BC SOCIETY
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

1. This thread has been given a new lease of life today. People keep saying, "We can't do #ZeroCovid, it doesn't fit with our way of life."

Look around.

What way of life?

The one we used to have?

The UK has been under varying degrees of restriction since March 23rd 2020.

 2. Nearly a year of having our social and economic freedoms curtailed in one way or another. Nearly a year of muted economic activity. Nearly a year of mass death and disease.

#ZeroCovid doesn't fit with a way of life that doesn't exist anymore.
3. The question isn't whether it fits with our old freewheeling ways, but whether it would lead to better outcomes than the UK's current (poorly defined) strategy? Experiences in New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, China, Taiwan and elsewhere very much suggest it would.
4. #ZeroCovid isn't about what's possible. It's about what's necessary. Decide what's necessary and figure out a way to make it possible. We can't force travellers to quarantine in hotels for two weeks? Why not? Taiwan does. And if that's what's necessary, why aren't we doing it?
5. I've heard some odd things said about #ZeroCovid

Simple-minded clod Matt Hancock said Zero Covid is impossible because no country has had zero cases.

Zero Covid sets out an ambition. It signals a country treats any infections as serious incidents.

https://t.co/oNLctulkhM
6. It gears public health institutions towards a target of zero, instead of 60,000 or whatever the UK government now considers acceptable. It recognises that aiming for zero gives every public health intervention its best chance of success. From social distancing to masks.
7. From test, trace, isolate and support to hospital treatment, everything works better if cases are as close to zero as possible.
8. Another argument I've heard from a few people is that it would take two years for Britain to become self-sufficient and that we couldn't close our borders to imports without severe disruption to food supply. Another misconception. #ZeroCovid countries have maintained trade.
9. Border closures applied to people, and even those were only temporary until infection control procedures could be established. China, Taiwan and South Korea all maintain international links, subject to strict infection control.
10. Independent SAGE recently published a useful document on improving safety measures in schools, calling for masks, ventilation, smaller teaching groups etc.

Unless the UK gets cases down significantly, I'm not sure these measures will be sufficient.

https://t.co/ncrJHwnwMg
11. The new variant and the more relaxed lockdown will make it very difficult to bring R below 1. How can schools be opened at full capacity against a backdrop of 50K to 60K infections, 3,000 to 4,000 hospital admissions, and 1,000+ deaths per day?
12. Some say the British people don't have the stomach for the measures taken in New Zealand, Vietnam, Australia and elsewhere. Do we have the stomach for what's happening now? Are we going to have the stomach for a nation conversation about death?

https://t.co/ixesiJTLeA
13. The government doesn't really have a strategy beyond straddling some awful middle way between the economy and health. It's giving the UK the worst possible outcomes; mass disease and death, and a crippled economy.

https://t.co/xhv4gU0k59
14. Scientists are calling for stricter measures. The public are desperate for an end to this.

https://t.co/lncKeYzYNe
15. The PM was not able to categorically commit to children being back in schools before the summer holidays, because even the eternal optimist understands this is a gamble. There are many uncertainties in the government's current approach.

https://t.co/kdHGRGfEky
16. The plan to vaccinate the vulnerable and then open up comes with some serious risks and @dgurdasani1 does a great job of explaining them.

https://t.co/yYQUbiNqZj
17. If it goes wrong, we might find ourselves living with restrictions for another year or more. Pursuing a target of eradication using non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccines gives both the best chance of success.
18. We know what works. We can see other countries enjoying success.

Why isn't there greater public outcry for the government to stop gambling on moonshots and longshots, and for it to deliver simple, effective measures that have worked elsewhere?

https://t.co/pK0Vtt8m00
19. How long do we accept suboptimal and risky policies?@AliNouriPhD @SafaMote @yaneerbaryam @devisridhar @dgurdasani1
20. Adding this pan-European call for more effective measures to contain #COVID19

h/t @ViolaPriesemann

https://t.co/WEmuj49Yor
21. And the John Snow Memorandum which called for countries to learn from those that had implemented effective measures to reduce transmission. https://t.co/DHwB2qP81J
22. And @endCOVID19 which offers information and resources for those interested in eliminating #COVID19 https://t.co/3R7GJpQKKA

More from Adam Hamdy

Adam Hamdy
Adam Hamdy
@adamhamdy
1. Last NYE was a quiet one for @AmyMcLellan2 & I, after a busy year writing and helping @DavidHHeadley and @LizzieCurle organise @CapitalCrime1

Someone I follow on Twitter shared this story, and we jokingly said we hoped it wouldn’t be another SARS.

