Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
Though they've not gone for a full 12 week schedule they are dragging it out now without advertising the fact so much.
As of yesterday the EU have 15% fully vaccinated, which was their first vaccinated percentage on 10 April (both figures Our World In Data)
That means the average is now about a six and a half week gap which is longer than they were doing even if not 12 weeks gap yet.
Their first doses are going up much faster than second doses and have for a while now.
Still seeing daily deaths though. How many lives could be saved if they'd just drag it to 12 and drop their pride.
The Gambling Commission are utterly useless, more evidence.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
Ah, I didn't know that. Looks like the Directors will avoid serious sanctions.
Still, it leaves a *really* bad taste in the mouth.
Either the directors are really stupid or it was a ponzi scheme from the start. Should be a priority investigation and charged if at all possible, but imagine it gets filed as too complicated to bother with and the establishment quietly forget it ever happened.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Where do SpaceX get revenue from?
Launching commercial satellites, soon NASA missions.
Currently
- Lots of revenue from NASA - Lots from US DoD - Lots from external commercial - Tons of work at a low margin for Starlink
The launch cost is one thing - they make alot of money providing the ancillary services around the actual launch.
Just wow though. SpaceX is exactly what we can do when it goes well. Did I say 'wow'?
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The recommended dosing regime seems to have worked very well in Israel.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The recommended dosing regime seems to have worked very well in Israel.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The recommended dosing regime seems to have worked very well in Israel.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The recommended dosing regime seems to have worked very well in Israel.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The recommended dosing regime seems to have worked very well in Israel.
Say what you like about Brexit, but London has responded before Brussels to the detention of an EU plane operated by an EU airline flying between two EU capitals.
UK orders British airlines to avoid flying over Belarus and suspends operating permit of Belarus' national airline
Bearing in mind the Lufthansa flight shenanigans it looks like Minsk is trying to pick a fight, rather than to calm things down after snatching the guy they were after.
I can't work out what their objective is.
Surely Lufty is just “proving” they take security seriously and it wasn’t just made up to catch the dissident on the Ryanair flight?
"We are working on a package of measures that go beyond sanctions against individuals" and may also suspend ground transit links with the EU, President Emmanuel Macron's office said.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The recommended dosing regime seems to have worked very well in Israel.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Ten years ago, commercial space launch was c. 40% Europe, 30% Russia, 20% Asia, 10% USA.
It's now something like 60% SpaceX, and everyone else has been decimated.
I can't see how (absent massive government subsidies) any of the legacy players survive. They are compeltely un-cost-competitive. (Boeing SLS's fuel cost alone is more than the total cost of an entire SpaceX mission. And that is a completely unreusable rocket.)
The problem is that if all the competition disappears what happens to SpaceX prices?
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The recommended dosing regime seems to have worked very well in Israel.
Israel is a tiny country that had the world's best supply deal, probably about double what we had slated in the same timeframe.
No, just saying that the original dosage regime is highly efficacious.
Absolutely it is, but that doesn't mean our dosing strategy was a bad idea. Both can be good at the same time. The circumstances of EU vaccine supply were nothing like Israel's. They and most of the rest of the world except the US had champagne taste and beer money. We had prosecco taste and prosecco money.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The recommended dosing regime seems to have worked very well in Israel.
I don't think anyone said it wouldn't, did they? Just that in a time of crisis if you don't have the numbers to go as fast as Israel was, that maximising first doses is the most effective way to go, in ensuring more people get some protection sooner.
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
They have a third of our population.
I wonder if they have similar vaccine-sceptical groups?
I think the issue there is that Taiwan are worried about China interfering with their vaccine supplies or even Chinese vaccines in general. The number of takers in either Taiwan or HK for Chinese vaccines is very low.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
Though they've not gone for a full 12 week schedule they are dragging it out now without advertising the fact so much.
As of yesterday the EU have 15% fully vaccinated, which was their first vaccinated percentage on 10 April (both figures Our World In Data)
That means the average is now about a six and a half week gap which is longer than they were doing even if not 12 weeks gap yet.
Their first doses are going up much faster than second doses and have for a while now.
Still seeing daily deaths though. How many lives could be saved if they'd just drag it to 12 and drop their pride.
Different EU countries are following different tacks - but (as you say) most are prioritizing first doses, which is (belatedly) absolutely the right decision.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Ten years ago, commercial space launch was c. 40% Europe, 30% Russia, 20% Asia, 10% USA.
It's now something like 60% SpaceX, and everyone else has been decimated.
I can't see how (absent massive government subsidies) any of the legacy players survive. They are compeltely un-cost-competitive. (Boeing SLS's fuel cost alone is more than the total cost of an entire SpaceX mission. And that is a completely unreusable rocket.)
Decimated?
If SpaceX have gone to 60% then everyone else must have lost more than a tenth of their share.
