This is MAGA's one, big, beautiful healthcare plan.
— JB Pritzker (@jbpritzker.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Someone at the CDC is living the most important slogan of the moment ("fuck you, make me")
— Joseph Fink (@planetoffinks.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 12:07 AM
The CDC updated its warning about the risk of contracting measles while traveling on Wednesday this week, after dozens of cases in travelers who were infectious while flying within the US, and recommends NOT FLYING if your measles vaccinations are not up to date. 1/ www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-mea…
— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 10:44 AM
===
CDC tells Americans to CANCEL their flights after finding world's most infectious disease (RFK Jr’s measles) is spreading on planes
www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-mea…— nullifie (@nullifie.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Baud
Also, too, vaccinations are now illegal.
trollhattan
I can see how this plan is really coming together.
Suzanne
A reminder: MAHA is about eugenics, and the primary goal is killing disabled, fat, and sick people.
Hilbertsubspace
RFK Jr.: I don’t think anyone should take medical advice from me.
CDC: I heard that!
Baud
Better than adding the US, I guess.
bbleh
HHS Sec. Kennedy Announces Closure Of CDC
And Transfer Of Entire Staff To El Salvador
Action Taken In Support Of Budgetary Goals
“We expect substantial reduction in personnel costs
as headcount, um, decreases,” says spokesperson.
Chetan Murthy
Two months ago I mentioned to my doc that I was worried about infectious diseases that might be prevalent in countries without modern standards of medicine like ….. the USA. He chuckled and we reviewed my vaccination history (from 2015-ish, since my childhood records were lost decades ago). The only one that jumped-out was MMR, and he agreed readily to give me the shot. I also got my 6mos covid booster.
I know others have gotten their “measles immunity titer” instead, and that works too. He initially offered that, but when I asked if it was any cheaper than the booster, and whether there were any downsides to the booster, he switched to the booster. I know that young people in the US got modern MMR shots and such. Us olds should be pushing our docs to find out if our immunity is adequate for these times ….
NotMax
A MAHA primer.
See spots.
See spots spread.
Spread, spots, spread.
//
bbleh
@Suzanne: yes, and other undesirables as well, eg certain persons with suboptimal melanin concentrations or language skills, or inappropriate or poorly-aligned belie systems.
JoyceH
If someone actually got measles in the pre-vaccine days, they don’t need a vaccine, is that right? (Asking for, well, me.) Same question for mumps and chickenpox.
lollipopguild
Well, as a certain repthug said recently, we are all going to die anyway.
trollhattan
@JoyceH: Know I had both measles–very memorable–but clueless about the other two and mom’s not available to consult. I did get the first version of the shingles jab (the most fucking painful injection I have ever experienced in a lifetime of them) on account of shingles being so horrid it didn’t matter if I’d had chicken pox or not.
Now reading the shingles jab seems to be effective against other maladies. Bonus!
JoyceH
@trollhattan: I don’t have to ask anyone – I remember it well! My sister and I jointly got measles, mumps and chickenpox all in second grade. That was a spotty year!
Geminid
@Baud: Virginia’s two reported measles cases were contracted by international travelers. The first one was reported April 27 and apparently resulted in no other infections.
The second one was more recent, a teenager returning from international travel. The state depsrtment of health has listed 5 times and venues for potential exposure: Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport Tueday, May 20th and a sporting good store and Goodwill center that same afternoon; a primary care clinic on Thursday, May 22nd and the U.Va. Medical Center’s emergency room from 12am to 5am on Friday, May 23.
I think I read that infections generally occur 2 to 4 weeks after exposure, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed on this one.
Baud
@Geminid:
I’m looking forward to work from home getting a second chance to become the norm.
eclare
@trollhattan:
Your Dr can do blood work to determine whether or not you had chicken pox. Mine did, answer was no, and now I’m vaxxed against chicken pox.
trollhattan
German Chancellor Merz will soon learn the worst part of his job as he travels to DC next week to meet with Trump.
Hope his shots are up to date.
Geminid
@Baud: MAHA: Make Americans Homebound Again.
H.E.Wolf
@JoyceH:
Per the Mayo Clinic, which is a reputable source:
“If you’ve had measles, you can’t get measles again.”
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/measles/symptoms-causes/syc-20374857
JoyceH
@H.E.Wolf: I just googled and same for mumps and chickenpox, so I’m good.
Nukular Biskits
Good afternoon, y’all. Taking a break from yard work. Beautiful day down here today!