2. A few days later, after watching social media footage coming out of Wuhan, I went for a meeting to plan Capital Crime 2021, and said it was likely we’d have to cancel the festival because of the emerging pandemic. My partners in crime looked at me as though I was unhinged.

3. As the situation worsened, I reconnected with people I knew from my previous life working as a consultant to the medical industry, and it became clear we were witnessing the start of a pandemic.

4. Knowing something about the history of pandemics, I was aware that early intervention, and quick and decisive action were essential. I was asked to write a report for Matt Hancock on the risks of reinfection and long-term ill health caused by coronaviruses.

5. Knowing the public health and economic costs of a pandemic, I joined people like @DrEricDing trying to raise the alarm in February, calling for decisive government action. In the report sent to Hancock, I recommended a 4-week precautionary border closure and lockdown...
HEALTH
Adam Hamdy
Adam Hamdy
@adamhamdy
1. I find it remarkable that some medics and scientists aren’t raising their voices to make children as safe as possible. The comment about children being less infectious than adults is unsupported by evidence.


2. @c_drosten has talked about this extensively and @dgurdasani1 and @DrZoeHyde have repeatedly pointed out flaws in the studies which have purported to show this. Now for the other assertion: children are very rarely ill with COVID19.

3. Children seem to suffer less with acute illness, but we have no idea of the long-term impact of infection. We do know #LongCovid affects some children. @LongCovidKids now speaks for 1,500 children struggling with a wide range of long-term symptoms.

4. 1,500 children whose parents found a small campaign group. How many more are out there? We don’t know. ONS data suggests there might be many, but the issue hasn’t been studied sufficiently well or long enough for a definitive answer.

5. Some people have talked about #COVID19 being this generation’s Polio. According to US CDC, Polio resulted in inapparent infection in more than 99% of people. Severe disease occurred in a tiny fraction of those infected. Source:
SCIENCE
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Adam Hamdy
Adam Hamdy
@adamhamdy
1. I believe the government is about to make another huge mistake. Where is @UKLabour in all this? I have some questions @Keir_Starmer should be asking urgently. Please RT to raise awareness.


2. Where is the modelling or evidence to support a focused protection vaccination strategy? The government has chosen it as its preferred strategy but it must have considered other options. Will the government publish the data and the alternative options considered?

3. A responsible government will have modelling for 20%, 50% and 80% vaccine coverage, and projections for the number of infections, Long Covid and deaths in each scenario. Where are those models? On what basis has the government opted for the 20% scenario?

4. The government should also have modelled each of these scenarios against a backdrop of low, medium and high community transmission. What is the impact of each vaccination scenario against varying levels of community transmission?

5. There should also be some assessment of incidence of reinfection and likely evolution of variants given different levels of community transmission. What does this assessment tell us?
GOVERNMENT
Adam Hamdy
Adam Hamdy
@adamhamdy
1. The problem facing Europe & the US isn't a scientific one. Scientists have been clear for months: public health and economic & social wellbeing are best served by policies that supress the virus. The #JohnSnowMemo cites evidence that makes this

2. Some media commentators seek to present the issue of how to respond to the virus in simplistic terms: Lockdown vs Herd Immunity. This a mischaracterisation. The countries that have tackled #COVID-19 best have used a range of public health


3. Almost every scientist acknowledges lockdown equals failure. It is a sign governments have failed to implement the measures needed to allow life to be lived more or less as normal, without risking exponential growth in transmission.

4. There is an active misinformation campaign that is being aided and abetted by certain sections of the media and some politicians. The campaign would have us believe that if we open up and shield the vulnerable, all will be well. This approach has been derided as inhumane...

5. ...by the WHO, and ridiculous by Dr Fauci for many reasons. It is based on faulty logic, and the proponents of this approach have submitted no evidence that it can be achieved nor any practical examples of how they would do so.
SOCIETY
Adam Hamdy
Adam Hamdy
@adamhamdy
1. THE PLAN

We see countries like China & New Zealand succeed by implementing border controls and wonder why our government didn’t do the same. Unfortunately, it’s been following the 2011 influenza pandemic plan, which says...


2. China & New Zealand have international travel (limited in the case of New Zealand) and freight, and rather than delay their peaks, their border controls have helped keep cases to a minimum. Border controls might not work in a flu pandemic, but they worked for #COVID19.

3. Countries that have done well against #COVID19 have high adherence to mask wearing. The pandemic plan tells us the British people won’t bother wearing masks over time so let’s no bother asking them to, eh.


4. Mass super spreading events have been shown to play a significant role in the transmission of #COVID19.

But the pandemic plan tells us they don’t play a role (perhaps the source of Jenny Harries’ comments about Cheltenham?) and therefore the government will not restrict them


5. I call this the white flag clause. Surrender was built into the assumptions behind our pandemic response. The success of other countries has proved this clause completely wrong.
TRAVEL

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Hong Kong protester equipment list:
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Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
Remember: Just because an idea is old doesn't mean it's good.

