Big Blue Huddle

OBJ re-signing followed by the enormous dead cap hit.  Single bad decision set us back..maybe multiple years.

Firing Coughlin as #2 mistake.

My observation is that you better find an activity that you like.  If exercise becomes work, then you need super-human discipline to keep at it and very few people have that.

The social angle, workout buddy system, is great.  You combine commitment to someone else with a better workout because you get to talk to a friend.

I bike 3x per week, typically once with a bike club, and two other times per week with different ride buddies.  I'm really spending time with friends, I just happen to have a bike under me.  If I'm working out with weights, or doing pushups, I'm really listening to music.  I just happen to be exercising at the same time.

Have fun first.  Then exercise ain't work.

There is a tendency, in my opinion, to over-extrapolate today's news into the future.  The underlying economics for business travel have certainly changed somewhat, but are still there.  If you can get an edge over your competitor because your salespeople travel to see your customers and your competitors don't, then you can guarantee that the travel will occur. 

That said, the required investment most of us made in remote skills development wouldn't have happened without covid.  So the fact that people are more technically proficient at remote meetings means there will definitely be less travel.  But how much less?

Business people have always hated travel.  So I don't agree with the idea that there's been a great awakening "Hey, we don't have to travel anymore!" has occurred.  I was doing video calls in the 90s.  People always knew that the technology was there but chose not to use it. 

I believe the recent research is that remote work has lower productivity.  But I'd need to find the citation to say for sure.

One of the recurring themes of WWII is that the German and Japanese leadership underestimated their enemies, repeatedly. 

The Japanese underestimated US intelligence.  At the battle of the Coral Sea, prior to Midway, US aircraft carriers show up, half of the remaining US Pacific fleet carriers are there.  How in the world did that happen?  The Japanese don't change their codes.  And then they get surprised shortly after at Midway, this time with all of the remaining US carriers.

Yamamoto conceives of the Midway invasion.  But Nagumo is tasked to carry it out.  Nagumo is doctrinaire and not an adaptible thinker.  The first Japanese planes fly over Midway island and there are no planes in sight.  Why is that?  He should've immediately sensed he'd walked into a trap.

The Japanese underestimated the will of the American people.  The War in the Pacific was over the day after Pearl Harbor, just nobody realized that until later.

Quote from: ELCHALJE on June 06, 2021, 04:49:20 PM
At the lowest common denominator level, can you imagine being one of those guys in a landing craft approaching those beaches.  Speaking of bravery and patriotism!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm watching "Greatest Events of WWII in Color" on NFLX.  Season 1 episode 6 is on D-day.  The commentator just mentioned the fear that the German lookouts must have felt on the morning of June 6 seeing 6,000 ships heading in their direction.  A certain death sentence is probably what they felt.  Interesting counterpart to your observation.

Quote from: ozzie on June 04, 2021, 02:20:35 PM
I don't think any other sport allows fans that close. 

In golf you can get extremely close, within a couple of feet. In tennis, when you're watching lower-ranked players, you can get within 10' courtside.  Not as close as courtside basketball.  In any case, the closeness is what makes going to golf and tennis tournaments fun.  Otherwise, you get a better view on your TV.

It does look like there are UFOs.

But upon what evidence does one conclude that these UFOs must be from an alien civilization?  Isn't it far more likely these things are being produced by one of the militaries of US/China/Russia/Israel/India, or perhaps by some private organization like SpaceX?  (I doubt it's actually SpaceX, btw, too much to lose if they're caught.). My bet is it's some super-secret research being done by some part of the US military that no one knows about.

Quote from: MightyGiants on May 26, 2021, 11:56:05 AM
I suspect these sort of dangerous work arounds (that prevent the loss of income) are more common than we believe or wish

Looks like you called that one:
"
The cable car at Stresa had been reopened in 2016 after renovation. But managers told the Carabinieri that the emergency brake on one of the cabins had been malfunctioning recently, braking the cabin repeatedly when it shouldn

This is an editorial from David Leonhardt, of the NYTimes, from today.  I think it's a worthwhile read and summarizes many of the points made here on both sides of the debate.  If you didn't already know, Leonhardt most assuredly occupies a left-of-center viewpoint:

"
May 27, 2021   

By David Leonhardt

Good morning. The lab-leak theory is everywhere. We have an explainer.


Suddenly, talk of the Wuhan lab-leak theory seems to be everywhere.

