Thats not Oracle though I thought that was IBM? But if it is Oracle why did they submit nodejs as an example? They do not own nodejs (yet?) so it’s bizarre.
I've been lucky enough to photograph pygmy seahorses in N. Sulawesi. They are tiny, and superbly camouflaged. Observing their mating habits is an incredible achievement. Kudos to Dr. Richard Smith. I look forward to reading the upcoming enhanced edition of "The World Beneath" on November 19th.
There is also a technical blog post [1] on the architecture of Private Cloud Compute. I don't think that there are any details on the context being sent, just that any context is ephemeral, can't be traced back to you, and that the machine instances leverage Apple Silicon's Secure Boot and Secure Enclave.
Gemini works in Canada as of today. Bard was not available in Canada anytime I tried it previously. Maybe the "regulatory uncertainty" was recently resolved [1].
Here is a CBC article [1] with an embedded 17min Quirks and Quarks radio segment on the finding. You can watch how the tool works in the video embedded near the end of the article. The original .mp4 is available as a zipped attachment on the Science paper. Very cool :-)
There are a number of First-of-a-Kind SMR and Micro Reactors planned for the U.S., UK, and Canada. The advantage of the three leading lightwater SMRs (NuScale VOYGR, GE Hitachi BWRX-3000, and Rolls Royce SMR) are fast time to market due to the existing supply chain and continuous innovation on well understood technology. The problem is not so much the solid fuel, but the Zirconium clad fuel bundles that produce explosive hydrogen gas during Loss-of-Coolant-Accidents (LOCA). Accident Tolerant Fuels are being deployed now and may be another important innovation that reduces the likelihood of meltdowns but these systems also address the main sources of LOCAs: 1. isolation condenser system (ICS) replace pressure release valves that caused the Three Mile Island accident, and 2. passive coolant circulation systems that don't require external/backup power like the ones that failed during the Fukushima accident.
The problem with this class of lightwater SMR is that they are essentially base load power and the projected Nth-of-a-Kind costs will be competitive with fossil fuels (coal and natural gas) at best but are not cost competitive nor a good complement to intermittent renewables (wind and solar). They are a good slot-in replacement for existing coal fired plants.
There are also a number of Advanced SMRs and Micro Reactors (mobile and campus-size) that have announced First-of-a-Kind builds like the X-Energy Xe-100, TerraPower/GE Hitachi Natrium, ARC-100, Moltex SSR-W, USNC MMR, Xe-Mobile, and Westinghouse eVinci. These designs compete on a much larger landscape of theoretical trade-offs that may leapfrog the lightwater SMRs. I prefer this diverse mix of technologies and applications over a single anointed technology like Liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs). YMMV.
There is not strong evidence supporting a 3rd booster dose in immunocompetent people. We have partly seen a misinterpretation of the Israeli data [1] and specifically the single low effectiveness value that appears to be the result of Simpson's Paradox [2]. Dr. Fauci reported this single value decline from the high nineties to the high seventies on Andy Slavitt's podcast [3]. Pfizer's CEO has promoted this same data, Israel's 3rd dose campaign is well under way, and Fauci's public statements are a strong indicator that the U.S. will follow the same path. British Columbia's Dr. Bonnie Henry indicated yesterday [4] that the Canadian numbers do not yet support a general 3rd dose booster but, like the UK, a longer 2nd dose interval due to a First Doses First (FDF) strategy may be a factor.
The 3rd dose is safe and will probably provide a small benefit to the recipient as Shane Crotty described in TWiV 802 [5]. The downside is that these doses are in short supply globally where they could make a significant difference.
with regards to misinterpretation of israeli data, it's more like miscalculation of israeli data:
1) his calculated efficiency for different age groups is up to 40%+ higher compared to numbers that released by israeli ministry of health in official presentations. when asked about it, he said that he doesn't know how they calculate it and this is his numbers
2) his calculations from the beginning included people that got booster shot. Kinda hard to base statistics about efficiency of two doses when you get inside it data about people who got three
I think the misinterpretation is mainly by the media and the general public. When most of your population is vaccinated and most of the serious disease is in the unvaccinated, you need to report by rate and vaccination status as the Ontario Science Table [1] now does (rather than absolute case numbers).
Simpson's Paradox is more of a data artifact that you have to be aware of. I didn't know about this statistical anomaly before but the takeaway is that if you see a effectiveness percentage decrease from 97% to 77% then you should also check that the value in each age cohort because each individual cohort may surprisingly be above 90%. The Israeli data might be fine but I want to see the "age corrected" range rather than a single effectiveness number.
The bottom line is that we will get good data moving forward from the Israeli 3rd dose program with other quality data sets soon to follow from the U.S., UK, Canada, Singapore, etc.
What we have not yet seen is any good evidence that the vaccinated are contributing to spread, though in the Fauci interview he indicated that the R(t) in the unvaccinated was non-zero. This is an important question, IMO.
i know. as i said he miscalculated efficiency for age cohorts.
israeli data for most age ranges is 45 to 25 percent lower than his calculated 95%-99%+ efficiency.
So maybe, as paradox it's nice, but as calculation go, they suck. and now everybody running around with this site as proof that there is no need in booster because efficiency is still 95%
Do you have a link to the full age cohort effectiveness numbers? I didn't think these numbers were published yet, if they are or don't exhibit Simpson's Paradox then the question is what accounts for the discrepancy with the UK and Canadian data and the immunological lab research done by Shane Crotty and Rockefeller [1].
