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Ranvier

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Ranvier ,

Horrible.

Just want to add another source here from an Israeli news source (Hareetz) also reporting all the major points from the above article.

archive.is/IZNtfhaaretz.com/…/00000190-27eb-d14b-a999-27eb9aea000…

Probably not a surprise, but the suspicious uninvestigated deaths don’t end there.

Ranvier , (edited )

That’s true, but also a little more complicated than that I think. At least one of the reasons Israel was able to extract so much aid from the US to begin with was the threat they could align with the Soviet Union (initially one of the biggest supporters of Israel, and first to recognize them as a state officially in 1947, though they had a few others had unofficially recognized them by then). Stalin had a zionist foreign policy, despite (or maybe because of) being antisemitic himself. Though Soviets and Israel largely schismed in 1967 and the Soviet union began throwing its funding behind the surrounding Arab states.

Relations warmed in the 90s again but have been up and down since. But there has been a lot of Russian immigration to Isreal. Russian is the third most spoken language in Israel.

2011, Putin said: “Israel is, in fact, a special state to us. It is practically a Russian-speaking country. Israel is one of the few foreign countries that can be called Russian-speaking. It’s apparent that more than half of the population speaks Russian”.[38] Putin additionally claimed that Israel could be considered part of the Russian cultural world, and contended that “songs which are considered to be national Israeli songs in Israel are in fact Russian national songs”. He further stated that he regarded Russian-speaking Israeli citizens as his compatriots and part of the ‘Russian World’

Israel at times has been quite friendly to Russia. It took a neutral stance on the Crimea annexation, infuriating the United States. Russia recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017. Israel refused to recognize Russians assassinating people abroad, infuriating the UK. Netanyahu has spoke often about his friendship with Putin. Israel refused to impose sanctions on Russia or send defensive weapons to Ukraine.

I mean you could go on, it’s a complicated relationship, with especially Netanyahu favoring closer relations with Russia and trying to play both sides. Iran’s relationship with Russia certainly presents complications, but I don’t think Israel getting closer to Russia or at least using the threat of it to extract more from the United States is out of the question. They’re often trying to “play both sides” of the Russia and US divide to their benefit. Especially if Netanyahu remains in power.

axios.com/…/ukraine-russia-israel-netanyahu-putin…

washingtoninstitute.org/…/netanyahu-governments-a…

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–Russia_relations

China and Israel have had surprisingly good relations too. And again, Netanyahu has consistently tried to make those closer, possibly to help keep US aid flowing.

timesofisrael.com/with-israeli-us-ties-troubled-c…

Not saying the US shouldn’t cut off Isreal, please do, but the results may be surprising if that were to actually happen. I don’t think putin harbors any particular concerns for the plight of the Palestinian people.

Ranvier , (edited )

Yes not disputing at all that there’s a proxy war (though Soviet Israeli relationship deteriorated long before that started with Soviets funding Israeli opponents since 1967), just that despite or partially because of this, Israel is closer to Russia than most western countries. Isreal doesn’t want to upset Russia and give them more incentive to fund proxies against them, and some Israeli governments, like Netanyahu’s especially, have helped provide cover for Russian actions. And Russia at times will often take surprisingly pro Israeli moves despite also funding proxies.

I don’t think it would be impossible for Israel to switch alignment to Russia, and I think you would quickly see Russia providing cover and stopping any assistance with proxy conflict against them. It would be essentially accomplishing Russia’s goal, so what would they have to fight Israel about anymore? Putin is a real politic great powers kind of leader who has no qualms about butchering civilians by the thousands. He’s certainly not aligned with Iran because he’s concerned about Palestinians. Israel becoming fully aligned with Russia would be accomplishing a 77 year in the making goal for the Soviet Union and Russia.

Ranvier ,

Yes totally agree, there’s no way this goes anywhere but worse somehow as long as Netanyahu remains in power. Hopefully elections (or just being hauled off to jail hopefully) push him out soon, for everyone’s sake.

Ranvier ,

Don’t be lgbt though:

LGBT+ travellers

Same-sex sexual activity is not illegal in Rwanda, but is frowned on by locals. LGBT+ travellers can experience discrimination and abuse, including from local authorities.

