You literally rephrased my words in your first paragraph. Your sole contribution to this discussion was the addition of random insults in your second paragraph. WHO has always been about politics. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go...

It doesn't matter if you call the org a NGO, UN organization, or political organization. It's the same thing. In much the same way, it doesn't make much of a difference how you name what they do, like, for instance, public health, governance, or whatever. WHO has been criticized for quite some time for their ineptitude, even from The Atlantic, which is, I assume, a left wing newspaper. https://www.theatlantic.com/po...

I have been following the pandemic and corresponding WHO statements/actions since early February, almost exclusively by watching the excellent videos from John Campbell, who is a real health expert. Not some random dumb fuck on the internet, like you seem to be.

WHO is a political organization mostly controlled by China, which may be the reason Taiwan has been excluded from WHO conferences. Ironically, Taiwan got covid-19 under control because they could not rely on WHO expertise (remember, political organizations are almost always incompetent, but nobody wants to admit that) and instead coordinated their containment efforts themselves.

You might have accidentally bought Yak scrotums.

It's never so bad that it couldn't get worse. I genuinely wonder what they will come up with next.

There is no need to use either the Oculus store or Facebook beyond first time activation. Facebook will eventually lock down the device, that's almost certain in my opinion. But right now it can be activated with a fake account and can stay offline forever after activation. There are about 250 gigabytes worth of games available to download for "free" from certain places. Also, any Steam VR games can be played over USB.

My advice for anyone looking to get into VR is to buy the Quest 2 right now, unlock developer mode, and deactivate wireless. There is currently no better device on the market unless you want to shell out an additional 600 to 1000 bucks.

Don't buy into the fear mongering. Most likely they are selling the Quest 2 at a loss and plan to make a profit with purchases from their store (as well as collecting user data). A Facebook account is just needed the first time to activate the device, it can stay offline forever afterwards. You also have the option to sideload/pirate APKs (it's running Android) and to unlock developer mode.
I bought a Quest 2 and plan to use it mostly with Steam VR (works perfectly fine with a high quality USB 3 cable). It's an amazing device (listen to Carmack describing the tech behind it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) and well worth the price. In much the same way as with Amazon's eBook reader, you are hurting them much more by buying the device and using it completely offline afterwards.
A few game suggestions for anyone interested: Super Hot, feels like you are actually the protagonist in Matrix or one of the John Wick movies. Hellblade VR, insanely immersive, excellent graphics. The Thrill of the Fight: pretty awesome VR boxing game.

I could just be used to write unit tests. But still, not using it directly seems almost criminally inefficient to me. Software/algorithms should not get that much protection, it stifles progress a great deal.

I don't know if I am an antisocial loser, but at least the 1.5 hours commute (one way) is something I don't miss at all. Incredibly dangerous driving half asleep with a lot of other people on the streets literally racing to work (instead of just starting 10 minutes earlier).

With home office, I can start to work 1.5 hours earlier and I can do something fun in the early afternoon, like hitting the gym or going to the local climbing hall. I am going to ask my employer for some flexibility regarding working hours, so I can go to the gym or get some private things done before noon, and add the missing time in the evening. Fucking awesome having all the equipment in the gym for yourself.

I feel like William Wallace yelling "freedom" at the end of Braveheart.

You should care about the message, not the appearance of the messenger.

Almost everyone who is unable to walk, hear, see, move their arms, or even speak.

I found the presentation very intriguing. At about minute 44 they are discussing fixing paraplegia caused by a damaged spinal cord by taking signals from the brain and forwarding them to a second implant to a place in the spine below where the injury happened. If this works (and it seems very plausible to me), couldn't they just take the wires to bridge the damaged area directly? The plasticity of the brain should allow making a connection again, even if the nerves are connected differently than they were before.

Thanks, definitely will watch this. Seems to be still available to stream for free on some places.

That is still an incredibly bad guideline. Having the most vulnerable in close proximity to infected people seems unreasonable at best, no matter the precautions taken.

Do you like money too?

Interesting. Does it have to be stimulus from impact or is resistance (as in resistance training) sufficient? I have read quite a few comments about martial artists claiming to harden their shins and the small bones of the hands with impact training, but no one ever linked to any evidence about this. Also, I read that at about age 30-35 bone density stops increasing and only maintenance rebuilding of the bone is happening from then on.