Mentioned this before but, according to Momma, I had the chickenpox when I was about 6 months old and still carry a couple of scars, one at the corner of my eye. I also had the mumps, twice.
I guess I need to get the shingles vax, but I just haven’t got around to it.
JoyceH
@Nukular Biskits: Get around to it! I’ve never had shingles myself but it’s nasty!
Another Scott
@JoyceH: I remember once transferring to a new school district in a different state as a kid and them asking for my (lost) shot records. I had had a few of the things they wanted proof of vaccination for. They said – not good enough. Have to have the vaccination record to enroll.
Which is understandable.
So, I got the shots.
You probably won’t encounter that situation! ;-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
trollhattan
@Another Scott:
Of all things I had to have a new smallpox vaccination to go to college. Lots of international students and I guess it made sense given this was before it was considered eradicated.
CDC has not yet erased their smallpox web page. save for posterity https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/about/history.html
eclare
@JoyceH:
Shingles put my aunt in the hospital.
Suzanne
Open thread, so….. a new wrinkle in the Case of the Sex Tape of Glenn, Who I Do Not Support: there’s rumor — don’t know how founded this is — that Mossad released his sex tape? Anyone else seeing this?
Jackie
@Nukular Biskits:
GET IT before our MAHA Sec bans it as voodoo medicine!
Baud
@Suzanne:
Why would Glenn send his sex tape to Mossad?
Ahasuerus
@Nukular Biskits:
I had shingles 40 years ago when I was young and healthy. You do *NOT* want it. Get the d*mn vaccine.
cain
@Suzanne:
So the sugar fast food eugenics complex is off the ground.
Get folks hooked on high sugar, high carb, and high sodium diets and then let them fall prey to diseases and then let them die.
Cool.
suzanne
@cain: Obesity is strongly correlated to economic class, as well as race. And it’s more heavily socially policed in women. Hatred of fat people is another facet of all the other ways we hate each other.
cain
@Jackie: careful, we might end up with Kennedy approving voodoo medicine in lieu of vaccines.
trollhattan
@Baud: In hopes they’d use it as psychological warfare against Hezbollah, thereby leading to dates with hawt closeted gay terrorists?
Glem, International Man of
MysteryMisery. Who absolutely hates attention.Nukular Biskits
@JoyceH:
I apparently had a case probably about 30 years ago but didn’t realize it at the time.
About a month or so after the rash healed, I happened to be at doctor’s office and described it. She looked at me as if I were daft and said, “You had shingles.”
Fortunately, for me, it was what would be considered a mild outbreak, with a 1-inch rash running along a nerve pathway from the center of my abdomen to my right side. I couldn’t stand for anything to touch it but the worst of it only lasted a couple of days.
Again, I was lucky, based on what I’ve heard.
anastasio beaverhausen
If you had chickenpox earlier in life you almost certainly still harbor latent virus, which can recur as shingles. About the time I retired we were noticing younger patients (think 40s and 50s) who were otherwise healthy but getting very serious attacks of herpes zoster ophthalmicus. Get vaccinated!
Baud
@suzanne:
That’s why I try to hate everyone equally. It’s less divisive.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Oh yeah, this affair is being blamed on “the Zionists” who want to suppress Greenwald’s “support” for the Palestinian cause. It’s a hot topic in some social media circles. But Greenwald is just one of many “anti-Zionist” public figures and plenty have a wider audience.
What I don’t get is that, from my understanding, Greenwald produced and acted in several pornographic films after he moved to Brazil. My source on this– the “Centrist Fan Account guy– might have been bullshitting but if he wasn’t, that makes this current controversy even stranger.
CaseyL
@suzanne: White peoples’ diets in places like Alabama and Mississippi are very nearly as bad, if not as bad, as what their poorer, darker neighbors eat. In fact, the black folks’ diets might be slightly healthier, traditional black Southern diets having, I think, more greens and fewer refined white carbs.
Major Major Major Major
Camille’s 6 month measles vax can’t come soon enough… then we can finally go places and do things without constant fear of death
Colorado’s vax rates are… bad
MagdaInBlack
Couple weeks ago a friend messaged about some blisters near her eye, and sent me a picture. I asked if she had had the shingles shot, she said no, I said you better get thee to your Dr.
