Okay, if you don't like the links I post, then what's your perspective on the data Tash posted above? What do you think of my assessment of it? Am I being unreasonable? What do you think about the person who created that table? Are they being impartial? Are they selectively hiding inconvenient evidence in an attempt to convey a specific message? This is the kind of misrepresentation of evidence I object to, the sort of thing that goes viral on social media, because people who are data-illiterate just see the headline 'big number' without considering what it means, and then click 'share'. It's as bad as a bar chart where the y-axis doesn't start at zero, and about as honest.

Alonso maybe, Vettel no. There was a season recently where Vettel's Ferrari was faster than Hamilton's Merc, and Hamilton still beat him.

And I still think Russell is being over-hyped a bit. He came in when Hamilton was unavailable, and he did a better job than Bottas. But 'better than Bottas' is a target that quite a few drivers could beat. We'll see, I suppose. Russell is good, yes, but I don't think he's a challenge to Hamilton yet.

Yes, I agree. Teaching dry formulae and not how they apply to real-world situations is a problem, and is very similar to the point I was making about schools being basically exam-passing factories rather than focused on real learning and understanding. The question I suppose is how they could move away from the current system. I can't see them ever wanting to get rid of league tables, but maybe the schools could be measured in some other way.

Yeah, I know, I understand your general point, I was just being flippant.



I agree in part, but I suppose it would have to be a compromise solution. If you're doing a Science GCSE, for example, in order to do a Chemistry 'A' level, in order to do a Chemistry degree, in order to get a job in a lab, then  you'd need that primer in order to understand more advanced topics later on. But I appreciate this would only be a very small subset of the students, and the others would benefit from more 'real world' skills and knowledge.

Teachers should be paid more. And paying more will attract people who are better able to fit the requirements of the job. But I would say that the thing that needs changing is the nature of the job itself. I don't know what it's like where you are, but in my country 'teaching' is no longer about education, it's about training the kids to pass exams in order to boost the school's position in the league table.

If you put more money into it now, you'll just end up with teachers who are even better at training exam-passing robots. What you need to do first is to change the nature of the job. And that's quite a task. It would be great, but is so difficult to achieve. Even a change of government is unlikely to have any effect, as the 'league table' mentality is so embedded.



Hey! I use trigonometry in the real world!

I'm not sure what your largely meaningless table is intended to convey. I assume the figures are nonsense, but even if they're not, then they don't say much as the number of instances of each treatment isn't included.

You're saying that if you have an adverse reaction to Ivermectin, there's a 10% chance it will end in death. And if you have an adverse reaction to a Covid vaccine, there's a 2% chance it will end in death. But what about the chances of an adverse reaction at all? All this table says is that adverse reactions to the Covid vaccine are much less serious on average than adverse reactions to the other listed treatments. And that's without taking into account that the figures are likely garbage anyway.

Or perhaps it's an anti-vaxxer website trying to be selective with the truth to hide the chances of an adverse reaction... but with a typical failure to understand basic maths, not realising they are undermining their own argument anyway in the deaths per adverse reaction figures. Perhaps next time they should just strip it back to the 'deaths/year' column?

And I have to say, that 'deaths/year' column is about the stupidest thing I've ever seen. So 1m Covid vaccines results in 21k deaths, and it's all delivered in 1 year, so 21k deaths/year... but if you space those 1m vaccines out over 10 years, and still have the same 21k deaths, then you now have 2k deaths/year... so what? It's 10x safer or something? FFS.

I'm sorry, this is just utterly moronic.

Does willful misrepresentation of the data count as misuse? I've shared the notes around the limitations of VAERS data many times. And 'OpenVAERS' is another thing entirely, that's that site run by a lone anti-vaxxer nut-job, isn't it? Another subject that's been covered many, many times.

If you want to understand (but I suspect you don't), then you may find these links useful:
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-critical-thinking-health/dont-fall-vaers-scare-tactic
https://www.logically.ai/articles/double-check-how-does-openvaers-misrepresent-data




Quite.

Apparently no reason has been given for his exemption, which is unsurprising, given the criteria have been stated previously, and it doesn't appear that he fits any of them.


Maybe there's an additional criterion: "or is a major tennis player, or other important figure, and is sufficiently famous that rules just don't apply to them in the same way they do to ordinary people".

I really hope he gets knocked out in the first round.

