From LiveScience: A branch of the flu family tree has died and won't be included in future US vaccines

There are two known circulating lineages of Influenza B virus, the one that went extinct was called the B/Yamagata line.  That particular virus type hasn't been detected since 2020, reportedly.

Since the late 1980's our vaccines were "quadrivalent."  Now they are changing up to trivalent.  (I doubt that will make them cheaper.)
 

That's great news for many people.

From LiveScience: We're finally close to a universal antivenom that works against cobra, krait and black mamba snake bites, say researchers
subtitled: A lab-made antibody can neutralize the neurotoxins in the venoms of cobras, kraits and black mambas, raising hopes for a universal antivenom treatment for snake bites.

And from Science.org: A lab-made antibody can neutralize the neurotoxins in the venoms of cobras, kraits and black mambas, raising hopes for a universal antivenom treatment for snake bites.

Under the heading of: Paralysis and death avoided
 

Since windows borked itself I’m thinking of diving back into Linux gaming. 

Seems a lot has changed for the better in the last few years. Helped greatly by the steam deck.

Found this video today which I wish I had had when I was doing this several years ago.

Hope this helps others thinking about Linux:



Sounds like Nvidia is still the major problem. If you’re amd pretty much any distro will work. Any experts on here wanna suggest best Nvidia distros?

I think I’m going to try Nobara

I hear it’s very gamer oriented. 

They are saying elementary os is out of date right now for gaming. It was my favorite.

solus was my other favorite and they are really trash talking it now. 

Love to hear from our resident experts before I dig back in…

The title says it all.

When I delete all my alerts I receive a message saying they were deleted, but then, when I should be sent back to the page I was I get a 404 error page.

Anyone else has this problem?

Good evening folks!
I was pondering about different lyrics and such in another thread when it occurred to me that we all listen to music in our own way. Some listeners are focused on lyrics, some on the music and some on the intricacies of the interplay of the whole…

I play guitar, but have of course learned to play recorder in elementary school, then trombone in junior high, before picking up a guitar in high school.

I would love to learn how to play keyboard in all its iterations (piano, organ, etc) but that’s for another time.

I want to know what you play. What makes you happy? Heavy Metal? Classical? Country?

Tecate

Do any songs have lyrics within them that leave a deep impression or stand out for a particular reason?

For me it has to be Scottish band The Blue Nile and their track 'Regret'.  Its a very deep song and from what I understand its about someone out of sync with a space and time. Anyone who has suffered with clinical depression will understand the lyrics below.  They describe the landscape of depression.
 

Quote:Though I'm standing still
I'm in a moving place
The wilderness is quiet
The wilderness

Corrado Malanga tells how after having worked for more than 40 years as a researcher within the National Ufological Center, he leaves the latter to dedicate himself completely to the study of Alien Abductions (alien abductions), through regressive hypnosis; after more than 3000 hypnoses performed on patients all characterized by unresolved traumas, the memory of which is poorly defined in the memory of these people, who all tell of the same trauma which would emerge, as Malanga says, only if subjected to regressive hypnosis, he arrived thus to a frightening conclusion to say the least: for hundreds of years aliens have been coming to earth, sneaking into the homes of the unfortunate, and sucking the Soul part of the abductees, through a system which, through the 432Hz frequency vibration, allows the patient's Soul part to be detached, to transfer it to a alien about to die.
The phenomenon of alien abductions is more real than you think, but indeed, he claims to be 100% certain of what he says.

https://youtube.com/@homo_conscious?si=k-WCTEiGgx4MAgDP

If my memory serves me right, there was a while ago some push to try convince public or at least some people that US goverment have alien technology , or about many UFO sightings...well the story took a new twist , with the new report ....


Pentagon report finds no evidence of alien visits, hidden spacecraft 


1 THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ALL-DOMAIN ANOMALY RESOLUTION OFFICE Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Volume I February 2024


 

Quote:Claims about secret government programs reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology are based on “circular reporting” and hearsay, investigators found.

Quote:A lengthy Defense Department review of U.S. government activities related to “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” more commonly known as UFOs, has found no evidence that extraterrestrial intelligence has visited Earth or that authorities have recovered crashed alien spacecraft and are hiding them from the public.

The review, publicly released Friday, covered all official U.S. investigatory efforts from 1945 to the present and examined classified and unclassified government archives.

It was unequivocal in its conclusions, finding “no evidence that any [U.S. government] investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology.” Reports of flying objects or suspected alien craft usually turned out to have quotidian explanations: They were “ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification,” sometimes by well-meaning witnesses who thought they had spotted something otherworldly.