There were presentation with numbers stratified by age, but I can't find it now. Unfortunately I still can't figure out how to track down everything that ministry of health releases over there. Closet one that I found is this one https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vpb-12082021/he/files_... . Look at slide 7.
Also, if you we are talking about Simpson's Paradox, we need to go deeper. As you can see at same slide, vaccine efficiency going down, the further you get away from second shot. Hence, age cohort effectiveness is useless. You need age/vaccination time frames to judge real efficiency
> a strong indicator that the U.S. will follow the same path. British Columbia's Dr. Bonnie Henry indicated yesterday [4] that
...an even stronger indicator is that the Biden administration seems to have asked two multi-decade long FDA vaccine approval experts to resign following them authoring this report saying that the evidence didn't support the widespread use of boosters as a public health measure.
> ...an even stronger indicator is that the Biden administration seems to have asked two multi-decade long FDA vaccine approval experts to resign following them authoring this report saying that the evidence didn't support the widespread use of boosters as a public health measure.
What you stated did not occur.
What did happen was that the FDA and CDC got into a procedural slap-fight, and because the CDC gave advice first and the White House signaled public acceptance of that advice before the FDA's panel had a chance to finish two people resigned in protest.
Let's break down why the post above is erroneous:
- "Biden administration seems to have asked" no factual basis.
- "authoring this report" they never authorized a report, that's what they were protesting.
- "report saying that the evidence didn't support the widespread use of boosters" since the FDA's Office of Vaccines Research and Review hasn't published a report you cannot state what is in the report.
What did occur is that the two resigning panelists published a review in The Lancet[0] where they essentially said they felt more data was needed to approve boosters and that the WH approval on the CDC's recommendation was premature (although they also said their view may not match the FDA's view as a whole so YMMV what the final FDA report says).
By the way I actually agree with the two FDA panelists on this one, and think the WH jumped the gun. But regardless of my feelings the "Biden had vaccine experts resign to push through the booster" comment above is problematic.
> - "authoring this report" they never authorized a report, that's what they were protesting.
You are commenting on a HN story which is literally linking directly to the document they authored.
I hope you will delete your misguided and grossly uncivil comment in the time that the site lets you do so, and consider offering another response when you've actually read the article that you're commenting on!
> the FDA and CDC got into a procedural slap-fight, and because the CDC gave advice first
The CDC statement is here: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0818-covid-19-boost... you can see that it is unambiguously conditional on FDA approval: "We have developed a plan to begin offering these booster shots this fall subject to FDA conducting an independent evaluation and determination of the safety and effectiveness of a third dose of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines".
> "Biden had vaccine experts resign to push through the booster" comment above is problematic.
This is a false and fabricated quotation, which I did not say at any point. Your inclusion of it makes it extremely hard to see your comment as a good faith attempt to communicate.
> You are commenting on a HN story which is literally linking directly to the document they authored.
You're conflating the timeline and facts a lot. Here is what you stated happened above:
- FDA panelist published a report -> Biden admin asked them to resign -> they resigned.
Here is what actually happened:
- CDC published a report -> WH accepted the CDC's report -> WH signaled moving forward with boosters -> FDA panelists who never got to publish resign -> FDA panelists author review paper in The Lancet critical of boosters (what this article is about) -> [Future] FDA publish their official recommendation
The timelines are completely different (e.g. resign before Vs. after publication), what we're talking about being published is different (e.g. FDA official report Vs. Lancet review), and the whole "asked to resign" is nowhere to be seen.
> This is a false and fabricated quotation, which I did not say at any point.
You said this verbatim:
> Biden administration seems to have asked two multi-decade long FDA vaccine approval experts to resign
You haven't defended or sourced that. Want to go ahead and do that rather than acting offended by my shorthand characterization of it?
I'm fairly convinced that the pharmaceutical companies want Uncle Sam to buy and mandate 350 million shots per year and that's why the boosters are being pushed and combined with flu shots, while Dear Leader figures out the best way to dictate the health choices of his subjects without so much as first having Congress vote on it.
It’s not hard data. It’s nonsense. There are so many confounding factors that comparing Israel and Sweden is non-sensical.
Hard data is easily available directly from the horse’s mouth [1].
As of today, in Israel, for age 60+, per 100K population. Unvaxxed are 4.5X more likely to be seriously ill compared to 2 shot vaccinated and 40X compared to 3 shot.
For under 60. The same ratios per 100K are 3x and 10x.
They're different things entirely. Think of OLAP cubes as more of a model, a set of language (measures, dimensions) for expressing all kinds of aggregation but not necessarily prescribing the how. Column store is the new how so you can still have OLAP queries against it.
A corollary is that SQLite is as ubiquitous to structured storage as JavaScript is to programming and it too lacks the exact decimal representation available as DECIMAL(precision, scale) in other SQL engines.
These are not fatal flaws, IMO, just gaps in need of attention.
Great news, domain constraint enforcement is a welcome new feature. However, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater; being able to specify an ANYTYPE/VARIANT column on a STRICT table would make this feature more useful. The canonical use case for ANYTYPE is a BIGTABLE or Entity–Attribute–Value (EAV) model.
I haven't checked recently, but I was unable to determine the type of ? parameters in SQLite prepared statements. Maybe this is something that can also be accommodated with STRICT tables.
I'm interested in the API interface while the string literal example is more about the SQL language. JDBC has long provided prepared statement metadata that is used extensively by numerous tools.