The fact that a flying object over the moon can be seen with a magnifying lens from the earth may mean that the real thing is a fairly huge space battleship.❗
They have obviously been around us for some time. Just looking. Why do you suppose they haven't made contact/destroyed a continent or two/asked to be taken to our leaders?
I agree with THIS guy
"I can't weight the probabilities anymore. This is: A) Aliens Some unknown physical phenomenon that we're now documenting C) A sophisticated misinformation campaign C1) by the US government to fool enemies C2) by another government to fool the US D) Something, I don't know what"
This story is so mind boggling I just can't get to grips with it. But something very odd is happening
What happened to faked by people living in their mother's basements?
Generally, former Directors of the CIA, senior US Senators and former US Presidents like Obama don't get fooled by those
I think I have an ingenious explanation.
What we've seen over the past couple of decades is that the internet is very effective at spreading conspiracy theories (9/11 truthers, the birthers, QAnon, etc) and all the attempts to combat them have failed. Snopes, et al, fight a good fight, but it's a losing battle.
Ultimately, fake news has won over the truth, because it can be made more fun and appealing when not encumbered by the facts. So what to do?
What this might be is an attempt to drive out damaging conspiracy theories, those that lead people to riot at the Capitol, with a harmless conspiracy theory about aliens. If people are preoccupied with grainy UFO videos, then they aren't trading stories about dead grandmas who voted for Biden, and the risk of American democracy collapsing is reduced slightly.
If I had awoken from a 30 year coma and saw that picture without any context, I would immediately say : That's from Eurovision, isn't it?
30 year comas are one of the recognised side effects.
When I was at Uni I recall a health poster of some kind which told the students to go to the doctors and report etc if they had any of the following symptoms, one of which was 'coma'. I hope they weren't relying on self reporting as the poster implied.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The recommended dosing regime seems to have worked very well in Israel.
Israel is a tiny country that had the world's best supply deal, probably about double what we had slated in the same timeframe.
No, just saying that the original dosage regime is highly efficacious.
Absolutely it is, but that doesn't mean our dosing strategy was a bad idea. Both can be good at the same time. The circumstances of EU vaccine supply were nothing like Israel's. They and most of the rest of the world except the US had champagne taste and beer money. We had prosecco taste and prosecco money.
The fact that a flying object over the moon can be seen with a magnifying lens from the earth may mean that the real thing is a fairly huge space battleship.❗
They have obviously been around us for some time. Just looking. Why do you suppose they haven't made contact/destroyed a continent or two/asked to be taken to our leaders?
I agree with THIS guy
"I can't weight the probabilities anymore. This is: A) Aliens Some unknown physical phenomenon that we're now documenting C) A sophisticated misinformation campaign C1) by the US government to fool enemies C2) by another government to fool the US D) Something, I don't know what"
This story is so mind boggling I just can't get to grips with it. But something very odd is happening
What happened to faked by people living in their mother's basements?
Generally, former Directors of the CIA, senior US Senators and former US Presidents like Obama don't get fooled by those
I think I have an ingenious explanation.
What we've seen over the past couple of decades is that the internet is very effective at spreading conspiracy theories (9/11 truthers, the birthers, QAnon, etc) and all the attempts to combat them have failed. Snopes, et al, fight a good fight, but it's a losing battle.
Ultimately, fake news has won over the truth, because it can be made more fun and appealing when not encumbered by the facts. So what to do?
What this might be is an attempt to drive out damaging conspiracy theories, those that lead people to riot at the Capitol, with a harmless conspiracy theory about aliens. If people are preoccupied with grainy UFO videos, then they aren't trading stories about dead grandmas who voted for Biden, and the risk of American democracy collapsing is reduced slightly.
Trump, despite all his faults, must have acted like a bit of a flushing mechanism.
Biden, for all his good points, might well progress the veil.
The fact that a flying object over the moon can be seen with a magnifying lens from the earth may mean that the real thing is a fairly huge space battleship.❗
They have obviously been around us for some time. Just looking. Why do you suppose they haven't made contact/destroyed a continent or two/asked to be taken to our leaders?
I agree with THIS guy
"I can't weight the probabilities anymore. This is: A) Aliens Some unknown physical phenomenon that we're now documenting C) A sophisticated misinformation campaign C1) by the US government to fool enemies C2) by another government to fool the US D) Something, I don't know what"
This story is so mind boggling I just can't get to grips with it. But something very odd is happening
What happened to faked by people living in their mother's basements?
Generally, former Directors of the CIA, senior US Senators and former US Presidents like Obama don't get fooled by those
I think I have an ingenious explanation.
What we've seen over the past couple of decades is that the internet is very effective at spreading conspiracy theories (9/11 truthers, the birthers, QAnon, etc) and all the attempts to combat them have failed. Snopes, et al, fight a good fight, but it's a losing battle.
