I'm not sure we can say that yet. We don't have any real idea of which car is best. The Red Bull looks interesting, but the Ferrari does, too. At the moment all we can do is speculate, the testing doesn't reveal much other than whether the cars have reliability issues. I think we're all desperately trying to look for evidence of which cars are good and which are not, but with the new regs and no real racing done yet, it's just impossible to tell. We expect Merc and Red Bull to be amongst the best teams, but that's not a certainty.

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We've had a few images of some of the cars... but here they are all together.



https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/formula1/60499667

I think Man Utd were very lucky to come away with a draw from that game. They were second-best by a long way. On this evidence (and also the evidence of United's poor performance in general this season), Atletico should be clear favourites to go through to the next round. And also domestically, I don't think there's much chance that United will finish in the top four.

Vaccine protection wanes over time, and also the vaccines were designed to combat the initial strain. Nevertheless the vaccines do offer a considerable protective effect against later variants, but a booster is generally required for optimal protection. I've shared the data on all this a few times.



Not really. The vaccines have been through the standard three-phase medical trials. Any new vaccines would go through the same trials. But given that the existing vaccines offer protection, there is not currently a need for anything new.

I don't think this is controversial. I'm very pro-vaccine, but I understand his statement. The thing is, Omicron isn't the full history of Covid-19.
If the virus had started off as Omicron, generally mild symptoms, very low death rate, then there probably wouldn't have been lockdowns, masks, social distancing etc.
But this isn't the full history. The original strain of Covid-19 had a high death rate, and a high chance of severe symptoms.
Whilst previous infection always confers good immunity, the problem is that you only get that immunity by contracting the virus. So if the virus is dangerous, as original Covid-19 was, then the vaccine is a better bet.
Now, with Omicron, the vaccine is still probably a better bet, because the risk of severe symptoms from the vaccine is still lower than the (reduced) risk of severe symptoms from Omicron... but it's certainly less clear-cut than with the original strain.

Omicron may be better than the vaccine at providing immunity, but the vaccine is still safer. Either way, it's good news. If the anti-vaxx people contract Omicron, fatalities will be lower than with the original strain, and population immunity will increase.

I think it's almost inevitable that Medvedev will become number 1 very soon. Djokovic is 440pts ahead, and is defending 500. And, as you say, it's highly likely that he is going to miss quite a few tournaments due to his vaccination status. But it's so close anyway that even one missed tournament now could put Medvedev ahead of him. I can't really see any way that Djokovic remains number 1, there is close to zero chance of him getting vaccinated.

Any article that uses a term such as "stealth variant" has been written by an idiot, or else by someone who wants to draw an emotional response. It's moronic. Probably best to find a different source of information.




A virus, like anything, evolves from generation to generation through evolution due to random mutation and natural selection. This is well understood.




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Yep. But try explaining this by sharing something like the chart below, and you'll get responses like "well, old-style vaccines worked, but nowadays they're full of microchips and bits of ground-up 5G mast".


https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox

Yeah, the Red Bull does look good. I think the Ferrari looks good too, but I don't know how much of that is just because Ferraris always look good.




It has surprised me a bit just how different they are. Of course different teams were going to test the new regs in different ways... but I still expected a lot more similarity than what we're seeing.

One other thing to note - that camouflage livery on the Alfa Romeo isn't working too well, I can definitely still see the car.

I don't think we'll be able to tell a huge amount from these tests, they are notorious for the amount of sand-bagging that goes on.
One thing that does come out of it though is evidence of a lack of reliability - if your car keeps breaking, you can't really hide that. But so far today there is no evidence that any car is particularly unreliable.

Nice to finally see the Red Bull, looks like they've made some unique design decisions, obviously yet to see if good or bad.

Germany stopped the approval process for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline yesterday. I'm not sure how dramatic this is, as the pipeline is of course still there and presumably can be approved at a later date... but it's a statement at least, and shows that Germany won't just back down. They were in an invidious position, with pressure coming from both sides, and a lack of action still being effectively a decision, so it's no huge surprise that Germany has sided with the West on this... at least in the short-term.

The recent posts in this thread are interesting. A lot of people are saying how great Chelsea are, and how Juventus are not likely to win... but Chelsea and Juventus were both in the same qualifying group, which Juventus won. I know a lot of this is down to recent form etc., but I do think Juventus will win their game. Sometimes a European match can provide welcome relief from domestic struggles.

But if I'm wrong, and Juventus lose, then please forget you read this post!

