Kennel posted:

25 years later Theodore Roosevelt Mittel pleaded guilty for robbery. One has to wonder, if being Adolf Hitler would have led him to another path.

https://www.leagle.com/decision/196868529ad2d6562276

quote:

I remember Adolf from when I was a boy. Now he was also known as "Teddy" because after the uproar Mr. Mittel changed the name from Adolf Hitler to Theodore Roosevelt, but he was always Adolf to me.

We lived at 40-08 Twelfth Street, apartment 1D in Queensbridge and I think it was one or two floors above us that the Mittel's had their suite, two apartments cojoined to accomodate their numbers. My mom always warned me to stay away from Teddy, because he was sick and his dad had named him Adolf Hitler.

I remember an image (we're talking fifty plus years now) of one of Teddy's sisters standing on the staircase, pregnant. I remember asking my mom how that could be if the girl wasn't married and my mom saying a very shocking thing about Mr. Mittel.

I have a recollection of being pinned against the mailboxes in the building entrance by Adolf, his bony fingers around my neck, his face red his eyes bulging and me struggling to break free, then someone coming and pulling him off of me. I don't recall what precipitated the attempted strangulation but I do remember that terrifying few moments.

Story had it that Adolf killed a candy store man near Ravenswood Projects and got caught. I don't know if he was executed or not.

I remember his dad always walking around Queensbridge with a bunch of fancy cameras strapped around his shoulders. His dad reminded me then of a fatter version of Bathless Groggins.

quote:

thin polyester spandex gaiters may be worse than going maskless

Platystemon posted:

The weirdest thing about that story is how many words Doctor Hanlon spent to say nothing of substance.

Saying that the gaiter data doesn’t count because the authors weren’t writing about the comparative effectiveness of face coverings it is like saying that Columbus’ voyage doesn’t count because he wasn’t looking for new continents.

(And not because people were already living there or Leif Erikson did it first.)

Platystemon posted:

It’s not great data, but it’s the best data we have. Unless and until a rigorous study is published, gaiters should be discouraged.

We didn’t have any data showing that exhalation valves let all the virus‐laden plumes out, until yesterday, but a number of people and organisations applied common sense to that one.

Platystemon posted:

You’re saying we should disregard the report in part because a third party incorrectly summarised it?

The gaiter is not a criminal defendant. We do not have to assume its innocence till all reasonable doubt is removed.

There are other options for face coverings whose efficacy is not in question.

Veni Vidi Ameche! posted:

Even if it works perfectly 100% of the time (which it will not), and even if it never pokes out anyone’s eye or stabs their brain (which it will), the question is: why? Does anyone think that looks faster or more efficient than letting a person do it? Are they going to put these in drugstores like blood pressure testing machines? I’m just not seeing the market.

luxury handset posted:

a lot of people uncritically believe "automation is the future" without trying to understand how automation increases efficiency. for example, there's this stupid little robot arm thing that flips burger patties. it's very stupid and inefficient thus pointless, but every few years someone pops up with a new article about this robot nobody wants and a bunch of dull people chime in with "rip minimum wage workers". meanwhile the real automated burger making robot is the giant conveyor system that cranks out thousands of frozen patties per hour if not entire bagged frozen burgers (whole burgers are really hard to freeze and is the real bottleneck in automated burgers)

so you're right, taking a robot arm and making it swab a nose is a completely pointless application of automation, because the nose-swabbing part of the process is one of the quickest and easiest parts of the test. automating the processing of results is a lot more useful and i'm sure there are other companies working on that that operate on a more intelligent level than "make a robot arm do it"

zedprime posted:

But you're also figuring the be all end all business requirement is "make fast and cheap" when there is another optional requirement of "minimize human to human contact when one is suspected of being a hazard."

