LOL *NSFW* *The new Demote thread*

This is interesting and, when it get's to the coconut, eye-watering:

https://theconversation.com/weird-and-wonderful-things-lost-then-found-inside-the-human-body-217338

 

.

 

The Grim reaper today -

 

WT actual F?!?

 

Wouldn't it be easier to just put Lionel Hutz on the Supreme Court?

 

Wow. That totally wont be an absolute shitshow.

 

In general, I don't have too much of a problem with this PROVIDED that the submissions are then proof read and corrected where needed by someone competent and knowledgeable of the case, and therein lies the problem. I am sure we have all had to deal with instructions or specifications that have been horrendous victims of copy and paste, I still get lightning protection specifications making mention of a standard that was withdrawn over 15 years ago, and I anticipate this to end up being no different simply because most people who would or should be checking these sorts of things are either ignorant of the subject (mostly through no fault of their own) or lazy.

AI systems like this are (or at least have to potential to be) pretty useful at getting the heavy lifting of content written, it's like using Google translate, get's the donkey work done, but the result needs to be thoroughly checked before publishing.

 

So... I honestly would like opinions on just how ****ed is Piers Morgan and those who mirrored his behaviour?

 

That statement he gave was very carefully worded, I suspect he’s had a good deal of legal advice. But he can say what he likes, he’s still just as full of it as he ever was and he’s still just as much of a greasy turd as he ever was. He might not have hacked anyone’s phone or voicemail and he might not have specifically and directly asked anyone else to do it for him… but he damn well ****in’ knew it was going on and he damn well ****in’ knew where the information he was publishing had come from.

I only hope there’s the guts to follow up on this and throw the ****in’ book at the lot of them. Preferably followed by the bookcase… and then the rest of the library, brick by brick…

 

When he's sitting in a cell beginning a decade long prison sentence I'll believe it. Right now he can hop on a plane and f**k off back to Florida if the civil suits get too hot.

But I don't think either will happen, he's got the right (wing) backing.

 

Not been following much news recently. Presumably a court case went against him and he's now spouting guff?

 

Basically, witness testimony in Prince Harry's court case against the Mirror Group revealed that Morgan was fully aware of phone hacking taking place and knowingly published stories/reports based on the illegally obtained information. All of which flies in the face of his own testimony in the Leveson Inquiry which was a judicial inquiry where testimony was given under oath.

Kinda hoping that's enough to bury the ****, but there are a lot more court cases pending, and the result of this one may re-open the floodgates; to an extent, and notwithstanding the statute of limitations on knowledge of wrong-doing and the time elapsed before litigation.

 

Dick of the Year! (skip forward to 1 minute)

 

[Bad Reporting Rant Ahoy]

So... this is raising it's ugly head again: "Scientists are on the verge of a male birth-control pill. Will men take it?"

We've actually been "on the verge" for some time now. It turns out that medical research takes time if you want safe & effective medications. Unless of course some really nasty pandemic comes along and focuses the efforts of researchers worldwide, vastly speeding up the research into practical applications of a drug delivery mechanism that's been around for a little while ("RNA vaccines"). So we're off to a good start with the headline.

Some selected quotes...

I mean... there are condoms and, if you're really sure, vasectomies...

Last I checked, both people in a cis heterosexual relationship were responsible for preventing unwanted pregnancies...

Ah yes, so finally the author remembers condoms are a thing. Of course you've got to have them on hand - what kind of dumb point is that. You've got to have the pill on hand too, ffs. In fact, many contraceptive pills are only effective if you take them at the same time (or in a short window of time) every day - earlier in the article, the author even points out women setting alarms to take the pill. That's easier and more convenient than a condom, is it?

And, having gone to great effort to outline how bad contraceptives for women are and how one-sided "birth control" is, blandly states that "yeah condoms are a thing but some people don't like them". Ummm... OK.... My other half can't take contraceptive pills (for reasons that are entirely irrelevant here), we don't want children, and I'm not quite ready for a vasectomy... so we use condoms. Yeah they're a faff, but it's either: condoms, "morning after" pills (which are also pretty horrible), or pregnancy.

Ah yes, here we go, the "thrust"* of the article (pun absolutely intended), nestled right down at the bottom. The ol' "men tried a contraceptive pill and couldn't hack the mood swings" narrative. Because of a trial going on for a male contraceptive pill, I've seen this narrative quite a lot lately and it grinds my ****ing gears every ****ing time. It is a deliberate and wilful misrepresentation of the science, and serves no purpose other than to be a "wedge issue" that generates headlines & clicks. In short, it's ****ing bollocks.

This narrative comes back to a single study for an injectible male contraceptive and the headlines it generated at the time: Efficacy and Safety of an Injectable Combination Hormonal Contraceptive for Men, published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. So let's take a look at some details from that study, provided by a Vox article from the time.

Oh... Well that doesn't sound good...

So, a safety board concluded that the risks to participants outweigh any possible benefits and terminated the trial. The optics, as they say, aren't good so far.

Er... That's quite a lot... That's an adverse effect rate of 281%.

Pain at the injection site sounds pretty normal for an injection TBH. The rest isn't great, but probably no worse than contraceptives for women...

Er... Testicular pain, night sweats, and confusion... That's a yikes from me, dawg...

Um. OK. One of them died?! As in, actually committed suicide while participating in the trial?! I haven't read the full study to determine how the researchers came to the conclusion that it was not related to the birth control, but the fact that someone committed suicide while participating in the trial is extremely concerning, even if it really is coincidence.

That's... actually a pretty high dropout rate.

So how about some comparison with contraceptives for women?

I can't find the blog entry that Vox links to - the author has since updated their website. EDIT: Of course the Wayback Machine has it: https://web.archive.org/web/2017031...eption-side-effects-low-vasectomy-rate-might/

So... an adverse event rate of 2% for (some unspecified) birth control for women, versus 281% for this trial. Now... I'm just a simple boy from the South Wales Valleys, I didn't get no fancy ed-you-muh-cayshion in university or nothin'... but I damn well know when one number is bigger than the other. And one of those numbers is way way WAY bigger than the other.

EDIT: Some more detail from Gunter's article, now that I’ve found it…

The family of the participant who committed suicide said that he was “stressed at work”. It seems to be on this basis that the researchers concluded that it was not driven by the contraceptive, which seems quite tenuous to me given the fact that they also observed a high rate of “emotional disorders”. The Vox article also didn’t mention the attempted suicide of another participant… And the study doesn’t really define “emotional disorder” - it could be anything from “I feel a bit crap today” to crippling depression.

Also, 5 of the men were infertile for a year to a year and a half following the trial, and one didn’t recover fertility for over four years.

So. Let me get this straight. Despite an adverse effect rate which is several orders of magnitude worse than contraceptives for women - including the remote possibility of causing the suicide of one of the participants - the overwhelming majority of men in this study wanted to continue taking it.

Now tell me with a straight ****ing face that "men couldn't hack a male pill".