As the Omicron surge continues, David Leonhardt and Ashley Wu have analyzed the data on Covid-19 cases in Seattle and New York, two cities that have the most timely data. They have produced six charts that pretty much tell the whole story about how the pandemic is affecting the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated.
A federal judge in New York has said that the civil lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre against Prince Andrew can go forward, rejecting his lawyer’s claim that an agreement that was reached between Giuffre and deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew’s friend, shielded him from such lawsuits. The judge said it was too early in the process to make such judgments.
[Manhattan federal judge Lewis Kaplan] continued: “In a similar vein and for similar reasons, it is not open to the court now to decide, as a matter of fact, just what the parties to the release in the 2009 settlement agreement signed by Ms Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein actually meant.
“The court’s job at this juncture is simply to determine whether there are two or more reasonable interpretations of that document. If there are, the determination of the ‘right’ or controlling interpretation must await further proceedings.”
“With limited exceptions, the motion must be decided solely on the basis of the allegations of the complaint without regard to any extraneous claims or materials,” Kaplan also wrote. “The 2009 agreement neither appears in nor is referred to” in Giuffre’s civil complaint.
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As part of my effort to get people who do not know much about cricket and who think that it is boring to better appreciate the subtle features that die-hard fans appreciate, a recent match between Australia and England illustrates one feature that often baffles those new to the game, that a no-decision can be every exciting.
The international Test cricket matches between nations is a time-limited game, though people unfamiliar with the game may marvel about how a contest that is spread over five days for six hours a day could possibly be considered ‘time-limited’ and end in a no-decision. But that can indeed happen because to win a game, one team has to get the opposing team out twice for a total score less than their own within that five-day limit. Otherwise, the game is a no-decision, called a ‘draw’ in cricket. The fourth Test match between Australia and England recently completed gives a good example of how a no-decision can be as exciting as one in which there is a decision.
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I did not read the best-selling book The Da Vinci Code, suspecting right from the beginning that, despite its extraordinary success, it would be a waste of time. However, I did see the film based on it and it supported my decision because the plot was incredibly stupid.
So I was totally sympathetic to Oliver’s rant.
As the Omicron variant keeps surging, we hear of yet another needless death.
A leading QAnon promoter who urged both her followers and strangers she passed on the street not to take the COVID vaccine died Thursday of the coronavirus, making her just the latest vaccine opponent killed by the disease.
Cirsten Weldon had amassed tens of thousands of followers across right-wing social media networks by promoting the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy under the screenname “CirstenW.” She was prominent enough to become a sort of QAnon interpreter for comedian conspiracy theorist Roseanne Barr and started recording videos about QAnon with her.
Weldon focused on attacking vaccines and other efforts to fight COVID-19, saying in one video that Dr. Anthony Fauci “needs to be hung from a rope.” She claimed the vaccine killed people and even recorded herself yelling at people standing in line to receive vaccines.
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I see this pattern all the time.
To avoid it, once you have said what you want to say, it is best to not get drawn down the tangential paths that others open up. As philosopher of science Karl Popper said, “It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood”. Trying to clear up the misunderstandings of people who are determined to go in a particular direction just leads to an endless rabbit hole.
Thanks to Rob Grigjanis, I got the link to the talk I gave on Saturday on the wildly varying age of the Earth. The full day’s talks are below and mine begins soon after the 5:25:00 mark.
If you do not know how to skip to the part where my talk begins, you can go here where it has already been cued up for you.
Rob and I had a discussion about my discussion of Kelvin’s role in the comments section of my earlier post announcing the talk that those interested can go and read.
(Previous posts in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10)
For convenience, let me summarize the results that were arrived at in the previous post of the calculations of the Poynting vector by Rohrlich for a charge Q and detector D for the following five scenarios. S represents an inertial frame (such as freely falling in a uniform gravitational field) while E is the frame of the Earth.
Scenario 1: Both Q and D are floating freely in empty space in the absence of all forces
Conclusion: D will not detect any radiation and and thus Q is said to not radiate.
Scenario 2: Both Q and D are both falling freely in a uniform gravitational field
Conclusion: D will not detect any radiation and and thus Q is said to not radiate.
Scenario 3: Q is freely falling while D is on the floor in E
Conclusion: D will detect radiation and thus Q is said to radiate.
Scenario 4: Q is on the floor in E while D is freely falling
Conclusion: D will detect radiation and thus Q is said to radiate.
Scenario 5: Both Q and D are at rest on the floor in E
Conclusion: D will not detect radiation and thus Q is said to not radiate.
Let us see how Rohrlich’s results affect the two postulates that began this series of posts:
Postulate #1: If we can eliminate all other forces such as friction, all objects that are dropped from the same height in a gravitational field will fall at the same rate and hit the ground at the same time.
Postulate #2: An accelerating charge falling freely in a gravitational field will radiate energy.
The results of Scenario 3 support Postulate #2, that the falling electric charge will radiate and that radiation will be detected by a detector at rest in the frame.
But there are still three (at least) unresolved issues.
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More is emerging about tennis player Novak Djokovic’s crackpot views.
The tennis star has a track record when it comes to questionable scientific claims.
In his book Serve to Win, Djokovic described how in 2010 he met with a nutritionist who asked him to hold a piece of bread in his left hand while he pressed down on his right arm. Djokovic claims he was much weaker while holding the bread, and cited this as evidence of gluten intolerance.
And during an Instagram live, he claimed that positive thought could “cleanse” polluted water, adding that “scientists have proven that molecules in water react to our emotions.”
According to Dr David Nunan, a senior researcher at the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, “on the balance of probabilities it is highly unlikely that such claims are true – at least not by current conventions of scientific theory and practice.”
The last delicate operation in the unfurling of the James Webb Space Telescope was successfully carried out when the two side mirrors were unfolded so that the large 6.5m concave mirror is now complete. This was the last final phase of the telescope assembly, as shown in this simulation.
A few days ago, the secondary mirror (the little mirror that faces the big golden mirror) was unfolded and the support structure for it was successfully locked into place.
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