On the bird flu thing, Bruce Schneier (I think; not googling) aptly pointed out the analogy to computer security, where "security through obscurity" (that is, if you don't tell anybody about it, nobody will know) has been shown time and again to be completely foolish.
That said, I don't think people should build island theme parks full of sterile dinosaurs that are able to reproduce via absurd plot contrivances, so there are shades of gray.
Technically, any virus spread by birds is already "airborne".
1.2: Because John Williams has enough songs already.
1.1 seems to be a subtle attempt to support the analogy ban.
It seems hard to judge from the limited amounts of information that have appeared in the press. I kind of want to support its publication regardless, though.
Maybe "analogy" wasn't the right word, as the concept is directly, specifically applicable as originally defined.
dinosaurs that are able to reproduce via absurd plot contrivances,
I know a few people who reproduced this way, too.
7: Probably you can download free e-books along those lines, too.
About in vitro fertilization procedures?
6: Making disease organisms is the same as pointing out security flaws in an entirely human-created machine?
Oh, if you're looking for science fiction that might be free, there's also that old Bulgakov novel that kind of prefigured Jurassic Park, with scientists accidentally making giant lizards and snakes or whatever. The Fatal Eggs?
One of my favorite podcasts, This Week In Virology, had a long discussion based largely on this information in Science. Their general response was of being baffled at what Paul Keim was talking about, since the rest of the Science piece amounts to the idea that engineering the virus with specific mutations to become more transmissible didn't work, but it could be made more transmissible by the decades-old technology of simply infecting ferrets with it for generation after generation until it got adapted to them. Then they looked to see which mutations had arisen that might account for this increased transmissibility. This is not that different from what goes on the wild in millions of infected animals all the time, especially in concentrated animal enclosures like duck farms. But apparently their semi-random ferret-adaptation study came up with a combination of mutations that nobody had envisioned producing such virulence. This might be applicable to humans, might not.
The NSABB was created after the antharx attacjs, as an NIH advisory board that journals decide on their own to send articles to if they suspect the NSABB might want to be alerted before publication. This being the first article that the NSABB has actually expressed a wish to suppress in its decae of existence, the opinion is split between "They must have a reason for doing it, since they don't exactly act on a hair trigger", and "Keim wants to make sure people remember the relevance of the NSABB".
10: sure, yeah. Like with memes and genes.
13 is another way of saying that I'm not entirely sure the security through obscurity argument is a good one in this case, although I think it's essentially the same argument as it is in computer security, and also I don't want to think it through right now because I'm tired. And uh bicycle.
But apparently their semi-random ferret-adaptation study came up with a combination of mutations that nobody had envisioned producing such virulence.
This is a great sentence, regardless of whether or not we all die in an epidemic.
Are the ferrets semi-random, or was the study?
9: I actually had in mind novels in which romances only happen due to ridiculous plot contrivances. But if there isn't a novel about in vitro fertilization, then surely one would have to invent one.
Tristram Shandy, of course, was the character we know and love only due to a silly plot contrivance involving his mother asking the time (or something along those lines--AWB can correct me) at the moment of conception.
The ferrets were from Scandinavia.
I'm really happy that no commentary I've encountered so far on this issue contains the phrase "playing God." I want to murder everyone who ever utters those words.
What do you do with a bunch of ferrets that were infected with a potential pandemic starting virus? Is there a procedure, like the one for hard drives that once held identifiable patient information?
I propose we refer all these ferret questions to the preeminent ferret expert of this or indeed any generation.
Personally I'm mostly wondering where "spreading pandemic flu" falls in the ferret value system.
Yeah, yeah, "playing god" is bad, but I've been hearing rumors that the Japanese and/or the Russians are working on resurrecting woolly mammoths from ancient DNA. Come on, how cool would that be? Fucking mammoths! Whoolly mammoths!
24: How about just going by revealed preferences? Ferrets haven't tried to spread pandemic disease yet, so they must not want to. Unlike rats, fleas, Chi-Chi's salsa bars, and marmots.
25: Someone was telling me that despite all the speculation you hear now and then, it's actually very unlikely to work. Something about elephants not making good surrogate mothers after all, and some other technical difficulties? I forget who was explaining this. Maybe even someone here.
