The first ten on today’s playlist:

When you realize how literate and for lack of a better word, cultured, most scientists were in the recent past compared to how STEM people “should” be and are now, it’s pretty damn striking.

As hinted at in the movie Oppenheimer, Robert Oppenheimer was very much into art, and “lent work to a Van Gogh Exhibition in 1949, and collected European furniture, French Post-impressionist and Fauvist paintings.” And of course, Einstein was into philosophy and engaged in some philosophy himself.

STEM has gone down a moronic path with its disdain of philosophy, art, and most of the humanities. Not only is this senseless from a human perspective, studies show that scientists with a wider range of interests actually do better science.

Einstein said, “The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music is the driving force behind this intuition.”

That is apostasy to current STEM clowns.

Long COVID: What the latest research says about symptoms after two years.

I’ve been trying to make sense of the actual risk of Long Covid vs. the propaganda promulgated by those who are still panicked about Covid. I’ve read a lot studies, including those cited breathlessly by the still Covid-terrified. And from what I can tell, the above gets it about right. Your risk of Long Covid is incredibly small if you are not already sick in some way, or very old — especially if you have been vaccinated.

But these numbers do still give some context as to the rates of these issues in people infected with COVID-19. At a population level, long COVID represents an elevated risk that could be meaningful: An extra two cases of diabetes per 10,000 people over 60 would be quite a few people nationally. At an individual level, however, they are much less alarming. The chance that you will be one of—maybe—five people out of many thousands who have long-term fatigue two years after COVID-19 is quite low. It certainly isn’t as worrying as the health issues posed by heart disease or cancer.

I’m not worried about Covid at all and Long Covid even less than that (heh). It just is not a thing anymore.

The Battle Between Diners and Restaurants.

I am not on the side of restaurants here, mostly. Often these days you get atrocious service, food that is bad, and extremely high prices. Almost nothing at a restaurant anymore is better than I can make at home. Then again, I am a pretty good cook. Before the pandemic, though, I could often get meals superior to what I could do in my own kitchen. Now that almost never occurs.

And defending fucking QR codes? Totally lost me there. I hate those with a burning passion and have turned around and walked out of restaurants that use those. (When I’m dining with someone I usually do not do this as it embarrasses people. But I am incapable of being embarrassed so when I am alone, hell yeah I will and tell the hostess why as I do it.)

Going to a restaurant used to be a pleasant experience. Now you can pay $100 for crap food, bogus service charges, poor service and an incorrect order to boot. No thanks to all that.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

Fed chair warns US inflation battle not over and hints at further rate rises.

Meanwhile, the “transitory” dipshits are declaring victory even though inflation has been persistently high for 52+ months and is still 50% above normal trend line for the past decade. And that’s using the official numbers, which are bullshit.

Lily James is so unbelievably good in this scene. And the editing, the cinematography, the unconventional shot choices…just a masterpiece in a little over three minutes.

The rest of the film is ok but this scene just nails everything so damn well.

Great cover. And the younger woman, Sophie Hanson, has epic Jenna Thiam hair too.

If you’re alive and buy anything, it’s obvious the inflation numbers are complete lies. Yes, I 100% understand how they are calculated. I’ve read at least two books substantially about how various CPIs and PCEs are computed.

That in fact has convinced me even more that how we calculate inflation bears little resemblance to how most people experience it. For the average person, cumulatively, inflation from 2020 to now has been about 75% I’d guess. Of course, inflation hits every person differently due to being in varying life stages and consuming a dissimilar bundle of goods. That’s why Kevin Drum’s “we should be able to have one canonical number for inflation” was so idiotic. It just does not and cannot work that way.

But the inflation numbers are clearly bogus, juiced, and anyone who believes they are legit is delusional.