I'd favour Juventus, too. Both teams are performing below expectations, but I'd say that expectations for Juventus are higher... so if we expect Juventus to play at '10' and they are only playing at '8', we think they are poor. But maybe for Villareal the expectation is only '8', so under-performing means '6'... in which case if we think both teams are under-performing, there's a good chance that Juventus are actually playing somewhat better than Villareal.
I hope that makes sense, not sure I've explained what I mean very well!

Yes, this is it. The topic could be retitled "Do you think people lie?", to which the answer is "People lie sometimes. Some people lie more often than others."

I would think that doctors lie far less than people in other occupations, certainly in countries where healthcare is free. Our default state is to tell the truth, in order to lie you need an incentive to do so. This can be as small as not wanting to have an awkward conversation, it could be to hide an indiscretion or bad decision, but it could also be in order to gain something, which could be enhanced reputation, or could be money. In our society, money is a powerful incentive... so professions where lying is more common are likely to be those where lying can lead to profit, so things like sales and advertising.

As Ultegra134 said, this is not correct. Mutations always occur in any living thing, it's a result of copying errors during cell replication. Mutations can help the organism to survive, or hinder it, or neither. If a mutation helps the organism, then this causes the mutation to survive and pass to future generations - this is the 'natural selection' element of evolution.
Vaccines can't stop mutation, nor are they intended to. But vaccines do reduce the amount of mutation in the sense that they reduce the amount of virus in circulation, and so they reduce the amount of cell replication in total.


Vaccinated people aren't scared of the unvaxxed. The antipathy stems more from the unvaxxed appearing to have a very low level of empathy, because they are willing to spread the virus and infect others. I've compared it to drink-driving before, and I think the comparison is valid.

Great players can sometimes make that difference, and Kane and Son are definitely great players. It all depends on the day, but if you want to unpick a team as good as City, often merely having good players is not sufficient, you need great players to come up with that match-changing contribution.

Yeah, this is true. I wonder how much that will be affected by the spending limits though, and in-season development is always a bit restricted anyway. If there are huge and fundamental differences between teams, it may not be until next season when we see the cars becoming more similar.

The fact that they are so different might restrict copying in the short term, because these items are all part of a whole. What I mean is that if say Ferrari has done something with the nose that gives them an advantage, then other teams might not be able to copy because this advantage only works when you also have a Ferrari-shaped air intake.

Multi-bets just exploit a common judgement error, I'm not keen on them. Basically you can string together several plausible scenarios, and have people thinking "yes, this is likely, and this is likely, definitely worth a bet"... but the more bets you join together, the more plausible combinations there are. Something like "PSG to win 3-1 and Messi to score first" seems quite likely, but is actually much more unlikely than either of the two taken separately. I'm sure there are opportunities there as everywhere else, but you need to make a logical evaluation of the actual chances first.

I'm quite surprised actually at the differences across all the teams, they all seem to be trying something a bit different to each other. And of course we don't really know much about the underfloor arrangement yet either, which will be crucial this season... but I suspect there will be some big differences between teams there, too.

Can't wait for 2022 to get going now.

Should be a straightforward Liverpool win, but of course we never know for sure.

I don't think it's just the teams threatened with relegation that do this though, most teams in the league, if they play Liverpool or Man City, will play extremely defensively. It's a problem that all big teams face, how to break down the opposition who have 10 or 11 players behind the ball. But they are used to breaking these teams down, week in week out.

What do you mean by 'withheld', do you have some examples? There have been over 10 billion doses administered over the last year and a bit. It's not like we don't have any data here.


Okay, so you believe that every individual is entitled to do whatever they like, regardless of the effect on other people, because to say someone can't do something - anything - is an outrageous restriction of their rights. So if someone wants to build a load of tanks and invade a neighbouring country, that's fine, because if you want to stop them, you're infringing their rights? I'd say they shouldn't be allowed to do it... but not all people see this the same way. It takes a wise mind for such understanding.


Fine. Vaccination protects the population, as does mask-wearing, social distancing, etc. If you refuse to be vaccinated, but go out in public, you are increasing the chance that you will contract the virus, pass it on to other people, and potentially kill them. If you refuse vaccination, you are prolonging the pandemic. You are infringing on the rights of your victims to live.

If you've had the vaccine, you are less likely to contract the virus, less likely to transmit it if you do contract it, and less likely to have severe symptoms. Protection is certainly not 100%, as you rightly point out, but it's significant and abundantly clear from the data.
The example from @coolcoinz needs to be considered in its context...



That doesn't say anything, though. The chart below is from your second link. Total cases now are vastly higher than they were in October. The difference looks to be roughly x10. So if we have x10 cases now, but only x2 deaths, then we might speculate that perhaps compulsory vaccination is having a beneficial effect.