I didn't believe it either, but for less conspiratorial reasons.

90% of the hype came from the media, but a bit from the researchers as well.

But they did it for the same reason everyone else got excited. They're nerds who became astronomers because they're interested in thinks like life in space and it would be super cool if it's true.

The claim they These researchers are always so quick to make these announcements in an attempt to justify or procure more government funds doesn't make sense. The results getting debunked puts egg on their face, it makes new funding harder to get, not easier.

Getting buzzed with a group of friends is really fun, getting drunk doesn't add much and mostly sucks afterwards.

The tricky thing is with ritualized social events. For instance, after a curling game we usually head up to the bar and someone buys a round. A couple years ago I had a teammate who decided to stop drinking (don't think he had a problem, but it sounded like some family members did). We were supportive, but it's always slightly awkward when he has a pop and the rest of us a beer, nor did it feel fair when it was his turn to buy.

I think Francis is going in the wrong direction.

I agree the wet market was likely the cross over, and getting rid of them greatly diminishes the risks. But what the conspiracy theorists really want is a patient zero. You don't get that with a wet market, but with a lab leak you can go through the list of lab workers and find the one guy who was sloppy and went home sick.

I'm not even sure it's that thought out. Sure, there's an idea that it makes China more culpable (they were irresponsibly playing with dangerous stuff), but I really think it gets to the core of conspiracy theories.

A global pandemic resulting from a crossover event in the wild (or a food market). What do you do with that? There's no one to really blame, no way to know the full story (where the first crossover happened), and there's no real way to prevent it either. It's just a thing that happened and might happen again with no real way to stop it.

But a global pandemic breaking out of a shoddy Chinese lab? You've got a villain (Chinese government), a clear narrative (it broke out of their lab), and a way to prevent it in the future (come down hard on the Chinese and other countries with sloppy labs).

In so many ways the lab leak is comforting because it's a complete story we can do something about.

Eh, I don't care about the battery changes, or even the self-navigation (not sure about self-righting). It's more the robot's durability and reliability. 21.1km is a long distance, if you haven't mastered the task of walking you aren't going to make it.

Only amateurs only address tooth decay from the outside.

A pro goes after it from inside the body as well.

I have no doubt the numbers are real, and that she's uncovered multiple incidences of products with dangerously high levels of lead.

But advocates like that tend to hyper-focus on their issue and tend to insist on perfect outcomes instead of sufficient outcomes.

I agree those lead numbers look concerning, but I'd like to hear from qualified researchers who haven't built their identity around getting lead out of stuff.

Absolutely safe no, but how much lead is one likely to inject via toothpaste, and what are the health consequences?

Are we talking an IQ point or two and a week of life expectancy, or 0.0001 IQ points and two minutes of life expectancy?

If physicists were still trying to make direct progress on research from 1915 that would suggest the field was pretty stagnant.

I'm actually taking a mini-break from writing a web app that wraps around some ML at the moment. And I'm not referencing articles on how to write assembly, or even the specific structure of a TCP/IP packet.

I've no doubt they're doing the testing in good faith, but Lead Safe Mama doesn't sound like a completely impartial organization. I'd be more interested to see what researchers have to say about those levels of lead in toothpaste.

Guess who didn't donate to Trump's inauguration fund nor even buy enough of Trump's crypto.

Their current lead article is actively offensive. This seems to be a lot of their humour when aiming at liberals, whatever joke is there gets overwhelmed by their desire to be offensive as possible by targeting Muslims, and implying the target of the joke is Muslim (and ugly).

On the other side is their take on Trump's physical:

        1. Blood type came back USA-positive: The world has never seen anything like it.

        2. Became only person in history to correctly identify all the ink blots in the Rorschach test: Incredible.

        3. Trump's skin actually has an odd orange hue: No one has noticed this before, but the doctors are looking into it.

        4. His regenerated ear has developed super-hearing, like Daredevil: We feel a Netflix series incoming.

        5. Unnecessary appendix has already been removed by DOGE: Those guys are good.

        6. Even his small intestine is YUGE: The jury is still out whether that's good or bad.

        7. He is severely allergic to losing: The only prescription: more winning.

It's one of their better attempts, and the premise is good, Trump's ridiculous bragging physical as a Kim Jong Il type heroic list.

The problem is that Trump's ego is the subject of the joke, but they can't actually commit to making fun of Trump. So it turns from a completely standard easy joke to a bunch of awkward cringe as they buy into their own ridiculous claims.

As you mentioned, they occasionally allow themselves to be funny. But in general, they undercut it with offensiveness or fawning adulation.

In jest, but like I said, half-right.

There's a difference between being serious, and trying to tell a joke but being painfully unfunny (ie, Elon Musk).

The alt-right in particular like to say offensive things as a joke (funny or not), and then when called out for saying something terrible they start whining "no one can take a joke anymore!".

There were scientists aboard:
The 10-minute suborbital journey carried six passengers: journalist and Bezos' fiancee Lauren SÃnchez, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics researcher Amanda Nguyen, CBS journalist Gayle King, pop star Katy Perry, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

Either way it's not a research mission, it's promotion for space tourism and for the company in general, just like when SpaceX sent up a completely unqualified entrepreneur as the "commander" of a "mission".

You send up the journalist, pop star, and film producer because you want the publicity. You send up the science folks with them so the other science folks feel included.