The speculation about the elephant mothers is probably more about them supplying an improper womb environment than about parenting difficulties.
The more I think about the ferret-flu-data suppression the more intriguing it becomes. These studies don't seem groundbreaking in any way. Their data-mining to discern which mutations were having the effect on transmissibility must have generated a couple data points that were totally unexpected and unlikely to be replicated in other labs' attempts to do the same experiment.
I didn't mean they would be a bad mother in the sense of the young mammoths needing therapy.
27: That was me. (At least, I'm pretty sure that's what you're thinking of.)
Get your organization to work on that teo; we must not have a woolly mammoth gap!
Oh right, I read "surrogate" as "foster mother".
31: Because when I think "expertise in genetic engineering" I immediately think "National Park Service."
I think "places where the right DNA might be found today" and "places where they could live afterward"--the other part you subcontract.
Good luck closing that gap; Siberia is huge, and the Russians have many fewer laws/scruples about what people can do with mammoths.
Typical government "can't do" attitude, thank God for privatization.
I see a business opportunity here for a cunning entrepreneur. JP, weren't you just complaining about your current job?
A private-sector Mammoth Gardens is well-nigh inevitable if Skyrim continues to grip the culture.
I wasn't complaining, I was merely sharing observations.
Also, CONSULTANT DOG JP IS CONSULTING.
Anyway, I doubt either of the conditions in 34 actually applies to Alaska in the near future.
I think we all know scientists should make wooly mammoths because: awesome. maybe they can first cause a series of mutations in the elephants bringing them nearer to the mammoth side, and thus produce a more hospitable womb. shame they reproduce soooo sloooowly.
I have a fever and I have to spend 2+ hours at the doctor, waiting for X-rays and other tests. can't I come back on a different day. I need to lie down. I'm trying to substitute coffee for lying down but it's not working. oh well I can give my husband a lung x-ray a la magic mountain. I think I did, already, years ago when I was going out with someone else and had pneumonia from smoking heroin. god I was such a little bitch, it's incredible he persevered for 3 years.
if only drama club merc had read "the magic mountain" I would send him one just to be a pain, but it's not his sort of book. he's very intelligent in his way, but not bookish. I know you're thinking "why", but in the immortal words of dr. dre "you fuck with me, now it's a must that I fuck with you." fucking with his head is surely not the best use of my time. it's conceivable having a fever for 3 weeks has rendered me impulsive and confused.
I always have an excuse, don't I. "oh I was having a psychotic episode." "I was hallucinating." currently hallucinating in coffee bean and tea leaf, in agony from the brightness and noise because I feel like someone is stabbing my eyes with ice-picks. fuck everything. the nurse complimented me on my veins! so easy to access! sort of want to say "yeah, I used to hear that a lot." I'm going to pull a SiFu on the sidebar with moping and hallucinating. just moving tiles, no cthulu. yet.
currently hallucinating in coffee bean and tea leaf
This is my personal hell.
Hope you feel better soon, al. I'd send you a mammoth, but I think it would do poorly in Narnia.
the thing is, all the tests will come back normal, and they'll send me away, sick as ever, to await the healing magic of time. it's always the same, I don't know why I bother to do these tiresome, expensive things. they have free wifi, though.
It's a pity the kind of hallucinating you get from being sick and feverish isn't more reliably pleasant or interesting. When I was little and steeped in novels rather than experience, I hoped for better things.
When I was little and steeped in novels rather than experience, I hoped for better things.
(How true this is of many more things than just feverish hallucinations.)
yeah, you can't imagine what a let-down smoking opium was after reading a lot of sax rohmer as a child. my dad experienced the same disappointment. interestingly, perhaps, you do have extremely vivid hallucinations if you're on the nod using heroin, but they are all really, really mundane. you hallucinate that you're with the people you're actually with, but in a different room of the apartment, or on the PATH train. I have had fun/interesting hallucinations while ill, but they are the exception rather than the rule. "comfortably numb" is a realistic song.
