"So why was this recommended, and defacto mandated, for that age group, again?"
Because by preventing cases or even just reducing the virus load, it decreases the likelihood of spreading the virus to others.
Approximately 100% of people ended up getting COVID, the overwhelming majority - repeatedly. So once again these were claims that, while at least reasonable on the surface, were made without any evidence in support of them and turned out to be, if not false, then misleading.
So people now tend to change the goalposts - okay it didn't stop the spread or stop people from getting it at all, but helped spread out the spread - flatten the curve, and reduce the impact on hospitals. But again that also seems completely false. Here [1] are the data on cases in the US. By August 2021 the wide majority of Americans had taken one of the shots. The biggest surge, by an overwhelmingly large margin, would come on January 2022 where we went from a former peak of ~250k to a new peak of more than 900k daily cases.
So now the goal posts get shifted yet again. Okay it didn't stop the spread and it didn't flatten the curve, but it reduced the rate of severe cases. This one is a bit trickier. It's superficially true, yet subject to extreme biasing. If you look at the overall outcomes of people admitted to hospital by vaccination status, unvaccinated individuals did often have worse outcomes. But there's a rather huge bias - people inclined to vaccinate for COVID are also the type more predisposed to seek healthcare earlier, whereas those disinclined to vaccinate tend to be less inclined to seek healthcare unless it's critical. This bias (one amongst many) was repeatedly listed in the limits of various studies, but people just ignored this (and them) even though it's a major factor. There was never any study (to my knowledge at least) that tried to compensate for these biases.
Yes, the guy is legendary in terms of maximum arrogance. He did impressive work early on designing a complex system, but gets defensive when that overengineered moloch runs into real-world problems. Systemd has accumulated lots of small hacks to make it more versatile, let's hope a better solution will be available one day.
I'm wondering why this doesn't seem to bother anyone. I always use a browser profile that's not signed into anything when searching, whether that's for work or personal. I know this does not guarantee privacy, but why make it easy for them?
The whole point of using Kagi for me is that I've got my search options customised and I'm paying for a service better than the alternatives. The payment privacy aspect of that lives on a completely different layer: you'd need to first solve the KYC -vs- privacy problem, and that's more of a politics problem than tech.
I understand and appreciate what Kagi trying to do. But linking search queries with your real name is huge privacy invasion. Even though Vlad says they do not log queries. Well... Without proof there could be only trust. Decision is up to you.
For sensitive searches I do recommend only Tor. For casual searching SearX. Anonymous or not in regular browser doesn't change much if you don't use any kind of IP hiding.
The statement might be hyperbole. But most people seem to need vocals in their music, like kind of an anchor. I mostly listen to instrumental music, and have always found it difficult to share that interest.
Think of the bright side: Billions of crappy photos from the same things all over the world will contain a lot of the same information, and AI (of course!) guided partial image deduplication will save us many data centers.
The "I don't like it, therefore it's crap" rude comments are so disappointing.
I'm no art buff at all, my personal definition of art is "useless & captivating". I'd like to visit this one. The creator must be obsessed and crazy, which is like it should be. I expect it to give otherworldly, abstract melancholic vibes when being on-site. Case in point, during the years I lived in Mexico City, I went several times to the Teotihuacan site, a great experience when there are few visitors: https://cdn.kastatic.org/ka-perseus-images/9c44c543a72dbe187...
I felt this way too. This structure is a single artist's vision, made solid over the course of 50 years. I can't get a feeling/reaction from it just by looking at photos but, maybe give the chance to visit, I expect I'd be able to prod the artist's vision, see if it resonates with me.
Then again, I can get joy/awe/wonder/ennui/whatever from wandering around abandoned villages, ancient ruins (even the partly reconstructed ones), cemeteries, woods, wastelands, abandoned infrastructure, etc. Or even working places/venues, but at times of least activity. The key thing, for me, is that there must be few/no people around me - to let my mind unleash itself from the trivia and go roaming - that, for me, is when the 'art' (whatever 'art' is) happens.
I could get jealous of the financial support the artist has received over the years as he strives to make his vision solid. But I have a suspicion that he would probably built something even without support. It reminds me of Outsider Art in that way: people driven to create despite the barriers others put in their way. That such people exist gives me hope for the species.
I spent my 40th birthday wandering around Uxmal. No crowds; no tourists coached in on the hour. Just me and my partner and a collapsed civilisation surrounding us. Best birthday I've ever had! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uxmal
Respectfully, and not to start an argument, but I think you don't need to defend the artist or say people shouldn't comment if they want to criticise. I don't think artists who do this stuff care if people think it's pointless or bad. That other people can enjoy it at all is something. Artists who created things this big aren't overly sensitive people, if they were they would have stopped decades back, after the first thousand people said it was an expensive waste of time. So I think people should be honest and say if they think it's crap. And the artist may get a kick out of it, or not care. Likewise don't say nice things about it if you think it's crap, just be honest.
Thank you for putting this to words. It is not art unless it is open for criticism. That’s kind of the whole point. An artist is vulnerable->releases new work into the world->it passes through the filter of criticism->work is determine to be beautiful art or crap. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but at scale, beauty is in the eyes of the masses.
How does the “I don’t like it, therefore it’s crap” differ from “I like it, therefore it’s amazing”. They are both opinions. You may think that the critical opinion is “rude”, but conversely, I may think the glowing opinion is ignorant or quaint. Critics have been panning art for millennia or has all criticism been fully cancelled now? This guy was surely obsessed and crazy, which I wholeheartedly respect. But it’s simply not that impressive for 50 years of work. Personally, I don’t think it’s crap or amazing, I just think it’s disappointing and I feel bad this guy wasted his time. Consider what Egyptians built in the desert at least 5 thousand of years earlier with much less tools. Now that is an art installation. Granted, they had an army of builders, but still, the access to better tools and concrete should still allow 1 guy to do something more epic than what he did here. Further, the much more recent coral castle I find to be more impressive and that was also 1 guy and it only took him 30 years.
Why "useless"? In my view, art that inspires meaningful thoughts and feelings that the viewer might never have otherwise experienced is more "useful" than 90% of jobs that exist in, say, the tech industry.
