on
I doubt it. You don't learn even from yesterday, much less from history.
It's quite a treat, to see such a judgemental jingoist play sage on a hill...:)
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #672 –
Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
It's quite a treat, to see such a judgemental jingoist play sage on a hill...
It's simple: I am right, you are wrong. This has always been so in this forum. And you never learned from this.

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #673 –
Quote from: ersi on
It's simple: I am right delusional, hence, you are wrong.
In the old parlance: Fixed that for ya! :)
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Today's Good News

Reply #674 –
With so many important and urgent things Mr Biden should be concerned with it makes no sense to worry with what a NATO's member,Turkey, did more than one hundred years ago. There must be business going on.
A matter of attitude.