Alles wat Jan bezig houdt, interesseert en irriteert... en ook een beetje onzin...

dinsdag, november 09, 2021

Paul Garner: on his recovery from long covid - The BMJ



I write this to my fellow covid-19 long haulers whose tissues have healed. I have recovered. I did this by listening to people that have recovered from CFS/ME, not people that are still unwell; and by understanding that our unconscious normal thoughts and feelings influence the symptoms we experience.

Paul Garner, Professor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He is Director of the Centre for Evidence Synthesis in Global Health and Co-ordinating Editor of the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group.

Twitter: @PaulGarnerWoof


maandag, november 01, 2021

How to learn a new language (by using flashcards for gratis).

How to learn a new language (by using flashcards for gratis).

Say you are a (almost) native English speaker. And assume you would like to learn one of the continental European languages, say Dutch, for free. How would one go about this?

One piece of advice you will consistently find is:
  1. Learn a couple of new words per day. Don't overdo this. Start small.
  2. Use Flashcards.
  3. Use them every day.
  4. That is it… just 1,2,3….

Okay, how can we do this on the cheap. Like for gratis?

A guide…..

Step 1.

We need to find free and high quality text files, or AZW3 or ePUB format. It so happens that www.jw.org has articles in more then a thousand (no joke!) languages, and quite a bunch of publications to download for free as well.

Download a publication in the target language of your choice. As an English speaker who want's to learn Dutch I will download the "Bestudeer dagelijks de Schrift 2022" booklet.

Save those files on your Pc/Mac at a location where you can find them back later.

Step 2.

This enitre post is really about one thing: how and where do I find a free to use flashcard application? Amazon.com is where. Or, more speciffically, just the free to download Kindle app.

For our next trick: find the "kindle" app in you App Store of choice and download it.

Now go to www.amazon.com and create a free account.
Use that account to log into the Kindle app (no need to buy any books at this point).


Step 3.

Alright. We have found some free literature that is of high translation quality (and on a more personal note: also of a high quality go content). ✅ We have found a sort—of-free-to-use flashcards app. ✅ Now we need a way to open epub files in an application that has NOT been build for this job. We need to convert our ePub files to the MOBI or AZW3 file format. 

  • If you found AZW3 files you can skip this, if not:
    • Go to https://calibre-ebook.com/download and get whatever version will work on your device. 
    • Install it. 
    • Now open the Calibre app. Click on the [Add Books] button and add the EPUB files we downloaded. 
    • In the top right corner, choose the MOBI or AZW3 format.
    • Now, click on the [convert book] button. In the right bottom corner you will see a spinning wheel, signifying the conversion process is working. Click it if you get impatient so you can look at a status-bar instead (mine seemed to be stuck at 47% for a while 🤔) : 

    • If using Calibre is not for you you van try this instead: Find the location where you saved the English and Dutch ePUB files that we just downloaded, and use upload those files now to the free converter too on this website: https://convertio.co/nl/epub-azw3/ It will give you back AZW3 files for the EPUB's that you uploaded.
    • Now our MOBI or AZW3 files are created. Save the files at a location that you can find later. 

Step 4. 

Okay. We have high quality MOBI files in a target language of choise. ✅
We have a free account for a free to use app that knows how to do flashcards.  ✅
We are giddy with excitement!  Less go-go-go ….

Look up the MOBI or AZW3 files that you just created. 
Now open those files in the Kindle app.
Click on the [table of content button] on the top left corner and navigate to Januari.
For each day of the year you'll find a short piece of text. Read it and look up every word you don't know.
Mark these words and add the proper translation to the markings. 

Step 5. 

Practise makes perfect. After you have made some notes you can now use these notes in the Kindle app to practise your language skills.

Open the Kindle app and the book we picked earlier.
Now press the [show notebook] button in the top right corner.
We now see a list of the flash cards we ourselves created earlier by translation difficult words. 
Press the [+ Flashcards] button to create your own set of flash cards.


Congratulations: you can now start to practise a new language with free self made slash cards 😊 🥳


donderdag, oktober 14, 2021

maandag, oktober 11, 2021

What Happened in 1971? Edward Snowden and Jack Dorsey Want to Know - Foundation for Economic Education

What Happened in 1971? Edward Snowden and Jack Dorsey Want to Know - Foundation for Economic Education

Pandora Papers: is the world’s biggest leak the world’s biggest cover-up? - Michael West Media

Who benefits? The US and the Big Four. Just as the Panama Papers helped to demolish Panama as a tax haven, compelling clients of Mossack Fonseca to flee to other secrecy jurisdictions to hide their money, the upshot of the Pandora Papers is that, right at this moment, the super rich who secrete their money in the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles or Cyprus will be thinking long and hard about restructuring to hide their riches via Delaware or another onshore tax haven in the US.