At some point I think either lab-grown meat, or sufficiently realistic synthetic "meat" will become cheaper to produce than the real thing, and real meat that has come from an actual animal will come to be seen as more of a luxury item. There are other factors that can accelerate this trend, health concerns, climate impact, etc, but price to the consumer will be the fundamental driver. Would you pay $2 for a fake or lab-grown steak that is 99% realistic, or $20 for the actual thing?

I always avoid betting right at the very start of the season. Players have had a few weeks off, and need a bit of time to get back to 100% even if they're not carrying injuries. Some will be a bit fitter than others, and tennis matches often hinge on fine margins.

You may find that the threats and violence come from the anti-vaxxers, rather than those who favour rational thought. I would say that the kind of person to watch out for might be someone who views being asked to wear a mask during a respiratory pandemic as an outrageous imposition on their civil liberties. Certain people are prone to hysteria, and very susceptible to concocted outrage. I would suggest there is also some overlap with those slavering zealots whom Trump so easily weaponised in his abortive coup attempt.


https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02741-x

Yes, the fact that we have 3 active players who have each won 20 slams is absurd. If the others weren't playing in the same era, then it is quite conceivable that Federer and Djokovic would each have won 30 slams. Nadal less so, as he's not quite so brilliant across all surfaces.

I think we have just got used to it, but I don't think there has been a tennis era like it, with such sustained excellence from multiple players. It is coming to an end now, and these three are a tough act to follow.

TBH I can imagine Nadal at the age of 80 standing with a walking stick on the baseline, and still making it through to the second week at Roland Garros. He's an absolute phenomenon on clay. I shared Pam Shriver's slam record earlier. Here's Nadal's. His record at the French is one of the most ridiculous things in tennis. If he's fit he certainly has to be considered one of the favourites for the 2022 French Open.

It's why the GOAT question can't ever really be answered. You can say Federer or Djokovic is the best of all time, but it depends on the surface... on clay, no-one can touch Nadal.

The thing that gets me is that the people who are complaining about having to wear masks and comply with social distancing... are the exact same people who are causing lockdowns and a need for masks and a need for social distancing because their unwillingness to take the vaccine is keeping the virus in circulation. Why complain about something that you yourself are causing? It's crazy. 

Maybe, yeah. The big way that the Maxwell case could relate to the P.Andrew case is if she decides she wants to get her sentence reduced by naming a few names. She can expect a very long sentence, and if she has (as she surely does) a list of names of big public figures, I'm sure she could get that sentence reduced. The two questions I suppose are: a) is she self-serving enough to be willing to sell out all of her friends? I think we know the answer to that one. But the second question, b) if she starts naming names, then she is admitting her own guilt... and is she willing to do that? Or will arrogance and pride prevent it?

My thoughts on Pam Shriver are as per my post above, I think she's reflecting on her own career a bit, and assuming erroneously that anyone who does very well at a young age will then fail to build on it.
Nadal and Federer I think are both nearing the end of their careers, and won't really threaten to win slams again... the only exception being Nadal on clay, where he is still superb.

I don't think Pam Shriver is being objective, there's something else going on, maybe she just dislikes Raducanu, or resents her early success? Or - more likely - she is thinking of her own career, where she reached the US Open final as a 16 year old, and then never ever reached another slam final again (see image below).

To be ranked in the top 20, you need to accrue around 2500 points over the calendar year. Given that Raducanu will be seeded in a lot of tournaments due to her current ranking, this doesn't seem a huge ask. The US Open wasn't a one-off, you don't win these things just by being lucky. Remember this was actually her second ever slam, in her first one, Wimbledon last year, she got through to the last 16 as well, and could quite easily have made the quarters if it wasn't for her medical issue.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam_Shriver#Career

Giuffre wasn't called as a witness by the prosecution in the Maxwell case, so it looks like the intention is to treat the Prince Andrew thing completely separately.
She's due in court this week, so he'll be sweating over that. Andrew's legal team have tried to get the case dismissed on the basis that she doesn't live in the US any more, but the judge rejected the attempt.

My first two were AZ, and third was Pfizer.

I had mild temperature fluctuations overnight from the first dose, nothing from the second as far as I recall. From the Pfizer dose, I just got a slightly sore arm a few hours later, not painful, just a little tender to the touch.

I think they've all been doing this. I remember in 2020 Mercedes stopping development halfway through the season to work on the future car for what were then the new 2021 regulations, before it all got put back a year.
TBH I would be very surprised to see Ferrari leading the pack. Even if they somehow manage to build a car that's as good as a Merc or a Red Bull, Max and Lewis would still be someway down the road, as Ferrari don't have the drivers to challenge.