nudge

Binged it all on the New Year's Day haha.

Cobra Kai Season 3 is out!

Dakar Rally starts in less than 3 days! New route: Entry list: https://www.dakar.com/en/competitors

It's the latter. All those numbers are estimates based on what we’ve seen with the interval between doses in the two-dose studies. No studies have been specifically done on efficacy of a single dose; not for Pfizer/BioNTech, not for Moderna, not for AstraZeneca/Oxford. However, that limited trial data suggests moderate to high efficacy after a single dose; the main issue seems to be lack of data on how long does the immunity last, whether it fades away much faster without the second booster dose, and whether a longer delay between the two doses is significantly detrimental for long-term immunity. More data would be nice, but either way, the limited data we do have seems to suggest that a single dose is enough to prevent severe cases and significantly reduce hospitalisations for weeks (longest interval between the two doses was 26 weeks in the AZ/Oxford trials), which is pretty encouraging. The only vaccine that has trialed a one-dose protocol is the Johnson & Johnson one, the data should be available any time now, and they are also running an additional two-dose protocol trials, so that should be very useful in providing a direct comparison of a single vs multiple dose regimens.

It's not the headline of the Japanese, though... It's poor reporting by the BBC.

Huh? How exactly is it going to reduce space junk? Instead of metal junk orbiting the Earth you will just have wooden junk floating in orbit... Space junk is space junk because it doesn't de-orbit, doesn't matter if it's wood or any other material. What a misleading headline.

But it was back then when you were still Argh! I'm a Pirate and he was massdebates (I think) Both Liverpool fans and both quality posters still kinda explains it though...

I used to confuse you two, for whatever reason

I found 22 very relatable in general

Just watched it myself... Really good in all aspects; the animation, the score, the story are all top notch, and it also came out just at a right time as most of us could probably do with a nice subtle reminder to enjoy all little things in life... Some nice humour in there, too. “Don't worry, you can't crush a soul here, that's what life on Earth is for!" 8.5/10.

Staying with Canon or are you considering switching system?

I think the fact that MuZero learns without being given the rules by developing its own internal dynamic model of the environment and optimising within that model, and is also non-specific enough to teach itself new games is pretty neat though... Kind of similar to how we (humans) learn things without reading the rulebook first. Now, I agree with you that it's still more of a statistical model which mimics the most effective play, but while it might not be true AI, the progress reinforced learning has made in such a short period of time is still very impressive. Hopefully this will lead to it mastering more complex multi-agent games by demonstrating its understanding of causal connections between a multitude of different actions instead of relying on brute forcing solutions.

Beer thread: https://talkfootball365.com/topic/12707-beer/ Whisky thread: https://talkfootball365.com/topic/7961-whiskey/ Old thread on alcohol in general: https://talkfootball365.com/topic/50-alcohol-thread/

Well it is true, the question is, whether they will get away with it

Two RB Salzburg's players failed their doping test. Salzburg are blaming Mali's fooball association for giving the two players a drug containing a banned substance to combat altitude sickness, as Sekou Koita and Mohamed Camara tested positive after being away with the national team.

Now that's what I call a prison break!

This is a great write up.

Ribs for Christmas Eve.

That's a great idea, the chilli looks good too!

Is it those meal kits? Never used it myself. How does it work? I use a similar service from some local restaurants sometimes where they deliver you the ingredients for the meal of your choice along with the instructions. Usually do it when I want something like pho or proper ramen, as it is cheaper and more convenient than trying to find all the stuff in regular supermarkets...

Just to clarify - I'm not getting into the debate whether or not the UK government is using the information about the new variants as some sort of a political tool to keep people in check during the festive period; I have no clue about that nor is it a discussion I'm particularly interested in, haha. But it's probably worth noting that the new UK and South Africa variants didn't happen in a week - they've been catalogued in late September/early October, and it's very likely it's already spread throughout the world anyway. The UK is doing a fantastic job with sequencing, so it's no wonder they were the first one to find it; if other countries would be doing as much of it as the UK does, I bet it would have already been documented in more places around the world too. Regarding other more potent variants, there was one with the D614G mutation that suddenly started rising in March and became the most dominant one in Europe and then globally by the end of June. That variant also had a significantly higher transmissibility, but no change in pathogenicity; these two new variants appear to be very similar to the D614G one in that aspect. Interestingly enough, the mutations in that variant also made it more succeptible to neutralisation by antibodies, so there's hoping it will be the same case with the new ones as well.

To add to that, technically it's also not even a new strain, it's just another new variant - there's quite a big difference, and it's so annoying to see even some experts use the two terms indiscriminately. These two new variants have been catalogued in September/October already, and while it's definitely worth keeping an eye on them as they appear to have more mutations than usual so it's unknown what effect the combination of these mutations might have, at this point there's nothing to suggest that it has increased pathogenicity, and even the increased transmissibility is a speculation until there's proper data analysis; the 70% figure quoted in some sources is very likely to be an overestimation. As for vaccines, they are very likely to be effective, for numerous reasons. For starters, the vaccines target numerous epitopes of the spike protein, and that's extremely unlikely that mutations in a single variant of the virus would alter ALL of these epitopes, rendering the vaccine useless. Also, the vaccines were created based on the original genome of the virus after it was first sequenced and made public in January, but the clinical trials data shows that it provided effective protection against variants of the virus that ocurred later this year. And even if there happened to be a new variant some day in the future that somehow rendered the existing vaccines completely useless, it's not that much of a big deal anyway - the biggest advantage of mRNA vaccines is the fact that they can be created extremely fast, so you'd need just a few days to modify the existing ones to target the new variant instead of the original one.

Nice landing animation...

I bought all three tomes of 1Q84 today... That will be my next one after I finish the Wernher von Braun biography. Thanks for bringing me back to Murakami's world