So do you have a point to this post? I gave four counterexamples and you seem to have something irrelevant to say about each one.
None of the examples that you provided qualify as an example of a virus changing its mode of transmission.
My counterexamples show this claim is false. I admit that some of them are bacterial diseases rather than viruses, I missed that bit of your original post. But aside from that, I have yet to see a reason why you should continue to disagree with me.
NONE of those explain the change in isotope species described in the article.
Unless the change in isotope species didn't happen say because the original sample was switched out with another sample with a different isotope mix. As an aside, a suspicious aspect of the problem is the supposed near total conversion of the original sample into nickel-62. Having a prototype with that sort of fuel efficiency is rather unlikely IMHO. But I'm prepared to be surprised. It just needs to be done with something other than a staged affair.
You can't just assume that it doesn't work because it violates conservation of energy.
Sure, you can. If there was a way to violate conservation of energy with simple table top setups and mundane physics, we would have seen it by now.
If it seems to work, you can measure it working, and you can observe it working
Then you're probably doing something wrong. Seriously, this is the huge problem with fringe science. It is very hard to test conservation of energy especially in the open systems that traditionally give the appearance of breaking conservation of energy (by shifting energy in and out of the outside world).
For example, Ebola has made this transition to airborne transmission before. Influenza has been transmitted by diarrhea before. Bubonic Plague is another disease that has managed the transition to airborne transmission.
And of course, AIDS was readily transmitted by blood transfusion and shared needle use even though that's not its original mode of transmission.
So there's four examples right there, including Ebola itself.
This is why Africa was finally made barren of human inhabitants in 1980...
The current bout of Ebola is of larger extent than than all previous incidents combined. And even if it did infect everyone over time with current lethality, there would still be 30-50% survival rate.
Also this is what, two cases in the US, three? Maybe 5 total outside of Africa, and almost all of them among health workers collateral to treating confirmed Ebola-suffering patients?
Because nothing ever changes. We have several examples throughout history of novel diseases making their way into vulnerable human populations such as various historical plagues, colonization of the New World, and AIDS. I hope that this bout of Ebola becomes just another odd footnote in history. But it has already passed a key hurdle to becoming a pandemic and infected several urban populations - something no other known Ebola flareup has done.
It's evidence backed by well known disease dynamics (the worst case being in the absence of treatment or behavior changes of vulnerable populations, the logistics curve with exponential growth in the beginning saturating as everyone eventually gets the disease and survivors acquire immunity to it). And the extrapolation is based on up to nine months of data not two data points.
Continued growth opens up two near future unpleasant possibilities. First, that there are just a lot more cases than present. And second, that the disease becomes endemic in Africa among human populations, that is, the disease can't be eradicated without large scale and costly efforts similar to say those for eradicating polio or smallpox.
Either possibility increases the likelihood that the disease mutates to become airborne which is a far more dangerous transmission mode of infection than via skin contact.
But where is the evidence of a pandemic? It's only a few thousands at this stage.
The evidence is continued exponential growth of Ebola to recent past. It appears that the rate of infection may be slowing down in the worst of the three primary countries of infection, Liberia. If true, fears of pandemic are overstated.
If instead, cases continue to climb exponentially, but patients are staying away from hospitals, then you still have the eventual pandemic problem looming on the horizon.
The thing that gets missed is that it's very contagious once it gets in your body. From the article:
But in Ebola's case, the mode of transmission probably helps keep its R0 low. Ebola isn't spread through the air, like the measles or flu. It requires close contact with some bodily fluid, such as blood or vomit, containing the virus.
And if a mutation should cause it to be spreadable through the air, then well, it's going to become more contagious.
But do you really think he told the hospital that he had considerable physical contact with a likely Ebola victim in Liberia? Supposedly he and several neighbors had carried a very sick woman to a car and then to some sort of clinic where they were turned away. The woman and several of the neighbors died later of Ebola. He meanwhile suddenly ends up in Texas conveniently before the end of the incubation period.
As I see it, he probably lied on three occasions, first to get out of Liberia, then to everyone he was staying with in Texas, and then to the hospital the first time he showed up there.
You are so close to realizing that for yourself it isn't about being logical or anything else intellectually rigorous, it is purely about you hating them and latching on to any random argument that pops into your head. All you are doing is stamping your foot in anger like a toddler.
