Gorth

"For example, Nepomnyashchaya was on a conference call with a top Russian health official about plans for turning one of the buildings at her medical facility into a coronavirus treatment ward. She disagreed with the idea, and fell out of the window during the call, according to local media. " Not sure if there is really any mystery there?

Oh come on, RIcky Gervais was awesome last year when he took on HFPA at their own award show. If just to watch the grimaces and the cringing of the "celebrities" (including Apples Tim Cook and other) when he tells exactly what he think about Hollywood, FFPA and the movie industry. It's priceless 😂 Names referenced: Ronan Farrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Farrow (investigative journalist who uncovered the sordid affairs of Hollywood and Harvey Weinstein) Harvey Weinstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Weinstein (in)famous movie producer and the "Boss" of Hollywood Jeffrey Epstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein Influential financier

I predicted a major financial crash in 2020, but that was two years before Covid, that prediction will never be proven either or, as the world economy came tumbling down for other reasons. https://www.thebalance.com/inverted-yield-curve-3305856 I have no clue about the mechanics behind this curve, but the last time it hit the headlights was after the 2009 GFC. I *think* 2012 was the first time I heard about it and how it was a reliable indicated of major economic meltdowns. On a more funny level, an entirely anecdotal and unscientific herald of doom for me was, 2019 was only the second time ever a company I worked for offered employees to buy shares in the company. The first time it happened was in late 2008 (iirc). I rejected the offer back then and share prices plummeted to 30% of their original values within 6 months. I felt like I had just escaped a car accident by not getting part of my salary paid in shares. I also said no this time around and counted my blessings for doing so, but I was joking with colleagues in October 2019, that I think the world is going to end in 2020 because of the share offer 😁 True. A bit of laziness on my part. None of the websites popping up on my one and only google search showed the exact detail I was looking for (not in human readable, non tech English)... But I think the point is reasonably valid, countries with any sizeable currency reserve of USD could be at risk of a major write off.

Careful what you wish for (not that you wished for it, just an expression), if the USD implodes, the world economy and most western countries will follow suit as they us it as a currency reserve (rather than tangible assets like gold etc.) Edit: The figures for Poland https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/poland/foreign-exchange-reserves Approx $140bn currently. if the USD becomes toilet paper... sucks to be the Polish currency.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57050690 "The US government issued emergency legislation on Sunday after the largest fuel pipeline in the US was hit by a ransomware cyber-attack. The Colonial Pipeline carries 2.5 million barrels a day - 45% of the East Coast's supply of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. It was completely knocked offline by a cyber-criminal gang on Friday and is still working to restore service." The Democrats will probably blame it on Russia. The Republicans will probably blame it on China. Iran will be laughing it's ass off in the meantime...

One of the side effects of global warming is the possibility to travel the waters of the northern arctics. After the Suez Canal scare, that is exactly what Japan is pondering the viability of... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/9/japan-mulls-alternatives-to-the-suez-canal Who knows, Russia and Japan may suddenly become the new best friends (because it's profitable for both). Egypt might not like the idea. I've no idea how much of the traffic through the canal is made up by Japanese ships, at least one ship stood out in the news recently *cough*. Egypt is currently suing the Japanese owner for approx $1bn, having seized the ship, cargo and crew as collateral) "...Leaving aside the very long route around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, Japan has two potential alternatives, both of them reliant on Russia – the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Northern Sea Route. The giant Ever Given got wedged across the Suez Canal in March, stopping traffic in one of the world’s busiest trading routes for almost a week [File: Suez Canal via AFP] Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin has personally promoted these alternatives. At the time he was inaugurated for his fourth term as president in May 2018, Putin signed the “Executive Order on National Goals and Strategic Objectives of the Russian Federation through to 2024.” Among the goals were “reducing the time to ship containers by rail, in particular from the Russian Far East to Russia’s western border, down to seven days, and quadrupling the volume of transit container traffic by rail,” as well as “developing the Northern Sea Route and increasing its cargo traffic up to 80 million tonnes.”"

For some "CGI free" epicness (using 10000 soldiers as extras at a time where CGI didn't exist)... The movie was split into four parts because of it's length (7+ hours) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace_(film_series) It was supposedly remade in 2019, but I have no idea if it ended up as a good or bad remake. I could imagine all the extras being replaced by CGI. The original is still worth watching for people with the time to spare (the same kind of people that has the LoTR extended version movies in their library)

Those crafty entrepreneurs.... "The first bottles of an "artisanal spirit" made using apples grown near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant have been seized by Ukrainian authorities. The Chernobyl Spirit Company said 1,500 bottles of Atomik alcoholic drink were confiscated on 19 March and taken to the Kyiv Prosecutor's office. Officers took the shipment from a truck at a distillery in the Carpathians." https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57011695 "They are now awaiting the outcome of an investigation by the Ukrainian security services but say they have "no idea" why the shipment, which was destined for the UK, was seized." Oh come on, could have been fun watching a bunch of Britons running around at night, glowing in the dark 😝 Now I feel like playing Fallout again

