Buses are the resilient backup for trains, especially if road infrastructure has been designed to prioritize transit (e.g. Chicago highways with shoulders designed to let Pace buses bypass traffic jams).
Traditional train systems themselves are extremely decentralized, though scheduling is not. Traditional interlockings form a mirroring mesh network parallel to the physical network of steel rails itself.
Train tracks are a form of centralization. Without the ability to reroute around disruptions (like cars and buses) a single stopped train (e.g. due to mechanical or passenger issues) can stop everything.
BART is dual track around the entire system, except for side yard entrances. I have seen stopped trains, and it was worked around. One I was on caught fire I. The middle of a station and it did not close the line. It slowed it down a lot but did not stop. There are so many systems in place, it's a quite complex system.
The real heros? The bus drivers. The baddies? The planners, the management. The evil? Pure unadulterated evil? The AC Transit app. I would give it a -11.
A) The lab leak hypothesis is still unproven. There is no hard scientific data to support it, and many supposed proofs ("Chinese scientists fell ill first") are circular references without proof.
B) Pseudoscientific grifters such as RFJ jr are far far less credible than the CDC, and yet here we are. He specifically said COVID-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets Black and white people but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.
C) Do your own research and look at "The relativity of Wrong" recently submitted on this website.
The lab leak theory is plausible. That's enough to not label it a conspiracy theory. It also meant there was never broader discourse on if gain of function research is a good idea.
The problem was that it mostly started being brought up for the purpose of political propaganda. Trump's only use for the pandemic was as fuel to rail against China in support of his predetermined agenda. So "lab leak" was used to focus attention on the external enemy to fight, instead of taking care of our own country or asking why Trump was so dead set against that.
The whole time, it was obviously wrong to reject the lab leak theory out of hand. Yet people are stupid herd animals, and instead of tri-state "it is irrelevant in the current context" they argued that the theory was definitely wrong. That same fallibility applies to people working for institutions (see also the early CDC lie implying that masks weren't effective, based on wanting to keep the supply for the healthcare industry).
Then after the dust settles, people stay dug in and the politically-colored battle lines never go away. I'd say this kind of establishment-clearly-wrong but dissent-with-nothing-productive underlies most of the energy fueling the destructionists.
I've been seeing a lot of articles asking about AI on news sources like the NYT, but even during 2020-2021, I didn't see that level of articles of GoF. Maybe biotech is having these debates internally.
The CDC did not 'brand the lab-leak hypothesis a conspiracy theory'. The CDC stated the scientific truth, which was that we didn't have enough to go on at the time to make a judgement one way or another. The initial lab-leak hypothesis was primarily created by Trump & the MAGA folks to try to deflect blame onto China. It could still be valid and correct, but it was definitely not motivated from facts at first, and to my understanding we still don't have enough facts to assert it confidently one way or the other.
If the two options are a) coming from a wet market vs b) coming from a coronavirus gain of function laboratory in Wuhan that's funded by the CDC, you have to start thinking about this more than just MAGA conspiracy theories.
It's the most bloody obvious explanation, and in a sane world where "MAGA" didn't just turn off everyone's brain cells and cause them to blindly repeat what they're told, any alternative would need some serious heft to be convincing.
'coronavirus gain of function laboratory in Wuhan that's funded by the CDC' is misleading.
The particular lab (Wuhan Institute of Virology) is not a 'coronavirus gain of function laboratory', but an institute studying viruses, including the coronavirus, and including gain of function research. And, critically, "the viruses used in these experiments were not physically present but rather consisted of synthesized genetic sequences, meaning they were not complete, nor infectious viral particles capable of replication, and the pseudo-virus experiments conducted to test human cell entry lacked the ability to replicate." (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12040609/).
It's possible that WIV did screw up and create, intentionally or otherwise, the virus responsible for the pandemic. And, WIV has been linked with military research programs. But, it's not a slam dunk, and the best/widest scientific consensus is still, in 2025, that the origin was natural/biological and came as a result of human/wild-animal contact.
I don't know how you could read this story as anything other than complete vindication of the people who turn off their brains and refuse to listen to anything "MAGA" has to say. I wasn't in their camp, I thought Kennedy was going to be fine, and now he's working full time to make sure Americans get more diseases and fewer treatments.
Given precisely that amount of information, sure. But people dig in further and it complicates things. We don't just go "ugh jeez isn't it obvious" and turn our brains off.
The most bloody obvious explanation is a natural origin, exactly like the first SARS. Did you forget about that was also a coronavirus outbreak, a close cousin of the COVID-19 (whose real name is SARS-cov-2) that was more lethal (but less contagious, and contained thanks to the heroic efforts of Hong Kong and south Korea)?
The clique downvoting my post can suck it: SARS-CoV-1 as well as MERS are more lethal than SARS-CoV-2 (aka COVID-19), and nobody doubts they are perfectly natural - that is until RFK jr and the crazies around him on day begin to lie they are bioengineered, the same way they lie about Lyme disease, vaccines, autism, antidepressants and their FUD-du-jour.
Who, SPECIFICALLY PLEASE, at the CDC "branded the lab-leak hypothesis a conspiracy theory and quickly dismissed it"?
Not the press, not some rando on twitter, not some anonymous and probably made up "source", not "people are saying"-- which actual CDC employee or appointee did this?
I keep asking, and people keep making up bullshit.
Fauci was relatively quick to dismiss the idea of the virus being human-modified, in a press briefing on April 17, 2020 [0]:
> Q Mr. President, I wanted to ask Dr. Fauci: Could you address these suggestions or concerns that this virus was somehow manmade, possibly came out of a laboratory in China?
> THE PRESIDENT: Want to go?