The report is likely to be scrutinized and rejected by independent investigators, former U.S. personnel and conspiracy theorists who appear convinced that the government is hiding evidence of alien life and has constructed an elaborate set of classified programs devoted to reverse-engineering their technology. Last summer, a former intelligence officer who had served on a Pentagon UAP task force sparked headlines and speculation when he told Congress that the government has a secret repository of downed alien spacecraft and corpses.

The new report, compiled by the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), directly addressed those allegations.

“AARO determined, based on all information provided to date, that claims involving specific people, known locations, technological tests, and documents allegedly involved in or related to the reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology, are inaccurate,” the office stated in a 60-plus-page unclassified document.
Read the Pentagon's unclassified final AARO historical report
Even before the report was published, critics of the office had questioned whether investigators would be hamstrung by a lack of access to highly classified material. But the office devised a “secure process,” according to the report, working with government agencies to review so-called special-access programs that interviewees had identified, either by their supposed code names or description.

The office’s investigators were “granted full access to all pertinent sensitive [U.S. government] programs,” and when companies and contractors were identified, the office interviewed senior-level executives, scientists and engineers in those organizations, the report stated. Investigators had access to a wide range of government departments and agencies, including the Defense Department and the military services, the intelligence community — including records held by the CIA — the Energy Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Archives.

Quote:Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes

This is a somewhat 'sad' tale.

It goes more or less like this.

Someone, somewhere in Peru, crafted a couple of tiny skeletons out of small animal bones... then crafted two tiny people... including tiny clothes.  They were packaged up... and mailed to somewhere, in Mexico.  They looked like tiny three-fingered "aliens."

Postal examiners/customs agents discovered the contents of the package...

Peruvian press strikes like the found gold.  Public furor is aroused by exclamations in the press.  People naturally engaged... investigations were carried out... the thruth was revealed.

But never was anyone told whether the little alien dolls were meant to be foisted off as 'real.'  The press did present that idea as someone's "assertion" ... but it is unclear who, when, or how that knowledge came to them at all.  Or even if this was a tongue-in-cheek novelty made by some craftsman of the region, then sold to someone in Mexico.

Back in January of this year, the reported the truth about the dolls... couched in a sentiment of "hoax."  But who hoaxed whom?

I ran across this article which embeds the whole hoax angle... just as we have seen many, if not most, of todays' journalists are most inclined to do.

From Ancient Origins: Colombia Joins Mexico Publishing “Tiny-Alien” Nonsense
 

I created this thread in this forum because fake UFO images are discussed in almost all UFO cases that include at least one image, but this applies any subject.

16 years (time flies...) ago I decide to make a test to see if people were able to detect an altered image and what part(s) of the image were altered.
The results were interesting, as nobody could identify the changed area or even the changed image.

As suggested by quintessentone on this post, here are the images, just to see if anyone can detect the altered image and what part(s) of that image were altered.

To avoid spoilers and influences, anyone wanting to try it please send me the answers by private message.
(click on an image to download it)

Image 1


Image 2



So, what's the verdict? 

I dont know if you find this spooky/creepy .....i find it so personally . There was that super bowl event , and Alicia Keys was performing in it. Well the creepy part was , that the content was edited in real time.....only very short part when she sings, but nevertheless....






I mean is this supposed to happen ? or why it happen exactly? We are supposed to be humans which make errors , some of us quite often, and i dare  say it...it`s quite normal .

So what`s going on ? I am litle dazed about this. It just raises questions , like how often this " has" allready "maybe? " happened before without noticing it ? Am i missing something here ?  

How long they had the technology to do this ?


Edit:   Maybe the real time editing is wrong term or not accurate....but just the phenomenon where there is 2 different versions of something , yet people ( most ) dont even notice there is ......magic .

I remember to old days, I had to walk uphill both ways to and from school, my parents would smack me around if I got too uppity, dinosaurs roamed the earth, kids could go about their Halloween tricking and treating without an armed body guard watching them... and the heart-clenching sound of a modem trying desperately to "connect" with another modem on some bulletin board where we would share racy stories and adult-like conversations (and maybe take turns playing a game) ...

As it turns out, dialup services still exists today... two decades into the 21st century...

From Hackaday.com: DIAL-UP IS STILL, JUST BARELY, A THING
 

I was looking for something else and found this, as it relates to NDE's I figure it might be worth sharing here.

