What are you reading?
Comments
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Half an hour away from me...
"I could've had a Mi Querida!" Nick Bardis0 -
The ‘Tectonic Shift’ in Media That Changed Perceptions of Israel: ‘What’s Left Is a System Run by Activists’
“The press has been gutted. The bureaus have shrunk, and into that vacuum have come ideological voices,” says Matti Friedman
https://www.thewrap.com/media-and-why-changed-perceptions-of-israel/
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I read that article yesterday, and thought it made sense.
"I could've had a Mi Querida!" Nick Bardis0 -
"Storm Watch" by C. J. Box 2023 A new Joe Pickett . One of my favorite authors.
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A new study by Upstate Medical University researchers shows that recreational cannabis use may offer protection against cognitive decline.
The study, done by Master of Public Health (MPH) student Zhi Chen and Professor Roger Wong, Ph.D., MPH, MSW, analyzed a large data set from the CDC and found that compared to non-users, non-medical cannabis use, such as for recreational purposes, was significantly associated with 96 percent decreased odds of subjective cognitive decline (SCD).
https://neurosciencenews.com/cannabis-dementia-neurology-25884/
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I'd say they need more data, but that's just me.
Don't let the wife know what you spend on guns, ammo or cigars.
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"Robert Heinlein, the famous science fiction author, said that it's difficult to learn from someone who always agrees with you. You have to find dissenting voices. The best expert is plural. Look at consensus. Look at multiple experts. Check out a variety of people, and watch out for just favoring the ones who already agree with you."
--David DunningDavid Dunning: Overcoming Overconfidence
Dunning, co-discoverer of the Dunning-Kruger effect, investigates the misinformation gap built into our brains: We don't know what we don't know.https://www.openmindmag.org/articles/david-dunning-on-expertise
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Both links will make one think, and could lead to much discussion...
"I could've had a Mi Querida!" Nick Bardis2 -
I wonder which link poses the most danger to our fragile democracy?
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It's not a democracy, it's a Constitutional Republic. Democracy is mob rule.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
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Largest 3D map of our universe could 'turn cosmology upside down'
By Sharmila Kuthunur published 11 hours ago
Scientists using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument have unveiled the largest 3D map of the universe ever. The results suggest that dark energy, the mysterious force pulling the universe apart, may be weakening, challenging prevailing theories of cosmology.
https://www.space.com/desi-3d-map-universe-dark-energy-evolution
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No mitochondrial DNA variation in COI gene among widely distributed populations of a parthenogenetic praying mantid: a biogeographic puzzle
A geographically widespread and abundant praying mantid, Brunneria borealis Scudder (1896), which has been considered endemic to North America (Rivera and Svenson 2016), occupies an essentially continuous pericoastal range of distribution in North America approximately 2,800 km along the Gulf Coast from eastern Texas to Florida, and northward along the Atlantic Coast to central North Carolina (Hebard 1942, 1945, White 1948). This diploid species (White 1948) is well known among entomologists and frequently mentioned in the literature as an example of parthenogenesis (always citing the original description by White 1948), but almost nothing further about it has been published in the refereed literature since White’s seminal publication more than 7 decades ago.
This mantid is something of a paradox for 2 reasons: (a) it is wingless, and therefore has potentially low vagility for colonizing new habitats, and (b) among the 2,400+ mantid species so far identified in the world, it is the only known obligate parthenogen (i.e., entirely female). This trait usually, but not necessarily, is expected to lead to reduced fitness via low genetic diversity and fixation of deleterious genes (Brandt et al. 2019). Accumulated mutations that produce differences in mitochondrial DNA among spatially discrete populations are indicators of genetic population structure, and also the timing of divergence among those populations, i.e., how long ago did B. borealis attain this wide distribution? We addressed the question of genetic similarity among geographically separated populations of B. borealis by examining mtDNA from individuals collected along a major portion of the distributional range.
https://academic.oup.com/aesa/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aesa/saae008/7627380?login=false
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"Bullshitters make claims without regard for whether their statements are true or false. They are more interested in persuading or impressing others rather than conveying (or even concealing) accurate information. Bullshitter's use language in a way that obscures the truth and manipulates the listener's perception. And with the rise of social media–where impression is everything and truth hardly matters–it’s not a stretch to say that we are drowning in bullshit."
https://www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/the-corrosive-effects-of-bullshit
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"The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there,
And warmly debated the matter;
The Orthodox said that it came from the air,
And the Heretics said from the platter.
