EDIT: Unfortunately I can not access the Google Cloud forecasts to archive them when I click "View Data set" I get " To view this page, select a project."
> Yes, it is very obvious from the screenshot that it’s built on top of Electron [1].
I love this. It was my first reaction when I used MS Teams ... shit, it's electron and the I got the horrible user experience as usual. And in MS Teams even the font and its rendering is hardcoded and the devs are refusing to do anything about this! So when I use MS Teams I need to look at blurry text.
EDIT: And they bundle libffmpeg.so too .... let's have a look at what version, though I guess 1password is not a good attack vendor as it'd be hard for the attacker to control input data, right.
Because Electron bundles (light) chrome and nodejs and all deps breaking desktop integration and security (the developers are now responsible for checking vulnerabilities in all bundled libraries and they are not doing it).
Those are pretty good reasons not to use electron.
It's also interesting to look at the trend. The daily number of deaths to the daily number of cases has dropped rapidly all around the world. Not sure why but it's a very good sign.
If I saw this trend only in a handful of countries I'd say they are undercounting (FWIW I still think they are) but because we can see this in US, EU and Asia, it'd say virus is getting less deadly/treatment is getting significantly better.
That, and the age structure of the infected changed: the older people are doing what they can to avoid the infection, if they are able to do that.
Also, across the world, different measures are still in place, changing the dynamics of the spread, compared to the start of the pandemic when the spread was practically unconstrained. The dynamics of the spreading is also different in different settings.
There's no any scientific reason to believe that "the virus" changed in any way biologically. It's the world that does its best to adapt. Also, the schools and the universities are not opened for students at the moment in many countries, also slowing down the spreading.
Edit: answer to: "Viruses don’t mutate?"
The coronaviruses have additional mechanisms to correct the copying, slowing down the mutations, compared to e.g. flu viruses.
Edit2: answering: "The main reason for why Coronaviruses don't mutate much is because they don't have to": I wouldn't call that "the main reason", but it's a part of their success. Coronaviruses have longer genome than many other viruses, and having uncontrolled mutations in that longer genome would make them degrade too fast, so there is that molecular mechanism they have, correcting the copying errors. Additionally, they have other mechanisms to recombine their genetic material, something like "sex between (corona)viruses" where even more than two parents could be possible. But that's different from mutations and happens under different conditions. Knowing all that, and all that what est31 mentions, it is indeed true, the coronaviruses really simply don't need to "mutate fast."
Edit3: "There different strains" is not true. They are different isolates, where the completely minor differences exist, but for all it is known, until somebody proves otherwise, and nobody has, there is still just a single "strain" of SARS-CoV-2.
Edit4: Thanks to Gibbon1, yes, comparing with influenza is tricky, but maybe it's good to give readers the idea once again that this is surely not flu and that the viruses aren't the same and don't behave the same.
> Edit3: "There different strains" is not true. They are different isolates, where the completely minor differences exist, but for all it is known, until somebody proves otherwise, and nobody has, there is still just a single "strain" of SARS-CoV-2.
A month or so ago, there was a research paper (admittedly an unreviewed preprint) that suggested there are different strains circulating in the US - the part I remember is that the New York City and Chicago strains did indeed act slightly but measurably differently. I think there was a third as well.
> a research paper (admittedly an unreviewed preprint)
As Dr. Fauci would say, it doesn't matter, even if it were a peer reviewed it can still be bad. (1)
There are a lot of bad studies, especially on the "preprint servers" that in more quiet times would not appear at all, or which nobody would take a bit serious. Now there is a lot of wishful thinking or bias involved even in their perception.
The scientific process doesn't protect anybody from some studies simply being bad, the process is there that eventually the bad ones are going to not be reconfirmed, and the really good ones are those that have many confirmations and have even the power to make new predictions, that remain true.
There are known issues with these studies claiming different "strains" too easily.
Would it not be possible that through quarantine of infected people we "outbreed" the dangerous strains of covid19? People with symptoms going to be isolated, so their strain of the virus can not infect as much people as a hypothetical other strain which don´t produce symptoms... just an idea.
