#soylent | Logs for 2025-05-02
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[00:07:04] <ted-ious> https://www.mirror.co.uk
[00:07:06] <systemd> ^ 03Woman in stitches after finding shrine to Nicolas Cage hidden in her house
[00:23:25] <c0lo> top 5 most contagious illnesses, measles is not among them - https://apollodiagnostics.in
[01:00:45] <halibut> Not that I suspect that the dailymail article is a highly reputable source of scientific information, but I suspect the apollodiagnostics article is either filtered to more common diseases or somehow weighting by active infection numbers.
[01:01:25] <halibut> A quick skim of this paper ( https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ) suggests measles is several orders of magnitude more infectious than influenza or colds (such as rhinoviruses and adenoviruses).
[01:01:27] <systemd> ^ 03The airborne contagiousness of respiratory viruses: A comparative analysis and implications for mitigation
[01:02:24] <halibut> I am specifically looking at Table 2 in the paper, which, as I understand it, gives a value proportional to rate of infectious doses of viruses emitted over time.
[01:03:09] <halibut> I interpret that as being indicative of the likelihood of catching various diseases while standing a fixed distance away from an infectious person for a fixed period of time.
[01:05:07] <halibut> As such, I suspect this does not compare the contagiousness of the diseases via other vectors. For example, I believe influenza can stay infectious on a surface for hours; I am not sure of the lifetime of measles under similar circumstances, but it is possible that measles might not seem so infectious by comparison when looking at the contact-with-common-surfaces route, instead of through-the-air.
[01:06:00] <halibut> Still, for just the through-the-air route, it looks like measles puts the other diseases in the table to shame.
[01:18:07] <halibut> Just for the fun of it, even though I suspect the question was not intended in a serious fashion, I wondered what the answer to, ``how many vaccinated people will get infected'' might be.
[01:19:36] <halibut> Grabbing some really rough numbers, and doing some crude back-of-the-envelope calculations, I find that if the vaccine is 97% effective (taken from the Wikipedia page for measles), and the vaccination rate of people at the airport was somewhere between 90% and 100% (an admittedly large range, but based on the range of the colored maps in the dailymail article),
[01:20:19] <halibut> I find that I might expect anywhere from 20% to 100% of the infected people will have been vaccinated (for 90% and 100% vaccination rates, respectively).
[01:22:21] <halibut> As I expected, I am impressed by how the weighting of the problem and the quotation of a particular statistic makes even a very high rate of vaccination effectiveness (assumed to be 97% in my computation) look like the vaccine does very poorly (note the upper limit of 100% of cases being in vaccinated people).
[01:24:34] <halibut> This is why I am both a strong supporter of statistics and data, but refuse to take quoted values as meaningful until I have a better understanding of the source of the data and had a chance to get a feel for how well the derivation formula represents various other metrics of interest to me.
[01:30:39] <halibut> Reading back over my statements, I realize I should probably replace most of my usages of the word ``infectious'' with ``contagious''. Oops.
[03:58:03] <ted-ious> apollodiagnostics.in looks like an ai slop link farm.
[04:02:28] <ted-ious> halibut: What do you do when the published paper doesn't reflect the actual behavior of a virus in the real world?
[04:02:53] <ted-ious> Or more importantly a vaccine?
[04:27:23] <c0lo> https://www.bbc.com
[04:27:24] <systemd> ^ 03Tesla denies contacting headhunters to replace Elon Musk
[04:27:55] <c0lo> Better than sending headhunters after Musk's head, I guess
[05:06:45] <halibut> If I catch an apparent discrepancy, I try to find other papers to provide more evidence one way or another, and if I find the paper appears to be in the wrong, I make some effort to figure out where they went wrong, so I can detect such issues in the future. I suppose if I found I suspected it was just plain untruthful, I would ignore it entirely from then on, and probably note the journal or article
[05:06:51] <halibut> collection where I found it, but I cannot recall a case where that has happened.
[05:07:16] <halibut> Your question sound like a lead-up to something. Was there more to it than that?
[05:08:36] <ted-ious> I was talking about nurses I have some connection to who all have similar stories of being required to get measels shots and several boosters yet they all fail their antibody tests and have to get boosted again.
[05:09:15] <ted-ious> 2 or 3 of them are no longer accepting shots.
[05:10:18] <ted-ious> After half of a wing's nurses all come down with brain tumors in the space of 2 years and nobody can possibly imagine what the common factor is I can hardly blame them.
[05:10:35] <halibut> Source?
[05:11:06] <halibut> Personal anecdotes for some of it; is that also where you heard about half of the wing's nurses getting tumors?
