Documentaries

[humbert]

As I've said many times before, I'm sick and tired of this mass hysteria concerning Covid19. Let me remind everyone that this thing is nothing more than a very bad cold whose overall kill ratio is less than 5%. Look here for some hard facts. I don't believe bullshit, I believe numbers. Let me say once again: if this were Ebola or Bubonic Plague, then all this would make perfect sense. This thing is neither, not even close.

Believe me, mass hysteria is a very dangerous thing. People invent their own facts based on panic, and panic is very contagious. An excellent example of this is what happened to American of Japanese descent in 1942. Many were arrested, their assets were seized, and they were sent off to concentration camps in the desert. All this without a single shred of evidence that they were a danger to the Unites States.

[Shadow.97]

As I've said many times before, I'm sick and tired of this mass hysteria concerning Covid19. Let me remind everyone that this thing is nothing more than a very bad cold whose overall kill ratio is less than 5%. Look here for some hard facts. I don't believe bullshit, I believe numbers. Let me say once again: if this were Ebola or Bubonic Plague, then all this would make perfect sense. This thing is neither, not even close.

Believe me, mass hysteria is a very dangerous thing. People invent their own facts based on panic, and panic is very contagious. An excellent example of this is what happened to American of Japanese descent in 1942. Many were arrested, their assets were seized, and they were sent off to concentration camps in the desert. All this without a single shred of evidence that they were a danger to the Unites States.

The issue isnt that it is deadly in itself, it is how fast it's spread and the toll it is taking on the hospitals by the sudden impact. They're trying to buy time by decreasing how many are infected. The more people who have to go to hospital due to corona the less people will be able to have non-critical surgury, which overtime can become critical. Just because the beds are filled.
Thats how I've interpreted the information, not that it in itself is very bad.

[humbert]

The issue isnt that it is deadly in itself, it is how fast it's spread and the toll it is taking on the hospitals by the sudden impact. They're trying to buy time by decreasing how many are infected. The more people who have to go to hospital due to corona the less people will be able to have non-critical surgury, which overtime can become critical. Just because the beds are filled.

I agree that something like this would overwhelm the health care system. What people don't factor into the equation is that 80% of people who have this thing don't even need hospitalization. They could just be sent home and they'll recover on their own. Then again there's fear of a mass contagion which prevents rational action.

[scarface]

Tonight, I'm going to talk about an article released a few days ago about a mysterious egg.



After nearly a decade of mystery, scientists have confirmed that an unusual fossil from Antarctica is actually a massive egg â€" and it may have belonged to a real-life Loch Ness Monster.

The fossilized, soft-shelled egg is the biggest discovery of its kind, and the first-ever egg to turn up on the Earth's southernmost continent. The 66-million-year-old egg likely came from a giant, ancient reptile, reports a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Since its 2011 discovery, the egg fossil had puzzled researchers, who have likened it to a deflated football. The peculiar oval, which is about 11 inches long and 7 inches wide, earned a nickname among scientists that matched its mystery: "The Thing."

In the new findings, researchers used microscopic analysis to confirm that the fossil is indeed an ancient egg. Researchers analyzed the body size of 260 living reptiles, compared with their egg sizes, to estimate that the animal that laid the egg would have been more than 20 feet long.

Unlike hard dinosaur eggs, The Thing is soft-shelled, like a turtle's egg. That suggests the egg belonged instead to a massive aquatic reptile â€" like the mosasaurus, an aquatic reptilian predator that lived in the Late Cretaceous.



"It is from an animal the size of a large dinosaur, but it is completely unlike a dinosaur egg," lead author Lucas Legendre, a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Texas at Austin, says. "It is most similar to the eggs of lizards and snakes, but it is from a truly giant relative of these animals."

The researchers say that the egg is similar to modern snake and lizard eggs, which are sometimes transparent and hatch moments after they're laid.



Who laid the egg? â€" Without a skeleton inside, paleontologists don't have any way of confirming what massive prehistoric creature laid The Thing.

But if it is indeed a mosasaurs' egg, the new finding would overturn what scientists have previously thought â€" that these ancient creatures didn't lay eggs. Since there are no living aquatic reptiles the size of a mosasaurus, the egg seems to be in a class of its own.