Knowing whether old ideas are more likely to be good requires understanding whether conditions have changed in important ways.

Horse archery was an amazing method of warfare for over a thousand years...then people invented guns, and suddenly this great idea that had stood the test of time became obsolete.

Then again, when underlying conditions don't change much, tried-and-true approaches are probably better.

"Learning the lessons of history" usually just means assuming ergodicity and stationarity in an informal time-series model...

(end)
SOCIETY
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Arielle Selya
Arielle Selya
@ArielleSelya
1/14 How do e-cigarettes (ECs) affect cigarette smoking among youth? My new paper with @FloeFoxon simulates each scenario and finds out which one best matches actual trends... https://t.co/dBB7kcnTls @jgitchell @mikepesko @SwitchFinder @jkelovuori @TobPolicy @Clive_Bates

2/14 First, let's talk about why this question is so difficult to answer: COUNTERFACTUALS. We can't know the alternate-reality answers, like which smokers would have never started in a world without ECs, and which nonsmokers would now be smoking without ECs as an option.

3/14 So, the best we can do is use fancy/sophisticated methodologies to estimate what would have happened to youth smoking rates in the absence of ECs. In our case, simulation modeling


4/14 First, we look at the declining smoking trends *that were already happening* before ECs came (~2010), and project them into the present. This is our BASE-CASE SCENARIO about what smoking trends would be if ECs were never invented. Actual trends were LOWER than this base-case


5/14 Side note about terminology: We use the term “catalyst” instead of “gateway,” because “catalyst” is more precise about the claim we are modeling (that ECs are used first, and then causally lead to smoking). Whereas "gateway" can include other mechanisms like renormalization.
SOCIETY
Rob Ford
Rob Ford
@robfordmancs
Two things can be true at once:
1. There is an issue with hostility some academics have faced on some issues
2. Another academic who himself uses threats of legal action to bully colleagues into silence is not a good faith champion of the free speech cause


I have kept quiet about Matthew's recent outpourings on here but as my estwhile co-author has now seen fit to portray me as an enabler of oppression I think I have a right to reply. So I will.

I consider Matthew to be a colleague and a friend, and we had a longstanding agreement not to engage in disputes on twitter. I disagree with much in the article @UOzkirimli wrote on his research in @openDemocracy but I strongly support his right to express such critical views

I therefore find it outrageous that Matthew saw fit to bully @openDemocracy with legal threats, seeking it seems to stifle criticism of his own work. Such behaviour is simply wrong, and completely inconsistent with an academic commitment to free speech.

I am not embroiling myself in the various other cases Matt lists because, unlike him, I think attention to the detail matters and I don't have time to research each of these cases in detail.
SOCIETY
RyNr \U0001f921\U0001f30e
RyNr 🤡🌎...
@RaynerJacksun
I’ll address every nonsense argument and lie used to defend the suicidal gender ideology Thats in vogue today:

3:45 - “So what if you don’t have gametes?”

It’s called a birth defect. You’re still male or female.


~5:00 *nonsense trying to say the sexes of seahorses could be swapped coz male carry the eggs*

male doesn’t produce eggs, he produces the sperm. He’s still the male. If I impregnated a chick then carried the amniotic sac in a backpack ‘til the baby was done I’ll still be male🤦‍♂️

5:10 - we could say there’s 4 sexes of fruit fly cause there’s 3 producers of different sized sperm

No. They’re still producing sperm. They’re males. This is idiotic. Is this whole video like this? (Probably. 99% likely. Abandon hope.)

~6:10 - hermaphroditism and sequential hermaphroditism exists therefore....

No. Some animals being hermaphrodites, which is meaningless w/o the existence of binary sex to contrast it to, still doesn’t make gender ideology or transgenderism valid.

Intersex ≠ transgenderism 🙄

6:20 - bilateral gynandromorphism is a disorder in some species (not in humans). Has nothing to do w/ “gender” or transgenderism.

Ova-testes in humans are also a disorder, usually found in those w/ the karyotype disorders that you ppl also try to appropriate (extra X’s/Y’s).
SOCIETY

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Anu Satheesh \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
Anu Satheesh 🇮🇳...
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Bhoga Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple
#Devarayanadurga
#Karnatakatemples 🚩

Bhoga Yoga Narasimha Swamy Temple, Devarayanadurga is located near Tumkur of Karnataka. There are two temples are here for Narasimha Swamy, one is at the base of the hill which is Bhoga Narasimhar and 👇


the other on the top of  hill which is Yoga Narasimhar.