They will also think long and hard about getting the Big Four global tax firms – PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG – to manage their affairs. The A Team.

https://www.michaelwest.com.au/pandora-papers-is-the-worlds-biggest-leak-the-worlds-biggest-cover-up/

woensdag, september 29, 2021

A World Without Sci-Hub – Palladium

A World Without Sci-Hub – Palladium

Whatever happens to Sci-Hub or Elbakyan, the fact that such a site exists is something of a tragedy. Sci-Hub currently fills a niche that should never have existed. Like the black-market medicine purchased by people who cannot afford prescription drugs, its very being indicts the official system that created the conditions of its emergence. 

zaterdag, september 25, 2021

Rediscovered Medieval Manuscript Offers New Twist on Arthurian Legend

Rediscovered Medieval Manuscript Offers New Twist on Arthurian Legend | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine

dinsdag, september 21, 2021

‎Highlighted: book highlighter

Ik lees nog steeds graag boeken op papier.

Sommige boeken (naslagwerken maar ook gewoon fictie) lees ik soms zelfs vaker, bijvoorbeeld na een paar jaar weer eens opnieuw.

Soms lees ik een boek opnieuw omdat er veel informatie in staat die ik weer vergeten ben maar super interessant vond, of zelfs nodig heb. Zo las ik recent een boek over de oude Perzen (ter voorbereiding op een museum tour over het Medo-Perzische rijk) en besloot meteen de belangrijkste stukjes te arceren en er boekenleggers bij te plakken om ze makkelijk terug te vinden. Dat boek zag er dan naderhand zo uit:


Best handig om de belangrijkste bladzijdes terug te vinden… maar ook super onhandig, want niet snel doorzoekbaar natuurlijk. Laat ik nu heel toevallig vandaag in de Apple App Store zitten zoeken op een andere app (om je hele bibliotheek in te scannen) en nadat in dit vage sub genre belandde kreeg ik dan natuurlijk App Store aanbevelingen van apps die hier enigszins op lijken.

Tot mijn grote vreugde zat er een erg bruikbare en bovendien gratis app bij, namelijk "Highlited: book highlighter". De naam van deze app geeft ook goed aan wat hij doet.

Wanneer je de app opent begin je in een leeg scherm, stap 1 is om een boek op te geven waarin je wilt gaan highlighten (dus aantekeningen wilt maken). Veel boeken hebben op de achterkant een barcode die aan het ISBN gekoppeld is en deze app haalt dan meteen de auteur, titel en kaft op en zet deze in het scherm. 

De volgende stap is om dat boek aan te tikken en een highlight te maken. Je maakt hiervoor een foto van een bladzijde, en daarna markeer je de tekst op je scherm. Deze tekst wordt nu opgeslagen als een quotering van dat boek. Je kunt hier als laatste nog eigen tags aan toevoegen, en een eigen commentaar bij schrijven.


Dit plaatje heb ik dus gejat uit de App Store zelf… Ik had even geen screenshot bij de hand, mijn telefoon is nu naar iOS 15 aan het updaten dus ik wacht er ook niet op om er zelf een te nemen nu. 

Wat deze app zelfs nog bruikbaarder maakt is dat je dit archief dat je zo begint op te bouwen ook weer makkelijk kunt exporteren, onder andere naar het zo door mij geliefde PDF formaat. Immers, ik zet deze PDF dan weer op mijn laptop weg waarna ik er snel ik kan zoeken met de beroemde sneltoets ⌘ + Spatiebalk commando.

Na het ontdekken van deze app ben ik dan ook van plan om vanaf nu al mijn aantekeningen te digitaliseren. 😃 

Nu vraag je je af: is Jan commercieel gegaan? Waarom deze advertorial? Nou nee hoor, de app is gratis, ik krijg hier niets voor (behalve her warme gevoel van binnen wanneer je iets leuks deelt dan), en ik ken de maker ervan niet, en ik heb hem pas sinds deze namiddag gebruikt, maar ik ben er gewoon echt enthousiast over… vandaar. 

Veel annoteer plezier 😉 

 





vrijdag, september 10, 2021

natural gas mining


For years, oil and gas companies have struggled with the problem of what to do when they accidentally hit a natural gas formation while drilling for oil. Whereas oil can easily be trucked out to a remote destination, gas delivery requires a pipeline.  

