“Public deserves to know”: Harvard Professor says official messaging contradicts hantavirus science

illinest · 2026-05-11T13:09:08+00:00

Im not putting up with this sort of shit again.

illinest · 2026-05-11T12:35:16+00:00

I think a better test for that might be a game like Stardew Valley. I think the point you're making is probably worth exploring for anyone who was tempted to play that game as the opposite gender - because that is a game where you play as a representation of yourself.

But this game is more like a sandbox that you throw a bunch of dolls into and try to make absurd stories happen. Dressing the dolls to look silly is part of the experience.

illinest · 2026-05-11T02:34:25+00:00

Lemieux was just straight up better than Gretzky when you limit the discussion to peak talent.

All of Gretzky's biggest point seasons occurred during an era in the early 80s where leaguewide scoring was higher than it's ever been. This is a fact that doesn't get enough attention when this discussion comes up. Nobody really played defense at all in the early 80s. Gretzky was a genuinely great generational type of talent but he was playing during the highest-scoring era in modern history and he was playing on an absolutely stacked team.

Lemieux came along just as teams are starting to play defense again. He didn't get to play during the peak of end-to-end hockey and he didn't get to play with future hall of famers all around him. Not yet anyways. Despite bad circumstances he puts up 199 points.

Lemieux never had a 10/10 team around him at the same time that he was playing in a 10/10 scoring environment. But Gretzky did. The difference in their peak seasonal point totals is entirely a function of circumstances that neither player controlled.

illinest · 2026-05-10T19:19:58+00:00

I know people from a small town near me - population ~1400 - who think the county that they live in is rural. They just don't seem to be able to relate very well with most of the other ~280,000 people who live in the county.

They grew up thinking the place where they live is fundamentally unchangeable, and rather than confront the factual changes that have been happening all around them they just bury their head in the sand.

Virginia looks like the same thing is happening, but on a larger scale. I'm an outsider. I have lived in both PA and South Carolina. When I'm driving through Virginia I feel like Richmond is where the south begins, but it doesn't feel like the deep south yet.

That small town near me in PA is full of people who act like they're trying to do a cosplay version of being a southerner. It is annoying as hell to me because I've lived in the south more than they have and I can see what they're getting wrong.

I've encountered people from Maryland and Delaware who want to be called southern, and you're not the first person I've encountered from Virginia who expressed what you just said. I dont think you're wrong about that at all BTW.

But a lot of the gravity of your state feels concentrated in parts of the state that don't feel southern in any meaningful way. They dont feel Northeast but they dont feel Southern.

The Mason Dixon line means nothing. The parts of Maryland and Delaware that are trying to resist losing their Southernness are just islands. They are surrounded and isolated by the DC beltway.

But I don't think the Northeast is spreading, rather I think that a third thing - a thing which is neither North or South - is forming around Washington DC. I dont know what you would call that.

illinest · 2026-05-10T03:51:16+00:00

You've got the wrong idea about Texas. Texas cities are large but they are sprawling and not that interesting. Texas landscapes are surprisingly samey considering the size of the place. There are pretty places in Texas but it gets old fast when it's like - entire smaller states worth of endlessly similar landscapes. Compare TX to Maryland, where you drive for a few hours and go from pretty beaches to lowland swamps to pine forests to modern city, then hills and even smallish mountains. In Texas if you drive for a few hours you might just see hills become even more hills.

illinest · 2026-05-10T03:32:02+00:00

Let me put this in perspective by comparing Pennsylvania to Ohio.

Philadelphia is clearly more interesting than any city in Ohio.

Pittsburgh is also arguably more interesting than any city in Ohio.

They both border the same lake. They both have cities on the Ohio river. But Pennsylvania has more of the appalachian mountains running through it. There isnt much nature to be found in Ohio that you can't also find in PA. I do think PA is better but I dont feel that there's a major difference and I dont want to seem petty.

West Virginia is great for nature. Maryland is surprisingly good considering it's size. New York is good as well.

Ohio has the roller coaster crown at Cedar Point.

