Adrian Constantin

A photo of a contestant at Mister Global 2025

Mr Laos. Just when you though this year was a bit quiet on the insanely huge, bedazzled, symbolic costumes along comes Mr Laos and blows everyone else out of the water. This is insane, but it's also *so* good.

Untreated HIV can take on average around 10 years to progress to AIDS. This means HIV was unknowingly circulating throughout the ‘70s (and likely before). Going by this rough timeline, we won’t know what damage a single COVID infection, let alone several, does long term until around 2030.

Finnish #intelligence #history keeps having wild plot twists.

A retired Finnish spy-catcher with probably a world record in catching Soviet “illegals” (“at least” 25) got the largest lottery jackpot in Europe - and used the millions to do and help counterintelligence.

www.hs.fi/tutkiva/art-...

The only people nuttier than those who claim to support Trump and Ukraine are those who are adamant that Trump and Maduro are great opposites. Trump is simply trying to be an American Maduro, power with no belief and, of course, a commitment to personal enrichment.

Se on #pandemiaPerjantai ja uudet @thlfi.bsky.social #SARS-CoV2 #jätevesi datat. Päivitetyt kaaviot, olkaa hyvät!
- viime viikko ei ollut virhe, epidemia etenee lujaa
- erikoinen pieni suvanto välissä, mutta määrät kirivät kiinni syyskuun alun tasoa
- vuosivertailussa vielä pieniä tasoja

It’s astounding that no one says - hey isn’t there a field of science specifically specializing in respiratory protection?

This is a bit like me sponsoring an electrical engineering review of neurosurgery papers. Hey it’s all electricity…

The memory of that desperation has faded now. I hope against all hope we'll have sooner rather than later our collective epiphany that mass action is possible before we reach again insane levels of misery.
/end

The sad lesson of history is that, apart from military organizations, mass cooperation seems to be triggered only when a critical mass of people get desperate enough and see no other solution. In recent history, a small number of nations got there after one world war, others needed two.

It's nice to say "let's fight together against the fascist takeover of the country", but I won't trust you in such high stakes situation, if sometimes earlier you told me "I don't care if your home burns due to climate change, if you get killed or maimed by a virus, if your kids can't go to school".

If you screw me over in one of these games, I won't trust you, or even worse, I will screw you over in another game.

Imagine 2 people (a generic you and I) involved in a series of situations modelled as games: taxation, climate change, building of infrastructure and homes, culture, public education and health care, pandemics, fascist takeover of government, war, etc.

Ofc he is right, but based on game theory, we would need an enormous amount of collective coordination to achieve such a Pareto optimum. From social point of view high collective coordination requires high levels of trust.

Can a pope declare a crusade against the superrich?

Asking for a friend.

Given how your usual crusade goes, the crusaders would fight the poor first, and only then handle the rich. And all their actions would make the situation worse for most people.

I curse Ikea instructions the most, because a lot of my furniture is Ikea. A lot of my furniture is Ikea because the other companies are way, way worse. Hiring a half decent drawing artist is the low bar, but still an impossible task for most companies, apparently.

Asking Claude for advice 3 times, colorized

Or that you need a good publicist.

My latest animation of the global surface temperature anomaly, 1851 - 2025 (current through September).

The only effective opposition is through the language of morality and documented harm—not legal technicalities that can be swept away with a 6–3 vote.” The text is centered on a neutral background, with “morality” and “documented harm” slightly emphasized to underscore the moral and empirical contrast with “legal technicalities.”

As the Supreme Court term begins, keep this framework in mind: Autocratic Legalism.

Instead of “rule of law” (law constrains the power), we get “rule by law” (law as a weapon for power).

Authoritarians usually have to install allies. Trump started his second term with that step already complete.

By relying on the “vaxx & relax” approach to dealing with COVID, Public Health officials backed themselves into a corner… a corner that the anti-Science lobby had set up as a trap.

The anti-Science lobby now controls vaccine research and distribution in the US.

The other tools? PH sabotaged them.

For what is worth it, I think Greta Thunberg is a remarkable human being.

You have to give it to authoritarian regimes, they are consistently idiotic and destructive across most dimensions.

It would be very interesting to hear if anyone who really understands the United States and - say - the 1990s Yugoslav wars has written anything about the current situation.

Given that, among other things, religion seems to play an important contribution to the current state of US affairs, the comparison with former Yugoslavia would be pertinent. Northern Ireland might be another relevant reference.

Apart from the technological failure to stop these attacks, it also shows a failure of intelligence. The attacks are initiated inside Denmark, Germany, etc., by agents within those countries.
bsky.app/profile/phil...

Apart from the technological failure to stop these attacks, it also shows a failure of intelligence. The attacks are initiated inside Denmark, Germany, etc., by agents within those countries.
bsky.app/profile/phil...

Macron remarks are notable- some quotes: "We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."

Again, why are there no general strikes in the USA as their democracy is being dismantled in real time?

As stated about influenza in Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 18th Edition (2011): “Most pathogens exit via the same route by which they entered: respiratory pathogens by aerosols from sneezing or coughing”.

First, Covid was here to stay, now Long Covid is here to stay. Predictable, but sad, nevertheless, because as we don't live in the Bronze Age and we know how to stop the spread of diseases. Yet, we hire public health officials who act like Bronze Age priests and shamans.