The problem is in as much as 50% of the cases, the same deadly virus causes no symptoms in some, so you really don't know if you are asymptomatic because of the strain or your immune system.
Viruses have mutations all the time in random places in their genome, in fact in the course of an infection you have a "quasispecies" of viruses in your body with a diversity of different genomes, but most of those mutations don't do anything relevant. Think of someone modifying a // comment in your code or adding/removing an empty if clause somewhere. In some viruses, mutation is very relevant to fighting the disease, e.g. for HIV it's immensely large. But for the Coronavirus the mutation rate is rather low, and even though it does mutate, no variant has been discovered yet that's functionally different to already existing variants.
The main reason for why Coronaviruses don't mutate much is because they don't have to. While influenza constantly comes up with mutations so that it can come back seasonally, it seems that Coronaviruses take a different approach by evading adaptive immunity instead. E.g. feline Coronaviruses can infect cats over and over again, without large increases in ability for cats to fight it. That's also the case a bit for SARS-Cov-2, there are reports of humans getting infected a second time, but they are rather rare reports, we'd have far more of them if humans had no good adaptive immunity.
One thing to be careful about is using a influenza as reference. Influenza is a segmented virus. The viral genome is composed of 8 separate segments. In the wild new strains occur due to reassortment where the RNA sequences from two separate strains are shuffled to produce a third. That makes influenza annoying because it's regularly swapping in RNA segments from bird and swine influenza viruses. Makes developing an universal vaccine impossible and occasionally you get nasty novel strains like in 1918.
Most countries got their shit together and infection rates decreased. That means the same test capacity is now testing less severe cases, more preemptively across the population.
I also think it's unlikely to have the virus pathology synchronized across the world with current travel restrictions.
Last time I checked the virus actually seem to feature some "dual gene pool" mechanics, which should make it more robust and adaptable to "fading out".
> Italian lockdowns didn't stop COVID - human immune systems did.
That might be true for Bergamo, but certainly not for the rest of Italy, especially outside of Lombardy which had much lower infection numbers and death numbers.
Having as many dead as in Bergamo everywhere (0.58% of the whole population according to a short google search) would be unacceptable.
Blood donors in London ~17%, rest of UK ~10% in July; 45k deaths for <20% antibodies (which may or may not mean immune)... seems to me that without a lock down the UK at least would have been looking at 200k deaths before getting close to herd immunity. I'm not ok with that myself, but of course opinions may vary.
You cannot just extrapolate like this. Maybe those numbers are true. Or maybe virus have already killed the most susceptible, and more infections would not translate to more deaths. Maybe… All is just a speculation.
At a very basic level, of stats and epidemiology of course I agree and you are quite correct.
However, that is the stuff of the future and the ivory tower. In the course and flow of this public health crisis it is necessary for reasonable speculation and extrapolation to be used to drive our responses.
There is no evidence that I have heard that the most susceptible have been culled from the population yet, and there is no logical reason to believe that this has happened. In fact the contrary seems to be true when the pattern of the outbreak is observed in the USA. Potentially there remain a huge well of victims left in the population.
To claim that this abet contingent knowledge is illegitimate in the face of the human catastrophe that could result from rejecting it strikes me as an rejection of all of the principles of the enlightenment. Our rationality is our sword and shield for fighting the shadows on the wall of the cave. I for one will not be putting these tools down. It is wrong to cower in the dark when our brains can light a light and let us see a path to safety.
This is the biggest problem with tech today, making "eye catchy" software which is horrible to use and getting anything done (and I mean simple things as making a payment if it's just little bit different than the "designer" imagined, for example you want to add a note) is so frustrating because it takes so much time. Yet it was not like that few years ago.
Thanks apple I guess ?
EDIT: And then to make the software "easier to use" security goes down the drain. There is a small fintech bank where all you need to know is email and 6 digit pin number to pair the account with a phone. That is, the 6 digit pin number is all you need to know to access the customer's funds. Now keep in mind attacker wouldn't care about a specific account, just get loads of customer emails and try the most common pin numbers and fish what you can - there is no notification when a new device is paired either, indeed.