Ultimately, fake news has won over the truth, because it can be made more fun and appealing when not encumbered by the facts. So what to do?
What this might be is an attempt to drive out damaging conspiracy theories, those that lead people to riot at the Capitol, with a harmless conspiracy theory about aliens. If people are preoccupied with grainy UFO videos, then they aren't trading stories about dead grandmas who voted for Biden, and the risk of American democracy collapsing is reduced slightly.
I suggested that too.
Conspiracy detox I said.
Explains why many Democrats are doing a nudge nudge wink wink remark about this without actually saying anything remarkable, while some Q pushers are grinding their teeth about the whole thing.
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
I thought initially we should have followed the advice given by Pfizer and given the second dose after 21 days.
I was wrong.
It would be good if those who profess uncritical adulation of Johnson and the Government, instead of berating those of us who exercise our right to scrutinise and ask questions, were prepared to contemplate the possibility mistakes have been made and there is a right to hold Ministers and the Prime Ministers to account (and that includes those who seem to want to make scientists the scapegoats - scientists aren't elected, Ministers are and ultimately the responsibility and the authority stops with them).
Surely the EC means "Roman Pratsevich must be released unharmed/alive immediately." The statement as worded would seem to leave Belarus with a bunch of unsavory options.
The fact that a flying object over the moon can be seen with a magnifying lens from the earth may mean that the real thing is a fairly huge space battleship.❗
They have obviously been around us for some time. Just looking. Why do you suppose they haven't made contact/destroyed a continent or two/asked to be taken to our leaders?
I agree with THIS guy
"I can't weight the probabilities anymore. This is: A) Aliens Some unknown physical phenomenon that we're now documenting C) A sophisticated misinformation campaign C1) by the US government to fool enemies C2) by another government to fool the US D) Something, I don't know what"
This story is so mind boggling I just can't get to grips with it. But something very odd is happening
What happened to faked by people living in their mother's basements?
Generally, former Directors of the CIA, senior US Senators and former US Presidents like Obama don't get fooled by those
I think I have an ingenious explanation.
What we've seen over the past couple of decades is that the internet is very effective at spreading conspiracy theories (9/11 truthers, the birthers, QAnon, etc) and all the attempts to combat them have failed. Snopes, et al, fight a good fight, but it's a losing battle.
Ultimately, fake news has won over the truth, because it can be made more fun and appealing when not encumbered by the facts. So what to do?
What this might be is an attempt to drive out damaging conspiracy theories, those that lead people to riot at the Capitol, with a harmless conspiracy theory about aliens. If people are preoccupied with grainy UFO videos, then they aren't trading stories about dead grandmas who voted for Biden, and the risk of American democracy collapsing is reduced slightly.
I suggested that too.
Conspiracy detox I said.
Explains why many Democrats are doing a nudge nudge wink wink remark about this without actually saying anything remarkable, while some Q pushers are grinding their teeth about the whole thing.
Possibly also the only potential scenario in which there might be some bipartisanship too. Or maybe not.
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
Thanks for that, I thought I would look up Taiwan, it seems they are on only 0.14% of total population vaccinated, which seems very low for a rich nation. At least according to the 'our would in data' website:
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
My parents-in-law in Ireland have received an AZ first dose and were told to expect the second after 12-16 weeks.
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
I thought initially we should have followed the advice given by Pfizer and given the second dose after 21 days.
I was wrong.
It would be good if those who profess uncritical adulation of Johnson and the Government, instead of berating those of us who exercise our right to scrutinise and ask questions, were prepared to contemplate the possibility mistakes have been made and there is a right to hold Ministers and the Prime Ministers to account (and that includes those who seem to want to make scientists the scapegoats - scientists aren't elected, Ministers are and ultimately the responsibility and the authority stops with them).
I wish we had any opposition party willing to do such a thing, Stodge. As you know I've been a constant critic of the government and the way it has handled everything other than vaccines. There's no party or politician who wants my vote at the moment.
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
Thanks for that, I thought I would look up Taiwan, it seems they are on only 0.14% of total population vaccinated, which seems very low for a rich nation. At least according to the 'our would in data' website:
Has china put presser of the big pharma, to not sell to them? or did they miss the opportunity to buy? or something else?
Fosun Pharma, a Chinese company, has the Asian rights to Pfizer. They are declining to sell to Taiwan
That gets be really angary!!!!
There is a lot of talk about the Lab leek Vs the wet market, and Chines Communist Party may be to blame for the leek and the cover up, but that's just a theory at least at the moment, and even if accurate knowing the ancear will not help us now.
But stopping Taiwan getting access to a Vaccine, is really bad, it will cost lives, and yet there is little talk about it. errrrrr
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
My parents-in-law in Ireland have received an AZ first dose and were told to expect the second after 12-16 weeks.