She did, it was shingles, doc said we caught it soon enough the vaccine should catch it. Fortunately it did, and friend had only about a week of pain and itching, it did not spread and now is over.
caringandsensitive
@Nukular Biskits: I had chicken pox as a kid. Probably around 1950. Got shingles two years ago. It was most unpleasant. Get. The. Shot.
Major Major Major Major
@Geminid: I don’t believe he did, but basically everything I have learned about Glenn has been against my will so I might not be the best source here.
And, good lord, of course people are blaming (((Mossad))). Everything is the Jews’ fault with these people
Ohio Mom
@Nukular Biskits: My advice is to schedule the shingles vax for a Friday so if it hits you hard, you can loll around in bed for the next day or two, as needed. I didn’t feel bad after the first one but the second, whoa!
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: I could research this question, but I probably won’t because it seems like Greenwald is not that significant a figure anymore. This matter impresses me as a tempest in a very small teapot.
Baud
@Geminid:
Must watch porn…for
scienceInternet cred!Sister Golden Bear
@bbleh: And anyone who’s not cis-het <stares in cancelling final research on an HIV vaccine>
Suzanne
@CaseyL:
Absolutely. Obesity rates in West Virginia are higher than in Alabama and Mississippi, also.
But there’s a higher rate of wealthy white people in the U.S., so the average rate of obesity is lower.
Suzanne
@Major Major Major Major: I am, like….. whaaaaaat?! Where TF did this accusation come from?!
dnfree
@JoyceH: I remember mumps because I gave it to my dad and he got really sick. I remember feeling fear and guilt.
Baud
@Suzanne:
They want to finish the job they were hoping COVID would do.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
I’m old enough to have had all 3. Measles, mumps and chickenpox. Everyone I knew in school got them as well. The smallpox vaccine came out when I was young and I got that. Had tonsillitis as well.
Good times.
It’s shame that a very unreasonable percentage of humans, at least in this country, wants to live in the 12th century rather than this one. And I think their version of history of the last 200 years is everyone else deserves to live in poverty and death while they live as top of the heap. Which they actually do but their heap is not made of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but a dense, smelly animal exhaust product.
Percysowner
I’m and old. I had measles, rubella and chickenpox. Never had mumps that I know of, but science says that if I haven’t had it by now, I’m not going to get it. Plus my kids and grandkids are as vaccinated as they can be. Youngest grandchild is turning 3 in August. He’s not due for his second shot until he’s four, but I’m going to suggest my kids ask if he can get the booster early. I’m afraid because he isn’t fully vaccinated AND because I can’t be sure when he turns 4 there will BE a booster. What a World!
Suzanne
@Baud: I am convinced that much of the anti-vax movement is a false flag, attempting to make people afraid so that they get sick and die.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I know some adults really are true victims of misinformation, but there are too many of them for me to feel too much sympathy when the leopards give them measles.
One way or another, people need to learn to start listening to what we have to say and taking it seriously.
Percysowner
@Baud:
But, but how DARE we ask them to listen?! We are being condescending and elitist and forcing, I say FORCING, them to become more right wing and vote for MAGA because we don’t respect them!
The media keeps making people like this sound as if they should be listened to. Makes me NUTS!
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I’ve heard this from a few sources over the years. Could be correct, could be full on BS. Repetition of BS is quite common. Especially if it is delivered as a don’t tell anyone but comment.
eclare
@Major Major Major Major:
The waiting must be agonizing!
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Do you reckon the Party of Life® recalls/knows the consequences of rubella (German measles) on pregnant women and their fetuses?
I should think they would have pregnancy roundups and forced MMR jabs, but consistency isn’t part of their brand.
cain
@trollhattan:
Well, that would be a fault of the mother to even get measles so she will need to be tried in court, 100% convicted, and then sent to El Salvador.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Nope. It’s just pure stupidity and ignorance walking.
OK there might be some concept of hate for other humans within the concept…….. I mean, come on it’s humanity. How can some humans be better than everyone else if they don’t force everyone else down on their knees? I mean how many times in history is this the story? It underlies a lot of history, someone always has to be on top and everyone else eats the leftovers they just walked on.
Nukular Biskits
@Ohio Mom: Is that a single shot or a double?
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Consistency is the least of their worries.
Blatant stupidity is a human trait. Why do you think we had/have mandatory schooling? At least to get most of us off all fours?
Look at their dear leader. Look at their not wanting vaccinations. Look at …….. Now tell me they actually think about ANYTHING.