And another sign that this is just noise: amateur pop psychology - or what we in the amateur pop psychology circlejerk call "psychological projection".
Deciding that my parody of your irrational claims is irrational.
There's another word for this, "noise". If you could have made a real, credible rebuttal, you'd have done so. It's only when you have nothing to say about a subject, but you have say it anyway, that we get the "parody".
The people who you don't like that want to change the world must start living in the changed world today, not in the future when they've actually achieved their goals.
Yes.
But the people who you do like, those people can wait until the future when the conditions are right.
Conditions are "right", right now. I have to be inconsistent in some way first for your comment to be relevant.
Well, the most recent IPCC report exaggerates the degree of certainty about extreme weather and downplays the significance of having to lower the range of estimates on forcing from human produced CO2. And notice how suddenly the language of the executive summary changed to estimating degree of certainty when it didn't hold for previous reports. While I hope that is a precursory to a more rational and unbiased report, I can't help but think that it is strictly a defensive change in response to short term climate deviating from the models.
Hey look, exactly as predicted. You don't give a shit about "leading by example" you just don't like their cause and are reaching for any reason to shit on them.
And they gave me a really good reason to "shit" on them - glaring hypocrisy. My view is that climate alarmism advocacy (the bit about climate change being so bad that human civilization will be threatened) is just another status signaling gimmick like having a flashy car or wearing a tie.
Occupy Wallstreet should not use corporate products like cellphones or computers to coordinate.
What makes something a "corporate product"? And if Occupy Wallstreet really is about not using corporate products, then sure they shouldn't use them.
Proponents of gay marriage should just get gay married already.
I guess you haven't been paying attention. Same sex marriage has been around for a while. They are practicing what they preach. For example, I attended one such in the early 90s.
People who protest NSA spying should just avoid all internet communications that could be recorded.
No, the correct analogy is that the NSA protesters shouldn't engage in mass spying on the rest of the world. Though I can't figure out how that restriction on their behavior keeps them from spreading the word.
Proponents of assisted suicide should lead by example and kill themselves.
The usual people who advocate assisted suicide for ending suffering from end of life pain do practice what they preach. They aren't usually at a point where assisted suicide is warranted. The rather odious voluntary human extinctionists on the other hand do not.
Most of your examples indicate you haven't thought about this.
You've cherry-picked a case where "leading by example" did not cause him to essentially silence himself.
"Cherry-picked"? I have to agree with the original poster. Lead by example. And when, due to the deep flaws in the belief system, that behavior causes you to silence yourself, it's a net win for everyone else.
Between inflationary policies and allowing nearly unrestricted (even incentivizing by tax law) exploitation of arbitrage
Arbitrage being terrible why? I think it's quite reasonable to incentivize arbitrage which is risk-free trading because it's an efficient way to propagate information in a market which generally is good for an economy and society as a whole.
Comcast story need not be true because Apple+Google story exists.
The Apple+Google story is just another example in my favor. They did something that if they were writing the rules would have been quite legal. But it's not legal and they're facing fines as a result.
Companies can displease the majority of voter base and yet thrive.
So can individuals. Are you going to claim that you have as much power as a government because you can be a jerk to so many different people?
Governments in most countries can't.
Please show me an example of a government that actually has these constraints. A lot of people can be unhappy even with a democratic government. All it takes to stay in power is to divide the electorate against each other and make sure none of the resulting blame sticks to you.
I notice you don't say a thing about due process for employees. If it's not about the relative power of the actors, then due process should apply to everyone. But if it is about power, then it's relevant to point out that governments are far more powerful than any of the other parties and hence, require more constraints such as due process on their behavior.
There are real world counter examples of all your points too, like I already mentioned.
The examples you gave were broken. For example, there's no evidence that Comcast had blacklisted anyone in the story. Second, the collusion between Apple and other companies with respect to hiring was illegal and will cost them money which runs counter to your assertion that they only have to follow the laws they make for themselves.
But sure, please give those counterexamples you claim you have. And I'll give counterexamples like China or Syria, you know real world counterexamples that actually demonstrate the point I'm trying to make.
Slashdot Mirror
None of the examples that you provided qualify as an example of a virus changing its mode of transmission.
My counterexamples show this claim is false. I admit that some of them are bacterial diseases rather than viruses, I missed that bit of your original post. But aside from that, I have yet to see a reason why you should continue to disagree with me.