There are no specific anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT+ individuals in Rwanda. Read more advice for LGBT+ travellers.

Ranvier ,

I’m not sure what you mean? This article is about AMD. Nvidia is the one that skimps on the vram. Amd’s 7800 xt has 16 gb of vram and is $500. Their most expensive gpu is the 7900 xtx for about $950 currently and it has 24 gb.

Nvidia 4080 is over $1000 and has 16 gb of vram though.

I agree gpus are too expensive, but if amd gpus go under, Nvidia will have even more power to price gouge. I’m rooting for Intel too to bring even more competition in.

Ranvier , (edited )

MRSA is just a version of staph aureus that is resistant to some common antibiotics. The antibiotic resistant version is common everywhere now since we use so much antibiotics. The antibiotic resistant version doesn’t make someone sicker in and of itself than the non resistant version, it just doesn’t respond to some antibiotics. From context I gather this was MRSA pneumonia.

Staph aureus lives on all of our skin, mouth and external surfaces. It’s not like something you catch, it’s something that’s already there and takes advantage of an opening, like a wound, lungs already damaged by a recent flu virus or something, or a weakened immune system. It’s common that people in the hospital get staph infections, because they’re already there for something else making them sick that gives staph an opening. Strokes are also more common in hospitalized patients that are sick with other things. Strokes usually aren’t directly related to an infection, but the pro inflammatory response can increase clotting and make a stroke more likely. Strokes also can inversely make pneumonia more likely, if you have trouble swallowing and saliva and secretions are going down the wrong tube, then it creates an easy way for bacteria from your mouth like staph to get to the lungs and start up a pneumonia.

Tldr: MRSA is on your skin right now, don’t worry about it too much, don’t overuse antibiotics

Ranvier ,

Yeah one of the civil suits against him was successful:

apnews.com/…/harvey-weinstein-sexual-misconduct-c…

Also he’s not out of jail, this is just his New York conviction. He was also criminally convicted in California.

Ranvier ,

The house passed marijuana legalization in 2020 and 2022 when democrats controlled it. Didn’t make it past the senate though, with almost every republican opposed.

Ranvier ,

They always have time to try and stop Democrats from doing anything they think would be popular. They especially worry about anything that would be popular with their own constituents, since even a majority of Republicans support marijuana legalization.

forbes.com/…/new-poll-shows-23-of-republican-vote…

Look at the games they played in Minnesota for a really glaring example on this issue. Republicans there went to the trouble of funding and recruiting candidates for a “legalize marijuana now party.” This allowed them to split the vote just enough in swing districts to prevent democratic control of the state senate, meanwhile the Republicans blocked any marijuana legalization (except for the time they accidentally legalized small dose edibles because they didn’t read a bill about hemp carefully, they were really mad about that, lol). When the democrats recaptured the majority in both houses in the 2022 election, they legalized marijuana. Filibustering isn’t like in the federal senate though, for federal legalization will need to convince at least eight to ten republican senators to go along with it

minnesotareformer.com/…/some-legalize-cannabis-ca…

mprnews.org/…/recreational-cannabis-is-now-legal-…

Ranvier ,

From an article linked within the article:

Despite the plaudits, China in fact sat on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the virus for more than a week after three different government labs had fully decoded the information. Tight controls on information and competition within the Chinese public health system were to blame, according to dozens of interviews and internal documents.

Chinese government labs only released the genome after another lab published it ahead of authorities on a virologist website on Jan. 11.

If it weren’t for this scientist it would have taken even longer to get the dna sequence (and even longer for the life saving vaccines). And the whole time Chinese government labs already had the sequence and were refusing to share it with the world despite the World Health organization and scientists around the world begging them to.

FCC Imposes Nearly $200 Million in Fines on US Wireless Carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon) for Illegal Location Data Sharing (neuters.de)

The carriers sold “real-time location information to data aggregators, allowing this highly sensitive data to wind up in the hands of bail-bond companies, bounty hunters, and other shady actors,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement....