If a drilling site is right next door to a pipeline, they chuck the gas in and take whatever cash the buyer on the other end is willing to pay that day. "There's no choice. There's no middle finger. Whatever gas comes out that day has to be sold," explained Haby. But if it's 20 miles from a pipeline, things start to get more complicated. 

More often than not, the gas well won't be big enough to warrant the time and expense of building an entirely new pipeline. If a driller can't immediately find a way to sell the stash of natural gas, most look to dispose of it on site.

One method is to vent it, which releases methane directly into the air – a poor choice for the environment, as its greenhouse effects are shown to be much stronger than carbon dioxide. A more environmentally friendly option is to flare it, which means actually lighting the gas on fire

"Chemistry is amazing," explained Adam Ortolf, who heads up business development in the U.S. for Upstream Data, a company that manufactures and supplies portable mining solutions for oil and gas facilities. "When CH4, or methane, combusts, the only exhaust is CO2 and H2O vapor. That's literally the same thing that comes out of my mouth when I exhale," continued Ortolf. But Ortolf points out, flares are only 75 to 90% efficient. "Even with a flare, some of the methane is being vented without being combusted," he said.

This is when on-site bitcoin mining can prove to be especially impactful. When the methane is run into an engine or generator, 100% of the methane is combusted and none of it leaks or vents into the air, according to Ortolf. 

Bitcoin makes it economically sustainable for oil and gas companies to combust their methane rather than externally combust it with a flare

"There is no such thing as stranded gas anymore," said Haby. But Ortolf has taken years to convince people that parking a trailer full of ASICs on an oil and gas field is a smart and financially sound idea.

"In 2018, I got laughed out of the room when I talked about mining bitcoin on flared gas," said Ortolf. "The concept of bringing hydrocarbons to market without a counter-party was laughable." Fast forward three years, and business at Upstream, a company founded by lead engineer Steve Barbour, is booming. It now works with 140 bitcoin mines across North America.

It is also helping to curtail the overall carbon footprint of some of these oil and gas sites. Recent production stats show that in the U.S. alone about 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas is wasted on a daily basis. And these are just the reported numbers, so the actual figures are likely higher.


dinsdag, september 07, 2021

WIR Bank - Wikipedia

I never knew that Switzerland has *two* official currencies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIR_Bank

dinsdag, juni 29, 2021

The War on Reality - Tablet Magazine

For COVID-19 the average age of death is 73, and about half of all deaths are in people 80 or older. While the CDC projected a one-year decrease in life expectancy for the U.S. population, the overall decrease in life expectancy was only five days, and the U.S.'s excess mortality in 2017 was greater than its excess mortality in 2020.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-war-on-reality-gutentag

maandag, juni 28, 2021

Heb jij altijd al het nieuws in het Latijns willen horen?

Nuntii Latini — Nuntii Latini Occidentalis Studiorum Universitatis Vasintoniensis

donderdag, juni 24, 2021

We Don't Know, But Let's Try It | Boston Review

An asset in his role as public intellectual, if possibly a regrettable one for the reception of his work as whole, was Hirschman's persistent, aphoristic habit of elevating deceptively simple, counterintuitive observations as grand principles of the human condition. 

The most famous of these, the "Principle of the Hiding Hand" (a knowing nod to Adam Smith's invisible hand), states that in large human undertakings—dam construction, say—we tend to underestimate the difficulties involved. This makes us likelier to get going than we otherwise would have been, had we known all the problems in advance. We also underestimate our creativity in solving problems as they arise, which makes us likelier to succeed than a sober assessment might have determined at the outset.

http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-politics-philosophy-religion/simon-torracinta-we-dont-know-lets-try-it

zondag, juni 06, 2021

Publish and Perish - The Intrinsic Perspective

What this is saying is that we have 18 citations, there are no more actual zoonotic jumps to study, but, you know, "salient questions remain." So let's just take the viruses we have and start studying ways to manipulate them, turning that dial, maybe passing it back and forth between human cells and animal ones, and just see what happens.

Oh play me that Science Game™! Play it as the ship goes down.


https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/publish-and-perish

zaterdag, mei 29, 2021

Why Russians do not smile

Why Russians do not smile

It is a good idea to keep in mind that Western people perceive the smile as a sign of a positive approach while Russians necessarily identify the smile with laughter. Western people perceive a smiling person as "happy" and "well-off" person. For Russians happiness and prosperity are not associated with the smile, at least not to the extent they are in the United States. A happy person is not obligated to smile. On the other hand, the smiling man is not necessarily happy or more prosperous than anyone else. Sometimes these states coincide, sometimes not.


donderdag, mei 27, 2021

How they spy on us.