There are some encouraging clues: Researchers know that mosasaurs lived in Antarctica and the Antarctica rock formation where the egg was found also contained fossils from mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. Those fossilized remains have fascinated researchers and the public for centuries â€" in fact, some theories suggest that the pair directly influenced Loch Ness Monster lore.

In a 2019 study, researchers found that a type of "dino-mania" followed the discovery of creatures like mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. Essentially, people became collectively taken with the sea monsters, and they began to appear before people's very eyes. Those study authors partially proved a theory laid out by American science fiction writer L. Sprague de Camp: "After Mesozoic reptiles became well-known, reports of sea serpents, which until then had tended towards the serpentine, began to describe the monster as more and more resembling a Mesozoic reptile than like a plesiosaur or mosasaur."

It stands to reason that you can't fear what you don't know â€" and after you've been exposed to a monstrous, 20-foot-long aquatic reptile predator, there's really no looking back.

[scarface]

Currently, in the south of the Hauts de Seine, it's raining cats and dogs out there and it is pretty cold.
I'm talking about the weather because I stumbled upon an article about the adaptation capacity of the cities to climate change, and the article is focusing on Paris and London.
I'm going to translate it and then I will put it on the forum.

[scarface]

For those who want to read the latest edition of the newspaper Le monde, it is available here (in French):
https://easyupload.io/z127kt

Note that there is an interesting article about the port of Beirut.

[scarface]

You know that I am teleworking because ( or thanks to) of the Covid19. If I can finish my work tomorrow, maybe I will go to the 8th arrondissement on Saturday.
Humbert already knows the champs Elysées, but I didn't take many photos of the adjacent streets. Or maybe I'll take some photos elsewhere.

Maybe you remember the photos of Fauchon and the blond waitress, taken in 2015 here: https://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=2283.msg16072#msg16072
Well, this store is going to close. Fauchon, one of France's most luxurious food outlets, is to close two flagship shops in Paris, blaming the combined effects of the coronavirus and months of yellow vests protests. 700,000 salaried jobs were already lost in the first half of the year.
A court confirmed the closure of the shops in the up-market Place de la Madeleine in the heart of the capital, where it has operated since it first opened 134 years ago.
The closures, which will mean the loss of 77 jobs, leave the historic company with its hotel, Grand Café and a tea shop in Paris, on top of a global network of 73 shops.
In normal times, Fauchon is major draw for well-heeled tourists from around the world. But the luxury grocers announced in June that its Paris operations would go into administration to get them back on their feet. Its sales were hit badly not just by the months-long closures imposed by the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year, but by the "yellow vest" anti-government protests of 2018-2019 and strikes over pension reforms this winter.

[scarface]

In this message, I'm suggesting today's edition of the newspaper Le monde (in French).
On page 18, you'll find an interesting article about Disneyland and unemployment.

Link here: https://easyupload.io/md40ov

[scarface]

Today's edition of the newspaper Le monde (in French) is available on the forum.

Link here: https://easyupload.io/cy6nrr

[scarface]

Today, I'm going to talk about Egypt.

Egypt's tourism and antiquities minister said on Saturday that archaeologists have unearthed dozens of ancient coffins in a vast necropolis south of Cairo.
At least 59 sealed sarcophagi, with mummies inside most of them, were found that had been buried in three wells more than 2,600 years ago.
The wooden sarcophagi are exquisitely painted and still bear their original hieroglyphs.

The most exciting part for Egyptologists, though, is that an initial analysis shows these casketsâ€"thought to be more than 2,500 years oldâ€"have not been opened since they were buried. According to a statement from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the finds were discovered deep in burial shafts at Saqqara.
For more than 3,000 years, this vast necropolis was where Egyptians living in the ancient capital of Memphis buried their dead.
Archaeologists are currently working to determine the origins of these caskets.

The Saqqara plateau hosts at least 11 pyramids, including the Step Pyramid, along with hundreds of tombs of ancient officials and other sites that range from the 1st Dynasty (2920 B.C.-2770 B.C.) to the Coptic period (395-642).