In todays news...

[Screwdriver]

What colour sandals are you wearing TODAY?

I'm sure everyone will be interested to know.

[Felix]

What colour sandals are you wearing TODAY?

I'm sure everyone will be interested to know.

You are on the extensive list.

[ZRX61]

If SAR-CoV-2 has been 'weaponised' they have done a piss-poor job of it. Most people survive, many just suffer mild annoying discomfort for a few days. And do you seriously think you could smuggle live bats out of a secure virus lab?

That was the test run to see how easily it spread...The next one will be the 95% fatal version.

[Ant]

Despite the positive spin and obvious euphemisms in that piece, a virus present only in bats since the beginning of time was modified to infect humans.

Point is, the term "gain of function" entered the popular lexicon at the same time as the word "Coronavirus" but in fact both had been knocking around for years before hand*. Gain of function just sounds nice an evil, but it's a dry term invented a decade before it made it into pod casts. Doesn't prove anyone was weaponizing anything.

*Dettol were advertising that their spray cleaner works on Coronaviruses long before SAR-CoV-2

I call it "weaponising" because that is how I choose to describe a process which takes a harmless virus and creates a version of it deadly to humans.

Call it what you like. Fluffy bunny fun cuddles. They still "researched" a dangerous virus exclusive to one species and made it infectious to ours and what's more, they're still doing it...

I like the sound of fluffy bunny fun cuddles

[Taipan]

Lol, I like how she made her point!

[Cousin Jack]

If SAR-CoV-2 has been 'weaponised' they have done a piss-poor job of it. Most people survive, many just suffer mild annoying discomfort for a few days. And do you seriously think you could smuggle live bats out of a secure virus lab?

That was the test run to see how easily it spread...The next one will be the 95% fatal version.

The point about mucking around with a virus is that when you make it more of something you almost invariably change something else as well. Make it spread more and it will probably be less dangerous, and vice versa. And if you do get the holy grail of something that spreads like wildfire and kills lots of people, best make sure you have a vaccine first or it will come back and bite you.

[Screwdriver]

Incredible, but true:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalz ... good-idea/

Mind you, the newly improved deadly coronavirus is only 80% effective. Slackers. I'm sure they'll nail it eventually.

[Noggin]

I don't know how true that is. A PhD student in particle physics or mathematics is going to be "smarter" than most but isn't necessarily going to become a multi-millionaire. I think the "secret" is an obsession with money above all else.

Smart isn't really the same as intelligent tho, is it? Or at least, that's not how I saw it in that context.

[Hoonercat]

It is of course the concept of "ownership" that this Brave New World is forged from.

But "you will own nothing and you will be happy" is the mantra from our new egalitarian masters.

Historically, the world has never been "owned" by a fucking chemist shop or so tightly controlled by news media, also owned by the same global corporate gods.

I literally own everything in my possession. And while I'm not a fan of all-out capitalism, I'd be a liar if I denied that capitalism and my corporate masters hadn't played a huge role in that.

[Pirahna]

What colour sandals are you wearing TODAY?

I'm sure everyone will be interested to know.

At the moment I'm wearing a pair of green plastic Birkenstocks.

[Screwdriver]

I don't know how true that is. A PhD student in particle physics or mathematics is going to be "smarter" than most but isn't necessarily going to become a multi-millionaire. I think the "secret" is an obsession with money above all else.

Smart isn't really the same as intelligent tho, is it? Or at least, that's not how I saw it in that context.

I was responding to "Maybe (most certainly) they <rich people> were just smarter."

Well yes it is, in my response it is anyway. The premise was that richer people are smarter than poor people. While that may generally be true from a statistical viewpoint, I don't believe for one moment it is any sort of predictor.

My guess is you take two bell curves one for richness, one for smartness (including intelligence and other similes) and you will find they overlap significantly. That's how you get a cabbie winning mastermind at one end and Forest Gump at the other.

You can generalise but it does not even rise to a rule of thumb imho.

[gremlin]

All this shit should be in the arguing the toss thread.

This is TODAY'S news.


Sorry if that's too difficult to understand.

This was a fun thread. Stop poisoning it.

Seconded.