I'm back from a week at my mom's house and now I'm getting ads for her toothpaste brand, the brand I've been putting in my mouth for a week. We never talked about this brand or googled it or anything like that.

As a privacy tech worker, let me explain why this is happening. 🧵


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1397032784703655938.html

dinsdag, mei 04, 2021

John Swartzwelder, Sage of “The Simpsons” | The New Yorker

But I do have a trick that makes things easier for me. Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue—"Homer, I don't want you to do that." "Then I won't do it." Then the next day, when I get up, the script's been written. It's lousy, but it's a script. The hard part is done. It's like a crappy little elf has snuck into my office and badly done all my work for me, and then left with a tip of his crappy hat. All I have to do from that point on is fix it. So I've taken a very hard job, writing, and turned it into an easy one, rewriting, overnight. I advise all writers to do their scripts and other writing this way. And be sure to send me a small royalty every time you do it.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/john-swartzwelder-sage-of-the-simpsons

vrijdag, april 30, 2021

woensdag, april 28, 2021

When Will Covid End? We Must Start Planning For a Permanent Pandemic - Bloomberg

When Will Covid End? We Must Start Planning For a Permanent Pandemic - Bloomberg


If this is the evolutionary trajectory of SARS-CoV-2, we're in for seemingly endless cycles of outbreaks and remissions, social restrictions and relaxations, lockdowns and reopenings. At least in rich countries, we will probably get vaccinated a couple of times a year, against the latest variant in circulation, but never fast or comprehensively enough to achieve herd immunity.  

dinsdag, april 13, 2021

South African COVID variant might evade protection from vaccine, study finds | Washington Examiner

Laat dit even op je inwerken:


The study, which was published Saturday and still requires peer review, looked at 400 individuals who tested positive for the coronavirus despite receiving at least one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and compared the prevalence of the South African variant, B.1.351, with the same number of people who have not yet received a vaccination.

"We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group," said Adi Stern of Tel Aviv University. "This means that the South African variant is able, to some extent, to break through the vaccine's protection."

Not only could the variant "break through" protections offered by the Pfizer vaccine, but it uniquely affects those who have been vaccinated (around eight times higher) than those who have not received the vaccine — 5.4% to 0.7%.


Bron: 

woensdag, maart 24, 2021

Is er een middel om Covid symptomen in te perken, ja of nee?

Even major medical journals have gone along rather than lead, strongly preferring articles that reinforce the prevailing story. After analyzing 180 studies on hydroxychloroquine, the @CovidAnalysis website concluded: "Studies from North America are 3.8 times more likely to report negative results than studies from the rest of the world combined." This is not random but choice. The Lancet even published a devastating hydroxychloroquine study only to retract it because of fraudulent data.

maandag, februari 01, 2021

In the Asian Flu of 1957-58 They Rejected Lockdowns


We zitten in Lockdown omdat we besmettingen met covid-19 proberen te voorkomen.  Waarom proberen we die te voorkomen? Omdat Corona voor mensen van +75 dodelijk is. Ook enkel personen van 55-74 zijn er aan dood gaan, er zijn in Nederland de afgelopen 9 maanden ook ongeveer 100 personen van jonger dan 50 aan Corona overleden. 

Voor mensen onder de 50 is Corona dus minder dodelijk dan McDonalds en gladde badkamer vloeren. Het echte punt is natuurlijk niet de doden, maar mensen die blijvend langdurig ziek [2] zijn door hun lichamelijke overreactie op Corona. Het Amerikaanse CDC heeft deze lijst langdurige symptomen op de website staan:

CDC continues to work to identify how common these symptoms are, who is most likely to get them, and whether these symptoms eventually resolve.

The most commonly reported long-term symptoms include:

  • Fatigue
  • Shortness of breath
  • Cough
  • Joint pain
  • Chest pain

Other reported long-term symptoms include:

  • Difficulty with thinking and concentration (sometimes referred to as "brain fog")
  • Depression
  • Muscle pain
  • Headache
  • Intermittent fever
  • Fast-beating or pounding heart (also known as heart palpitations)

Hiermee lijkt Corona op Influenza waar jaarlijks ook enkele duizenden aan sterven in Nederland. Het RIVM gaf bijvoorbeeld over de winter van 2017/2018 deze cijfers van "overstrefte" [3]: 

In de winter van (2017/2018) was de sterfte 15 weken lang verhoogd (week 51 2017 t/m 14 2018). De verhoogde sterfte viel samen met de griepepidemie die plaatsvond van week 50 2017 tot en met week 15 2018. De oversterfte tijdens de 18 weken griepepidemie werd geschat op 9.444 (8.885 voor de gehele winter periode van week 40 t/m 20). Hiermee was de oversterfte het hoogst ooit gemeten sinds het begin van de monitoring in 2009. De oversterfte betrof voornamelijk mensen van 75 jaar en ouder, maar er waren ook enkele weken waarin de sterfte verhoogd was in mensen tussen de 55-64 jaar en 65-74 jaar.


