If you provide service to everybody, then you provide service to unsavory types. That doesn't mean you cater to them. The alternative is 'cancel culture' which many people reject on principle because all it will do is tear the country in two.
> Epik is known for providing services to websites with far-right content, such as the social network Gab, video hosting service BitChute, conspiracy theory website InfoWars, and neo-Nazi message board website The Daily Stormer.[1][6][28] It was described in 2019 by Vice as "a safehaven for the extreme right" and in 2021 by The Seattle Times as "a home for far-right websites" because of its willingness to host far-right websites that have been denied service by other Internet service providers.[1][29][30] In 2021, The Daily Telegraph wrote that Epik was "a safe harbour for websites said to be enabling the spread far-right extremism and carrying Neo-Nazi content";[25] the same year, Fortune called the company the "right wing’s best friend online".[9] NPR reported in February 2021 that "when websites flooded with hate speech or harmful disinformation become too radioactive for the Internet, the sites often turn to [Epik] for a lifeline."[13]
Well said. Deep corruption everywhere and it is spreading. I think empires in decline are unavoidably this way.
I think this Ivermectin debate has nothing to do with Ivermectin, but about big pharma attempting to usurp power via several government agencies who also want power as they are now being put in charge of things they were never designed for and are not well constituted to handle (things your doctor should be in charge of).
I think this Afghanistan withdrawal was intentionally botched in order to try to get American support for going back in, by sick-minded money-hungry monsters.
You have to listen to many people and then figure out who you trust and on what topics. The most trustworthy and intelligent voices are podcasters. But each has their failings and none should be held up on a pedestal. I trust Glenn Greenwald, but not on topics regarding Socialism. I trust Bret Weinstein, but I don't trust his judgement of other people (he seems far too forgiving and trusting of others) [I took the vaccine and don't take Ivermectin]. Those are just examples.
Very good they are thinking about addressing this, but they are still labouring under a few bits of their own misinformation.
Claiming it is a central part of someone's identity, and article of faith, and that they can't be argued out of it, is dead wrong. It is the result of misinformation being spread by the news media, refusal to retract incorrect articles, clear bias and manipulation. If that behavior stopped, over a long period of time trust would be regained.
They are correct that it isn't just the US, it is all across the Anglosphere. Just today:
1. In NZ at newshub an article claimed not that the evidence supporting use of Ivermectin in cases of COVID-19 wasn't compelling but that there "is no evidence that supports the use of [Ivermectin] in the treatment of COVID-19." I know that's a lie because I have a folder of scores of research papers on this topic.
2. Fake news about a Hospital in Oklahoma backed up by Ivermectin overdose patients. Not retracted. Amplified by Rachel Maddow.
3. Same newshub (and other outlets) posted about a backlash against David Seymour. That's true, but they took an ideological position against David Seymour. They could have taken an inverse ideological position arguing that David was fighting against institutional racism on behalf of underrepresented people in need that happen to not be Maori... or better yet remained neutral. My stomach turns every time I see this government use race as the determining factor in who gets special treatment, instead of "poverty" or "low vaccine uptake" or any other property... I don't argue this point for myself (I'm highly privileged) but for countless underprivileged of other races like Indonesian or Malaysian or Palestinean who need help but get turned away because they aren't Maori.
That's just today. This shit has been going on for years now.
At this point, most people will never again trust the media for the rest of their lives.
Many of us don't want banks or shopping sites on our phones.
AndOTP authenticator works great for me. I also wrote one that I use on an offline computer (TOTP is rfc6238) in case my phone dies or is unavailable for some reason.
My only gripe with my current usage of GrapheneOS is that sometimes when the notification bell goes off and I open the phone, the SMS was sent many minutes ago (up to an hour or so). I'm only presuming it's due to a lack of google services or something about GrapheneOS; but it might be the network operator.
There are other non-ingredient things that matter: limiting sun exposure, cleaning the oil/dirt, and using something to maintain hydration (glycerin, aqueous cream, ... petroleum jelly in extreme cases).
Years ago I wrote a rust program (pre 1.0) that linked to a python library that a co-worker wrote. We got deadlocks. Turns out we also were linking the system OpenSSL which internally uses python to deal with ca-certificates and the GIL was the culprit. So that's a why.
While not disagreeing with that, I think we can continue to eliminate. During level-4, the R value is clearly lower than 1.0 meaning the infection shrinks. And the infection is small since we locked down immediately when a community case was first found. Six weeks will probably do it... so long as we don't have (a) new cases coming in through the border, or (b) infected people flaunting the lockdown rules and spreading it faster than we can contain it. Indeed, if it blows out past a couple thousand or so, we will need to pivot.