Rusty
@Chetan Murthy: I went the titer route with my doctor (strong on all three, yeah!), but going either way is a good idea for those of us of a certain age. My oldest daughter is expecting our first grandchild and I’m worried about the shifting advice on things like the COVID booster. Thankfully we had good pediatric care for the kids growing up so they are all fully vaccinated.
Ruckus
@caringandsensitive:
I’ve had all the common easily spreadable illnesses other than smallpox because the vaccines came out after I was born or where so new that they were not readily available. But as they became readily available I got them all. If I remember correctly most I got at school, other than polio, the entire famdamnly stood in line to get that one. And I’ve personally known 2 people that got polio, both my age. One I went to school with for 12 years and she walked into our 50th HS reunion without crutches. The other is a neighbor who lives in a wheelchair and one leg is about 5-6 inches shorter, with basically zero muscle. I did get more vaccine shots in the USN, they seemed to never trust anyone’s medical records.
Scout211
Two doses.
There are measures you can take to reduce the side effects. After a bad 36 hours after the first one, I dosed myself with Tylenol every 6 hours and lots of water for the second one and had only mild side effects for that one.
Everyone reacts differently. Some have a bad reaction to the first one and some to the second one. And some people (like my husband) have no reaction to either one.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I know I’ve been vaccinated for measles but have no records. I was vaccinated as a child – born in 1969 and everyone got vaccinated back then because vaccines were new and considered miraculous advances in medicine that had just eradicated polio and several other diseases.
Then, when I was in college circa 1989 one of my friends got measles while home for Christmas break. There were outbreaks at several colleges around that time – I think because we all got a one shot regimen as kids and it wasn’t quite enough. So the public health department of the town I went to college in had a vaccination drive and I got another shot then but no records. That town recently entered the national conversation as the place where “they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs” – Springfield, OH.
So I HAVE considered getting another booster but am probably OK.
Kayla Rudbek
@Nukular Biskits: and I think that the shingles vaccine may prevent dementia (National Health Service in Wales data if I recall correctly)
Kayla Rudbek
@Baud: if I was in biological warfare, I would hit the mega churches and the Baptist churches first.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I was vaccinated against measles in 1963, just one shot, then when I was in my teens my pediatrician said we need to give you another because we are finding people with the single shot are still vulnerable to measles in some cases. I plan to have my titers done anyway as I might not be able to just get the VA to give me a booster just in case… And I do not want to give anything to my grandbabies
Kayla Rudbek
@trollhattan: it’s Gawd’s will if the kid is born disabled
Baud
Scout211
No, it doesn’t prevent dementia. There is an association with a 20% lower risk of developing dementia.
And it was studied in older adults who got the older version.
. . .
Raven
@eclare: I got it in my eye when I was finishing my dissertation, it can be stress related but I could stop so I just sucked it up. It was like an ice cream headache for weeks! Get the shot!
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I’d like to hear a lot more about Walz and a lot less about Sanders.
Another Scott
[rant!] I want that last hour back.
So, I got J a MacBook Air recently and started setting it up today. Other than the first bootup and macos update progress bar seemingly stopping, or going to 25% then back to 2% then up to 75% and the screen going black and generally acting like something was wrong, it took about half an hour but worked fine.
Then I started to install MS Mac Office 2024. I opened the package, and only see some paperwork and a credit-card sized piece of paper with the code on the back. Follow the instructions to go to some MS site, login to the stupid MS account, no I don’t want Office 365. Fight with disappearing scroll bars.
Ok, I successfully activate MS Office 2024. No, I still don’t want Office 365. I see there’s a link to Install what I’ve paid for, I click it, and I get a popup listing the requirements, and inviting me to get Office 365. No, I still don’t want Office 365.
Where’s the install button? Where’s the installer??
Google around. As usual, most of the responses on MS’s sites are just cut and paste of the instructions with no actual help.
“Start an Office app and enter your key.” Great, where’s an Office app?? [ In other words, that doesn’t help on a Mac either.]
Mess around, mess around, mess around some more, no progress.
Decide to try Safari instead of Chrome.
What’s this?! There’s an Install button now??!
And it actually works to download the Installer??
Grr…
I hate computers sometimes…
[/rant!]
Best wishes,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@JoyceH: I’ve never had it, but I’ve heard stories from people who did. I’ve -read- about people who committed suicide from the pain, had sensory nerve ganglia surgically removed from the pain, all sorts of shit.