De Mayo clinic (een Amerikaans ziekenhuis keten) heeft een lijst lange termijn gevolgen van Influenza op de website[1] staan: 


children and adults at high risk may develop complications that may include:

  • Pneumonia
  • Bronchitis
  • Asthma flare-ups
  • Heart problems
  • Ear infections
  • Acute respiratory distress syndrome

Deze vergelijking roept een heleboel interessante vragen op:
  1. Moeten we niet ieder jaar iedere winter in lockdown? Er is immers iedere winter wel een griep golf (influenza) gaande. Of is sterven aan de griep "minder erg" dan sterven aan Corona? 
  2. Als we nu 50 miljard euro willen uitgeven om enkele levens te redden, waarom stoppen we dat geld niet in betere doelen, zoals meer anti roken campagnes, of gezonder eten, of iedere Nederlander een levenslang sportschool abonnement?
  3. Door iedereen, ook gezonde en jonge mensen, te dwingen in lockdown te gaan ontneem je ze de kans om op normale natuurlijke manier weerstand op te bouwen. Dat moet je dan weer compenseren op "synthetische" manieren, zoals met inentingen. Is dat niet uiterst tijd en geld inefficiënt? 
  4. Nog los van het feit dat sommige Corona vaccins op nieuwe manieren worden gemaakt die überhaupt verder nog niet getest zijn en mogelijk bijwerkingen hebben die erger zijn dan de kwaal. [4]
  5. Hoe ethisch is het iedereen te dwingen in lockdown te gaan om een paar ouderen te redden? En daarmee ook onze economie en emotionele gezondheid te schaden?
Het interessante is dat dit geen nieuwe kwestie is. Ik vind het dan ook interessant dat in de Aziatische griepgolf van 57/58 de Amerikaanse overheid welbewust deze en meer afwegingen maakte en besloot niet in lockdown te gaan, sterker gezegd, zelfs niets te sluiten. Het gevolg was toen dat er een korte tijd veel doden vielen, maar na een paar weken had iedereen op natuurlijke manier weerstand opgebouwd en was het leed al weer geleden. 

Terugkijkend is alles makkelijk gezegd natuurlijk. Doe je als overheid iets dan moppert iemand dat je het verkeerd doet. Doe je niets dan komen er klachten dat je niets deed 😅 .

In een ideale wereld zou ieder mens gezond leven, een perfect afweersysteem hebben en gezond verstand je bij gevaarlijke situaties vandaan houden. Ik hoop op zo een betere wereld [6], maar tot die tijd: Blijf veilig. 

dinsdag, januari 26, 2021

zaterdag, januari 23, 2021

No one knows how much the government can borrow - Noahpinion

https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/no-one-knows-how-much-the-government

Welcome | PCR Claims.co.uk


The PCR tests where  NEVER suitable for large scale diagnostic testing

Quality Control was never carried out. If the PCR test currently driving government directives was a diagnostic test in the NHS, it would immediately be stopped due to lack of reliability and internal consistency. These tests were never intended to be used on 'well' people with no clinical symptoms. Indeed, the BMJ published an article in September 2020 stating this. Such evidence was in the public domain, in respected scientific journals, long before November 2020 (second lockdown) and was completely overlooked by the government's advisory board (SAGE) in relation to recommending the second lockdown.


https://pcrclaims.co.uk/evidence

Voor op je boekenplank?

Japan Old Town miniAlley® Booknook Boekenplank Insert ™ | Etsy

https://www.etsy.com/listing/707491700/japan-old-town-minialley-booknook

donderdag, januari 21, 2021

My ‘Long Covid’ Nightmare: Still Sick After 6 Months - The New York Times

A new study of 1,733 Covid-19 patients who were discharged from a hospital in Wuhan, China, the original epicenter of the pandemic, suggests that three-​quarters of those patients had at least one symptom, like fatigue, muscle weakness or diminished lung function, after six months. And it is not just the severely ill who suffer. A U.S. study showed that symptoms even persisted among some people with mild cases, including young adults.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/magazine/long-covid-nightmare.html

Most surgeries are ineffective - Inverted Passion

https://invertedpassion.com/most-surgeries-are-ineffective/