NONE of those explain the change in isotope species described in the article.
Unless the change in isotope species didn't happen say because the original sample was switched out with another sample with a different isotope mix. As an aside, a suspicious aspect of the problem is the supposed near total conversion of the original sample into nickel-62. Having a prototype with that sort of fuel efficiency is rather unlikely IMHO. But I'm prepared to be surprised. It just needs to be done with something other than a staged affair.
You can't just assume that it doesn't work because it violates conservation of energy.
Sure, you can. If there was a way to violate conservation of energy with simple table top setups and mundane physics, we would have seen it by now.
If it seems to work, you can measure it working, and you can observe it working
Then you're probably doing something wrong. Seriously, this is the huge problem with fringe science. It is very hard to test conservation of energy especially in the open systems that traditionally give the appearance of breaking conservation of energy (by shifting energy in and out of the outside world).
For example, Ebola has made this transition to airborne transmission before. Influenza has been transmitted by diarrhea before. Bubonic Plague is another disease that has managed the transition to airborne transmission.
And of course, AIDS was readily transmitted by blood transfusion and shared needle use even though that's not its original mode of transmission.
So there's four examples right there, including Ebola itself.
This is why Africa was finally made barren of human inhabitants in 1980...
The current bout of Ebola is of larger extent than than all previous incidents combined. And even if it did infect everyone over time with current lethality, there would still be 30-50% survival rate.
Also this is what, two cases in the US, three? Maybe 5 total outside of Africa, and almost all of them among health workers collateral to treating confirmed Ebola-suffering patients?
Because nothing ever changes. We have several examples throughout history of novel diseases making their way into vulnerable human populations such as various historical plagues, colonization of the New World, and AIDS. I hope that this bout of Ebola becomes just another odd footnote in history. But it has already passed a key hurdle to becoming a pandemic and infected several urban populations - something no other known Ebola flareup has done.
It's evidence backed by well known disease dynamics (the worst case being in the absence of treatment or behavior changes of vulnerable populations, the logistics curve with exponential growth in the beginning saturating as everyone eventually gets the disease and survivors acquire immunity to it). And the extrapolation is based on up to nine months of data not two data points.
Continued growth opens up two near future unpleasant possibilities. First, that there are just a lot more cases than present. And second, that the disease becomes endemic in Africa among human populations, that is, the disease can't be eradicated without large scale and costly efforts similar to say those for eradicating polio or smallpox.
Either possibility increases the likelihood that the disease mutates to become airborne which is a far more dangerous transmission mode of infection than via skin contact.
But where is the evidence of a pandemic? It's only a few thousands at this stage.
The evidence is continued exponential growth of Ebola to recent past. It appears that the rate of infection may be slowing down in the worst of the three primary countries of infection, Liberia. If true, fears of pandemic are overstated.
If instead, cases continue to climb exponentially, but patients are staying away from hospitals, then you still have the eventual pandemic problem looming on the horizon.
Before someone says that China is much worse than the UK, it doesn't matter. The principal is the same.
Hypocrisy is not the worst sin. It does matter that China is much worse than the UK in terms of suppression of free speech.
That means that at least for part of the race, the wind cannot be consistently from their back (unless it happens to be turning at the right time).
There's the loophole. I bet with proper timing on the appropriate course they can consistently get that to happen.
But in Ebola's case, the mode of transmission probably helps keep its R0 low. Ebola isn't spread through the air, like the measles or flu. It requires close contact with some bodily fluid, such as blood or vomit, containing the virus.
And if a mutation should cause it to be spreadable through the air, then well, it's going to become more contagious.
But do you really think he told the hospital that he had considerable physical contact with a likely Ebola victim in Liberia? Supposedly he and several neighbors had carried a very sick woman to a car and then to some sort of clinic where they were turned away. The woman and several of the neighbors died later of Ebola. He meanwhile suddenly ends up in Texas conveniently before the end of the incubation period.
As I see it, he probably lied on three occasions, first to get out of Liberia, then to everyone he was staying with in Texas, and then to the hospital the first time he showed up there.
You are so close to realizing that for yourself it isn't about being logical or anything else intellectually rigorous, it is purely about you hating them and latching on to any random argument that pops into your head. All you are doing is stamping your foot in anger like a toddler.