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
Thanks for that, I thought I would look up Taiwan, it seems they are on only 0.14% of total population vaccinated, which seems very low for a rich nation. At least according to the 'our would in data' website:
Has china put presser of the big pharma, to not sell to them? or did they miss the opportunity to buy? or something else?
Fosun Pharma, a Chinese company, has the Asian rights to Pfizer. They are declining to sell to Taiwan
That gets be really angary!!!!
There is a lot of talk about the Lab leek Vs the wet market, and Chines Communist Party may be to blame for the leek and the cover up, but that's just a theory at least at the moment, and even if accurate knowing the ancear will not help us now.
But stopping Taiwan getting access to a Vaccine, is really bad, it will cost lives, and yet there is little talk about it. errrrrr
They refused to allow WHO to give Taiwan any information at the beginning of the pandemic
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
Thanks for that, I thought I would look up Taiwan, it seems they are on only 0.14% of total population vaccinated, which seems very low for a rich nation. At least according to the 'our would in data' website:
Surely the EC means "Roman Pratsevich must be released unharmed/alive immediately." The statement as worded would seem to leave Belarus with a bunch of unsavory options.
Surely the EC means "Roman Pratsevich must be released unharmed/alive immediately." The statement as worded would seem to leave Belarus with a bunch of unsavory options.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Ten years ago, commercial space launch was c. 40% Europe, 30% Russia, 20% Asia, 10% USA.
It's now something like 60% SpaceX, and everyone else has been decimated.
I can't see how (absent massive government subsidies) any of the legacy players survive. They are compeltely un-cost-competitive. (Boeing SLS's fuel cost alone is more than the total cost of an entire SpaceX mission. And that is a completely unreusable rocket.)
Decimated?
If SpaceX have gone to 60% then everyone else must have lost more than a tenth of their share.
Yes, yes, your pedantry is much appreciated
Basically, US launches from people other SpaceX have gone to zero, while everyone else has seen their launches cut in half.
The order books are even uglier: SpaceX probably has 70% of the contracted launches for the next couple of years, with a few other new upstarts getting 5% (or a little more) and just 25% left between traditional launchers from Europe, Asia and Russia.
It's going to be particularly hard on Russia, as their space programme was - alongside commodities - one of the very few things to bring in foreign currency.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Ten years ago, commercial space launch was c. 40% Europe, 30% Russia, 20% Asia, 10% USA.
It's now something like 60% SpaceX, and everyone else has been decimated.
I can't see how (absent massive government subsidies) any of the legacy players survive. They are compeltely un-cost-competitive. (Boeing SLS's fuel cost alone is more than the total cost of an entire SpaceX mission. And that is a completely unreusable rocket.)
Decimated?
If SpaceX have gone to 60% then everyone else must have lost more than a tenth of their share.
Yes, yes, your pedantry is much appreciated
Basically, US launches from people other SpaceX have gone to zero, while everyone else has seen their launches cut in half.
The order books are even uglier: SpaceX probably has 70% of the contracted launches for the next couple of years, with a few other new upstarts getting 5% (or a little more) and just 25% left between traditional launchers from Europe, Asia and Russia.
It's going to be particularly hard on Russia, as their space programme was - alongside commodities - one of the very few things to bring in foreign currency.
Indeed.
One of the best reasons to take climate change seriously is to turn off the Middle East and Russia's commodity currency.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I'm very good friends with someone who was involved in the last purchase of MGM. He was laughing his arse off at that price this weekend over a drink. He explained how little value there is left in the MGM stable. Their best IP except James Bond has been sold to WB in the previous break up, leaving James Bond, a once every three years franchise that they only own 50% of the rights to, giving them 20% of the gross BO take.
It’s going to be like the final episode of Seinfeld. A big let down.
I'm really looking forward to it for two reasons.
1) The people who said last April time that Dom Cummings is a man of unimpeachable integrity, we should believe every word he says and now will tell us to ignore what he says because he's always been a fantasist with an axe to grind
and
2) The people who said last April time that Dom Cummings is a liar and fantasist but now we should believe everything he says.
You don't get to see that epic level of reverse ferreting very often.
I think it is going to be his usual nonsense. I seem to recall that at the time I thought it was ill advised but no wrong of him to get out of London, if only for the reason that in a farmhouse somewhere he would be much less likely to infect others, and he would have help to look after his child if both he and his wife got really ill. The one thing that was indefensible was his trip to BC. I think if you had to defend someone of the first but I would, but the eye test nonsense has entered the culture for a reason - it was beyond belief. Even if true this guy is supposed to be clever - how did he ever do it?
I think most people will still think he is a tool like they did before. Boris is lucky to have him as an enemy, a bit like Corbyn.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I'm very good friends with someone who was involved in the last purchase of MGM. He was laughing his arse off at that price this weekend over a drink. He explained how little value there is left in the MGM stable. Their best IP except James Bond has been sold to WB in the previous break up, leaving James Bond, a once every three years franchise that they only own 50% of the rights to, giving them 20% of the gross BO take.
