Jump to content

Txzen

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    540
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Txzen

  1. The videos of him, hobbled, are painful for me to watch. But happy he's back on the saddle. He's one of the most talented living musicians, full stop. I'm not a fan of his later career - the top 40 stuff - but you can't knock how successful it was. He's an immensely talented songwriter. He's also one of the best drummers who ever was. Early Genesis stuff is amazing, and even early post-Peter as well. Not Phil, just some kid who gets his spirit (on a pretty technically challenging track):
  2. Txzen

    Big Pharma

    Dude. I'm a nerd, so...no. Maybe at the clinical ones, but not the science ones. Keystone conferences are a different lot - think drunken hot tubbing with illicit substances. Too poor for bottle service, man.
  3. Txzen

    Big Pharma

    And big Pharma could give a fuck about medical marijuana. Doesn't factor into anything I've ever heard in my time. No one is really interested in blocking it, if anything they want a piece of it.
  4. Txzen

    Big Pharma

    I have spent most of my career fighting and dealing with budget reductions in R&D - many of them totally arbitrary and just belt-tightening (i.e. not because of a major trial failure, shift in priority, etc.). I've more or less come to terms with it. The fact of the matter is R&D spends money, and can only offer the promise of profit. R&D tries to build a pipeline, but it is more attractive, often, to cut internal spend and look for BD/M&A externally for a mature 'asset' rather than develop it yourself. That's with big Pharma. Having spent time in biotech/startups, we're always trying to sell ourselves to big Pharma because they have no new ideas and are plodding behemoths. I'm on the research side, but will occasionally go to the big clinical conferences (like the American Society for Clinical Oncology). That's the big one in my field, at least for the corporate side as well as late breaking clinical trial data. But to rent a booth is exorbitant (many tens of thousands and up), and if you want to serve something as simple as coffee, add in another few tens of thousands. Now look at the big pharma booths that occupy hundreds of plush square feet, modeled after a trendy cabaret in Ibiza, where you can go drive some VR car through a maize of cancer cells just to get a little plushy and post it on Twitter. A patient's right advocate would have a stroke (no pun intended). It's a funny, and sometimes perverse, business - like many, I suppose when you start talking about big money. And yes, I know I sound like this guy now: The reality is those big drugs, and even the legacy drugs, keep the lights on. How much is fair pricing in the US market, relative to the rest of the world, is a totally relevant conversation for which there isn't a particularly easy answer.
  5. Txzen

    Big Pharma

    No. This is not new. Big Pharma spends way more on marketing than R&D (says the guy in pharma R&D). The change in law in 1997 that opened up these advertisements was a mistake, IMHO.
  6. Got my 14 year old vaccinated for this exact reason. He has a history of mild exercise-induced asthma as well, so I wasn't planning on taking any chances.
  7. Kirkwood is terrible. There are no restaurants, no nightlife, no real hotels, practically no on-mountain dining, and many of the lifts are slow non-detachable ass smackers. There's not even really a grocery store, so you need to practically bring all your food for your stay (including breakfast and lunch). You should never, ever go there and make sure to tell all your friends not to go there either.
  8. That sucks (as we’re all in this together) but perhaps not surprising that 1930s technology of an inactivated virus vaccine wasn’t going to work with this coronavirus.
  9. Reading the whole thing (and it is essentially a letter to the editor) it’s more of a request to dispassionately and scientifically determine the origin, rather than a declaration one way or the other. Which isn’t a bad idea, but the tweet puts a little English on the ball.
  10. Came here to post this. I have memories of the Smithsonian air and space museum as a child, but discovered the Udvar-Hazy with my young son - blew both our minds. It’s simply exceptional.
  11. That's a great neo-classic Merckx!
  12. Yep, which I why I said it was a bit of a semantic argument, and frankly it's a bit regrettable that ASGCT (who hold a yearly conference that I attend) sort of muddle the waters with that term. The therapy does nothing to alter genes, and does not contain a gene. That quote is perfect, though - it's an instruction. mRNA is a bitch to work with because it's extremely labile, and you have to have all sorts of safeguards in the lab to prevent it from getting chewed by by RNases. It's why I've never been concerned about safety for this approach, but was skeptical it would work.
  13. This is wrong, and frankly it's a semantic (though important) argument. mRNA isn't a gene - it's a message from a gene. Gene therapy is most commonly referred to as the act of changing the DNA of a cell. From the pharma company that developed the vaccine: link
  14. ...and now I’m replying to myself, but up North you have Kings Beach Mini Golf, a new paved hike/bike trail to Sand Harbor, the Char Pit, the paved hike bike trail from Tahoe City along the Truckee River and rafting along that same river (highly recommended no matter how old your kids are).
  15. What he said. I’m a west shore guy because I hate people, but at least with Incline you can more easily escape what’s around you - more so than SLT. Just know that if you want to do Rubicon or Emerald Bay or that area it will be a haul from Incline. But you have Sand Harbor close, which is a really nice place (assuming it’s not a windy day).
  16. I think it’s very easy to be hard on one’s self with these things. I harbor a lot of guilt in not being as present in my mom’s life as I live across the country. I’d only counter that, at least in my case, I was raised to be independent (as both my parents were). It is hard to balance that teaching with whatever duty you feel you have to those who raised you. I feel your pain too - I’m in a hospital room with my mom here on Mother’s Day, as she’s been newly diagnosed with cancer after several months of diminishing health. A milestone birthday for her is tomorrow, and I’m fairly sure both will be her last. This shit sucks.
  17. I totally agree with you and am adamant that vaccines are lifesaving. It always gets real when it’s your kid. But it appears that the vaccine is overwhelmingly protective and safe. There was an 11 year old in the news who traveling to Hawaii and then contracted and died from COVID. Apparently there were some other undisclosed medical issues he already had, but the risk is there. I want to get back to full schools and resume travel, and insure as heck am not comfortable until my teen gets that shot. Even so, as a parent, these type of decisions always nag at you. When my son was younger he was a snorer and restless sleeper. His adenoids were juuust barely abnormal, and after two consults we had them removed. Watching him go under and come back from surgery was excruciating and a parent can second guess and drive one’s self mad.
  18. My heart goes out to you and the OP.
  19. Good grief. https://www.laprovence.com/article/faits-divers-justice/6346520/bizutage-dans-larmee-de-lair-en-corse-un-pilote-ligote-a-une-cible-sous-les-tirs-des-canons
  20. <iframe src="https://gifer.com/embed/5kt2" width=480 height=391.837 frameBorder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://gifer.com">via GIFER</a></p>
  21. https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f31adfde-3710-4356-b816-d307e6327415
×
×
  • Create New...