I rate mescaline and fevers over 103 as tied for best hallucinations, though obviously recent cthulu-related events indicate that the cocktail of meds I'm taking now (4 psych and 3 immune-system problem) is pretty well fucked up. I mean, I'm prone to it, but I have been mildly hallucinating a lot on this combo. but I've had a fever one third of the time. still. continuous movement and re-arrangement of every regular pattern I encounter isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's a little weird. bathroom tiles: I'm just here to do my thing. chill out, little dudes. let's everybody just calm the fuck down here.
and thanks for the good wishes. teo: I think the mammoth will be happier with you. maybe you could become his mahout!
you can sit up on his head and direct the mighty beast at will, while he roars and threatens to trample everyone else. then you can sell rides.
nah, go for the full-size mammoth. it will definitely impress the laydeez, believe you me. putting "currently mahout for giant wooly mammoth" on your online profile would be like catnip.
Now, to start the genetic engineering.
This is all foolishness. Teo, just go out and wrangle one of the musk oxes that are indigenous to the United States. They may be not the size of an elephant but they can fit in a horse trailer.
I dunno, man. I'll admit "musk-ox wrangler" is pretty badass, but it's no mammoth.
Musk oxen are theoretically indigenous to Alaska, but they were extirpated about a hundred years ago and only reintroduced in the 1970s (from a population in Greenland). These days I hear Nome is overrun with them, and they're considered a pest there. Finding one would not be hard. They're also domesticable, and there are some domestic herds in other parts of Alaska.
It doesn't really have the same romance as reanimating the mammoth, though.
hey you guys I maybe have typhoid fever! WT ever-loving blue-eyed fuck? well, a bunch of para-typhoids. which don't exist in narnia so where the hell did I get them? and I found out if I had only asked they would have found me a room to lie down. I want to cry. I just have one more blood test. if there is a taxi line I will cry. PLEASE LET ME LIE DOWN NOW.
Mammoth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb0ef6NhY74
For a life less exciting!
Get well, soon. Although the illness-blogging is entertaining.
well, it's para-typhoids A and B and C, which seems de trop. I mean, really. have a heart, bacteria. you know what? I shouldn't have told them to "bring it on" in the other thread. that never works out.
boy howdy they followed some sterile procedure protocol when they took my blood the second time, I can tell you that!
well, a bunch of para-typhoids.
See, para-typhoids are doing an increasing proportion of the typhoid work out there these days. They're cheaper because they don't have to spend the long years and big bucks going to typhoid school.
everything that's happened to me is exactly what the wiki description suggests, except no rashes. they're using cipro and something else on the "let's nuke the place from orbit; it's the only way to be sure" theory. if I still have a fever in 1 week he's putting me in the hospital. I groaned. "that's not a threat!" he said. bullshit. I'ma lie about having a fever. fuck a bunch of going to the hospital.
Jesus, that's awful, except that if you know what you've got, maybe it can be treated.
Your people weren't very good about entertaining me yesterday, so I went to bed early.
So anyway, ferret legging, the Andromeda Strain, and Richard Bach's mystic ferret can all be worked into a single narrative.
72: I've explicitly explained to everyone that it's unfogged's primary mission to keep you entertained, john; I don't know how much clearer I can be. one must sleep sometimes. 74 confuses me unless it is a promise. I am "blur like sotong" as they say here in narnia. sotong is squid. I suppose they are blurry after they jet away in a burst of ink? but the implication is that I myself am "blur": to wit, out of it, rather than that I am confusing others as the analogy implies. it's the mysterious east.
I have to close my eyes now because everything hurts. I'm sure someone will wake up and entertain you any moment, john. or I'll just throw up a pretend guest post: "Guest Post: Shearer. Black people are stupider than white people, on average. Also, science, bitchez!" provocative stuff!
Your children were disobedient, yesterday. But go to sleep if you can.
British people are awake. Although I'm about to head off and see if I can get into:
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/building-the-revolution/
From the link in the OP:
Knowing that the risk is real should drive countries where the virus is circulating in birds to take urgent stepsto eradicate itto create an internet meme that they've falsified their data and there's nothing to worry about, he said.
I'm hoping al won't read this, because she's asleep, but get better quickly.
1
On the bird flu thing, Bruce Schneier (I think; not googling) aptly pointed out the analogy to computer security, where "security through obscurity" (that is, if you don't tell anybody about it, nobody will know) has been shown time and again to be completely foolish.
