While I would never trust a refurbished single drive with my critical data, I run a RAID 5 system with redundancy and find these drives to have been very good in such a setup. If one dies, I can hot swap a spare in and keep going.
Histoplasma is one of the three main species of soil fungi that cause lung infections in the U.S. Historically, Histoplasma was found in the Midwest and parts of the East, Coccidioides in the Southwest, and Blastomyces in the Midwest and the South. But a growing number of case reports and anecdotes suggest that all three have expanded out of their traditional ranges in recent decades.
“Fungal infections are much more common than people realize, and they’re spreading,” Spec said. “The scientific community has underinvested in studying and developing treatments for fungal infections. I think that’s beginning to change, but slowly. It’s important for the medical community to realize these fungi are essentially everywhere these days and that we need to take them seriously and include them in considering diagnoses.”
The three main species of fungi that cause lung infections in the U.S. — Histoplasma (red), Blastomyces (blue) and Coccidioides (green) — have all expanded their ranges in recent decades. These maps were created based on data from 1955 (top row) and 2007-2016 (bottom row). Reliance on outdated maps may lead to delayed or missed diagnoses.
People develop fungal lung infections after breathing in spores from fungi in the soil. The spores become airborne when the ground is disturbed by farming, landscaping, construction or even just by people walking around in fungi-rich environments such as caves. Most healthy adults and children can fight off a fungal infection handily, but infants, older adults and people with compromised immune systems may develop fever, cough, fatigue and other symptoms. Fungal lung infections easily can be mistaken for bacterial or viral lung infections such as COVID-19, bacterial pneumonia and tuberculosis.
“People with fungal lung infection often spend weeks trying to get the right diagnosis and appropriate treatment, and the whole time they’re feeling terrible,” said lead author Patrick B. Mazi, MD, a clinical fellow in infectious diseases. “They usually have multiple health-care visits with multiple opportunities for testing and diagnosis, but the doctor just doesn’t consider a fungal infection until they’ve exhausted all other possibilities.”
Lung Granulomas and bacterial infections
Granulomas are small lumps of immune cells that form in your body in areas where there is infection or inflammation. They’re most commonly found in your lungs, but they can also be in other areas of your head and body. Doctors believe that they block the spread of organisms such as bacteria and fungi through your body.
Granulomas themselves don’t usually have noticeable symptoms. But the conditions that cause them, such as sarcoidosis, tuberculosis, histoplasmosis, and others, may create symptoms. Some of these include:
Shortness of breath
Wheezing
Chest pain
Fever
Dry cough that won’t go away
In some cases, you may have lung granulomas that show no abnormal signs. They don’t usually need treatment or other testing.
Granulomas are usually accidently found through X-rays or other tests when doctors look for other health issues. At first, they may look dangerous on imaging tests, but they’re usually noncancerous
Histoplasmosis caused granulomas: Granulomas will form to stop the spread of the fungus. If you have histoplasmosis, you may never have symptoms. But for people with weak immune systems, it can be serious. In rare cases, a granuloma doesn’t heal and the lung tissue around it can scar (pulmonary fibrosis). Or the air tubes in your lungs (bronchi) can form pockets and get infected. When this happens, there isn’t a cure, but there are treatments that can ease your symptoms.
Granulomas on your lungs usually heal themselves and go away. The best way to control lung granulomas is to care for the health issues that cause them.
Nothing, Forever is a 24 hour a day Twitch stream with an amazing premise. It runs 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year and delivers new content every minute. Everything you see, hear, or experience (with the exception of the artwork and laugh track) is always brand new content, continually generated via machine learning and AI algorithms. It never repeats (except when the AI generates the same content).
It was launched by Mismatch Media, a media lab focused on creating experimental forms of television shows, video games, and more, using generative and other machine learning technologies.
Give it a watch and be amazed. Sadly, it’s probably better than probably 50% of current TV shows.