Ranvier ,

Republicans of course voted against any fines at all:

arstechnica.com/…/fcc-fines-big-three-carriers-19…

Now with a 3-2 democratic majority on fcc a lot is getting done. One of Biden’s nominees was stonewalled by the senate for years (ISPs launched a huge smear campaign against her, even the daily mail of all things went after her). Biden had to relent and finally nominated someone else who got approved late 2023, finally breaking the 2-2 deadlock that Republicans were using to block everything like this including net neutrality.

Ranvier , (edited )

First of all, it’s not like Biden sat down and wrote these himself. Appointees by Biden at the health and human service administration directed these rules be written by civil servants who work at the department. Changes to regulations have to follow the processes laid out in the laws originally passed by congress giving the agency the authority to write that regulation. Usually that involves a long process of research, mandatory waiting periods, comments, legal reviews, votes by administrators, etc. These new rules began to be drafted in January 2022. Here’s all about 600 pages of them. It’s not something like, Biden rolled out of bed this morning and decided to reverse lgbtq discrimination in healthcare finally to help himself in the election. The rule this is replacing/updating for instance had work on it begin in 2015 that didn’t finish until 2020.

If the complex processes for these new regulations aren’t followed then they aren’t drawing their power from any law, and they’ll be struck down by courts in a heartbeat. This happened to a lot of Trump’s incompetent administrators who had a lot of hastily passed or incorrectly passed regulations that didn’t survive legal review.

vox.com/…/affordable-clean-energy-rule-vacated-tr…

Ranvier , (edited )

Alright, vote for a dictator that makes their own laws out of thin air then and disregards any courts. Or go after congress to change laws so that new regulations under those laws can be made faster and with less oversight, though that would backfire during republican administrations. Or just keep shouting bad faith arguments to attack a presidential administration you apparently agree with on this issue I guess. Because he very quickly reversed any executive orders he could of Trump’s on this issue. Here’s an order from 2021 on this actual issue.

nbcnews.com/…/biden-issues-executive-order-expand…

Reversing actual agency regulations is unfortunately a longer process that is very dependent the specific law, but that was kicked off as soon as his appointees got in place. The new admin did get the regulations changed back in faster time than it took Trump to impose them.

Ranvier ,

Afforded to a handful of oligarchs/donors:

…wikipedia.org/…/Trustees_of_Columbia_University_…

Ranvier ,

From the article:

Viana said he didn’t know what charges the demonstrators faced but that some will likely be charged with disturbing the peace and others with trespassing.

They also were apparently reading some city anti camping ordinance to the protestors.

Ranvier ,

This source suggests something about a judge not being present for an arraignment, and so they were released with instructions to present again in May. Sounds like they probably haven’t been formally charged with anything. You can be arrested without being charged, usually charges come shortly after an arrest. But they can’t hold you indefinitely with no charge, which is why they were just released with instructions to return on a certain date.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/…/ar-AA1nGB5t

Ranvier , (edited )

The s&p 500 is down 0.8% today, and still up 23.6% over the past year despite that, well above it’s long term average growth rate still. These day to day fluctuations are barely a blip looking on a long scale time horizon like with a 401k.

If you held your entire 401k in 100% stocks and are planning on retiring tomorrow cashing out the entire account all at once I suppose it would be important, but that’s ridiculous for a number of reasons.

Headline writers always like to use the dow Jones because they get to write some seemingly big numbers instead of s&p 500 decreases by 36, which doesn’t sound nearly as impressive (because it’s not). They could say the dow Jones decreased by 1% in the headline, but again, not as sensational, won’t get clicks. Shouldn’t even be using dow Jones anyways, kind of a dumb index. Almost half of the “loss” this article refers to rebounded even by the time I wrote this comment compared to when the article was published, which is why the headline no longer matches the original.

Ranvier ,

No I was referring specifically to these common misleading sensational headlines on minor movements of the stock market, not news headlines in general. Or if you’re referring to 401ks again, yes in general it’s a bad idea to be making active trades in a 401k with a time horizon of decades based on day to day minor fluctuations of the stock market.

Ranvier ,

The law is written on a false non medical premise, so it’s not possible for any doctor to interpret because it’s nonsense divorced from reality.