[05:11:27] <ted-ious> https://www.theguardian.com
[05:11:28] <systemd> ^ 03Five nurses from same unit in Boston hospital diagnosed with brain tumors
[05:12:17] <ted-ious> See if you can find the word vaccine in that article or any others like it.
[05:15:20] <halibut> I agree that sounds concerning, but it sounds like neither side thinks they know of a cause. What does the lack of the word ``vaccine'' have to do with that? I imagine I can find a lot of stories that do not contain that word.
[05:15:39] <halibut> I disagree with your statement of ``half''. The story links to this one: https://www.nbcboston.com
[05:15:40] <systemd> ^ 035 nurses in 1 unit at Newton-Wellesley Hospital diagnosed with brain tumors
[05:16:17] <halibut> That quotes that 11 nurses were found to have health problems, 5 of which had benign growths. Apparently over 300 work at that facility. I do not see a number for how many worked in that one ward.
[05:16:18] <ted-ious> If you know any nurses in the usa you can talk to them and see how many friends they had who have either died or come down with unlikely diseases in the past 3 years.
[05:16:56] <ted-ious> It's probably 10 to 12.
[05:17:10] <halibut> I can try asking around, but being around sick people does seem like the sort of profession that makes you more likely to contract something.
[05:18:24] <ted-ious> How do you contract strokes or deep vein thrombosis or pericarditis?
[05:21:16] <ted-ious> In my experience nurses who don't smoke tend to have amazing immune systems as long as they're not overworked and get enough sleep and good food.
[05:21:20] <halibut> Beats me. I have more of a math/computer background. I would probably ask a doctor or a medical researcher. Pure speculation based on things I have heard, but I think those are all things that might show up as side effects of contagious diseases. The Wikipedia article on COVID-19, for example, lists pericarditis as a common finding among people who died with/from COVID-19.
[05:24:06] <halibut> The same article also lists strokes and thrombosis, although I do not know enough to state if that includes or is separate from deep-vein thrombosis.
[05:24:30] <ted-ious> That sounds like selective editing of that page after the fact.
[05:24:56] <halibut> I am sure COVID-19 is not the only cause of those, and probably not the only contagious disease that might cause those. They are probably not solely caused by contagious diseases, either.
[05:25:13] <halibut> What do you mean by ``after the fact''? I certainly hope they did not make that up before it had been established.
[05:25:16] <ted-ious> Do a google engram search for pericarditis prior to february of 2020 and compare it to 2021.
[05:27:46] <halibut> I need to be away from the keyboard soon, and try to avoid using Google services. Would I be correct in the assumption that ``pericarditis'' showed up in Google searches much less before all the media attention about how COVID-19 was connected to pericarditis? That seems like a pretty natural result of something showing up in the media.
[05:28:02] <ted-ious> I mentioned it to a nurse who then asked a cardiologist who said his practice went from mostly heart disease related cases like heart attack consults and bypasses for obese people and life long smokers to where myocarditis and pericarditis rose continuously until they took over.
[05:28:39] <halibut> I imagine searches for J K Rowling increased a lot after the release of the first Harry Potter books, too. Why is this suspicious?
[05:28:47] <ted-ious> Anybody who tells you that it's normal for lots of people to have either of those conditions is just lying to you.
[05:29:49] <halibut> This conversation seems really disconnected. Who is saying it is normal for a lot of people to have these conditions? The pages I was talking about were bringing them up because the rates were suspiciously high.
[05:29:49] <ted-ious> I'm not surprised that wikipedia is lying and saying that they are linked to covid.
[05:31:39] <ted-ious> The rate of patients presenting with myocarditis and or pericarditis has increased drastically in people who received the shots and not in those who didn't.
[05:33:21] <halibut> OK. I just hit my non sequitur limit. Gotta run. In the meantime, I am pretty sure Wikipedia links to studies linking COVID and pericarditis. Would you provide similar quality evidence to the contrary? I will try to read it when I get back to my computer.
[05:35:45] <ted-ious> Unless I give you names and addresses are you going to trust anything I say?
[05:52:20] <ted-ious> halibut: I don't fault you for wanting to be traditionally rational about this.
[05:53:38] <ted-ious> It's just that after realizing that there are hundreds of billions of dollars at stake I can't be intentionally ignorant of the fact that people will lie and cheat and do much worse to protect their revenues.
[05:55:36] <ted-ious> So when a nurse tells me that everybody she works with who got the shots has some level of a compromised immune system I believe her over some pubmed paper that was certainly influenced by one or more drug companies even if they didn't just buy it directly.
