All you have to do to avoid being infected is just be healthy.

I used to read a fair amount of books when I was younger. Wide variety of subjects from fiction, science fiction, history and a few biography types. I still have boxes of books I've read in storage. Many others I've redonated to a library for them to sell.

However, within the last decade I haven't bought many books compared to the past. The ones I have bought are mostly history related with only a handful of fiction/science-fiction. When I pick up a new book (new to me) I go to page 100 and start reading. If the story at that point doesn't interest me I put it back. I just can't get into what people consider good sci-fi such as The Expanse series. And forget about the Three Body Problem.

The last books of such type I remember purchasing were Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children by Greg Baer. At the same time, I can't get into his other works.

I'm sure this has to do with my tastes changing, but considering the number of books out there and how often I'm looking, one would think I would be able to find more.

As James Randy showed, make a vague enough pronouncement and it can fit whatever you want. The best illustration was when he handed out horoscopes to a bunch of people and asked them how well the description fit them. Almost all of them said it was a good fit.

Problem was, he gave the same "horoscope" to all of them. It was the wording which led these people to believe it fit them even though it was the same for all of them.

The same is probably what's happening here. Someone made a vague enough "prophecy" that when something happened that "prophecy" could claim to have come true.

Meaning the people were devotees of all things AI. They'd taken the pill.

Which is funny to hear coming from the guy who headed the AI program at Meta. Did he think they should hire people who didin't care about AI?

As more and more information is moved to the digital realm, vast quantities of that information will be lost over time. Not the big stuff such as political or international news, or the passing of some well known person, but the middling every day things such as notices for events or local interest stories.

Without a physical paper product, time capsules become mmore difficult to create. Not that they can't be created, but it's always been a part of the process to include a newspaper with the capsule so in 100 years, people can read what took long ago.

With digital, how do you do that? People on here always talk about data degradation coupled with something to read the data. Stories are regularly posted on here about media with data on it in a format no longer used and the trials and tribulations to try and read the information.

With a newspaper, there is no such issue. You never need a fancy piece of equipment to read the information (aside from maybe glasses).

On top of which, while a newspaper does cost money to buy, it is easily transferrable to someone else. Finished reading? Here you go, stranger. Have at it. Find one in a bin? It's yours at no cost.

As always, paper information cannot be changed. Once it's on paper, it's set. Not so with digitial. Changing digital information is one of the easiest things to do and as we all know, is done on a regular basis. How do we know a year from now, when looking for an article you remember reading, it's the same article? Are you certain its wording hasn't been altered?

And finally, what about all the conspiracy wackos? Where will they get their newspapers to tear out articles, pin to the wall and run strings to each story to weave their delusions? Sure, they can print the article, but it's not the same effect as having torn sraps of newspaper to show off. Won't someone think of the conspiracy theorists!

When you have Republicans saying they want things to be like their were in the 50s, then put an anti-vaxxer in charge of the nation's top health agency, what would you expect?

Whooping cough cases are also seeing a similar increase as well as deaths.

It's a third option. You can use a contactless debit or credit card, install their software on your phone and link it to your bank account, or get a refillable OMNY card which you can pay for in cash.

Full information can be found at the OMNY web site.

I can assure you, that waste is not in neat piles (well, maybe some of it). It's spread over a wide area and will need dug out and placed in a containter before it can be hauled out. Here are some pictures showing only part of what needs done at one location.

In 2019, they pulled out 11 tons of waste and bodies. Apparently, that made a small dent in what is there.

As the article says, if you don't want to use your phone (or have the appropriate type of phone) or link your bank account, you can purchase an OMNY card.

Which is good for people who may visit NYC and not want to have another app they'll never use again clogging their phone or, more importantly, not worrying about your bank account getting whacked when someone breaks into the system.

MetroCards were nice because if you were visiting for the day you could buy one with cash, use it, and either keep it as a memento or throw it away. They fit easily anywhere you could put a credit card and since they were so thin, no one knew if you had one. They were, in essence, a form of multipass.

Oh well, time marches on.

The late Jimmy Carter essentially eradicated guinea worm from Africa through his Carter Center. It only took 43 years to do it, but if one small non-profit can do it, there's no reason others can't do the same thing for malaria. We know what causes it and how to slow if not stop it. It only takes the will to do so.

Working you way up the rungs is how you learn. No one knows what the exact steps are to do something in a work environment the moment you walk in the door. You don't know what is or is not right until you get feedback. It's why it's called learning.

Take that learning away and how does someone know what to tell/direct an AI bot to do? If they've never done the steps before, how do they know what is right or wrong?

As a side note, many "manuals" that come with equipment fall into the last category. Clearly the people "writing" the manual have never done what they're telling you to do. Had they done so, the numerous quirks and confusions wouldn't be there.

or the Nepalese government would have enough money to send up garbage Sherpas.

Which is exactly what the new plan is about. The money would go to a dedicated fund which would then pay for sherpas to climb up and bring trash down.

As the article relates, most of what is brought down comes from the lower camp(s). It's the ones higher up, where there's less oxygen, that aren't getting cleaned up. You're already exhausted from being there or trying to make the ascent. The last thing you have energy for is to haul down your oxygen bottles or tents.

And this doesn't take into consideration all the human bodily waste which keeps accumulating and can't degrade because of the persistent freezing temperatures.

*Sits back with cup of tea and waits*

No, not Lion Air. There was one where the video was taken from the beach. The plane came in from left to right in the picture and the right wing seemed to buckle. I want to say the plane had an orange color scheme.

how hard is it to fake an black box with data?

They're not retrieving anything, that I am aware of. All they are looking for is the plane itself which is most likely made more difficult because if the plane went into the ocean like a rock, there won't be much of it to find. Pieces scattered over who knows how many square miles.

If it was a "controlled" splash, meaning the pilot somehow glided the plane across the surface, such as on the Hudson River or the one which happened years earlier just off some resort (which I can't find), then you should have large enough pieces to be detected, assuming they're not hidden by undersea hills or mountains or fell into crevasses.

As for the black boxes, at this point no data should be retrievable. The salt water most likely damaged the recordings beyond recovery. Unless, by some quirk, the boxes are still sealed in which case we may finally have some answers.

As to faking the data, these folks wouldn't touch it. They would pass it over to Malaysian authorities. What happens from there is anyone's guess. I am certain other countries and outside experts would want a look as well so faking the data should be out of the question.