This cat, nearly 32 years old, has a shot at being the oldest feline in the world FOX
Flamingos form cliques with like-minded pals (press release) University of Exeter
Snake Discovered That Actually Does Cartwheels, And We Have Pics to Prove It Science Alert (Chuck L).
Elephants may be domesticating themselves Nature
The Active Management Delusion: Respect the Wisdom of the Crowd Enterprising Investor. But not, it seems, for capital investment. Honestly, could sortition be worse?
Could Direct Indexing Lower Your Taxes? Morningstar
Climate
Study: Sea-level rise is double-edged sword for carbon storage Phys.org
Someone is torching trees in Northeast Los Angeles, prompting fear and an investigation Los Angeles Times
Water
Lake Mead water level rises, defies projections KTLA
#COVID19
Real-world effectiveness of primary series and booster doses of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine against Omicron BA.2 variant infection in China: a retrospective cohort study The Journal of Infectious Diseases. From the Abstract: “Inactivated COVID-19 vaccines provided modest protection from infection, very good protection against pneumonia, and excellent protection against severe/critical COVID-19.” I kinda work on the theory that Covid spikes are bad, and for a minority, spike factories can be really bad. So I would very much like to see a study comparing and contrasting mRNA vs. inactivated virus technology for Covid (which I assume would have to be a natural experiment (or a challenge). If there is such a study, I didn’t get the memo. Readers?
Toward a Universal Definition of Post–COVID-19 Condition—How Do We Proceed? JAMA:
“[T]here must be one agreed universal definition of this condition; with one title that can be adopted by all studies in the future. We would suggest such a definition to be “signs and symptoms following initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, that persist for more than one month (in mild cases), and more than three months (in cases severe enough to warrant oxygen support), which have a disproportionately severe effect on a patient’s quality of life, far beyond what is expected from their initial infection.” The difference between this definition and existing ones from NICE, the CDC, and WHO is that it takes into account disease severity from initial COVID infection, therefore acknowledging that PCC is different than recovery from a straightforward pneumonia, which if severe enough, can also take a prolonged period for patients to fully recover. Our suggested definition also acknolwedges that PCC can be present even in those whose persistent symptoms can be explained, since the explanation may involve a long-term consequence of acute infection. … While some organizations, including the WHO and JAMA Network journals, prefer the term post–COVID-19 condition, we prefer the term long COVID, since this was the term originally developed by patients, not clinicians, to raise concerns about the impact of their symptoms on their well-being.
As You Grieve, Your Brain Redraws Its Neural Map Psychology Today
China?
The warm embrace and the cold shoulder: China mines Europe’s fractures during joint visit Politico. Much hilarious detail.
Exclusive: China plans $500 million subsea internet cable to rival US-backed project Reuters (PP).
China’s Historic Preservation Challenges JSTOR Daily
Florida’s ban of Chinese drones leaves local fire, police scrambling to rebuild fleets Local10
How a fight between 2 Indonesian youths sparked scrutiny into the wealth of civil servants Channel News Asia
India
What to know about the XBB.1.16 COVID variant causing concern in India ABC
European Disunion
Protesters storm BlackRock’s Paris office holding red flares and firing smoke bombs CNN
French strikes and popular mobilizations continue, contesting not only retirement rollback, but also police brutality and authoritarian politics The International Marcist-Humanist
Strikes in Germany disrupt flights and trains, ‘paralyzing’ Europe’s biggest economy CNN
Farmers’ Revolt New Left Review. The Netherlands.
Dear Old Blighty
Schools in England brace for more strikes as NEU rejects pay offer Guardian
Junior doctors in England: share your views on the BMA strike Guardian
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine readies spring offensive expected to be largest mobilization since war with Russia began FOX. The deck: “Ukraine’s spring offensive is expected to be at least twice the size of its fall mobilization.” “Twice the size.” Like a boxer who can’t make w]eight?