I got Shingrix as soon as I could after the pandemic — right after the window following my second shot. B/c fuuuuuck, *shingles* maaan.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Can’t keep people from making news with their statements.
Walz is fairly popular on reddit.
Baud
Baud
Tinpothole dictator
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Any hope for a TACO on this one?
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Don’t see how. Need someone on the other side to chicken out to.
glc
@Another Scott: LibreOffice works fine, without headaches.
(Not OpenOffice though; that became obsolete at least a decade ago.)
JoyceH
@Baud:
I’m retired military and I want this stupid parade to be a humiliating flop. Sorry, Army, march well but I hope nobody’s watching.
Baud
@JoyceH:
I shan’t be watching.
VFX Lurker
@Baud: I donated to that young man’s GoFundMe. I hope he finds prosperity and safety in California.
Baud
@VFX Lurker:
You’re a good person.
catclub
instead, shingles.
Geminid
Aircraft from the USS Harry S. Truman have begun arriving at Oceana Air Base, and the Truman should be sailing past the Virginia Capes tonight. The Navy plans a homecoming ceremony tomorrow at Norfolk Naval Base.
The Truman left Norfolk September 27 of last year, so those sailors have been deployed for 8 months, 7 days.
Sister Golden Bear
@Baud: Yes, the bathrooms bills are really about is preventing trans people from being able to use any public restroom, as a way of driving us out of public existence.
As a bonus, if the cops are feeling nasty, it’s also a way to hit trans people with trumped-up sex crime charges.
Josie
@Rusty: I hope you are up to date with your DPT booster. When my first grandchild was born, my daughter-in-law asked that everyone get that booster, since diphtheria was so dangerous for babies. Evidently the booster is good for ten years, so we will need another pretty soon. Josie will turn 10 in August. How time flies.
Another Scott
@Percysowner: Relatedly, …
Dean Baker at CEPR – Republicans Can Lie About the Economy Under Trump, but Democrats Couldn’t Get Away with Telling the Truth Under Biden.
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Josie: Nobody should want tetanus. Nobody should ever roll the dice on tetanus.
Baud
@Another Scott:
We didn’t even try to get away with it because enough of us didn’t want to.
JoyceH
@Baud: will the pope’s counter-programming mass be streaming? If so I’ll watch it and I’m not Catholic. I love Leo, all he has to do is repeat what Jesus said and MAGA flips out about woke.
eclare
@JoyceH:
Pope Leo is supposed to give a speech that day to the White Sox stadium via video. I hope that is available to stream.
Eta> GMTA. Not Catholic either, but I’d like to hear the speech.
Baud
@eclare:
Oh wow. I didn’t know that.
How do you say “LOL Rockies” in Latin?
eclare
Holy shit. Joni Ernst somehow made it worse:
https://bsky.app/profile/joshtpm.bsky.social/post/3lqio2ihj5s27
trollhattan
@JoyceH: Only reason to watch a parade is anticipating surprises, and surprises are the last thing I want from our military.
Would love a live counter tallying each “What the fuck are we doing here?” conversation among the servicepeople involved. Six figures.
Percysowner
@Josie:
A couple of years ago my daughter’s cat bit me. I went to the ER, because cat bites can be nasty. The first thing they did was update my Tdap, so I’m good for another 7 years. With the grandkids, I kept up on boosters, just to keep everybody safe.
Baud
@eclare:
SheGetsUs.com
I’m going to assume that’s an AI video.
UncleEbeneezer
@Suzanne: Of course he has to try to blame Israel/Zionists…so completely predictable and pathetic.
Sure Lurkalot
@Major Major Major Major:
No kidding. Our libertarian “it’s a personal choice” governor certainly doesn’t help matters.
zhena gogolia
@eclare: Wow.
Another Scott
@glc: LO is very good, and I use it on other machines.
It can have trouble with PowerPoint stuff though, because PowerPoint is such a mess anyway (even moving from MS Winders to MS Mac).
J wants Office, so that’s what she got. ;-)
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
It’s an open thread, and I just had a brain-fart. I’m a child of the Western Enlightenment. When I think about fleeing to some ohter country, it is -invariably- a Western European country, b/c that’s where I’d feel -intellectually- most comfortable, -culturally- most comfortable. Even if I don’t (yet) speak the language (like in DE/IT/ES/PT). Along with that comes an almost instinctive comfort with the intellectual heritage of Christianity. I mean, I’m a -rabid- atheist, to the point of thinking that people who believe in some Great Sky Father were dropped on their heads as infants a few too many times. But even still, the intellectual heritage of Christianity is part of the backdrop of all my thinking.