It seems mad to buy them instead of Lionsgate.
Maybe they wanted the studios to boost production for their TV channel.
I wonder if the Belarusian government are altogether wise to be blaming a bunch of dangerous terrorists for their own crimes.
I mean, of all the people in the world I would be reluctant to piss off, a bunch of violent mass murderers with access to ample munitions would be near the top of the list.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I'm very good friends with someone who was involved in the last purchase of MGM. He was laughing his arse off at that price this weekend over a drink. He explained how little value there is left in the MGM stable. Their best IP except James Bond has been sold to WB in the previous break up, leaving James Bond, a once every three years franchise that they only own 50% of the rights to, giving them 20% of the gross BO take.
It seems mad to buy them instead of Lionsgate.
Maybe they wanted the studios to boost production for their TV channel.
MGM doesn't have a lot of internal studio capacity. It's a glorified IP holding company these days with UA making a James Bond movie once every three years in partnership with Universal (previously SPE). I think the last major TV IP they had was Stargate, which is very old now.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
Looks like the media have shot their load again.....onto the next scandal.
UPDATE: On the Amazon listing, the publishers say this is a mistake and they have not scheduled the book to be released “in the foreseeable future”:
“After the success of Boris Johnson’s The Churchill Factor, which was published in 2014, Hodder & Stoughton contracted him to write a book about Shakespeare, originally planning to tie in with the Shakespeare anniversary in 2016. When Boris Johnson became Foreign Secretary we agreed that we would delay publication until a more suitable time, and we have not scheduled the book to be released in the foreseeable future
I'm wondering whether the "shock" revelation that Cummings is planning might be linked to Boris on vaccination.
It would be hilarious (and very upsetting for his fanbois) if it were revealed that Bozo had attempted to procrastinate over the vaccination process or something similar.
Whatever it is, it won't stick. Boris invented the vaccines. You saw him in the lab inventing them, we all did
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
I'm wondering whether the "shock" revelation that Cummings is planning might be linked to Boris on vaccination.
It would be hilarious (and very upsetting for his fanbois) if it were revealed that Bozo had attempted to procrastinate over the vaccination process or something similar.
Whatever it is, it won't stick. Boris invented the vaccines. You saw him in the lab inventing them, we all did
Looks like the media have shot their load again.....onto the next scandal.
UPDATE: On the Amazon listing, the publishers say this is a mistake and they have not scheduled the book to be released “in the foreseeable future”:
“After the success of Boris Johnson’s The Churchill Factor, which was published in 2014, Hodder & Stoughton contracted him to write a book about Shakespeare, originally planning to tie in with the Shakespeare anniversary in 2016. When Boris Johnson became Foreign Secretary we agreed that we would delay publication until a more suitable time, and we have not scheduled the book to be released in the foreseeable future
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Ten years ago, commercial space launch was c. 40% Europe, 30% Russia, 20% Asia, 10% USA.
It's now something like 60% SpaceX, and everyone else has been decimated.
I can't see how (absent massive government subsidies) any of the legacy players survive. They are compeltely un-cost-competitive. (Boeing SLS's fuel cost alone is more than the total cost of an entire SpaceX mission. And that is a completely unreusable rocket.)
Decimated?
If SpaceX have gone to 60% then everyone else must have lost more than a tenth of their share.
Yes, yes, your pedantry is much appreciated
Basically, US launches from people other SpaceX have gone to zero, while everyone else has seen their launches cut in half.
The order books are even uglier: SpaceX probably has 70% of the contracted launches for the next couple of years, with a few other new upstarts getting 5% (or a little more) and just 25% left between traditional launchers from Europe, Asia and Russia.
It's going to be particularly hard on Russia, as their space programme was - alongside commodities - one of the very few things to bring in foreign currency.
what sort of market share has Rocket Lab got? i'm guessing there in the 5% you mention, but I think they are growing quite fast.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
They could buy China, perhaps?
I think that's a little out of their price range. Even for Amazon.
Looks like the media have shot their load again.....onto the next scandal.
UPDATE: On the Amazon listing, the publishers say this is a mistake and they have not scheduled the book to be released “in the foreseeable future”:
“After the success of Boris Johnson’s The Churchill Factor, which was published in 2014, Hodder & Stoughton contracted him to write a book about Shakespeare, originally planning to tie in with the Shakespeare anniversary in 2016. When Boris Johnson became Foreign Secretary we agreed that we would delay publication until a more suitable time, and we have not scheduled the book to be released in the foreseeable future
Whatever happened to fact-checking.
Oooops. Hoof-in-Mouth strikes again.
I remember that period. Definitely at the time he was being strongly criticised for being absent from Covid meetings.... about flooding in England.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
How about Scotland?