John Lee posted:

I'll tell you why we should ignore the gaiter news: because the study measured number of droplets, and the gaiter broke up the bigger ones into smaller ones, resulting in more droplets. But, and this is obvious, the same amount of actual virus-laden matter. And yes, hypothetically a fine mist of droplets would be better for communicating the virus, but we're already talking , about a mist so fine it's invisible, a number of smaller droplets in your respiratory system is going to make no practical difference. The information, as distinct from data, in the study says that gaiters probably aren't very good, but the bizarre crackpot theory that gaiters magically multiply the virus can and should be ignored.

Platystemon posted:

You’re saying we should disregard the report in part because a third party incorrectly summarised it?

The gaiter is not a criminal defendant. We do not have to assume its innocence till all reasonable doubt is removed.

There are other options for face coverings whose efficacy is not in question.

Platystemon posted:

What? No. Finer droplets are bad. They settle out of the air more slowly and travel farther. The other person’s mask are less likely to stop them.

If the only thing that mattered was total viral count, drooling would be as bad as singing. It’s not. The ærosols created by singing are far more insidious.

Baron von Eevl posted:

No, you should absolutely pay attention to the report, which only said this testing may potentially be feasible. The report did not say "neck gaiters may do more harm than good," the disreputable third party said that. You want to talk about using common sense? How about the common sense of "wearing a specific arrangement of cloth over your face doesn't magically make more virus shoot out."

quote:

In proof-of-principle studies, we compared a variety of commonly available mask types and observed that some mask types approach the performance of standard surgical masks, while some mask alternatives, such as neck gaiters or bandanas, offer very little protection.

quote:

We noticed that speaking through some masks (particularly the neck gaiter) seemed to disperse the largest droplets into a multitude of smaller droplets (see fig. S5), which explains the apparent increase in droplet count relative to no mask in that case. Considering that smaller particles are airborne longer than large droplets (larger droplets sink faster), the use of such a mask might be counterproductive. Furthermore, the performance of the valved N95 mask is likely affected by the exhalation valve, which opens for strong outwards airflow. While the valve does not compromise the protection of the wearer, it can decrease the protection of persons surrounding the wearer. In comparison, the performance of the fitted, non-valved N95 mask was far superior.

quote:

the axis lengths returned by the algorithm can still be used for a qualitative droplet size estimation: A bigger droplet scatters more light than a smaller droplet. This insight is important to interpret the result of the neck gaiter. The neck gaiter has a larger transmission (110%; see Fig. 3A) than the control trial. We attribute this increase to the neck gaiter dispersing larger droplets into several smaller droplets, therefore increasing the droplet count. The histogram of the binary diameter for the neck gaiter supports this theory (see fig. S5).

Cartoon Man posted:

Platystemon posted:

If the takeaway you got from those sorry rebuttals was that the study suggested no such thing, you are more mistaken than you were after reading the much‐maligned mainstream news stories.




https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabd3083

By popular demand posted:

Wasp nests are built from chewed paper and predatory capitalism and they have no place in a vagina.

By popular demand posted:

Wasp nests are built from chewed paper and predatory capitalism and they have no place in a vagina.

Phlegmish posted:

Well I'm Gwyneth Paltrow and I say waspgina nests are healthy and natural [loud, angry buzzing coming from crotch area]

Baron von Eevl posted:

That middle quote, that's the formulation of a hypothesis that wasn't being tested.

Baron von Eevl posted:

It's literally just saying "this is a thing we noticed that should be tested more."

Platystemon posted:

Correct. It was a hypothesis formulated in response to an observation they made. That’s textbook science.

They very much did suggest that gaiters, in your words, “may do more harm than good”. What they did not do was prove the hypothesis in that paper.

Should it be followed up on in a proper study? Yes.

In the interim, should a mere observation be enough to influence policy? That’s a strong “yes” from me. Discouraging gaiters is at worst a crime against fashion, whereas ignoring the observation may have a body count.

quote:

In August, Helsinki police found out that six parts of the late Finnish visual artist Markus Copper's Sixpack of Instant Death (1995) might contain an explosive. Police have reached half of the parts, but three parts are still missing.