Sooo ….. I have an -instinctive- appreciation for Matthew 25:40 (“Whatever you did for the littlest of these”). I remember when we read Kant’s _Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals_ in freshman Moral Philosophy, and his direct citation of these sorts of things from Christianity, as arguments for his Categorical Imperative.
And so ….. when these MAGAts and other creatures pretend to their Christianity, it enrages me. I’ve been trying to find a word that describes what these people are trying to do — a word that captures thei attempt to make themselves look moral, when they are anything but. A word like “sane-washing”, only for morality/decency. And I think I’ve found one:
“Christ-washing”
It captures both our belief in the basic moral tenets of Christianity (e.g. as Kant did in FMM) and our belief that these MAGAt scum are anything but Christian.
Gin & Tonic
@Geminid: Didn’t they drop a couple of airplanes into the water?
Gretchen
@Rusty: Check your DPT status before grand baby is born. You want to be up to date on whooping cough vaccine.
NaijaGal
@eclare: Wow! She is quite gifted at putting her foot in her mouth.
For those who are still interested in the topic of LLMs – “AI hallucinations are a feature of LLM design, not a bug.” Link to a Nature letter for those who subscribe. Essentially, hallucination is a way for LLMs to be “creative” and while there are ways to constrain the degree of hallucination, you can’t completely eliminate it.
sab
@Percysowner: I had obvious mumps. My brother and sister did not, but they later tested as having had it.
Baud
@NaijaGal:
Makes sense. AI doesn’t really “know” when it’s supposed to provide information and when it’s supposed to write a poem.
Chetan Murthy
@sab: Last time we had a discussion of chicken pox, I learned that the same can be true of chicken pox (asymptomatic infection). So everybody needs to get Shingrix.
CaseyL
@Chetan Murthy:
I came up with “Potemkin religion,” and am quite pleased with it.
Another Scott
@eclare: Wow, insincere, lying, smarmy, Bible thumping on top of it.
But, hey, she gets to be in the news some more for free, so it’s all good??
Popehat isn’t impressed. I assume lots of normies will have a similar reaction.
Republicans are monsters, and they have no qualms about demonstrating it any more.
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Baud: Even if (as I do) one believes that AI can be useful in domains where checking its answers is low-cost, it’s -clear- that it’s useless in domains where checking its answers is costly. Like, say, any domain where it’s replacing human workers in producing human language content. Nobody is gonna invent a “unit-testing framework” to check that ChatGPT’s summarization of some collection of articles is accurate. Can’t be done.
Baud
@Chetan Murthy:
Yeah, I think they’re trying to get people to accept a certain failure rate and just live with it.
Kind of like we accept there’s a certain risk to flying.
JoyceH
@eclare: Is that for REAL?
Chetan Murthy
@Baud: I get you and agree with your characterization. I’m a computer scientist, but am old enough that my BS is in Electrical Engineering. I remember talking with Professional Engineers about their profession, and the liability they faced for fucking up. None of which we face. I remember I used to say that the difference between hardware and software is that if you fuck up the hardware, a billion dollars in returned chips will show up at your loading dock. If you fuck up the software, you issue a fixpack and your -customers- spend a billion dollars installing it.
As you explicitly have stated numerous times, there’s no way we should accept this state of affairs, and we certainly shouldn’t allow it to leak into more and more domains of human endeavour.
Chetan Murthy
@JoyceH: “Who you gonna believe, -me- or your lyin’ -ears-?”
What a Christ-washing shithead.
oldgold
Today , Joni Ernst made an apology.
Unbelievably, it was as bad or worse than the original gaffe.
“Hello, everyone. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall. See I was in the process of answering a question that had been asked by an audience member, when a woman who was extremely distraught, screamed out from the back corner of the auditorium, people are going to die. And I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth. So I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”
This is not a spoof. Above is precisely what she said.
Dan B
@sab: My brother and I had obvious Mumps, Measles, and Chicken Pox. Not sure about Rubella. The Chicken Pox I kept wailing, “I itch, I itch, I itch!”
