I feel like I really lucked out by managing to get a bit more time than the doctors anticipated. I really wanted to progress on that front too. And for all the rough stuff in the past handful of years I actually got to see humanity pushing for the stars more seriously than any time in my adult life. At least how I measure progress there. This, Tiangong, even getting to hear the sound of wind on mars. I'm really grateful I managed to get to see this.

I'd agree that the evidence is lacking. But I think it's important to note that it's not because of contradictory evidence. It's just that it hasn't been studied outside of those small projects. Other than that we've just got anecdotes. And the fact that I never see slim people drinking soda, diet or otherwise, is at least suggestive to me. I don't think it's a wild proposal to say that someone constantly drinking sweet things will maintain and even cultivate a taste for sweet foods. And yeah, it's tempting to just say "but willpower!". We just don't seem to work that way as a whole though. There are always exceptions. But I generally feel like it's a safe bet that someone drinking diet soda will wind up gaining weight just like the person who only smokes a couple cigarettes a week will escalate the habit.

I know complaining isn't adding anything either. But I was thinking the same thing as I scrolled down past the anti-china stuff and the anti-musk stuff. The article did at least get me to look further into the Tiangong station. Even if not to the point where I feel qualified to really say anything about it. Still though, it's sad that something this amazing gets buried under so much negativity. I mean you can dislike a country's government and still applaud the accomplishments of people living within it. Or even dislike a CEO while still appreciating what the people he employs have been able to create.

That was a far more heartwarming story than I ever expected to read about the economics of GPUs. I don't have much to add but just wanted to mention how sweet this is. It's always cool to hear about tech development in the context of familial bonds.

Elements of COVID were pretty basic. But I think that taken as a whole it was a horrifically complex problem. It's easy enough to determine things in carefully controlled environments. But needing to anticipate the behavior of a huge population who are often performing very different actions to what they report can be insidiously difficult. You can easily determine the effectiveness of X when variables Y and Z are introduced in a controlled environment. But it gets a lot harder when people bring along a thousand other variables. And even worse when most of them will lie about doing so, whether they're aware of the fact that they're doing so or not.

For what it's worth, thanks for doing it too.

Sadly, I think the reasons clear even in this article's blurb. Even people who really should know better tend to frame it as a luxury. I mean they chose to talk about the impact on whether someone can smile as much as they like. Rather than the problems involved with having a giant infection right next to our brain.

My biggest concern is that it's not a comparison between dead animals and cloned dead animal tissue. It's a comparison between animals that were often tortured for years before being killed and an option that can avoid that. I get why not many people would want to give up meat. But the animal cruelty angle wouldn't be enough to make you even consider lab meat?

The amount of comments totally missing the entire point of the blurb really points out how ingenious it is. The summery basically paints a giant "this is a trap!" label over the entire concept. Meanwhile, almost everyone in the thread is walking right into it even with that warning.

I'm just some rando on the internet with an anecdote so take it with a grain of salt. But I went through as many of the mask studies as I could find after my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in 2018. She was getting weaker and weaker and I was terrified of catching anything and passing it on to her. I was shocked by how few really solid studies were out there. I can't pin it down to a specific number. But I remember it being a very small selection. And even then nothing really blew me away as a definitive study with excellent experimental design.

It's understandable, creating a properly controlled long term study of mask use has a ton of both technical and ethical problems. And strict simulations which ignore real world usage issues are always going to come with their own hiccups. But I'd always just assumed that with heavy mask use in some areas and the ubiquity of the flu that there had to be a ton of studies out there. But from what I remember the studies really were scarce and generally flimsy pre-covid. I wore one anyway, even a few bumps in the odds was worth it. But the data never really filled me with confidence.

A face mask, as opposed to full respirator, is already pretty bad at blocking viral infections. Putting one's fingers on the mask without washing them beforehand is going to make it even worse. It's pretty easy for an infectious agent to go from sick person to environment. From environment to someone's finger. From finger to outer edge of mask. And from outer edge of mask directly into one's respiratory system. Someone taking the mask off every time they need to use their phone might as well not be wearing one in the first place.

A lot of people recycle accounts.

As a disabled person, this whole discussion strikes me as some pretty big sour grapes. I sure never see this level of abject shock and horror about how fair things should be when it comes to me not being able to participate in things. But aside from this post, I usually don't whine about how unfair things are. Life gives some people different advantages. Sorry 99% of the people on this thread, you're getting a tiny look into what every day is like for disabled people.

Other than time? That in itself seems like all the reason anyone would need.

Almost all old people are scared and confused by the technology of a generation one or two iterations down the line. It doesn't matter if they played pretend with the idea at some point. It's just an age related inability to adapt to new situations. This is like a shocking story that Stallone can't take a punch as well anymore, or has heart issues despite playing Rocky. Age fucks with people, that's life. Doesn't matter if we're talking body or mind.