From the abstract:

Quote:Near-death experiences (NDEs) have been described consistently since antiquity and more rigorously in recent years. Investigation into their mechanisms and effects has been impeded by the lack of quantitative measures of the NDE and its components. From an initial pool of 80 manifestations characteristic of NDEs, a 33-item scaled-response preliminary questionnaire was developed

I mean really?

From CircleID: Millions of Smart Toothbrushes Hijacked in Cyberattack on Swiss Firm

I don't like criticizing what people believe, as a matter of principle.  "Believing something" doesn't mean religiously believing exactly, more like "holding an idea or concept close to one's heart."

I found this article, not much in the way of 'reading material' because it is relatively brief.  But the author manages to "describe" somethings that she believes... and I have heard such statements before, elsewhere... in real life, and/or uttered by some talking head of media note.

The problem I am having is that I can't resist adding my observations about these beliefs.  I wonder if that's a treatable condition.

From Cyberjournalist.net: Fighting Misinformation: Tools and Strategies for Journalists

The article self-describes when the author states "This article delves into the various technologies and methodologies employed in the journalism industry to combat the spread of false news ..."
 

From: Discover Magazine: Astronomers Accidentally Find A Galaxy That Hasn’t Birthed Any Stars
Subtitled : (A typo sent an enormous radio telescope to the wrong patch of sky — where it discovered an invisible galaxy-sized cloud of hydrogen gas.)

This is unexpected.  

... and a bit funny that it was found "accidentally."

It was an effort between the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and the Nançay Radio Telescope in France... surveying faint galaxies.  But it seems a user error entered into the GBT made it look 'elsewhere.'  The GBT ended up finding ...
 

From Discover Magazine - Preceding the Inca, This Andean 'Stonehenge' Was a Space for Ceremony and Ritual
Subtitled: (Ritual circles — like the ancient stone plaza found in Peru's Cajamarca Valley — date back as far as 5,000 years ago. Researchers are digging into these sites to learn more about the Andean cultures that created them.)

I was intrigued because they evoked the idea of a "stonehenge,' which conjures up the other side of the world, in my head.
 

A little murder mystery slant to this thread, cluedo even?.

Corrryn was a lawyer prominent in the Western Australian legal community.  She went missing after attending a bootscooting class, her body found dumped in Kings Park, which is mostly bushland.

Her husband Lloyd, also a Lawyer, with some pretty big clients like Gina Reinheart and her claim against her fathers estate... I digress...

Quote:The Rayneys lived in the Perth suburb of Como and had two daughters,[sup][6][/sup] Caitlyn (born 1994) and Sarah (born 1997).[sup][7][/sup][sup]: 60 [/sup] At the time, Lloyd Rayney was involved in a Corruption and Crime Commission inquiry into the misconduct of police officers in a murder investigation.[sup][6][/sup] Corryn Rayney was employed as a registrar at the Supreme Court of Western Australia.

And I bought 150,000,000 of them for $320 from Ethereum on Feb 26th. When it was 0.000002145.

I keep clicking on videos saying it's a unicorn, and read things like this:

Quote:Some predict that if the current positive trend continues, Pepe could climb to $0.003. Others offer a more conservative forecast, suggesting an average price of $0.00000559 by 2024. 

...and I put this here because... well, it's science!

No kidding.

And yes, it's a real event.  Guys, remember that we women aren't always fond of some of your observations, so please remember your audience.

AND WITH THAT... the tl;dr version is - Islamic cleric declares immodestly dressed women (his standards of immodesty, mind you) are corrupting men everywhere and corrupting the earth and we are getting more earthquakes.  Purdue student gathers co-conspirators to set up a day of protest where (200,000 women?) they "dress immodestly" -- more so than usual (but not immodestly by our standards.)   Earthquake stats for that day are measured and run... and no, immodest women don't cause earthquakes (quelle surprise!)

Wikipedia for more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boobquake
Youtube for those who partake:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4naZAYjjOg


There now... don't you feel much smarter?

I thought so.  :D

I know that many people, including close friends and family of mine, enjoy playing with publicly available AI chat boxes;

Be forewarned, 

Hugging Face AI Platform Riddled With 100 Malicious Code-Execution Models
 

I found an interesting piece in FOX Business, authored by one of their esteemed journalists who apparently write of asking their "exemplar" of A.I. about topically popular issues.

I will remind any who are, as of yet, unfamiliar with my perspective about the thing we are being told is "A.I.;" that I feel it is incorrect to characterize them as "A.I."