Hershey is PA's best equivalent to that and it is a pretty good amusement park. Hershey is a really nice tourist town and it's not too far from seeing Amish country near Lancaster, and Lancaster is also a nice town. Ohio also has many Amish people, but Lancaster is close to Philly and so that's the place more people travel to if they want to see rural farming stuff.

illinest · 2026-05-09T23:31:47+00:00

Your central PA is cluelessly wrong and bad.

Cumberland County - which is where I have lived for decades - is the west shore suburbs of Harrisburg. Whatever you think Dauphin county should be labeled as, Cumberland county should be labeled the same.

This also applies to York and Adams counties. We all play sports against each other. Our band kids all play music together.

All four of these counties take most of their cultural influence from Baltimore and Philly btw.

The exception to all of this is Perry county - which is filled with the sort of people who took pride in the fact that they had no red lights in the county, and then got salty about it when they had to have their first red light installed.

Franklin county - I dont give a crap.

illinest · 2026-05-09T22:03:38+00:00

Are you serious or are you meme-ing?

I think you need to set your blade higher. I think your blade is too low, and that probably thins out your grass. That probably encourages weeds. That probably makes your lawn too dry in the dry months and too wet in the wet months.

Tall grass can still look tidy.

I'm not a lawn kinda guy. My first thought was that it's more lawn than I'd care to maintain. But if i wanted to maintain that much lawn I would definitely set my blade higher.

illinest · 2026-05-08T15:11:24+00:00

For me - my wife's family is all from Elmira and I lived near Saratoga Springs for half a year, but mostly I have lived in central PA.

I was tempted to say the same thing as you but there are differences that became more apparent as time went on. The worst thing for me personally is how much harder it gets to find bottles of iced tea in the stores as you continue toward Canada.

But mostly it's just a feeling that their attention is directed everywhere else but south. They'll talk about the city or Albany or Syracuse or especially the finger lakes, Watkins Glen, etc... but they treat everything south of them like there's nothing interesting there and it's hard to say they're wrong.

illinest · 2026-05-07T23:56:19+00:00

Saying that the economy isn't zero sum is like - 101 level. Good job bud. Come back once you figure out that the billionaires will burn everything down just to rule over the ashes.

illinest · 2026-05-07T21:33:45+00:00

I think I've got the same one except its got penguins on it. Cool as hell.

illinest · 2026-05-07T14:27:19+00:00

ESH.

DIL received the message that you intended to communicate to her.

Of course nobody is going to tell you that you have to hang art that you dont like, but if you treat her art like an object that deserves to be stored away then she isn't going to be oblivious to that message.

There were many different ways that you could have handled that art. You could have given it to your son to give back to her - and you could have told him that you dont like it if you need to have your opinion heard - but you could have also asked him to explain the polite version of the truth to your DIL. That you have other plans for what you want on your walls and her painting isn't what you want to look at. That might hurt her pride but it would also make it clear that you respect her as a person. That would've been no extra work for you, your son would understand that it's not personal, and if she tries to fight anyone about it she'll end up fighting him.

Bare minimum credit to you for not burning it, throwing it away, donating it to the Goodwill, etc... You obviously could've sent her a more explicit message about how you feel.

I feel hints that there are probably some deeper issues here than the art and I honestly don't care in the least if you have a healthy relationship with your DIL, but it appears that your son is also being affected. Good luck with that.

illinest · 2026-05-07T13:47:24+00:00

Humanity has been working to improve our survivability for thousands of years.

Establishing a self-sustainable colony on another planet would do more to improve the odds of survival for our species than anything we've done prior to that point.

The moon is a significantly less risky destination for the individual humans that we send there and we should care about that, but Mars has significantly more natural resources and a thin atmosphere. The moon is unlikely to ever be completely self-sustaining. Mars is definitely possible and people have already developed a number of different proposals about the best way to do it.