Their claims are based on military conquest. It depends on whether you consider such claims legitimate? Tibet and China around 850ce. The Tibetan Empire fragmented into smaller realms, ruled by local Tibetan warlords. Tibet around 1931 during the Sino-Tibetan war, where Chiang Kaicheck waged a war of conquest against Tibet: https://omniatlas.com/maps/southern-asia/19310326/ The battle of Chamdo in 1950 where Chinese forces eventually overran Tibet and seized it (edit: and it has been held occupied since that, despite the occasional uprising and revolts against the occupation): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chamdo

Who needs drones when you've got 21 tonnes of space junk left to its own devices, which is going to hit a random place between New York and Canberra anytime within the next few hours 😛 Edit: Do you count the cultural genocide and the ethnic cleansing in Tibet an internal Chinese affair? I.e. do you accept China's claim that Tibet was always part of China? (if so, I would like to show you some old maps)

I'll just put this here for future references so I can go back some day and say "I told you so" (to the world), China is going to be the biggest threat to the world in the twenty first century....

From Lindemann's solo project (he's also the lead singer of Rammstein): Blut ("Blood")) Edit: Rather than double posting... for those who appreciate some awesome piano skills!

Tail end of previous conversation... In reverse order??? Thank you Forum software 😖

Ideally, wealthy countries would just load cargo planes and trucks with pallets of vaccine (the easy to transport ones) and simply give it away, because it's in their own self interest. No good vaccinating your own population if less developed countries become "reservoirs" of virus, that not only are ready to jump on the next plane back to developed countries (who would then either get new waves of infection or need to start a scheme of vaccinations in perpetuity). It also has the inherent (as far as I see it) risk of the virus mutating further and further away from something the current vaccines protect against. It's such an infectious agent, it simply needs to die, all over the world, for anyone to feel the threat has passed, put the masks aside and start rubbing more than elbows again.

So not sure what my initial view was? Anyway, my current view, It's a tricky one, because in this specific case, patent waivers are pointless (for obvious reasons because the whole supply chain structure is missing that could enable a production of any significant scale up). The most likely outcome would be first world competitors saying "sucker!" and napping a part of the profit for themselves too, at the expense of the companies that did the investments in R&D. People tend to forget that for every successful product, there could be 20 failed lines of (expensive) research behind it, that needs to be paid too. That being said, the reason I find it tricky is, some pharmaceutical companies are little more than extortion machines when they sit on monopolies and patents, using them to drive up prices way beyond anything reasonable, simply because "they can". Ideally they pricing would reflect the region it got sold to? But that leaves the problem with parallel imports (**** you region encoding on DVD's and Blu-Ray's!)

I'll need to double check this, but I somehow thought the IP belonged to BioNTech and Pfizer is really only part of the equation because they had a substantial existing supply chain and distribution/manufacturing capability? Just as a bit if interesting trivia, the BioNTech vaccine was actually developed over decades for something completely different, cancer treatment. But it was apparently not too complicated to re-tool it to be a specific vaccine. This part funded by Merkel, who may have a say in what happens to the vaccine in the future, like not only Made in Germany, but also (C) Germany 🤔

New thread here...

Hello everybody. I am your new landlord. Welcome to all prospective tenants who wants to set up shop in this thread. We are currently working on a plan that will give prolific posters a discount, lowering the price of each post they wish to submit 😇 I'll become so stinking rich in no time! 🤑 💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰 Old thread

Most likely just a troll post on twitter (and people who eat that kind of stuff raw and actually believes it if it resonates with their own bigotry) The (twitter) posters account is just a bunch of religious garbage, bigotry and racism. I.e. someone who lost at the game of life. Would make a good Trump follower I suspect. Lacks the brain to be anything else. Edit: And yeah, looks like nobody has any idea what the mysterious discord server could've been 🙄

Damn, when did that happen??? I never even noticed the moment I turned alt right... please don't tell my friends! 😟

I suddenly feel like playing the Flash Gordon sound track by Queen again

Well, besides being on a "budget", I also refused to spend more than a total of 15 minutes researching tonight, including which nearby dealer had it in stock so i can pick it up tomorrow (edit: and trying to figure whether IPS was a good or bad thing)

Got tired of sitting hunched over my work laptop, getting a sore back and neck from starting *down* at the monitor all the time, so relegating my current PC monitor to become external monitor for my laptop (and one of the spare DAS mechanical keyboards I have) so I can sit in a proper work position at home. Bought a new Philips 28in 4K IPS FreeSync Speaker Monitor (288E2A) No idea if it's good or bad, but my "budget" for impulse monitor purchases 😇 was around 400 Aussie dollars

😂 Actually, I'm fully behind the decision, even if it doesn't affect me personally. I would also sit it out and wait down here if AZ or JJ were the only ones on offer. Even a low risk is too much if you don't strictly need the vaccine (yet) In Denmark's case, the infection rate is manageable as is, while they wait for better alternatives (or use Pfizer, even if more pricy) Edit: Danes don't trust large companies and organisations as a rule of thumb. Just check what happened with the Maastricht Treaty. Every man and his dog of the political and economical elite recommended unanimously across the political spectrum that they should vote 'Yes'. The rest is history, no trust in what comes from the EU whatsoever.