Interviewing seems to be changing. Besides the usual technical and behavioral interviews, I’m hearing of more interesting two-hand kind of tests in which recruiters ask you to basically perform some tasks as if you were going to be doing the job.
teamLabs does some amazing work – and this is no exception. I was floored when I went to their exhibition in Tokyo and they don’t seem to be missing a beat even during Covid.
M R James wrote some great old time ghost stories. Robert Powell did some fantastic narrations on his DVD called Classic Ghost Stories – M.R. James, but it appears this is the only video segment left online:
It looks like the Internet Archive still has the audio recordings though – wonderful if you want some good Christmas Ghost Stories:
Unfortunately, by 2022, it looks like the train ride has been converted to into a cruise. Maybe it will come back as a train experience in 2023? Here was a 2019review of the train version.
The entire experience for 2 comprises a 4-day trip to Paris to create your 1920s wardrobe and the entire 4-day cruise on the Mediterranean in a regular cabin. Included in your package: 6 nights in a luxury hotel (suite), your wardrobe for the game, as well as all your meals and bespoke cocktails during the cruise.
The murder mystery was written by an award-winning author and inspired by Agatha Christie. In this new murder mystery, you will never really know when the mystery starts, who is real, or how each of your fellow travelers is involved. All you’ll know is time is of the essence because anyone on board could be the next victim or … the murderer(s).
The adventure begins months before the cruise starts when you will receive your invitation with the date and place of departure. Then, after an incredible 4-day-long Costumes Experience in Paris to create your whole 1920s wardrobe for the cruise, your adventure will start a few months later, in September or October 2023… or is it 1923?
Travel back in time a hundred years back to enjoy an extraordinary private visit to one of Italy’s most famous ancient archaeological sites, taste the 1920s-inspired creations of 3 different famous 3 Michelin-starred chefs, dance during a Charleston party on board the steamship and so much more. But be aware that this idyllic and lavish cruise hides many untold secrets and covert riddles as nothing is what it seems.
One of the critical arguments during the purchase of Twitter was how many accounts were bots. Bots are probably much more rampant in social media and games than people think – or would like to think. With things like ChatGPT, people are quickly realizing how easy it has been for bad actors to flood social media (from reddit to Facebook) to disrupt our elections and foment rebellions (and protests) in countries to destabilize governments (include in the US).
Smarter Every Day did an entire series on how easy it is to manipulate everything from Facebook to Youtube to Reddit. Reddit even has whole forums that are just bots talking to each other. Go read through it – it’ll shock you how easily bots create and control conversations on these platforms.
How easy is it to get followers and spread misinformation? What if I told you that you could get 1000 followers for $20? If you have a modest sized advertising budget (or part of a country’s defense/espionage budget), you could spend $5,000 and get 250,000 followers or only $20,000 and get a MILLION followers. This is true for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and just about any other platform. Don’t believe me? Here’s just one example from BoosterGod:
So, maybe being an ‘influencer’ with a million subscribers isn’t quite as impressive as you’d think. That isn’t even a blip on most corporate advertising budgets – and nothing to a foreign power.
It might be worth an experiment if you have the cash. An influencer with 1 million subscribers can usually get advertising sponsorships and product advertising deals that far exceed $20,000 – so it might even pay for itself…
Overclockers go to extremes to cool their PC’s. China’s northern city of Mohe just experienced its coldest temperatures since 1969 by dropping to a freezing record low of -53C. Chinese content creator “苏打baka” decided to take her entire gaming PC loaded with an Intel Core i9-13900K CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 outside to see what it feels like gaming in sub-zero ambient temperatures.
It was first run at moderate workloads and the CPU did initially thermal throttle as expected. After putting the AIO on, the temperatures outside got so cold that the pump eventually died when the liquid within the AIO froze.
The AIO was replaced with the Noctua NH-P1 passive heatsink and the CPU dropped to 10-15C while the GPU ran at an even lower -40C temperature (-18C Hotspot). The CPU had so much thermal headroom that it was easily overclocking up to 6.18 GHz. Even under heavy load, the GPU never went past 30C.