There is no such thing as some clear line in medicine between, ah now instead of just grievous injury she will certainly die without an abortion at this point so let’s do it now and she’ll be fine. There may be black and whites at some extreme ends, but mostly there’s just a spectrum of constantly changing grey probabilities.

This is all total fiction that exists only in the head of pro lifers and the people writing these laws. Even if that fiction was reality, there’s a non zero chance that prosecutors will harass people performing abortions anyways, and they’ll bring in their own hack experts saying no that abortion wasn’t necessary, and the judgement is done by a jury of lay people not doctors with medical expertise, good chance the doctors get thrown in jail anyways in this fictional universe pro lifers have created.

There’s just no practical reality where a law that only “protects life of the mother” can exist. Legislators need to stay out of the doctors office and let pregnant individuals make the decisions with the assistance of doctors, only then can the life and health of the mother actually be protected.

Ranvier ,

Yes it would apply:

Canceled or significantly changed flights: Passengers will be entitled to a refund if their flight is canceled or significantly changed, and they do not accept alternative transportation or travel credits offered. For the first time, the rule defines “significant change.” Significant changes to a flight include departure or arrival times that are more than 3 hours domestically and 6 hours internationally; departures or arrivals from a different airport; increases in the number of connections; instances where passengers are downgraded to a lower class of service; or connections at different airports or flights on different planes that are less accessible or accommodating to a person with a disability.

transportation.gov/…/biden-harris-administration-…

Ranvier ,

Here’s a figure from the actual research the articles are describing and linked inside:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ee76662f-485f-458e-8b0b-1aa7f1534dc5.jpeg

networkcontagion.us/…/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.2…

This is based on methodology TikTok itself suggested be done, comparing posts on TikTok to Instagram.

Ranvier , (edited )

Caroline Svarre, whose parents paid to have her transported by two strangers in the middle of the night to Trails Carolina when she was 14, said she was “in shock” her first day.

Yup, also one that does the middle of the night kidnaps for maximum trauma infliction.

Shockingly, the treatment guidelines for panic disorder also don’t inlude zipping people into small bags all night:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6478076/

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6354045/

They should be shut down permanently, and those responsible for these policies held criminally liable.

Ranvier ,

Could be helpful if it actually provides service to food deserts. Would really depend on what kind of delivery radius they have, and how reasonable their prices are.

Ranvier ,

Possibly, but also keep in mind article five doesn’t say that any hostile act leads to automatic full scale war in response:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Emphasis on “such action as it deems necessary,” meaning a country can individually respond with its own discretion on what it thinks is a proportional response. Though in practice any response and individual contributions would be heavily negotiated within NATO. Theoretically a country could say it deems no action necessary even if article five was invoked. Just another reason why electing pro Russian leaders like Trump, Orban, or now Fico in Slovakia are dangerous and threaten the existence of NATO, even if they don’t technically leave NATO.

www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm

Ranvier ,

While I agree with you in general, this is not what happened in this case.

The House voted on the four bills in succession, one day after a rare and extraordinary bipartisan coalition teed up the votes, with more Democrats (165) than Republicans (151) voting for the “rule” to proceed to the measures.

There was roughly speaking the Ukraine bill, the Israel bill, the Taiwan and other aid bill, and the tik tok bill. All separately passed. Ukraine funding was not on the same bill passed as the TikTok thing today.

Combining issues in bills isn’t always bad and can be a vehicle toward compromise too. Separating things can even be a way of killing a bill. There are pros and cons, really depends on the situation.

Ranvier ,

No, they were separate bills. The Ukraine aid was on a different bill than the TikTok one. There was roughly speaking, a Ukraine aid bill, a Taiwan aid bill, an Israel aid bill, and the tik tok bill. All were voted on and passed separately.

Ranvier ,

That bill does not have anything related to Ukraine in it, four separate bills, 8034, 8035, 8036, and 8038. Just all passed on the same day.

…cnn.com/…/h_30753837f6b276a7383d0f0e96934af8

While HR 8038 bill has provisions about TikTok as you said, HR 8035 is the Ukraine bill.

rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-8035

The tik tok bill 8038 passed with a vote of 360-58 while the Ukraine bill 8035 passed with a vote of 311-112.