[05:56:18] <ted-ious> The plural of anecdote becomes data if you get enough of them and they all point the same direction.
[05:57:08] <ted-ious> Especially when the data to the contrary is paid for by a company with a billion dollar conflict of interest.
[06:26:25] <halibut> Fair enough. Counterpoint: While I do not know many people who have recently gotten a measles vaccination (which, I think, is where this conversation started), I am pretty certain almost all got a series measles vaccinations as children. I can think of one with a compromised immune system. A few others have asthma, strong allergies, or other disorders that are a result of an overactive immune system.
[06:26:31] <halibut> That would suggest that the various vaccines this group received as children did not strongly compromise their immune systems.
[06:27:37] <halibut> Again, not definitive, but it does suggest that maybe these nurses you are talking about are collectively affected by something else, or maybe a particular bad batch of vaccines, which, given my personal experience, seems much more likely than that all, or even a majority, of measles vaccines cause weakened immune systems.
[06:28:53] <halibut> Counterpoint to the billion dollar conflict of interest: That I have noticed, I have only seen one multi-billion dollar industry involved in health care that has attempted to persuade me one way or another on vaccinations: The health insurance industry.
[06:29:37] <ted-ious> I was talking about complications due to covid shots which are not really vaccines.
[06:29:38] <halibut> I am pretty sure they are required to pay for vaccinations, but I do not think they are required to advocate to people to get those vaccinations, yet they seem to do so.
[06:30:15] <ted-ious> But like I said no nurse I have knowledge of has passed their antibody test and not needed a booster.
[06:30:32] <ted-ious> Which sounds to me like those vaccines are useless.
[06:30:36] <halibut> So, they are asking their ... what is the word, members? ... to get vaccinated, at their expense. I can only think of one rational reason why they would make that choice.
[06:31:26] <ted-ious> The insurance companies have financial relationships with the pharma companies and much of the money comes from employers or governments.
[06:31:48] <halibut> ``sounds to me like those vaccines are useless.'' ... or the antibody test is. I wonder if I can find some studies on that.
[06:32:18] <ted-ious> So they have no financial incentive to leave your vaccination status optional and instead have a financial incentive to acheive as close to 100% compliance as they can get.
[06:32:36] <ted-ious> It's the same thing in doctors offices.
[06:33:31] <ted-ious> If you don't want your child to get 100% of the vaccine schedule the doctors office loses bonus money and may in fact fire you as a patient to keep their numbers up.
[06:33:45] <halibut> I do not think pharma companies care too much about vaccines. They are required to produce them, and, in most cases, sell them at low cost. Pharma companies seem to prefer advertising things like cholesterol medication, heart medication, diabetes medication ... you know, the things people take daily and they can charge a huge amount for. I see advertisements for those, not vaccinations. I suspect
[06:33:51] <halibut> those are their money makers, not vaccines that people might take a few times a year, probably less averaged over their lifetime.
[06:35:16] <ted-ious> The Vaccines market worldwide is projected to reach a revenue of US$69.21bn by 2025.
[06:35:26] <ted-ious> https://www.statista.com
[06:35:28] <systemd> ^ 03Vaccines - Worldwide | Statista Market Forecast
[06:35:50] <ted-ious> I think you underestimate just how much evil there is in the world.
[06:37:56] <ted-ious> halibut: I recommend you start listening to this podcast. https://feed.nashownotes.com
[06:37:58] <systemd> ^ 03No Agenda Show ( https://feeds.noagendaassets.com )
[06:42:35] <halibut> First three links I found that said anything about antibody tests after a COVID-19 vaccine:
[06:42:41] <halibut> https://www.mdanderson.org
[06:42:42] <systemd> ^ 03Can antibody tests tell you if a COVID-19 vaccine worked?
[06:42:47] <halibut> https://www.wcnc.com
[06:42:48] <systemd> ^ 03VERIFY: Fully vaccinated but negative for antibodies; did your shot work?
[06:42:53] <halibut> https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
[06:42:54] <systemd> ^ 03SARS-CoV-2-antibody response in health care workers after vaccination or natural infection in a longitudinal observational study
[06:43:40] <halibut> Two suggest you should not trust an antibody test to see if a vaccination was successful, for a reason that makes sense to me: The antibody test might test for antibodies to a different part of the virus than the vaccine was intended to cause the body to produce.
[06:43:45] <ted-ious> I have only been talking about measels vaccinations not producing long lasting antibodies.
[06:44:12] <halibut> The third was a study where they appeared to be intentionally using an antibody test specifically intended to test the one the vaccination was intended to simulate production of.