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
I’ve been an Apple fan boy for a long time. First computer – was bought for running numerical control machines, which came out before any kind of communication port on either end. We had used a teletype machine that created 8 bit paper tapes. The Apple II and a tape punch machine was a hell of a lot easier and worked better. BTW that’s not an Apple IIe, it was before that. We upgraded to a IIe later and that worked a lot better. Then came RS232 and I ran a cable and NO MORE PAPER TAPE. YEA!!!!! We used to have to buy 1 inch paper tape by the box, not the roll. Had to teach dad how to use all this stuff. As the company grew and time passed we upgraded a few times as computers (and the numerical control machines) actually got better and better as time passed we were able to do things that a lot of shops couldn’t really do. The last machine I bought back in the 90s cost $255,000. And worked unattended 24 hrs a day. Manufacturing has changed very significantly in the last 50 years. Among many other things. Such as medicine, and electronics – your phone, the computer you are commenting here on.
Gloria DryGarden
@NotMax: that is, um, spot on.
i think the younger people here had more interesting early readers. I still remember dick and spot and jane. See spot. See spot run. See dick. See spot run with dick. Jane watch dick…
there is nothing like it in preschool today.
Rusty
@Gretchen:
@Josie: Thank you both for this suggestion. I didn’t know this, both my wife and I will get the booster.
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: that’s me. But I don’t agree with their agenda. Even though they’re trying.
Kayla Rudbek
@Scout211: this was what I remember reading, thanks! And a mere two shots to reduce dementia risk by 20% is a good thing…
lowtechcyclist
@JoyceH:
Seconded! I HAVE had shingles, and when it did whatever it did with the trigeminal nerve in the left side of my face, that was the single most painful thing I’ve experienced in my life. You REALLY don’t want shingles.
Since then, I’ve had the two Shingrix shots, and in each case, I was feeling under the weather for a day – kinda like what we used to erroneously call the 24-hour flu. But that was a hell of a lot easier to deal with than motherfucking shingles. You really don’t want shingles.
Chetan Murthy
There’s a thing that I just don’t understand. IIUC, vaccines can cause the body to -react- the way that it does to infection. But there isn’t any infection there. So sure, your immune system revs up and you suffer a bit. But there’s none of the organ damage, tissue damage, etc, that a real infection would produce.
So what I don’t understand, is why people think of the two as the same. B/c they’re not. A bad flu can harm you in all sorts of ways. A bad reaction to the flu shot? Not gonna harm you.
lowtechcyclist
@Nukular Biskits:
It’s a double shot (but not like this, sadly)
(Now I gotta go back and see if NotMax got there first)
Glory b
@CaseyL: I’ve read that the healthiest diet of a couple generations ago was that of black people. Lots of fish (where available) , dark green leafy vegetables, beans, rice, little meat and then it was used primarily as a flavoring.
Because of discrimination and lack of funds, they seldom went out to eat (even if they could afford to) and have more recently developed fast food habits.
eclare
@Glory b:
I’m not Black, but I grew up in the south, and we had greens several times a week: mustard, turnip, kale. Also we were lower middle class, beef was a rarity, and when we did have it, it was in meatloaf.
Chetan Murthy
@Glory b: I’ve read the same is true of Mexican food in Mexican homes in Mexico. Lots less meat. Ditto French food in French homes in France.
Kayla Rudbek
@Chetan Murthy:
@eclare:
@Glory b: fish/meatless every Friday (1500+ years of Catholic tradition) plus other fasting (no-meat) days for Advent and Lent (although the Eastern Orthodox Church goes a bit too far in my arrogant opinion in terms of not allowing dairy/eggs during the fasts from what I understand, but I suppose that Eastern Europe and Russia had a lot harsher climate and they may not have had the dairy and/or eggs in November-December and February-April)
lowtechcyclist
@Chetan Murthy:
Two fundamentally different things can still feel like one another. And that’s all I was saying: that the way one felt reminded me of what the other had felt like.
Whatever ‘the other’ had actually been: remember I mentioned “what we used to erroneously call the 24-hour flu.” I used the word ‘erroneously’ because IT WASN’T THE FLU, regardless of common usage at the time. (Back then, people also used to refer to rubella as the German measles or the three-day measles. And rubella and the measles are caused by two different viruses, says the Mayo Clinic.) So I’m not sure why you’re bringing actual influenza into the discussion. I thought I was being quite clear that I wasn’t talking about that at all.
