in the bleak midwinter

“Capitalism is what happens when you believe glorified fishmongers should chart the course for humanity.” —@aral

“11 yrs ago I found this funny: ‘How many Microsoft designers does it take to change a light bulb? None. They just define darkness as ‘industry standard’. But now I can’t unsee this: ‘How many huge companies does it take to fix the climate? None. They just define global warming as ‘industry standard’.” —@HelenCzerski

“it’s easy to propose a solution if you only understand 10% of the problem” —@tef

Mortality in First Eight Months of 2024 2% Higher Than Predicted [pay attention to the actuaries]

For the first eight months of 2024, against a baseline that includes anticipated COVID-19 deaths:
— total mortality was 2% higher than predicted;
— COVID-19 mortality was 70% higher than predicted;
— Non-COVID respiratory mortality was 8% higher than predicted, with pneumonia deaths 14% higher; and
— these outcomes are all statistically significant.

There have been five deaths from COVID-19 for every death from influenza.
Mortality from non-respiratory causes has been close to predicted.

Do Minds Have Immune Systems? via @ShaunCoffey

We think cognitive immunology has a bright future. Imagine our understanding of the mind’s immune system expanding until it rivals our understanding of the body’s immune system. Imagine how much better our treatments for misinformation susceptibility could become. (Think of such treatments as taking the form of next-level critical thinking instruction for the willing, not forced inoculation of the unwilling.) Imagine how much rarer outbreaks of mass irrationality could become. What if we could reduce toxic polarization by 35%? Or make everyone 15% less susceptible to ideological fixation? What if we could make angry, hateful delusions uncommon? Imagine taming the worst infodemics the way we tamed the worst epidemics: by patiently building herd immunity to the nastiest infectious agents.

Helen Keller Writes a Letter to Nazi Students Before They Burn Her Book: “History Has Taught You Nothing If You Think You Can Kill Ideas” (1933)

To the student body of Germany:

History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas. Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them.

You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds. I gave all the royalties of my books for all time to the German soldiers blinded in the World War with no thought in my heart but love and compassion for the German people.

I acknowledge the grievous complications that have led to your intolerance; all the more do I deplore the injustice and unwisdom of passing on to unborn generations the stigma of your deeds.

Do not imagine that your barbarities to the Jews are unknown here. God sleepeth not, and He will visit His judgment upon you. Better were it for you to have a mill-stone hung around your neck and sink into the sea than to be hated and despised of all men. —Helen Keller

Back to Basics – Cycle Helmets

To review all of this, cycle helmets do not offer any designed protection against crashes involving any other vehicle. While it may offer your head some protection against being cut by glass, that degree of protection would be almost irrelevant compared to the massive impact force caused by being hit by a car.

Cycle helmets do offer a slight absorption of impact, but not enough to prevent concussion, nor indeed coma. Also, polystyrene – what cycle helmets are made from – is rated at 3.4 Gpa strength, while the human skull exceeds 5 GPa. That’s a huge difference, and simply means your skull is far harder than your cycle helmet.
…
However, whatever you decide to do, now that you know that cycle helmets really only protect against grazes and scrapes, and precious little else, please will you stop with the “My mate crashed his bike and smashed up his helmet. If it wasn’t for his helmet, his skull would’ve been smashed” stories, as they simply are not true.

OpenAI o3 Consumes Five Tanks of Gas Per Task

OpenAI recently unveiled o3, its most powerful AI model to date. Besides the cost to run the models, its environmental impact is another aspect that’s garnering attention.

A study reveals that each o3 task consumes approximately 1,785 kWh of energy, equivalent to the electricity used by an average US household over two months.

The analysis of benchmark results done by Boris Gamazaychikov, AI sustainability lead at Salesforce, says that it roughly translates to 684 kilograms of CO₂ equivalent (CO₂e) emissions, which is comparable to the carbon emissions from more than five full tanks of petrol.

The Landlord’s Game: Lizzie Magie and Monopoly’s Anti-Capitalist Origins (1903)

There are few cases of creative and intellectual theft more egregious than the origins of the billion-dollar grossing Monopoly. The short version: a brilliant woman economist invented an anti-capitalist board game that was stolen by a lying, opportunistic man and repackaged as capitalist family fun.

The board for Lizzie Magie’s 1906 version of The Landlord’s Game — Source (Courtesy of LandlordsGame.info).