> Q You studied this virus. What are the prospects of that?
> DR. FAUCI: There was a study recently that we can make available to you, where a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences there and the sequences in bats as they evolve. And the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.
(The study he refers to is "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2" [1], published March 17.) It seems that much was made of this particular remark. It doesn't rule out the idea of an unmodified virus leaked from the lab, but the widespread theories have always been aimed at the gain-of-function research occuring there.
The original commenter got flagged for his response, so I'd like to ask you more politely. Dr. Fauci did not in fact work for the CDC, and as you acknowledge this statement does not even say that the lab leak hypothesis is untrue. Are you trying to argue in favor of the original commenter's assertion that "they branded the lab-leak hypothesis a conspiracy theory", or just trying to explain what comments people are interpreting in bad faith to support that assertion?
My apologies, I was actually under the belief that Fauci was affiliated with the CDC at the time, given how often they appeared together in headlines (e.g., [0]; most of those are clumping them together in critisism, but I also saw them clumped together in praise). I'll keep that in mind.
In any case, the assertion made me curious about what was actually said by government officials and affiliates regarding lab-leak theories, and drilling down into some of the blog posts led to that particular statement and the paper associated with it.
People do often specifically mean a human-modified virus when they talk about "the lab-leak hypothesis", especially given the GoF research conducted there, so I'd say it's true that Fauci wanted to cast water on that particular version of the hypothesis. (If there's anything that annoys me, it's when people equivocate over what is and isn't a lab leak. But if you must know, I personally find the stronger forms uncompelling.)
Of course, many have put far stronger language into the mouths of politicians and officials (most of whom in 2020 were quite careful with their words), and the tales can easily grow in the retelling, but it doesn't mean it's not worthwhile to focus on the kernel of truth about what actually occurred. "It wasn't the CDC, it was Fauci/others, and they were only talking about a manmade virus, against which the evidence is still strong" would have been much clearer than "it's all BS".
How is this quickly dismissing the idea that it was a lab leak as a conspiracy? The research showed (and still shows) that it's extremely plausible for the virus to have gone from animal -> human. I think currently there is a "missing" jump where the animal which was involved in transmission still isn't know but to say that Fauci citing the current research is "dismissal of lab leak as a conspiracy theory" is a bit absurd.
I don't think you'd easily catch him put it in precisely the terms of a "conspiracy theory". He wouldn't have had such a long career if he weren't careful with his words on air.
But he did consider that research to adequately "address" the concerns of a "manmade" virus, and I don't think it would be uncharitable to interpret that as a dismissal of those concerns. After all, he always could have ended his statement with a noncommittal "but this is just one study, and we need more evidence to really know for sure".
And a lot of people do specifically mean a virus that was genetically modified or otherwise selected for human transmissibility when they talk about a "lab leak", so at least he was trying to talk down that version of a lab leak theory.
(Personally, I do think a lot of the theories of an genetically-modified virus are overblown, both then and now, I just wanted to give some perspective for what he actually said.)
Fauci has not worked at the CDC a single day in his entire life.
You wrote, and I quote in full: "The CDC burned 50+ years of carefully built up credibility to the ground during COVID. Remember how they branded the lab-leak hypothesis a conspiracy theory and quickly dismissed it?"
Please, for once in your life, stop making up bullshit and then deflecting when called out on your bullshit.
Please don't attack other users like this, no matter how wrong anyone is or you feel they are. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
That's a good point about the word harangue! I've replaced it with a different verb above.
Could you please stop breaking the site guidelines, and also please stop creating accounts to do that with? You're welcome here as long as you respect the same rules that apply to all commenters.
NIH officials involved in writing a paper in 2020 about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 actively suppressed consideration of a lab leak hypothesis and exaggerated the evidence for a natural origin. Some of their communications have been released and others involved have testified to that under oath.
But your second link contradicts this story entirely! It's about a claim from the CDC director that other officials in other agencies froze him out because he wanted to consider the lab leak hypothesis.
Sorry I should have been more clear. From a US federal government perspective, the fault for the sloppy science in the 2020 paper lies with the NIH and not the CDC. Will edit my comment above.
With these rabid haters, COVID-19 is at the same time "just a flu that doesn't hurt kids nor adults and can be cured with a cheap widely available medicine" and “a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets Black and white people but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people” (as explained by RFK jr, now in charge of the CDC).
That English can be well represented with ASCII may have contributed to America becoming an early computing powerhouse. You could actually do things like processing and sorting and doing case insensitive comparisons on data likes names and addresses very cheaply.
There is probably a correlation between how fast a human can do math problems and how intelligent they are in general.
But a very trivial python program running on a normal computer will beat the fastest human at math problems in terms of speed. Even though it does nothing else useful
Is this at all similar to how companies share salary data with a third-party firm and then use that firm's data to determine how much they will pay their employees?
For instance TSMC is discussed a lot on HN and every time I'm thinking that even TSMC itself probably couldn't produce their latest chips if they had to start from scratch tomorrow.
It can be documents and it can be people, but it's not essentially either one. It can take many forms, including being lost when none of those forms has it on offer, as every business is different. An institution with excellent documentation, mature processes, and adept hiring could retain its "memory" without a single human member remaining from the past. Oral history and other humanistic forms of memory make everyone feel warm and fuzzy, but they're not to be idealized as the only real memory simply because they were underappreciated for a some time.
I think this is what Raymond Chen calls the other side of the airtight hatch.
The game is already over. The user is already convinced the BAD website is the good website. The BAD website could just ask the user for the email and password already and the user would directly provide it. The email authenticaton flow doesn’t introduce any new vulnerability and in fact, may reduce it if the user actually signs in via a link in the email.