I think this is a poor analogy. In computer security there is generally a way to fix the problem. If you can't fix the problem telling people how to exploit it is counterproductive. Since we currently don't know how to easily fix problems with the human immune system searching for and publicizing vulnerabilities does not seem like a good idea to me.
Security through obscurity is not completely foolish in any case. With respect to cryptosystems a system may be easy to attack if you know the details and hard if you don't and in practice users often do succeed in keeping the details secret.
My opinion is that anthrax is a piss-poor bioweapon and we should give thanks that so much energy has been put into it. It has two virtues, first, that it is fatal if not diagnosed soon enough, and second, that its spores are extremely durable, so it can sit on the shelf forever. And the second one is a mixed blessing, since anywhere that it's used will be contaminated for a long time. The down side is that the treatment of choice is penicillin, with cipro recommended for those allergic to penicillin. And it doesn't seem to be that easy to disseminate, or terribly virulent. If we put on our socipath hats, I think that we'll all agree that this new thing is a million times better.
[posted on wrong thread]
80: I had to wake up and write copy for some photos for work, so thanks! I feel better about not having been able to get out of bed all this time. I had been feeling guilty; normally I can will myself to do things regardless of whether I'm sick and in pain or not, because I'm chronically ill, and shit's got to get done. but this...christ I didn't even wake up with my children to have pancakes and open the stockings on christmas morning, I felt like a moral monster. now I don't feel so bad. there's also the fact that your brain mainly overwrites periods of bedridden illness so you don't remember much about them later and they seem to have been very short because nothing happened. maybe I won't be able to listen to some songs anymore for a while. and goddamn am I going to tidy up this room. there are boxes of stuff around. argh. so sick of looking at them.
My tiny little viral ailment had me floored. I mean, yes, I needed IV fluids, but I really felt pathetic at the time.
The one good thing about physical pain is that doctors are mostly supposed to do something to you as opposed to teaching you how to care for yourself. It's more restful.
I just talked to my parents, because they haven't picked up their Christmas presents yet and they might get sent back to us. Coming face to face with denial in a dry alcoholic is painful--is especially since I got a tiny slice of blame for not picking up on my sister's problems when I was only 23 (not my job, really). And that emotional pain is awful--partly because I'm supposed to learn to manage it on my own.
I'm sorry BG, that sucks. no, 23-year-olds are not obligated to recognize everything that's wrong in their family and somehow fix it--no one of any age is. I'm sure you were and are a good sister. the cost is an issue sometimes I know, but a good therapist takes on the job of teaching you how to manage that emotional pain better. plus, if it gets really bad, they can dope you onto team robot for a while; also very restful.
drama club merc says paratyphoid is incredibly common in afghanistan, and that if you don't wipe it out the first time the second is incredibly unpleasant; I kind of wonder if he's paratyphoid mary (you can be a healthy/immune carrier.) one of his ex-navy seal cow-orkers did even get it, but months ago. I saw him at the right time, but he didn't cook for me, and it ain't like we swapped body fluids. probably not him, it's just I'm racking my brains to think how I could get an illness I'd be more likely to have gotten after a flood in burma or eating at some unsanitary street stall in vietnam.
9: I actually had in mind novels in which romances only happen due to ridiculous plot contrivances. But if there isn't a novel about in vitro fertilization, then surely one would have to invent one.
I thought you were joking about the plot contrivances in porn, and so I was just playing it straight.
I'm happy to see all the correct, factual information about the latest N5H1 media storm.
As a dodge from working on my scifi book in progress, I was thinking about what would happen if we did re-create the wooly mammoth, and a breeding pair got loose and re-populated the US plains states? All the sudden the corporate farms would start to have the same problems that some subsistence farmers have in Africa - pesky elephants are hard to keep out of your crops.
30: Right, that's what I was thinking of. Should have remembered it was you.
57: Sounds like a plan!
58: Now, to start the genetic engineering.
The contrast with his response to my suggestion in 31, let teo show it to you.
So the drive for individual romantic and sexual success trumps organizational and patriotic obligations as a motivating factor... hmm, must try and think.
sending you good wishes alameida -- I hope you get better quickly.
89: Supposedly they have good DNA now, and some teams are working on cloning one. Seems like the odds are still pretty low, but getting higher. E.g. http://news.discovery.com/animals/woolly-mammoth-cloned-111205.html
I hope them woolly mammoth elephants are good eatin', cause I'm getting tired of pork and turkey.