Bhoga Narasimha swamy Temple Prathista is said to be done by Maharshi Durvasa who did tapasya here. While doing tapasya Muni wished to bath in river Ganga and decided to travel to Ganga river bank,


At that time Ganga Devi appeared here and said she will remain here in the temple pond.

Yoga Narasimha swamy Prathista is believed to be done by Bhrama Deva who did tapasya here for many years.


Narasimhar appeared with Lakshmi Devi here to give darshan to Bhrama Deva here.

उग्रं वीरं महाविष्णुं ज्वलन्तं सर्वतोमुखम्।
नृसिंहं भीषणं भद्रं मृत्युमृत्युं नमाम्यहम् ॥

Om Shri Narasimha Murthaye Namah
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How you can filter stocks for Intraday trades - 🧵

As a kid, we would do homework before school the next day - you have to do homework here too. A specific sector performs on a particular day and studying things a day before will help you spot that particular sector. (1/11)

To prepare for the next trading day, you got to check the Index charts of all sectors. You got to keep an eye on a specific Index if you see a few factors:

- If any Index closed exactly at the resistance, you can get a trade on either side on the next day. (2/11)

- If it gave a rejection candle at resistance.

- If any Index closed exactly at support, you can get a trade on either side the following day.

- If there was a bullish signal at the support.

- If any Index gave a breakout or breakdown and then gave a good closing. (3/11)

- If any Index has taken support at 50 or 200 EMA.

Once you spot the Index, look at all the stocks in that particular Index. Pick at least 3-4 stocks from that Index and add them to your watchlist for the next day. It's ideal to check both higher and lower timeframes. (4/11)

What you should do next day? (When I am unable to check Indices and stocks a day before, I sometimes directly start with this process.)

- Start with checking the top gainers/losers list. I observe market from 9:15 to 9:45am to check the sectors performing well on that day.(5/11)
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Jaya_Upadhyaya
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SRI MOOKAMBIKA DEVI, KOLLUR (KAR)

There was an Asura, Kaumasura, who was doing penance to please Shiva and get a boon. To prevent him from asking for a boon, Devi Saraswati made him dumb (hence called Mookasur)
Later, Adi Parashakti slayed him and came to be called Mookambika.


It is said that Adi Shankaracharya had a vision in which Devi agreed to follow him provided he did not look back. He kept walking and was assured of her presence due to the sound of anklets. When he reached here in Kollur, he turned back as the sound of anklets had stopped.


So Devi stayed here and merged with the lingam. The place came to be called Mookambika Kshetram.
The linga has integrated on it’s left side MahaKali, Maha Lakshmi and Maha Saraswathi and on the right side- Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.


A swarna rekha (gold line) divides this linga into left and right portion. Adi Shakthi in this Udhbhavlinga form appears only here.
Devi sits in padmasana and has 4 hands.
Adi Shankaracharya installed the Sri Chakra in front of Devi and also composed the Soundarya Lahiri here.
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JWALAMUKHI TRIPURASUNDARI, UTHANAHALLI, MYSURU (KAR)
#bharatmandir

Jwalamukhi Tripursundari is believed to be the sister of Devi Chamundeshwari, the presiding deity of Mysuru
It is also that she represents the flaming mouth of Jalandhara, the demon whom Shiva crushed to death.


When Devi Chamundeswari was fighting Mahishasura, she observed that from every drop of blood that spilled out of Mahishasura, another demon was born. So she created Tripurasundari to ensure that no blood dripped from Mahishasura.


Tripura Sundari means beauty of the three worlds.
The murti was installed during Wodeyar rule. An utsava murti made of pancha loha is kept in the sanctum sanctorum.
Another shrine here is dedicated to Siddeshwara / Shiva surrounded by a beautiful wooden Mantapa.
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Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
A thread on HN about bad code in legacy projects both makes me think how little we've learned as a discipline over the years and, honestly, how little credit we give ourselves for some pretty major

Fun going down this list and thinking: "Hmm, plausible at a well-run modern software shop", "Hmm, possible, but requires implausible tradeoffs", "Literally disallowed by languages", and "If you were to attempt doing that our test suite wouldn't let you merge."

I think we as an industry celebrate (not quite the right word) failure too much and don't celebrate success nearly enough. There is no DailyWTF for competent execution, word of which generally stays pretty local to the source while incompetence passes into legend.

Alrighty let me try to thread the needle on being the change I want to see in the world while not giving away anything that will get me in trouble:

Ruby has wonderful developer ergonomics. Typed languages are easier for machines to guarantee the correctness of. We built a type checker for Ruby (and I believe it is slated for OSS release sometime).

c.f.
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