solarparade

>If you go out and get sick, chances are it's just the flu

This is demonstrably untrue.

We in the US are in the 13th covid wave since the pandemic started from tracking wastewater data which is our most accurate way of determining transmission (fortunately at a much smaller peak as of right now than most waves)[1]. The past four years have had far higher covid transmission rates on average than the two years we consider societally "when covid was happening". It does not strictly follow seasonal patterns like the flu, we routinely get summer waves that peak quite highly. The flu does not do this. Millions of Americans have ME/CFS like symptoms after covid, some extremely severe.[2]

[1]https://www.pmc19.com/ [2]https://academic.oup.com/ooim/article/6/1/iqaf010/8379704?lo...

The risk has not gone away. What's gone away is our willingness to acknowledge it or do anything about it.

I have a friend who had to stop his career and move back in with his parents in his 30s. After an infection he was suddenly unable to read or do anything that requires visual fixation without intense pain. It took years to find a doctor that was able to help him at all and he's still not back to normal. This is an online anecdote so it will make no difference to you if you keep choosing not to believe it. But the idea that it is a purely online phenomenon with no real-world basis is absurd. It's been 6 years and there is a preponderance of evidence. The most common estimate is that it affects 400 million people worldwide.[1] Whether or not people want to talk about this to you in person is a completely different story. Covid is a societal red line that no one wants to bring up.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/ooim/article/6/1/iqaf010/8379704?lo...

Yes. This is absolutely chatgpt-speak. I see it everywhere now. It's inescapable. At least this appears to be largely human authored and have some substance, which is generally not the case when I see these LLM-isms.

It is possible to have a device in your shoe that will not trip metal detectors that can feed moves from the outside.

It doesn't even have to be that complex, for a super GM even just a simple signal that indicates "this position has a crushing move, spend extra time thinking on this move" is enough to significantly improve their performance

Unless you catch the method of cheating directly, it's basically impossible to definitively determine if someone was cheating from a small number of games, they could just have gotten lucky or have been especially prepared in a given line like Niemann claims to have been