[06:44:33] <ted-ious> I don't consider those covid shots to be vaccines for the simple reason that they don't actually produce antibodies for the virus and were never intended to.
[06:49:38] <halibut> Oh, so you were talking about complications due to COVID-19 vaccines, but measles vaccinations not producing long-lasting antibodies? You were not clear on that. As for not considering COVID shot to be vaccines, the NIH articles I listed above suggests otherwise. If you do not trust the US-government-funded NIH, here is a report of one from Oxford. Not cherry-picked; I just picked the first one I
[06:49:44] <halibut> could find that was not NIH: https://www.gov.uk
[06:49:46] <systemd> ^ 03New study finds strong immune response following COVID-19 vaccination
[06:49:52] <halibut> Of course, it could be from search-engine results boosting.
[06:49:52] <c0lo> Whadda heck happened, janrinok?
[06:50:54] <ted-ious> halibut: I read pfizer's own documents.
[06:51:24] <ted-ious> They admit that their shots do not produce immunity nor do they stop contagious spread.
[06:52:57] <halibut> ... and I need to issue a correction: This paper suggests that vaccine revenues, are a small but *not* insigificant fraction of pharmaceuticals, as I thought: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
[06:53:48] <halibut> I still maintain, though, that health insurance companies do not get more money from a person having a vaccine administered than they pay for that vaccine. That seems suspicious.
[06:54:23] <halibut> I guess maybe the suggestion is that pharma companies pay them for it? If that is the case, why would pharma companies not advertise vaccines themselves? Seems like a more costly way to go about things.
[06:54:53] <halibut> (more costly to pay insurance companies than to advertise themselves.)
[06:55:45] <halibut> I recall reading some Pfizer documents about their shots not producing immunity or stopping contagious spread. The point was that they boosted the body's defenses, reduced symptoms and reduced contagious spread.
[06:56:14] <halibut> I have not seen any study or report I thought was reputable that claimed full immunity or the ability to completely stop spread.
[06:56:47] <halibut> Anyways, c0lo has a point. I have spammed this channel enough for the time being. Time for a break. Fun chatting.
[06:58:08] <chromas> oh noes, people chatting in a channel for chatting. whatever will we do?
[06:58:29] <ted-ious> halibut: Pharma companies have agreements with medical providers where they send them kickbacks for very high vaccine acceptance numbers.
[06:58:36] <c0lo> halibut, I wasn't making any point pro or against vaccine discussions.
[06:58:36] <c0lo> I'm just interested in the why-s and how-s of https://soylentnews.org
[06:58:38] <systemd> ^ 03janrinok - Resignation - SoylentNews
[06:59:02] <ted-ious> So it doesn't matter how much the vaccine costs if the person pushing it gets to buy a new house if their numbers stay up.
[07:00:18] <c0lo> In re vaccines, I'm ok with a vaccine that makes me keep my lungs intact for 6mo, were I to get a dose of virus up my nose.
[07:20:38] <halibut> janrinok: It is your decision to make. Count me in the group of people saddened by your announcement. While I have not been very involved in the site, I also found you to be very levelheaded and appreciated all the work and decisions you put into the site. You have my thanks.
[08:19:03] <Ingar> janrinok: I am saddened by your departure
[08:23:53] <janrinok> I am still here for the moment. I haven't left the community.
[08:27:08] <Ingar> *as admin
[08:27:22] <janrinok> :)
[08:27:53] <Ingar> I could volunteer for your position, but people wouldn't like it , because I'm a BOFH
[08:28:10] <janrinok> So am I according to some :)
[08:28:38] <Ingar> yeah but it makes you feel bad
[08:28:50] <c0lo> BOFH would be so in tune w/ our times.
[08:29:35] <Ingar> I summarized my take as "and admin's primary responsibility is towards the system, not towards the end users"
[08:29:41] <Ingar> *an admin
[08:30:27] <Ingar> ACs are guests by the grace of the Owners
[08:31:16] <c0lo> My excuse for not raising my hand: I'm not yet retired, I'm only at the tired stage.
[08:31:43] * Ingar gives c0lo a hug
[13:26:13] <c0lo> https://www.youtube.com
[13:26:15] <systemd> ^ 03I have to stay out of Walmart 🤦🏾♀️😂🤣😂 #comedy #laughs #humorjokes #goodhumor
[15:04:15] <Fnord666> Lol
[15:21:06] <ted-ious> She missed one.
[15:21:10] <ted-ious> https://envs.sh
[15:21:27] <ted-ious> People who live in glass houses. :)
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