Although not trying to be prescriptive, might I suggest the following subjects are kept to the 'Arguing The Toss Thread'?
Trump/Biden
Covid
Capitalism vs. Socialism and/or Rich vs. Poor

Coz it ain't news, that's for sure.

[Screwdriver]

What colour sandals are you wearing TODAY?

I'm sure everyone will be interested to know.

At the moment I'm wearing a pair of green plastic Birkenstocks.

I'm a crocs man myself but anyway I was making an ironic observation regarding Yorick pissing and moaning again while never actually making any worthwhile contribution.**


**He made some ridiculous comment regarding the wearing of sandals in a similar situation while wingeing about the content of other peoples posts. In fairness that could have been recently or years ago. Perception of time is not my strong point.

[Yambo]

I don't know how true that is. A PhD student in particle physics or mathematics is going to be "smarter" than most but isn't necessarily going to become a multi-millionaire. I think the "secret" is an obsession with money above all else.

Smart isn't really the same as intelligent tho, is it? Or at least, that's not how I saw it in that context.

I was responding to "Maybe (most certainly) they <rich people> were just smarter."

Well yes it is, in my response it is anyway. The premise was that richer people are smarter than poor people. While that may generally be true from a statistical viewpoint, I don't believe for one moment it is any sort of predictor.

My guess is you take two bell curves one for richness, one for smartness (including intelligence and other similes) and you will find they overlap significantly. That's how you get a cabbie winning mastermind at one end and Forest Gump at the other.

You can generalise but it does not even rise to a rule of thumb imho.

I seem to remember you telling us not so long ago that you were a Science Officer or some such thing for the MoD or government. You told us that you were highly intelligent. I agree, you clearly are.

You've also told us more recently that you got ripped off by 2 or 3 people when you went into business with them. That wasn't too smart was it.

Right there Screwd mate, is the evidence that intelligent and smart are not the same thing.

I'm not going to go looking for the posts to quote them but I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine them.

[Mr. Dazzle]

He also said he was a mug, so smart enough to know that

[Screwdriver]

I seem to remember you telling us not so long ago that you were a Science Officer or some such thing for the MoD or government. You told us that you were highly intelligent. I agree, you clearly are.

You've also told us more recently that you got ripped off by 2 or 3 people when you went into business with them. That wasn't too smart was it.

Right there Screwd mate, is the evidence that intelligent and smart are not the same thing.

I'm not going to go looking for the posts to quote them but I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine them.

OK. Can't argue with that assessment.

Naturally, I actually can't see it myself but looking at how things panned out, I must accept that is certainly a failing of mine. I always assumed I was too trusting or perhaps too willing to please.

My rather naive approach was to assume a "company" was a group of like minded people willing to work together for a common goal. Instead I learn to my cost that people are cunts and when money is involved there is no morality or fairness. They'll take whatever they can get away with. Shame really because for all of those many projects, if they had just hung on, we would have been years ahead of the game.

I would typically refer to the devious nature of my former business partners as as "streetwise" but if that's what being "smart" means, then I'm not in that club...

[Count Steer]

You are not alone Screwd. My old colleague's brother was a wizard of an engineer. Came up with bright ideas like some clever way of monitoring big (very big) electric motors/alternators so that predictive maintenance could cut the routine and preventative maintenance by many £££s. Designed and made small refrigerated boxes with data-loggers on board for transporting temperature sensitive, high cost drugs etc. To my knowledge he made - and lost - £millions three times.

Great engineer, not a 'business man'. If he could have found (and brought himself to admit that just having a good idea isn't enough) a trustworthy partner with a good business head he'd have been, and remained, a wealthy man.

[Screwdriver]

He also said he was a mug, so smart enough to know that

Yeah, ok. That's not really news though.

With any luck, I will be able to pull something out of the bag but it will have to be something I do alone.

[MyLittleStudPony]

The next time we hear that the Police are under staffed and under funded, we'll have this badly thought out use of Police time to remind us that they obviously have too much time on their hands....

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/golliwog-dol ... MjRtyQj3Q0

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-65471314

That's put the kybosh on that racialism. And rightly so.

[Screwdriver]

There are times when identity politics goes too far: diversity this, inclusivity that, equity, reparations(!)...

This is not one of those times. An eminently sensible decision on the face of it.