Salt Lake and Bogus Studies . . .
I mentioned the other day that rather than all the DirecTV DNS stations going away, only ABC and CW disappeared. Turns out that DirecTV was able to make some sort of side deal with everyone but those two.
But as it turns out it’s not that cut and dried. Many people around the country are reporting a lot of different things. Some people have no more DNS, some just have FOX or CBS, or some other combination. But DirecTV won’t explain why this is happening, because, they say, their contracts with the different networks prevent it. You can read more about it here.
Guess we’re lucky we only lost the two stations.
My new bolts for my oil filter adapter came in today, earlier than expected, so I plan on working on the rig’s oil leak problem on Saturday, assuming the weather holds.
That Lancet HCQ study that panicked W.H.O. into stopping all the HCQ trials has come apart at the seams. As other researchers started looking at the data, they found a lot of inconsistencies, and even outright math errors.
So many errors in fact that W.H.O retracted their order and restarted HCQ trials. Then Lancet also found problems, so many that they disavowed the article and asked an independent survey of the data.
Then under severe pressure the article’s authors, with a company called Surgisphere withdraw the publication completely. And now people are saying it seems to be a complete fraud.
Peter Ellis, the chief data scientist of Nous Group, an international management consultancy that does data integration projects for government departments, told the Guardian that Surgisphere “was almost certainly a scam … There’s no evidence online of [Surgisphere] having any analytical software earlier than a year ago. It takes months to get people to even look into joining these databases, it involves network review boards, security people, and management. It just doesn’t happen with a sign-up form and a conversation.”
One obvious problem was that when contacted, a number of the hospitals listed in the survey, said they hadn’t given data to anyone, and several others said they weren’t running any HCQ trials anyway.
Makes you wonder what the purpose of the bogus study was to start with.
Another in our Where We Were 10 Years Ago Today series.
June 4, 2010
On To Draper UT…
Today we left the Rock Springs WY KOA about 9:45 heading about 190 miles south to Draper UT, which is a southern suburb of Salt Lake City.
This KOA, like other parks in the western states is just a big gravel parking lot, and we had a great view of some petroleum storage tanks. At least they weren’t BP tanks. No telling what could happen.
And, of course, every RV needs trees, so here they are. These are the only trees in the park, or anywhere around.
But at least the view in the other direction was pretty good.
As we moved down I-80 the scenery just got better and better.
A little further down the road, we started to see more and more of the snow-covered Rockies off to our left. Luckily we didn’t have to go over them, though we did crest out at over 7000 feet again.
It’s hard to see here, but there’s a big American flag flying on the top of this hill.
The view as we came down into this valley was just breath-taking.
Somewhere along here, Mister decided he liked the view better the other way.
Then as we got closer to Salt Lake City, the scenery started to change a little, more rolling green hills, less jagged rocks.
We got into Mountain Shadows RV Park in Draper UT about 2 pm and got set up. It’s a nice park, a little tight, but it does have the perfect amount of trees. Just enough to look nice and provide some shade, but not enough to block the satellite.
And the view isn’t too shabby, either.
About 5 pm we drove over to Guadalahonkys restaurant to meet Pat and Judy Benson, our friends we first met in Fairbanks AK two years ago.
Guadalahonky’s turned out to be really good. Of course it may be because we’re just getting closer to Mexico.
We’ll be here until Monday, visiting, sightseeing, getting prescriptions, working on the coach, etc.
Then we’ll be heading further south toward Show Low AZ.
Thought For The Day:
“I never met a psychiatrist who didn’t need one.”—George Putnam