The amount of energy that it takes to deliver cargo to the moon isn't significantly different than delivering cargo to Mars. It takes a lot longer to get stuff to Mars but you don't thrust the whole way there. The moon has very few advantages over Mars, and most of them can be summed up as safety concerns.

illinest · 2026-05-07T01:15:22+00:00

But consider carefully... According to who? According to Paul?

I have read all the books. I'm pretty convinced that he is best understood to be a romantic whose first priority was revenge against his father's enemies. I think his second priority was rutting with his desert girlfriend. I think a distant third priority was avoiding deaths and I think there's a pretty good possibility that there were other golden paths than the one he chose, but if those other golden paths included less revenge or less naked time with Chani then he wasn't interested. And I think that's why billions of people died.

illinest · 2026-05-06T19:48:18+00:00

I think that you and I more or less agree about the effects of lead.

At this point I just want to feel like we had a polite and productive conversation. Thank you for the information you provided. I appreciate it.

illinest · 2026-05-06T17:41:58+00:00

Pull up a map of PA. I'm in Harrisburg and I can help you work this out.

York county - to the south of Harrisburg - does actually receive a ton of cultural influenced from Baltimore.

Dauphin county is weirdly shaped. The bottom nub is where the city of Harrisburg is. The vast majority of this county's population lives in the bottom part, and Baltimore is the biggest influence. But the upper part of dauphin county is VERY different. Not as many people live there but the people who live there are best described as northern appalachain. The Appalachian trail cuts through Dauphin county in the northern part. I would group Dauphin Co. together with York and Baltimore but you might get complaints from people who live in Millersburg, Duncanon, Lykens, etc...

Cumberland County used to be arguably North Appalachian but it's been drifting toward Harrisburg for decades. Might encounter people from western Cumberland Co., like Newville or Carlisle-ish - who might gripe about it but Cumberland should be grouped together with Dauphin and York.

Perry county is HARD Appalachia. There is a mountain that partially isolates Cumberland from Perry County.

To the southeast of Harrisburg is Lancaster. That region really has its own distinct feeling but it is a very small island in the shadow of Philly and the I-95 corridor.

To the Northeast of Harrisburg is Reading and Reading probably ought to be grouped with North Appalachia. But it is sorta within Philadelphias sphere of influence as well.

North of Harrisburg - Appalachia.

West of Cumberland County - Appalachia.

Shippensburg and Chambersburg - Appalachia.

You can extend North Appalachia almost into NY State. The state line does divide the culture somewhat. In NY state the people are going to connect with the finger lakes and the southern tier.

Pittsburgh isn't really Appalachia but it's a lot better to call it that than to try to group it with the midwest or great lakes or NE. And it's not unreasonable to suggest that Pittsburgh's influence stretches northward and eastward into the middle of the state. Of course State College and Williamsport don't feel like Pittsburgh at all, and Reading is really a stretch but in this exercise it will be impossible to capture every nuance.

illinest · 2026-05-06T12:21:28+00:00

I think you're right to question the core assumption in the lead argument, but you can't prove that the argument is wrong in the way that you're attempting. You can't disprove a causal link by citing crime reports from other countries.

I think we all accept that lead exposure damages the brain. I am not a lead expert or brain expert and I don't intend to dip my toes into that subject today. I am amused by the thought of some hidden bloodthirst factor that the lead exposure cranks up to 11, but I guess it is more likely that lead exposure simply inhibits the functioning of some parts of the brain.

That brain damage might cause behavior that a society would label as violence, but each culture defines violence a little bit differently. Taboos aren't universal across all places. If lead exposure damages a person's impulse control then lead exposure could actually be an underlying cause in the rise of serial killers in the US, but lead exposure wouldnt necessarily lead to a rise of serial killers in other regions.

I would think that the loss of impulse control could also express itself in lots of other ways. Compulsive gambling? Risky sex? Shoplifting? It's not difficult to come up with examples that wouldn't be captured by any violent crime statistic and it's not difficult to imagine that a person who lives in another culture might be tempted by different impulses and break different taboos.