They'd probably get a much better deal from the administrators a few years after we got independence.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
They could buy China, perhaps?
I think that's a little out of their price range. Even for Amazon.
Depends on whether we’re talking about the republic or the People’s Republic.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
How about Scotland?
They'd probably get a much better deal from the administrators a few years after we got independence.
Gordon Brown would save Scotland. He saved the world once....
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I'm very good friends with someone who was involved in the last purchase of MGM. He was laughing his arse off at that price this weekend over a drink. He explained how little value there is left in the MGM stable. Their best IP except James Bond has been sold to WB in the previous break up, leaving James Bond, a once every three years franchise that they only own 50% of the rights to, giving them 20% of the gross BO take.
It seems mad to buy them instead of Lionsgate.
Maybe they wanted the studios to boost production for their TV channel.
MGM doesn't have a lot of internal studio capacity. It's a glorified IP holding company these days with UA making a James Bond movie once every three years in partnership with Universal (previously SPE). I think the last major TV IP they had was Stargate, which is very old now.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
How about Scotland?
They'd probably get a much better deal from the administrators a few years after we got independence.
Amazon isn't far from Darien is it? Would that be a reverse takeover?
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
They could buy China, perhaps?
I think that's a little out of their price range. Even for Amazon.
Depends on whether we’re talking about the republic or the People’s Republic.
I believe that there is a title issue with the former. Disputed ownership is never good.
I'm wondering whether the "shock" revelation that Cummings is planning might be linked to Boris on vaccination.
It would be hilarious (and very upsetting for his fanbois) if it were revealed that Bozo had attempted to procrastinate over the vaccination process or something similar.
Whatever it is, it won't stick. Boris invented the vaccines. You saw him in the lab inventing them, we all did
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
You've lost me. As you know we are quite simple people my side of Marcle Ridge. It could be the Weston's cider.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I'm very good friends with someone who was involved in the last purchase of MGM. He was laughing his arse off at that price this weekend over a drink. He explained how little value there is left in the MGM stable. Their best IP except James Bond has been sold to WB in the previous break up, leaving James Bond, a once every three years franchise that they only own 50% of the rights to, giving them 20% of the gross BO take.
It seems mad to buy them instead of Lionsgate.
MGM is one like the BBC that has been in major decline and trading off its name and legacy for way too long.
Growing up half the movies on TV, especially older ones, seemed to start with the MGM lion's roar. Plus some shows like Tom & Jerry, Stargate etc were MGM too.
I can't think of much major MGM stuff in recent years. I can't imagine it being really worth as much as it could have been anymore.
At least if MGM is bought we might finally get the long-rumoured next Stargate series.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I'm very good friends with someone who was involved in the last purchase of MGM. He was laughing his arse off at that price this weekend over a drink. He explained how little value there is left in the MGM stable. Their best IP except James Bond has been sold to WB in the previous break up, leaving James Bond, a once every three years franchise that they only own 50% of the rights to, giving them 20% of the gross BO take.
It seems mad to buy them instead of Lionsgate.
Maybe they wanted the studios to boost production for their TV channel.
MGM doesn't have a lot of internal studio capacity. It's a glorified IP holding company these days with UA making a James Bond movie once every three years in partnership with Universal (previously SPE). I think the last major TV IP they had was Stargate, which is very old now.
That seems a very weird deal then.
Perhaps Amazon have finally reached the point where the business is spinning off so much profit that there's nothing sensible to invest it in. So it's making silly investments instead.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
How about Scotland?
And what do they spend the other 8.99 Billion on?
It’s good to see there’s still some optimism about Scotland’s economy.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I am slightly surprised by their lack of ambition. It is surely a matter of time before they buy a country and move their seat there. Somewhere modest but with some growth potential like Australia or Canada.
How about Scotland?
They'd probably get a much better deal from the administrators a few years after we got independence.
Gordon Brown would save Scotland. He saved the world once....
You're assuming we would want saving. After the public sector wage cheques had bounced a couple of times becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon could look seriously attractive.
Bleak stories in the Guardian about the Indian variant and ‘more lockdowns’. God save us
Somewhat ridiculous when the same article says after 2 doses the Pfizer vaccine is still 84% effective against the Indian variant and AstraZeneca 60% effective against it
Number 10 has denied Boris Johnson was absent from emergency coronavirus meetings because he was putting together a biography of William Shakespeare https://trib.al/XoV5YJ2
"So what was he doing?" is not an unreasonable question
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I'm very good friends with someone who was involved in the last purchase of MGM. He was laughing his arse off at that price this weekend over a drink. He explained how little value there is left in the MGM stable. Their best IP except James Bond has been sold to WB in the previous break up, leaving James Bond, a once every three years franchise that they only own 50% of the rights to, giving them 20% of the gross BO take.
It seems mad to buy them instead of Lionsgate.
Maybe they wanted the studios to boost production for their TV channel.