Not really the best user experience and use of my time if I lose my money and need to fight with the fintech bank to get it back or when my account gets locked needlessly.
The same goes for the constant redesigns. How is that mindful to the user if you change everything (again) so they need to spend their time to learn again how to use your app just to get the same stuff done as before.
The problem with many sites and free-to-use commercial products isn't that interfaces are designed around minimizing user interactions but instead that they're designed around minimizing the most profitable user interactions. This is what leads to email sign up forms and dark patterns taking precedence.
I may add to it in the future if there is enough interest. At the moment it doesn't support a few common things like word breaks and backreferences, but I don't think it'd be too hard to add.
After IBM, Microsoft and many others publicly declared (for marketing reasons no doubt) to stop working and delivering face recognition systems, a new competitor quickly fills the space. Color me surprised.
Yes expected. I posted before that by trying to stop companies we work for or other well known companies from operating in this space we give up far too much opportunity to police and possibly influence the outcome.
Facial Recognition is coming along with all other sorts of identification. They key to making sure these are not abuse is to get embedded into the process of making them. This way issues of privacy, accuracy, and accountability, can all be addressed.
Currently far too many here, especially here, are the head in sand type. If they shout it down and declare it evil and see a big name step down they declare it fixed. Ignoring the fact the world is a big place and other companies and countries really don't care what your opinion is. So get in there and make sure where you live that this technology when it does become common place has the structures in place to protect the individual.
Because you can damn well guarantee it won't be corporations abusing it, it will be politically oriented groups who will exploit it. You think the cancel culture is bad now with their name and shame combined with using sycophants to leak records if not outright court challenges to sealed records, wait till they abuse this
"Because you can damn well guarantee it won't be corporations abusing it, it will be politically oriented groups who will exploit it. You think the cancel culture is bad now with their name and shame combined with using sycophants to leak records if not outright court challenges to sealed records, wait till they abuse this
"
I am very worried that there will be a lot going on behind the scenes. Public cancel culture is bad but secret cancel culture is even worse.
> Currently far too many here, especially here, are the head in sand type. If they shout it down and declare it evil and see a big name step down they declare it fixed. Ignoring the fact the world is a big place and other companies and countries really don't care what your opinion is. So get in there and make sure where you live that this technology when it does become common place has the structures in place to protect the individual.
So because it's going to happen anyways, get on board or else?
I'm not a follower of defeatist thinking. Large structural changes can happen, but only through persistence and focus.
Saying "it's not worth it" right from the get-go is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
> They were not responsible for the Nazis, they were only impressed by the Nazi success and unable to pit their own judgment against the verdict of History, as they read it. Without taking into account the almost universal breakdown, not of personal responsibility, but of personal judgment in the early stages of the Nazi regime, it is impossible to understand what actually happened.
Well, sort of. Microsoft and IBM etc. moved out of the space because it was unpalatable to consumers. Now the question is whether the same dynamic will affect Rite Aid, CVS and other major retailers. It's entirely likely that it will, and then you'll see those companies pressured to drop these systems. Articles like this (which bring the practice to public attention -- notice that retailers don't seem eager to disclose it to customers directly) are an important step along the way.
Of course, it's entirely possible that in the end, controlling these practices will require legislation (either to prohibit, or regulate, or at least disclose where this is being done.) If that legislative fight happens, it will be very helpful to not have the most largest and most politically-connected tech firms depending on this stuff as a key revenue stream.
As long as there are no laws there will be companies who will provide these services. There may some companies that still have some ethics and won't serve that market . But the result will that companies with even less ethics will move into that space.
I suspect the companies you are mentioning didn't pull out for ethical reasons but because they have other products and don't need that market.
http://archive.is/lAHOB
Let's see in few weeks how this forecast goes.
EDIT: Unfortunately I can not access the Google Cloud forecasts to archive them when I click "View Data set" I get " To view this page, select a project."