President Biden yesterday called on U.S. intelligence officials to

"My point is and it's pretty much been proven that a long-shot possibility has been overhyped  (to support a right-wing political agenda).  It is not as you and Bob suggest/imply that I don't think all possibilities should be continued to be examed. "

I agree that politicians will overhype long-shot possibilities.  The lab-leak hypothesis may have been over-hyped.  I'm not sure, to be candid.  That's a distinction I don't much care about.  Overhyped or not, I'm interested in where the virus came from.

But...are you saying that "all possibilities should be continued to be examined" including the lab-leak possibility? 

For the record, my guess is that--after hopefully lots of further research--the zoonotic hypothesis will eventually be confirmed as the most likely Covid-origin explanation.

As someone who's done research at the post-graduate level, I think I have a passing knowledge of how the scientific method works.  So I'll make some general comments which I hope can help frame this discussion.

The whole point of most of this thread was the question of whether there was enough evidence to warrant further investigation of the lab-release theory.  I don't think anyone has claimed that there was any proof at all of a lab-release. 

Now, some items I would like to emphasize.  First, facts and true statements exist independent of whoever states them.  I don't care if Einstein says "2+2=4" or if my next neighbor says "2+2=4", it is a true statement.  A lot of discussion on the last 8 pages here centered around who said what and what is their background.  Facts can stand on their own.  If they can't, then they are not facts. 

Next, I agree with Mighty that there are many times when a hypothesis does NOT warrant further investigation.  No geographer is going to start an investigation into whether the Earth is flat.  However, when a hypothesis is obviously wrong, there is an overwhelming lack of dissent among experts in the field.  Put 1000 geographers into a room and not one of them will agree that an investigation into a flat Earth is worthwhile.

Second, when it comes to technical discussions, virology in this case, we undeniably have to rely on the observations of experts in the field.  This thread, if you review it, has listed literally dozens of experts who think the lab-release hypothesis warrants further investigation.  There are many scientists who think it does not warrant further investigation.  If the lab-release hypothesis were as wrong as the-earth-is-flat idea, then there would not be a significant level of dissent.  Experts calling for more investigation include the head of the WHO, 18 scientists from pre-eminent universities including Baric who knows firsthand of the research going on at the WIV, and now Dr. Fauci.  To claim that all of these people have some right-wing axe to grind, or are have been massively misled, is simply ludicrous.

Third, this discussion is technical but there are elements of it which are accessible to non-experts.  SARS and MERS were zoonotic and supposedly Covid is as well.  However, as opposed to SARS and MERS, no intermediate transmission via animals have been found.  Dozens of thousands of bat samples have been tested and Covid has not been found in nature.  This weakens the conclusion of zoonotic origin.  Covid's intermediate mutations, similar to SARS and MERS, are also missing.  Covid appeared on the scene in a super-contagious form.  None of these observations, and many more like them, offer anything but circumstantial evidence.  But the layperson can figure out that the zoonotic theory of origin is not air-tight.

In general, the scientists who I've been around do not hesitate to call into question the fundamental preconceptions of their area.  They view the withstanding of such questioning part of the scientific method.  But they won't do so unless there is at least some indication of fruitful research.  They won't waste their time unless there is at least some possibility of an intellectual payoff.

Understanding the origin of the most calamitous biological event in at least a hundred years warrants a lot of investigation.  Until an airtight conclusion is reached.

 

And now Fauci concurs there is more need for investigation:
"
At a White House briefing Tuesday, Anthony S. Fauci, the government

Looks like Biden has joined the right-wing conspiracy theorists:

"President Biden said Wednesday that he has asked the intelligence community to determine the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, a major departure from the previous White House position that the World Health Organization should lead efforts to uncover the contagion

I think we can discuss this issue without getting into the politics, albeit that is hard.

For example, I do not think investigating this issue is a right-wing publicity stunt.  It could have been a publicity stunt, I agree with you on that.

You made comments on Trump (criminally negligent) and I don't think that is germane to the point under discussion.  (As an aside, I think Trump is an idiot who routinely says stupid stuff, a lot of it seemingly on purpose.). A broken clock can still be right twice a day, and Trump may have been right on this one.  As far as Trump goes, if he does turn out to be correct on this one, it just raises his abysmal speculation-driven batting average a couple of points.  So let's discard Trump...I hope...from the discussion. It's not about him.

What about the head of the WHO? Does he have a right-wing political agenda?  Do the 18 scientists calling for more investigation into lab-leak also have a right-wing political agenda?