Chetan Murthy
@lowtechcyclist: sorry sorry, I didn’t mean to argue against anything you wrote, or to attack what you wrote. Your post just made me think of the perennial complaint that so many people had, that the covid shot knocked them over for two days, etc, as if that was a reason to not get it. Again, I apologise for sounding like I was attacking your post; it was the furthest thing from my mind, and I should have written my comment differently in order to not give that impression.
But you see what I mean, right? Too much of antivaxxer discourse implies that the visible symptoms of an infection (fever, sniffles, etc) are the actual symptoms of the infection, instead of being the -reaction- of the body to the infection. And the actual infection effects being the death of cells, organ damage, etc.
Gin & Tonic
@Kayla Rudbek: The only really strict fast days are Good Friday and Christmas Eve. No meat, dairy or eggs. Good Friday is more solemn, Christmas Eve is a celebratory meal, but subject to those fasting requirements: 12 courses, the exact composition of each varies by region, village, family, but meatless and dairy-less.
Queen of Lurkers
@JoyceH: I am hoping for severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings for June 14.
JoyceH
@oldgold: Man, it was so offensive! Because it started out sounding like she was genuinely apologizing, but wait, it’s just snark. And then to switch to evangelizing! I could almost hear Jesus saying, “girl, get my name out of your mouth!”
Liminal Owl
@JoyceH: I got chickenpox in second grade and mumps in third. (Or possibly the other way around.) Rubella vax in, I think, fourth.
barbequebob
I think we would all be better off if Brainworm Bobby was replaced by Dr. Nick Riviera.
oldgold
@JoyceH: Did you notice that it was filmed in a cemetery.
Ruckus
@Gloria DryGarden:
Well of course you couldn’t expose children to the actual truth or reality, I mean what would you expect if you did that?
prostratedragon
@oldgold:
It certainly is.
Bill Arnold
@JoyceH:
Measles immunity is pretty durable; my titer level was high normal from a shot(s?) many decades ago.
There is another concern though; measles infection can and often does cause “immune amnesia”, changing immune system long-term memory to be mostly for measles, so any shot-or-infection generated immunity (for other diseases) you had prior to that measles infection may have been lost.
Kayla Rudbek
@Gin & Tonic: okay, that sounds like a much more doable fast (although I seem to remember that part of the popularity of sunflowers is that the oil being plant-based is okay to use during the Lenten fast, but that applies for Catholic or Orthodox). And the Sicilian tradition was the seven fishes on Christmas Eve (I should check and see how much trade there was between Constantinople and Sicily)
SteverinoCT
I had chicken pox so long ago that our family doctor, Dr. Grimes, made a house call to treat me. (And was a woman, mid-1960s). A couple years ago I wanted the shingles shot; insurance turned it down. Wait a year until I was 60. Three months later… luckily a mild case. I went to boot camp in 1981 and got a double armful of vaccines.
Citizen Alan
@eclare: Exhibit #1283548 for why I refuse to recognize Republicans as humans. Pure, unfiltered evil.
Princess
@NaijaGal: Ernst wasn’t putting her foot in her mouth. She was deliberately mocking the questioner who is distressed that Medicare cuts will kill people — and mocking the rests of us who care at the same time. She was owning the Libs.
Miss Bianca
@Chetan Murthy:
Um. Yes, it can. A really bad reaction to a flu shot can actually put you in the hospital, if not actually kill you. Ask me how I know!
TONYG
@Suzanne: Yes. And there’s a long history of that “philosophy” that pre-dates RFK Junior’s lunacy. For about a half-century, the self-proclaimed “wellness guru” Gary Null has been promoting the idea that when people get sick from any disease, it is their own fault for not following his particular dietary and lifestyle edicts. He blamed the victims of covid for their imperfect lifstyles, of course, and a generation earlier he promoted the idea that AIDS was caused by improper lifestyle, not be HIV. A toxic lunatic with a lot of followers.
TONYG
@Princess: Yes. And it should noted that Ernst has been representing the “good people” of Iowa in various offices for more than twenty years. She has been a successful politician in that state because the majority of people in Iowa agree with and support her savage, cruel ideology. She represents her people.
TONYG
@TONYG: A lot of people are assholes no matter where they live but, as a guy who has never lived in the Real America of rural areas, I think that rural assholes are a special type of assholes. In an urban area a person is forced to live with and deal with a diverse group of people, and that proximity tends to temper their instinctive tribalism. In a place like Iowa (or Kansas, or some other dumb-ass rural state) there is not that influence of diversity, so people’s hatefulness can reach its full potential. Just my opinion.