MGM doesn't have a lot of internal studio capacity. It's a glorified IP holding company these days with UA making a James Bond movie once every three years in partnership with Universal (previously SPE). I think the last major TV IP they had was Stargate, which is very old now.
That seems a very weird deal then.
Perhaps Amazon have finally reached the point where the business is spinning off so much profit that there's nothing sensible to invest it in. So it's making silly investments instead.
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
Bleak stories in the Guardian about the Indian variant and ‘more lockdowns’. God save us
It’s all about emphasis. On every point they take the worst case as what will happen. It’s as if they want things to go badly... In reality it looks like the surge testing in certain places is doing its job, and new cases are falling. @Malmesbury’s excellent data shows this well, and that the rises in cases are in kids mainly, with some in the group to 44. So the mostly unvaccinated who will most likely be fine with Covid. It really does look as though the april02 variant is the last hope for those who want to prolong the fun, and it’s not going to deliver.
I expect when Boris does go it will be quick and at the hands of his party, but he will be replaced by someone who does not look backwards and nostalgically at the days of our former membership of the EU
Whoever takes over will spend their entire leadership on damage control, trying to repair the fallout from Brexit
I had to re-read this twice to check you weren't blaming the imminent alien invasion on Brexit.
Number 10 has denied Boris Johnson was absent from emergency coronavirus meetings because he was putting together a biography of William Shakespeare https://trib.al/XoV5YJ2
"So what was he doing?" is not an unreasonable question
Amazon . com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
I'm very good friends with someone who was involved in the last purchase of MGM. He was laughing his arse off at that price this weekend over a drink. He explained how little value there is left in the MGM stable. Their best IP except James Bond has been sold to WB in the previous break up, leaving James Bond, a once every three years franchise that they only own 50% of the rights to, giving them 20% of the gross BO take.
It seems mad to buy them instead of Lionsgate.
Maybe they wanted the studios to boost production for their TV channel.
MGM doesn't have a lot of internal studio capacity. It's a glorified IP holding company these days with UA making a James Bond movie once every three years in partnership with Universal (previously SPE). I think the last major TV IP they had was Stargate, which is very old now.
That seems a very weird deal then.
Hence my friend's laughter at the deal price. Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4bn and Marvel for $4bn, that's less money together than MGM are being purchased for. Marvel has been transformed into a multi character, multi-layered franchise with movies, TV shows and games that have broken global records. Star Wars is one of the most popular brands in the world and despite the poor quality of movie releases under Disney it has more than made up it's purchas price across the five movies, two TV shows and two games under EA.
I don't see what Amazon get from buying MGM. Maybe a James Bond TV show, but I don't know what that will bring to the table that Spooks didn't already do. Stargate has already been exploited half to death and one James Bond movie every three years is worth about $250m dollars for them with each release.
I really don't understand it, they'd be better off taking the SPE route and buying up a bunch of smaller production houses and IP holding companies and coalescing them into something much bigger than the sum of the parts like SPE.
Number 10 has denied Boris Johnson was absent from emergency coronavirus meetings because he was putting together a biography of William Shakespeare https://trib.al/XoV5YJ2
"So what was he doing?" is not an unreasonable question
I think we’re missing the essential point that actually, it’s probably good news Johnson was absent. The further he’s kept from making important decisions, the better.
I expect when Boris does go it will be quick and at the hands of his party, but he will be replaced by someone who does not look backwards and nostalgically at the days of our former membership of the EU
Whoever takes over will spend their entire leadership on damage control, trying to repair the fallout from Brexit
I had to re-read this twice to check you weren't blaming the imminent alien invasion on Brexit.
Aliens secretly funded Brexit. I think Carole Cadwalladr said so.
I expect when Boris does go it will be quick and at the hands of his party, but he will be replaced by someone who does not look backwards and nostalgically at the days of our former membership of the EU
Whoever takes over will spend their entire leadership on damage control, trying to repair the fallout from Brexit
I had to re-read this twice to check you weren't blaming the imminent alien invasion on Brexit.
Number 10 has denied Boris Johnson was absent from emergency coronavirus meetings because he was putting together a biography of William Shakespeare https://trib.al/XoV5YJ2
"So what was he doing?" is not an unreasonable question
I think we’re missing the essential point that actually, it’s probably good news Johnson was absent. The further he’s kept from making important decisions, the better.
And there are so few books on Shakespeare it's really important to have another one. It's an obscure and under researched field.
Comments
As of yesterday the EU have 15% fully vaccinated, which was their first vaccinated percentage on 10 April (both figures Our World In Data)
That means the average is now about a six and a half week gap which is longer than they were doing even if not 12 weeks gap yet.
Their first doses are going up much faster than second doses and have for a while now.
Still seeing daily deaths though. How many lives could be saved if they'd just drag it to 12 and drop their pride.