They argued it long and they argued it strong,
And I hear they are arguing now;
But of all the choice spirits who lived in the cheese,
Not one of them thought of a cow."
— Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle"I could've had a Mi Querida!" Nick Bardis4 -
The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-024-01695-w
Dense stuff, I think I need Edward to translate. Someone else read this and took away that the Arabica varieties came from C. eugenioides and C. canephora (which includes Robusta) naturally.
Join us on Zoom vHerf (Meeting # 2619860114 Password vHerf2020 )2 -
Film Suggests We Call Indiana Jones What He Is: Grave Robber
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@Yakster said:
The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-024-01695-wDense stuff, I think I need Edward to translate. Someone else read this and took away that the Arabica varieties came from C. eugenioides and C. canephora (which includes Robusta) naturally.
Here's a predigested version, fwiw:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/morning-coffee-may-hundreds-thousands-145246307.html
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@silvermouse said:
@Yakster said:
The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-024-01695-wDense stuff, I think I need Edward to translate. Someone else read this and took away that the Arabica varieties came from C. eugenioides and C. canephora (which includes Robusta) naturally.
Here's a predigested version, fwiw:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/morning-coffee-may-hundreds-thousands-145246307.html
Thanks, Edward. I understood that one.
Join us on Zoom vHerf (Meeting # 2619860114 Password vHerf2020 )3 -
@silvermouse said:
Film Suggests We Call Indiana Jones What He Is: Grave RobberI’ve always thought this about archeologists…not just the fictional ones
If it don’t bother me, it don’t bother me. Just leave me alone.
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I knew Vietnam veteran who was Lakota, Silver Star, two PH. Buck Ghosthorse was a humble, spiritual leader of a large tiosapye. [family]. He was arrested when he started digging in a cemetery. He told law enforcement he was studying the remains of white folks. Didn't go well.
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Comments on FRT (face recognition technology) to Commission on Civil Rights
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/eff-submits-comments-frt-commission-civil-rights
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and Target collecting and storing face and fingerprint info without consent.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/04/16/target-lawsuit-biometric-data/73340681007/
and this, the death-knell of privacy ringing larger and larger:
"Recordings of the adolescents’ facial expressions were run through new AI software to detect and understand intricate details of emotions across minute time scales."
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Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
From pure mass citizen panic, following 9/11, we sure gave up our privacy rights in a plethora of introduced and subsequently passed government acts, disguised as ‘foreigner’ surveillance. Just saying…
https://act.eff.org/action/tell-the-u-s-senate-stop-risaa-the-fisa-mass-surveillance-expansion
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@OutdoorsSmoke_21191 said:
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)From pure mass citizen panic, following 9/11, we sure gave up our privacy rights in a plethora of introduced and subsequently passed government acts, disguised as ‘foreigner’ surveillance. Just saying…
https://act.eff.org/action/tell-the-u-s-senate-stop-risaa-the-fisa-mass-surveillance-expansion
Pretty sure they had it all written up, the whole so-called Patriot Act too, well before the incident. For sure Congress didn't spend any time reviewing or debating, just rubber stamped what their real bosses told them to do.
Sounds cynical?
Me?
Or Them?
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain0 -
Shockingly close? 2,000 light years away.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
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@Amos_Umwhat said:
@OutdoorsSmoke_21191 said:
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)From pure mass citizen panic, following 9/11, we sure gave up our privacy rights in a plethora of introduced and subsequently passed government acts, disguised as ‘foreigner’ surveillance. Just saying…
https://act.eff.org/action/tell-the-u-s-senate-stop-risaa-the-fisa-mass-surveillance-expansion
Pretty sure they had it all written up, the whole so-called Patriot Act too, well before the incident. For sure Congress didn't spend any time reviewing or debating, just rubber stamped what their real bosses told them to do.
Sounds cynical?
Me?
Or Them?
Definitely, not you.
However, I too, believe it has always been in the works. The grand plan, if you will. Especially, the Patriot Act. 9/11 Perfect coincidence? Night before the morning vote hundreds and hundreds of added pages. Not reviewed and not vetted it passed ‘as-is’. This was the government tsunami wave needed to start everything we are seeing today.
Crazy?
Normal?
Conspiracy theorist?
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