And another sign that this is just noise: amateur pop psychology - or what we in the amateur pop psychology circlejerk call "psychological projection".
Deciding that my parody of your irrational claims is irrational.
There's another word for this, "noise". If you could have made a real, credible rebuttal, you'd have done so. It's only when you have nothing to say about a subject, but you have say it anyway, that we get the "parody".
The people who you don't like that want to change the world must start living in the changed world today, not in the future when they've actually achieved their goals.
Yes.
But the people who you do like, those people can wait until the future when the conditions are right.
Conditions are "right", right now. I have to be inconsistent in some way first for your comment to be relevant.
If human civilization weren't at risk it wouldn't be a problem.
Exactly.
Well, the most recent IPCC report exaggerates the degree of certainty about extreme weather and downplays the significance of having to lower the range of estimates on forcing from human produced CO2. And notice how suddenly the language of the executive summary changed to estimating degree of certainty when it didn't hold for previous reports. While I hope that is a precursory to a more rational and unbiased report, I can't help but think that it is strictly a defensive change in response to short term climate deviating from the models.
Hey look, exactly as predicted. You don't give a shit about "leading by example" you just don't like their cause and are reaching for any reason to shit on them.
And they gave me a really good reason to "shit" on them - glaring hypocrisy. My view is that climate alarmism advocacy (the bit about climate change being so bad that human civilization will be threatened) is just another status signaling gimmick like having a flashy car or wearing a tie.
Occupy Wallstreet should not use corporate products like cellphones or computers to coordinate.
What makes something a "corporate product"? And if Occupy Wallstreet really is about not using corporate products, then sure they shouldn't use them.
Proponents of gay marriage should just get gay married already.
I guess you haven't been paying attention. Same sex marriage has been around for a while. They are practicing what they preach. For example, I attended one such in the early 90s.
People who protest NSA spying should just avoid all internet communications that could be recorded.
No, the correct analogy is that the NSA protesters shouldn't engage in mass spying on the rest of the world. Though I can't figure out how that restriction on their behavior keeps them from spreading the word.
Proponents of assisted suicide should lead by example and kill themselves.
The usual people who advocate assisted suicide for ending suffering from end of life pain do practice what they preach. They aren't usually at a point where assisted suicide is warranted. The rather odious voluntary human extinctionists on the other hand do not.
Most of your examples indicate you haven't thought about this.
And by references I mean something that was not funded my the energy industry.
Which energy industry, the fossil fuel one or the green one?
You've cherry-picked a case where "leading by example" did not cause him to essentially silence himself.
"Cherry-picked"? I have to agree with the original poster. Lead by example. And when, due to the deep flaws in the belief system, that behavior causes you to silence yourself, it's a net win for everyone else.
Arbitrage is a particular flavor of trade that happens to be risk free. Starting a business usually is not.
Between inflationary policies and allowing nearly unrestricted (even incentivizing by tax law) exploitation of arbitrage
Arbitrage being terrible why? I think it's quite reasonable to incentivize arbitrage which is risk-free trading because it's an efficient way to propagate information in a market which generally is good for an economy and society as a whole.
Maybe your ideas need a little more polishing.
The Apple+Google story is just another example in my favor. They did something that if they were writing the rules would have been quite legal. But it's not legal and they're facing fines as a result.
So can individuals. Are you going to claim that you have as much power as a government because you can be a jerk to so many different people?
Governments in most countries can't.
Please show me an example of a government that actually has these constraints. A lot of people can be unhappy even with a democratic government. All it takes to stay in power is to divide the electorate against each other and make sure none of the resulting blame sticks to you.
I notice you don't say a thing about due process for employees. If it's not about the relative power of the actors, then due process should apply to everyone. But if it is about power, then it's relevant to point out that governments are far more powerful than any of the other parties and hence, require more constraints such as due process on their behavior.
There are real world counter examples of all your points too, like I already mentioned.
The examples you gave were broken. For example, there's no evidence that Comcast had blacklisted anyone in the story. Second, the collusion between Apple and other companies with respect to hiring was illegal and will cost them money which runs counter to your assertion that they only have to follow the laws they make for themselves.
But sure, please give those counterexamples you claim you have. And I'll give counterexamples like China or Syria, you know real world counterexamples that actually demonstrate the point I'm trying to make.
Dude, you are so 19th century.
And the obvious rebuttal is the US's NSA, a 21st century problem.