92: Interesting. I should note that the exhibition I got that information from was put together a couple of years ago, so I'm not surprised some of it is out of date. It mentioned the Vero Beach mammoth image (also mentioned in that post), which had recently been discovered, but declined to come to any conclusion about its age or authenticity. It's since been shown quite clearly to be authentic, which is cool.
I was thinking about what would happen if we did re-create the wooly mammoth, and a breeding pair got loose and re-populated the US plains states?
I'm thinking a more likely result is that we re-create them and they promptly go extinct again as the climate warms. (This is part of what I was getting at in 40.)
Er... just had the thought that my joking about paratyphoid in response to someone who might well have it could maybe come across as unsympathetic. Wasn't meant that way. I've never really got the hang of tone in electronic communications. Get well soon!
96: no, I thought it was funny! when people have hurt my feelings on unfogged it is generally after trying very, very hard. amusing me while I lean against the wall waiting for the bathroom is actually winning.
Not there. The couch is upholstered.
No way you're gonna constrain me with your hegemonic white-bread notions of propriety, Hick! I've got to be free! Like a river! Of urine. Okay, maybe a trickle.
the nurses were alarmed by my leaning against the wall chuckling, which cemented their realization that I was more or less delirious, and found me another bathroom. I seriously considered getting a wheelchair down to the taxi. I am exhausted to a degree I haven't experienced in years. fucking third world problems. at least I have my crush on detective flack from CSI:NY to amuse me. full of issues since I loathe cops and the actor must be a genuinely cop-like person. were I waiting to buy drugs, I would make him for a cop in plainclothes at a thousand paces. it's just barely conceivable he's a good actor, I suppose, but he's so good-looking that seems unlikely. his imdb page doesn't convey his hottness for whatever reason. guys with guns who fly off the handle, how I love them.
fucking third world problems
One advantage is that you can now totally legitimately use the hashtag #thirdworldproblems. Not very many people are in a position to do that.
true. though if my maid starts tweeting in addition to her constant facebooking she's legit with it too. where on earth did I get this stupid bacteria? I just can't think of anything. I guess conceivably the person who makes my glutinous rice with coconut milk just took a trip to rural myanmar and doesn't wash her hands after she goes to the toilet but...I'm at a loss. seems as if it should be drama club merc since he actually knows people who have gotten it, and warned of the dire circumstances of failing to finish the course or otherwise not kicking it out and getting a second, more horrible bout. but that's just because he's in rural afghanistan half the time; knowledge doesn't equal infectiousness. have I mentioned how sick I am of having a fever? because I'm really sick of it. I'm, like, mildly wasted, but it isn't fun. and where are my painkillers? my wicked tolerance always makes this problematic. the only thing that will induce me to agree to go to the hospital in a week is if they promise to put morphine in the IV line along with siva-destroyer-of-worlds liquid cipro.
where on earth did I get this stupid bacteria?
My money's definitely on Paratyphoid Marty over there with the guns.
seems right, huh? he's the only person I know who said, "oh, shit, they have that all over in afghanistan and rural pakistan, my cow-worker was reduced to a shadow...etc" rather than "what the hell is paratyphoid fever?" also, are we allowed to send mercenaries to pakistan now?
are we allowed to send mercenaries to pakistan now?
I suspect every single word in that question has been subjected to a careful process of legalistic definition in some classified document somewhere.
Look at me! I'm commenting on European time! We're in the Amsterdam airport!
She'll be looking at her hand for the next hour or so.
109: why?
and heebie, yay, have fun in norway!
me, you mean? that's more a me thing, staring at hands. if there were trails or something. not much of that lately, though. or if I bought nice jewelry. my daughter accused me to staring at my hand all the time for about a month after I had one ring made.
Whee, Schiphol. I loved the accent of the person doing announcements the first time I flew through there. "Ms Geebie, you are delay eengdee flight. Please proceed to gate B5 for immediate boarding, or we will be forced to öffload your beggage."
My main memory of schiphol is that all the signs have dutch large and English small, *except* for the "moving walkway is ending" signs which are the other way round. I guess because if you know Dutch you know how to look where you're going...