8034 has the Israel aid and 8036 has Taiwan and other countries.

The bill with the TikTok provisions did have some other things in it though like sanctions on Iranian oil, and giving more powers to seize Russian assets.

Ranvier , (edited )

It’s just a multiple choice test with question prompts. This is the exact sort of thing an LLM should be very good at. This isn’t chat gpt trying to do the job of an actual doctor, it would be quite abysmal at that. And even this multiple choice test had to be stacked in favor of chat gpt.

Because GPT models cannot interpret images, questions including imaging analysis, such as those related to ultrasound, electrocardiography, x-ray, magnetic resonance, computed tomography, and positron emission tomography/computed tomography imaging, were excluded.

Don’t get me wrong though, I think there’s some interesting ways AI can provide some useful assistive tools in medicine, especially tasks involving integrating large amounts of data. I think the authors use some misleading language though, saying things like AI “are performing at the standard we require from physicians,” which would only be true if the job of a physician was filling out multiple choice tests.

Ranvier , (edited )

archive.is/eo6Z2

I don’t know how anyone could disagree with Kagan here in good faith. Of course congress has the power to regulate the supreme court. They’ve passed numerous regulations for the court in the past, and the constitution expressly gives the power to regulate the specifics of the court to congress. Even the number of justices in the court is chosen by congress. It wasn’t nine until they passed a bill saying it was. And congress can impeach and remove justices too. I think the more corrupt members of the court just fear any actual oversight happening for once.

Ranvier ,

And unfortunately even if congress did pass an ethics law and the supreme court self declared they are ignoring it, then the only recourse would be impeachment and removal. I think we all know republicans wouldn’t stand for their federalist society stooges to get booted, so we’re left with the pretty unreasonable prospect of getting 67 seats in the senate controlled by democrats to make that happen. Since republicans are unwilling to enforce any ethics regulations on the court, Democrats would need to keep the presidency, retake the house in 2024, and probably need to end the filibuster to overcome Republican objections unless by some miracle they got up to 60+ seats in the senate, but I still think they should try and pass it. Having supreme court justices flagrantly ignore ethics regulations passed by congress may start to galvanize more support for further reforms.

Ranvier ,

They did actually make lots of digital cameras and were a pioneer in their development. But they were always a film business, not a camera business. The camera was just the vehicle for recurring payments in the form of film, an early subscription model business basically. Selling a single digital camera without the years of film purchases after was way less profitable for them. Even with a full switch to digital their business would have needed to rapidly decrease in size and scale, shuttering most of their factories aimed at producing chemicals for film. There was no real way for Kodak to continue on in the massive form it once had no matter how the switch to digital happened. Even the remaining camera industry is still shrinking in size now compared to where it was with the advent of camera phones. Market cap of Kodak in the 90s was like 30 billion not even accounting for inflation and higher valuation of stock in the 30 years since, compare that to something like Nikon who has a current market cap of 3.71 billion. So yeah, the executives were right to avoid transitioning if the goal was to maximize profits for share holders, and they’re a corporation so that’s definitely their goal, right or wrong.

Ranvier ,

Point taken. But I think bringing profits into it just makes things even more clear. Profit margins on film were as high as 80% for Kodak at times. I doubt any digital camera based company is making anything close to those kind of margins. Bringing people away from film cameras was definitely not in their best interest, but they did make digital cameras too, only beaten to the market by two years by Fuji Film (1991 vs 1989). They kind of even still do make digital cameras apparently? No idea how much involvement they have with them, but their branding is at least on them. Even if they had been more successful in digital cameras they would have needed a massive downsizing and shuttering of most of their chemical based jobs in Rochester, NY and other places. I think a transition to pharmaceuticals or other ways to leverage their core chemical manufacturing business would have made more sense, which they kind of tried too by purchasing at least one pharmaceutical company, but not very successful either. I think a lot went wrong at Kodak, but I don’t think leaning even more heavily into digital photography would have saved them, and pushing in that direction certainly wouldn’t have looked too appealing at the time given their massive monopoly and profits in film.

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