American physicist and chemist Katharine Burr Blodgett was born #OTD in 1898.

She was the inventor of a technique for making non-reflecting "invisible" glass, a material used in virtually all camera lenses & many other optical devices. She was also responsible for developing an instrument that can measure film thicknesses to within a few angstroms. She did research on methods of removing ice from airplane wings. She is also credited with the development of a new type of smoke screen.

#science

Vivek Ramaswamy acquired the rights to a failed Alzheimer's drug very cheaply, reworked the failed trials to show improvement, and hyped the potential on Jim Cramer's investment show.

The IPO raised the most ever for a biotech company, and the stock skyrocketed, allowing Ramaswamy and his inner circle to cash out their shares. But when phase 3 trials were conducted, the drug flopped again, causing the stock to plummet 99% in one day.

https://boingboing.net/2023/08/31/vivek-ramaswamy-enriched-himself-while-costing-small-investors-their-life-savings-must-watch-5-min-video.html

With no masks or other NPIs in clinical settings, many in the medical community hitting their 2nd, 3rd, 4th infection and a constant stream of more immune evasive variants, how long before health care workers become an endangered species?

CDC saying there are treatments for those eligible, although access in many areas is extremely limited, and may become impossible to obtain if there is no one to prescribe.

#Covid #Covid19

Today's PSA: (because, apparently, this is shocking to people). It's OK for corporations to make less money. It's OK for shareholders to receive less value.

No, they don't have to raise prices on their consumers. No, they don't have to cut wages or benefits. They're choosing to.

If your perpetually ascending profit model only works because you exploit your labor, then your profit model deserves no sympathy, fretting, or hand-wringing.

You can, and should, make less profit.

The top secret engine room of the world's fastest ocean liner, the SS United States

Photos and info at https://www.abandonedamerica.us/ss-united-states

Or listen to my new podcast about it at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/americas-ghost-ship-the-ss-united-states/id1619808235?i=1000611334300

I have to let you all in on something.

At this point in my career I’m privileged to mentor a lot of young people, especially veterans and college students. And every so often they’re like really excited to meet me and say they would like to be like me. This totally blows my mind because they go to like MIT, Stanford, or Purdue ….and they’re usually in the second year of a PHD and they run their cybersecurity competition team and speak 9 languages or something….

I was a TERRIBLE youth. Yea, I eventually went to DePaul which is respectable and I have three okay undergrad degrees - merely because I had no choice but to enlist at 17 and the military kicked the crap out of me. I went to community college first the hard way around. I almost didn’t graduate from high school. I was a miserable, unhappy, uncool gnc goth kid who hacked computers and swore a lot. Those schools would have .blown their noses at my application and probably banned me from the campus for being a delinquent.

What I want to say is if you’re one of those rock star young people, I’m super impressed by you, and you’ve picked one hell of a role model. Keep it up, and don’t burn out.

If you’re that totally screwed up teenager, though, I might not get to see you at awards ceremonies and touted by the top professors at cons, but you can make it too. Even if nobody is ever in your corner.