> During level-4, the R value is clearly lower than 1.0 meaning the infection shrinks
Delta is a different beast.
Here in Australia, Victoria managed to get the Reff rate down to ~0.75 during their OG outbreak last year with a strict lockdown. Delta has an R0 that is multiples higher than the OG strain so the same lockdown would not get it below 1. You can look at Victoria's current outbreak for evidence of this.
Now that doesn't mean NZ can't beat it. A part from Auckland, the population density is very low and as long as compliance is high you might be able to just about get it back down again; especially if you manage to keep it out of large households and essential workers.
I just wouldn't base my expectations on what worked last year as Delta is quite a different game.
>You can look at Victoria's current outbreak for evidence of this.
Also worth noting that peoples' behaviour is very different this time round compared to a year ago. A lot more people are flouting the rules or at least coming up with creative ways to see their friends while technically not breaking the law. After 200+ days, everybody's just sick of it.
The framing of New Zealand's approach as "working great" is also very highly opinionated. My NZ colleagues are all starting to get sick of this approach, and even the ones that fully support it are realizing that having no international travel and a couple of 6 week nationwide lockdowns every year is not a viable long-term solution.
If you look at how far NZ has gotten in regards to overcoming the virus, it's clearly very far behind most of the world. It's done a good job so far of reducing the harm caused directly by infection, but in many ways it's just tried to lock itself into a time bubble in early 2020. The world is starting to move on, and NZ has put itself in a rather bad position of having to try and catch up. The longer it sticks with this approach, the harder it's going to be.
I agree, elimination still looks a good strategy, it's too early to give it up yet. If we can punch out the current outbreak (I'd put money on it, but not too much) and get back to zero then that will re-legitimise lockdown as a strategy for a bit longer.
We've got a few "open 'er up and let it rip" friends and I just don't get it. There are so many potential game changers when you are an island. If a reliable saliva-based test appeared that produced results in say 2 hours we could reduce MIQ and use waiting booths at the airport. Even if it was only 99% accurate we could pool groups of 20 into rooms together while waiting for results. So many possibilities if we continue to think critically instead of politically.
A quick word on test attributes and why we still don't have a more rapid test than PCR.
Tests for disease rely on two numbers:
1. "sensitivity" - the proportion of people with COVID who get a positive test
2. "specificity" - the proportion of people without COVID who get a negative test.
COVID, despite the media attention, is a rare disease compared to the number of people tested. Say we have 10,000 people tested for COVID at the airport. We have 99% sensitivity and 99% specificity. And we know 100 people have COVID (1% prevalence) in this group. Our test would find 99/100 of the positive cases. But it would also find an additional 99 false positives! It also misses one true positive case. Which would be disasterous for the quarantine measures in place in Australia and NZ. In short, even a gold standard rapid test is not enough, although at 99% specificity and sensitivity it would be somewhat useful.
This is a lot less intuitive than it looks. The companies pushing rapid antigen tests at the start of the pandemic would have know better, but they chose to lie to the public about this.
Whenever I hear that China is the biggest polluter, I think that all they need to do is divide themselves into twelve countries, then none of them would be the biggest polluters anymore.
Per capita stats are kind of misleading though because China is still an impoverished nation in many parts that can't emit much but still have a massive population. If you just focused on the per capita of the cities (actual developed areas) vs per capita of cities in the US, Europe etc, the story would flip on its head and revert back to it simply being the biggest polluter.
I hope that's mostly just an American tribal thing. I'm pro-vaccine, pro-ivermectin, pro-masks and pro-lockdowns. This is a serious disease and we need to use all the tools at our disposal. Being anti-ivermectin is like being anti-aspirin or anti-vitamin-C. Maybe you're emitting some kind of political virtue signal, but it's almost (but not quite) as dumb as being anti-vax. We don't have RCTs on vitamin C vs COVID-19 but most practitioners use it anyways.
> Being anti-ivermectin is like being anti-aspirin or anti-vitamin-C. Maybe you're emitting some kind of political virtue signal, but it's almost (but not quite) as dumb as being anti-vax. We don't have RCTs on vitamin C vs COVID-19 but most practitioners use it anyways.
I too am pro-vaccine, pro-ivermectin, pro-masks and pro-lockdowns.
Am also pro-socialdistancing, pro-vitamins, and risk mgmt around patients based on their age and risk factors
HCQ, Ivermectin, Fapavir, or IV antivirals like Remdesivir - support all of their use for stopping the scourge, as prescribed by doctors.