I wonder if they have similar vaccine-sceptical groups?
You were making a case based upon immunity in individuals.
"We are working on a package of measures that go beyond sanctions against individuals" and may also suspend ground transit links with the EU, President Emmanuel Macron's office said.
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSL5N2NB1UQ?__twitter_impression=true
If SpaceX have gone to 60% then everyone else must have lost more than a tenth of their share.
What we've seen over the past couple of decades is that the internet is very effective at spreading conspiracy theories (9/11 truthers, the birthers, QAnon, etc) and all the attempts to combat them have failed. Snopes, et al, fight a good fight, but it's a losing battle.
Ultimately, fake news has won over the truth, because it can be made more fun and appealing when not encumbered by the facts. So what to do?
What this might be is an attempt to drive out damaging conspiracy theories, those that lead people to riot at the Capitol, with a harmless conspiracy theory about aliens. If people are preoccupied with grainy UFO videos, then they aren't trading stories about dead grandmas who voted for Biden, and the risk of American democracy collapsing is reduced slightly.
Biden, for all his good points, might well progress the veil.
https://twitter.com/mocent0/status/1396563894886354944
I’m on my way to London to meet Owen Jones, who my Bradshaw’s guide describes as the biggest narcissistic arsehole in the western world”
Conspiracy detox I said.
Explains why many Democrats are doing a nudge nudge wink wink remark about this without actually saying anything remarkable, while some Q pushers are grinding their teeth about the whole thing.
I was wrong.
It would be good if those who profess uncritical adulation of Johnson and the Government, instead of berating those of us who exercise our right to scrutinise and ask questions, were prepared to contemplate the possibility mistakes have been made and there is a right to hold Ministers and the Prime Ministers to account (and that includes those who seem to want to make scientists the scapegoats - scientists aren't elected, Ministers are and ultimately the responsibility and the authority stops with them).
Or maybe not.
There is a lot of talk about the Lab leek Vs the wet market, and Chines Communist Party may be to blame for the leek and the cover up, but that's just a theory at least at the moment, and even if accurate knowing the ancear will not help us now.
But stopping Taiwan getting access to a Vaccine, is really bad, it will cost lives, and yet there is little talk about it. errrrrr
Devan Sinha
@DevanSinha
Replying to
@DevanSinha
Summary:
- 1 dose VE vs B1.617.2 is likely reduced but this is less certain than presented.
- VE will be higher than headline reported results.
- 2 dose minimally affected - may take 10ks matched cases to say if difference at all.
Basically, US launches from people other SpaceX have gone to zero, while everyone else has seen their launches cut in half.
The order books are even uglier: SpaceX probably has 70% of the contracted launches for the next couple of years, with a few other new upstarts getting 5% (or a little more) and just 25% left between traditional launchers from Europe, Asia and Russia.
It's going to be particularly hard on Russia, as their space programme was - alongside commodities - one of the very few things to bring in foreign currency.
An agreement could be announced as early as this week, people close to the situation said.
The deal would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods in 2017, and highlight the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation and drive bigger players to bulk up with assets that help them compete.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-nears-deal-to-buy-hollywood-studio-mgm-11621880759
One of the best reasons to take climate change seriously is to turn off the Middle East and Russia's commodity currency.
Hamas says "you what"
https://twitter.com/IntelDoge/status/1396892606693625864
It seems mad to buy them instead of Lionsgate.
I think most people will still think he is a tool like they did before. Boris is lucky to have him as an enemy, a bit like Corbyn.
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1396893124023160834
According to his mother, Roman Protasevich is in hospital in critical condition - heart disease.
I mean, of all the people in the world I would be reluctant to piss off, a bunch of violent mass murderers with access to ample munitions would be near the top of the list.
Growing up half the movies on TV, especially older ones, seemed to start with the MGM lion's roar. Plus some shows like Tom & Jerry, Stargate etc were MGM too.
I can't think of much major MGM stuff in recent years. I can't imagine it being really worth as much as it could have been anymore.
At least if MGM is bought we might finally get the long-rumoured next Stargate series.
Who gives an effing shit?
https://www.singlelunch.com/2021/05/19/the-tether-ponzi-scheme/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/24/will-the-india-variant-stop-england-ending-lockdown
"So what was he doing?" is not an unreasonable question
Over $21bn in 2020 alone.
Even if its an odd deal, MGM is like pocket change for them now. Scary really.
I don't see what Amazon get from buying MGM. Maybe a James Bond TV show, but I don't know what that will bring to the table that Spooks didn't already do. Stargate has already been exploited half to death and one James Bond movie every three years is worth about $250m dollars for them with each release.
I really don't understand it, they'd be better off taking the SPE route and buying up a bunch of smaller production houses and IP holding companies and coalescing them into something much bigger than the sum of the parts like SPE.
https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1396822018495074306?s=20
(From Eastern Europe).