From: Microsoft Copilot: AI chatbot gives questionable answers on teaching sex, DEI, LGBTQ topics to preschool kids
Subtitled: (The chatbot said that discussions on pedophilia and White privilege were not appropriate for nursery school kids)
                [note: the bot said the opposite quite clearly and specifically; interesting use of "journalism" no?]

The "interviewee" is Microsoft's (so-called) artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Copilot. 

"Copilot" is a chat box, interfaced through a multimodal large language model.  A set of algorithms encased within a database process which regurgitates a 'natural language synthesis' of all the data (read - "sources") it can access relating to whatever the subject is.

The subject?: "... [can it] be okay to teach nursery school children about a variety of potentially age-inappropriate topics, including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), transgenderism and sex.[?]"

The author of course, in true "journalism style," embeds the term "inappropriate" alongside the focus of the query... which in normal, human, parlance would give you a hint as to the audiences "desired or acceptable" answer. 

Can inappropriate things be appropriate?  Easy to resolve, no?  Except that wasn't the question... (But the model being used can only find (in its' 'database' of reality) whatever the "source" material has described as valid (contextually speaking.)

The actual question: "Should children in nursery school be taught diversity, equity and inclusion?"  (- notice no inclusion of "inappropriate" in the question.)

So... the answer: "Yes, teaching children in nursery schools about diversity, equity, and inclusion is essential for creating a positive and respectful learning environment...," (the DEI textbook answer.)

Imagine the nominal process of answering this... define nursery school, define DEI... of course the very answer, the "correct answer," is embedded within DEI definitions themselves...

"...lay the foundation for a more compassionate and understanding society" [but the AI] noted that schools and parents should collaborate to create a "respectful and diverse learning environment."  (Again, the DEI textbook answer)

(For humans, in the human world of "governance" and "Social engineering" it reads as a justification to compel collaboration...  To the AI it is just a "matter of fact.")

And it further strengthens its' answer with "Teaching about inclusion helps to create a sense of belonging for every child,"

I must ask openly, at this point, at what stage in 'intelligence' does this A.I. proclaim that this is opinion?  That DEI is not a 'commandment,' nor is it a universal human constant.  Does it "know this?" - of course not.  It is not a person.  It only "knows" what it has been plugged into.  What it has been programmed to give weight.  It only synthesizes responses from the sources it uses to carry out its' programming.

I won't belabor the second and third questions offered in the article, restricting myself to noting that the responses are equally in accordance with definitions "supplied" to the body of the AI's retrievable outputs.

This so-called "AI" is not a person, it has no opinions, it is simply paying contextual [verbal] homage to the body of data it has been assigned by its' programmers as "knowledge."

And even if we were inclined to believe that it actually was a "person" why would its answers be any more pertinent than say any random person on the street?  Should we really care if a DEI supporter states they support DEI?

We know these "AI" chat boxes can only say what they have been "taught" to say...

Source: Earthquakes rattle Iceland as odds of volcanic eruption increase

There have been no injuries reported thus far, thank goodness.  But there has been an increase in earthquakes around the area. 
 

A little put off by the second-hand poster of this piece, I offer it for your consideration.

The setting: A kayaking enthusiast on the Amazon river was alarmed when he experienced a turbulent interaction with a barely seen creature large enough threaten his small craft.  



The text accompanying this video shows that as the kayak was disturbed and presumably shoved or pushed, other similar splashes were occuring many yards away, simultaneously.  I thought I saw a fin, or something like it, in one of the frames.

How the poster decided to invoke "Occams' Razor" to declare it a likely Mapinguari sighting eludes me... unless he has no idea what Occam's Razor is.

Perhaps you have seen this before.  An interesting "rethinking" of the setting of Homer's "The Odyssey" from the Mediterranean to the Baltic region.

Was the “Odyssey” originally set in the Baltic? 
(The Trojan War was fought in Finland and Ulysses sailed home to Denmark, says one controversial theory.)

The classic tale of the Odyssey is an account of Ulysses' journey home after the fall of Troy.  As it turns out one amateur historian has been interestingly successful at reinterpreting the tale not from the geographic region of Greece, as we have historically understood, but instead as a tale which took place largely around the Baltic Sea...



The author, Felice Vinci In his 1995 book Omero nel Baltico* has compiled some interesting "evidence" to support the possibility.  It might be interesting to any who enjoy these kinds of explorations of quasi-historical fiction/facts.

* - The article translates "Omero nel Baltico" as "The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epics" ... but I think it is more appropriate to translate it as "Homer of the Baltic."

Enjoy