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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Apparently I spent too much of my adult life working at companies staffed by responsible clear-thinking people who were good at developing a product and shipping it. Now my daily contacts are not limited to people who were screened by HR and a hiring manager, I am having more and more encounters with folks who seem to live in a different universe. To my thinking, their world is so bizarre I sometimes think I am living in some sci-fi dystopia. Obviously people who have enough mental power to set up websites and want to talk about Linux can not be lacking in IQ. </div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Apparently I have been too long in a bubble surrounded mostly by people who do critical thinking all the time. Can someone try to explain to me where these other tribes come from?</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">No need to try to explain politicians. Unless demonstrated otherwise, it is probably that whatever they say is based on political expediency of the moment.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">BTW, the link at the bottom of the original email is no longer valid.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div><br></div>
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On Sunday, September 20, 2020, 12:59:34 AM PDT, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
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<div>Explanation of this: After getting a telephone call from Ruben where he<br>darkly muttered about an Antifa Soros Commie Bengazi conspiracy among<br>Big Pharma firms to prevent quick development of a COVID-19 vaccine, _and_<br>skim-reading the 'docs' pipermail archive and seeing tons more of that<br>same sludge, I thought, OK, what's considered fast vaccine development?<br><br>Answer was that ten years is a pretty good clip, _but_ I also found that<br>the tearing-fast absolute world record is _four_ years.<br><br>Ruben and his bunch of delusional wack jobs are charging conspiracy<br>because it hasn't happened in eight months and because Anthony Fauci at<br>his most sunnily optimistic is saying that most people will be in the<br>best case unable to receive a vaccine dose until some around 3rd or 4th<br>quarter 2021, i.e., Dr. Fauci is hoping for approximately a bit shy<br>of _two-year_ rollout.<br><br>So, I just sent the below-quoted reality check to Ruben, talking about<br>Dr. Maurice Hllerman and his Merck team's record-setting _four-year_ <br>project to develop a vaccine for the mumps virus.<br><br>Predictably, Ruben made no reply at all: It doesn't fit his<br>bullshit-driven narrative.<br><br>Anyway, angling back to Linux and LUGs: Basically, this is why I'm<br>saying LUGs need to get serious about moving to videoconferencing: <br>Because sitting around waiting to be able to resume in-person meetings<br>is not realistic. We-all need to snap out of our stupor, and adapt to a<br>changed world.<br><br><br>Oh, and hey: Shana tovah u'metuka. May the new year not suck, despite<br>being off to a terrible start: Baruch dayan ha-emet. (Blessed is the<br>judge of truth.) Farewell to one of the great American jurists, who was<br>a shining example during a dark time.<br><br><br><br>----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <<a href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rick@linuxmafia.com</a>> -----<br><br>Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2020 14:42:22 -0700<br>From: Rick Moen <<a href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rick@linuxmafia.com</a>><br>To: Ruben Safir <<a href="mailto:mrbrklyn@panix.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">mrbrklyn@panix.com</a>><br>Subject: The fastest vaccine development ever<br>Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.<br><br>The mumps virus was isolated in 1945, and was being grown in labs in<br>1948. That permitted development (that same year) of a killed-virus<br>vaccine, the problem with which was that it conferred only short-term<br>immunity.<br><br>This situation persisted until one of the greatest virologists who's<br>ever lived, Maurice Hillerman, obsessed on the problem starting in 1963,<br>when he cultured the vaccine from his mumps-ill daughter, Jeryl Lynn<br>Hillerman. The elder Hillerman worked for Merck, and was determined to<br>create a live-virus vaccine. <br><br>At that time, mumps was, although almost never fatal, a frequent illness<br>of young people in America and around the world, making victims<br>miserable (and needing extreme isolation) for a week to ten days. To<br>grow up in the Fifties was to just count on being sick with mumps at<br>some point. Hillerman figured he could hasten his development time by<br>using new lab methods for growing weakened forms of a live virus in<br>chicken embryos (such as was used for the measles vaccine) -- and did<br>so.<br><br>Through obsessive work, Hillerman and his team managed the feat faster<br>than any other vaccine has ever been developed: He submitted it (named<br>Mumpsvax) for approval in 1967, and regulators approved it the same<br>year.<br><br>The strain of attenuated virus used in Mumpsvax is still referred to as<br>the Jeryl Lynn strain, after Hillerman's daughter. It's to this day<br>given as a combined dose with other vaccines as the MMR vaccination.<br><br>Four years to development of a vaccine -- a world record never matched<br>in 53 years. These days, technology is of course much better, but no<br>virologist has yet managed a faster development cycle, not anywhere in<br>the world, irrespective of pharma company or regulator.<br><br>I devoutly hope the miraculous occurs, and someone's able to work twice<br>as fast as Hillerman did, producing a vaccine in the summer of 2022.<br><br><br>Oh, hey, here's a new, interesting tidbit: Mike Pence's advisor for<br>homeland security and counterterrorism, after being also assigned to be<br>his lead staffer on the COVID-19 Task Force (Olivia Troye) put her heart<br>& soul into that task, but found over time that she could no longer look<br>herself in the mirror because the Administration simply doesn't care<br>about saving Americans from sickness and death, and has just now quit in<br>disgust. Troye's statement is here:<br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0j6adNroo4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0j6adNroo4</a><br><br><br><br>----- End forwarded message -----<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>conspire mailing list<br><a href="mailto:conspire@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">conspire@linuxmafia.com</a><br><a href="http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire</a><br></div>
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