Minsk deal was used to buy time – Ukraine’s Poroshenko RT. But what if the truth is even more Byzantine:
The question here is: does he say they did Minsk duplicitously because it’s true, or does he lie about that to avoid France and Germany being held responsible for not forcing Ukraine to comply with Minsk, like they theoretically had to (but didn’t)?
I think it’s the latter. https://t.co/cOuhrDeZiI
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) April 7, 2023
Finland Gives NATO a King in the North Foreign Policy
Russia Is Winning in Georgia Francis Fukuyama and Nino Evgenidze, Foreign Affairs. The deck: “America Needs to Get Tough on Tbilisi.” Francis Fukuyama? Dear Lord. Also, to the Blob Copy Desk: I believe the term of art is “git tough.” No thanks necessary!
A Singular Reality, or Not MR Online
State actor involvement in Nord Stream pipeline attacks is ‘main scenario’, says Swedish investigator Reuters. Must be small state; they used a small yacht.
Cisco Moscow trashed offices as it quit Putin’s putrid pariah state The Register. The deck: “Even destroyed spare parts, then may have rubbed salt into the wound by filing for tax write-offs.” Classy!
Biden Administration
A Valuable Early-warning System for Disease Outbreaks Could Be Shut Down Scientific American. “The Biden administration’s proposed 2024 budget does not include any mention of the CDC’s wastewater surveillance system, and public health funding bills have repeatedly stalled in Congress.” The feeds are going out all over America. We shall not see their data again in our life-time. (Actually, I am more optimistic than that. But holy moley!)
READ: Pentagon’s Afghanistan withdrawal report to Congress The Hill
Biden admin releases new Title IX regulations on transgender issues in schools FOX. I would have to parse this carefully…..
The Supremes
Clarence Thomas Secretly Accepted Luxury Trips From GOP Donor ProPublica. Musical interlude.
Los Angeles Times reported about Justice Thomas’ gifts 20 years ago. After that he stopped disclosing them LA Times (Furzy Mouse).
B-a-a-a-d Banks
A month after liquidity shock, how’s banks’ lending business looking? Marketplace
How SVB-Like Risks Confounded Tokyo’s $5 Trillion Man Forbes
The Bezzle
Tesla Employees Reportedly Passed Around Images Of Crashes, Road Rage And Owners’ Kids Taken By Car Cameras Forbes. Best headline, though TechMeme’s rubric is even better: “Tesla staff privately shared video’s from customers’ car cameras from 2019 to 2022 in one-on-one chats, including of a car hitting a child riding a bike.” This is the culture the pushing AI on us….
Tech
ChatGPT Opens Door to Four-Day Week, Says Nobel Prize Winner Bloomberg. For five days pay?
Artificial intelligence: ChatGPT statements can influence users’ moral judgements (press release) NewsWise. Don’t tell marketing! Oh, wait…
Among all of his mistakes, don’t forget Elon Musk is singlehandedly crushing a big chunk of Internet research for no good reason Nieman Labs. The deck: “Access to Twitter’s API has been mostly free to researchers for more than a decade. So how does $210,000 a month sound?”
Apocalyptic AI The Convivial Society
Meta releases AI model that can identify items within images Reuters
Samsung’s AI photo feature adds creepy teeth to baby photos Boing Boing
Supply Chain
Samsung to cut memory chip output to tackle global glut as profits tumble FT
Zeitgeist Watch
Nashville killer Audrey Hale slept with journals on school shootings under bed, court docs reveal FOX. Key points as I keep saying, unaddressed, even by FOX: “[T]he Covenant School, where the killer was once a student,” and the manifesto, “yet to be released.” One might wonder if there was some triggering event at the school. One might also wonder why the “manifesto”
is still under wrapsMR SUBLIMINAL Being doctored at the FBI‘s publication has been so long deferred.What does it mean to be a boy online in 2023? FT
‘Objectivity’ Obliterates Empathy and Curiosity FAIR. Can’t we have all three? Or is this a trilemma?
“There’s Gold in Them Thar Fungi”: Cordyceps as Cash Crop JSTOR Daily. What could go wrong?
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