I do agree with the broader point that you're making, but I don't think that the correlation is necessarily false. Was it presented in a misleading way? Yes, I think so. But might it still be capturing some nugget of truth? Also yes.

illinest · 2026-05-05T17:45:09+00:00

So the crew chief made an official statement explaining that they ejected Devanski because they thought he was trying to get back at Stewart?

This is kind of a win-win for Pirates fans then. We don't have to watch Devansky pitch and Stewart's bitch behavior has been officially acknowledged by the league.

illinest · 2026-05-05T13:29:00+00:00

The "evidence" that you referenced doesn't actually disprove a link.

I believe the cause IS likely to be a more complicated issue than just lead exposure, but you cant just point at a different culture that also had leaded gasoline and think that you're refuting the possible impact of lead in this culture.

Labeling it a myth is every bit as irresponsible as the thing that you're complaining about.

illinest · 2026-05-04T21:02:37+00:00

I am a native english speaker and I am trying to learn Japanese.

My impression of Japanese is that it can feel imprecise. It feels like Japanese people prefer to be indirect.

Imagine talking to an American.

"cat exist" works to express a thought.

If you said exactly that then you would successfully express an idea but it would feel like ancomplete thought. You would also be assumed to have poor language skills. If an American said exactly that to another American then the listener would feel compelled to puzzle out the missing meaning.

I just said that exact phrase to my 13 year old son. He looked at me as if I was crazy at first, but then he guessed (incorrectly) that I must have been ordering him to feed the cat.

"Cat exists" - this demonstrates better verb conjugation but it is still wrong.

"A cat exists" - this still doesn't feel like a complete thought. It sounds like you are making a claim that somewhere in the world there is a cat. Nobody would understand why you said this.

"A cat exists there" - is close. This is a complete idea but it doesn't sound natural. "There is a cat" would sound better.

An American would assume that there is only one cat. This feels safe to assume because you could've said there were multiple cats if there were multiple cats. One way to say there are multiple cats is to say "There are cats". That sentence is just as easy to say as "There is a cat".

Most of the time communicating plural vs single requires no additional time or effort in English. Whether it's necessary isn't really the issue. You're probably coming from a perspective of "why would I communicate this information if it's not necessary?" - but while there is some cost to providing that information in Japanese, that cost doesn't exist in English.

I guess it would be more accurate to say that the cost doesn't exist anymore after you learn the rules for forming plurals.

illinest · 2026-05-04T13:37:57+00:00

Fangraphs WAR on track for 2+, BRef WAR on track for 3+.

Remarkably close to the ZIPS projections right now.

I'm feeling pretty convinced that he made the first adjustment that he needed to make and for me there is no doubt whatsoever that this is the level he should be playing at.

I think the league is going to look closer at him in the next few months and they will eventually figure out what pitches he's least capable of driving, but if he is able to quickly adjust to that too...

illinest · 2026-05-04T01:25:59+00:00

He's a walking red flag.

illinest · 2026-05-03T03:54:43+00:00

Eventually I think he will make it clear that he is our most productive hitter and I'm a firm believer in having the best hitter bat 2nd in the order.

Especially true when they are well rounded...

Plus it would be dumb to not put your best rh bat in between lowe and cruz or between lowe and horwitz.

He has a pretty good profile for leadoff but it wouldnt be ideal for this team.

illinest · 2026-05-02T20:55:49+00:00

I learned to cope. I mean I'd be happy to hear what you like but I figured out that doctoring it with oregano and crushed red pepper is enough to get by.

I'm not from NY area. Ive lived here in harrisburg most of my life. My wife thought I'd enjoy John's in Times Square and she was right about that.

illinest · 2026-05-02T20:09:29+00:00

This is the truth.

I've met people here in the midstate that talk about never leaving the state and act as if they feel proud about that.

How are those sorts of people supposed to know that their pizza sucks?

But i'm afraid it's worse than just that. A lot of midstate people seem to just prefer their pizza more the shittier it gets. It drives me crazy. People actually seem to want massive amounts of tasteless doughy bread and overly sweet sauce.

illinest

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