Early Risers.

[iL Dottore]

The problem with guidance regarding mask wearing and vaccinations is that they have both become political footballs, instead of being just plain medical good practice.

 

There’s a highly transmittable respiratory disease Sweeping through the world? Wear a mask! Not a perfect solution, but every little helps (and when it is so highly transmittable, even a small decrease in transmission, as you would get through normal mask wearing, makes a significant difference).

 

You have a vaccine that significantly reduces the risk of dying from such a disease (and makes getting it for most people a survivable event) then you must be pretty convinced of your own immortality to turn down such a vaccine.

 

During the pandemic at its height, there was a little bit of medical black humour doing the rounds: “what do you call someone who doesn’t wear masks and is unvaccinated? A corpse”

 

Sadly, for many, who didn’t wear masks and refused vaccinations that is what they ended up as and in some cases, pretty quickly too!

Edited January 8, 2023 by iL Dottore
Typo

[jjb1970]

I was in Egypt on 9/11, we are alongside in Abu Qir, outside Alexandria. I have to say, the overwhelming reaction of people in Egypt was of shock and horror. Even though I'm not American, because I am white and speak English a lot of people were coming to me to express sympathy for what had happened and very apologetic. I liked Egypt, it's a bit seedy and dirty, corrupt as anything and it has a few issues but I found the people very hospitable and enjoyed it there.

The weirdest moment I had with respect to 9/11 was in Jakarta, I went to eat at a family friend of my wife. As I was eating I noticed a picture of OBL on the wall and once I noticed it that's all I could see. 

[Gwiwer]

27 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Setting aside the incompetence of the political classes in dealing with the pandemic, one reason for the hesitation in the UK about issuing mask wearing advice was the very real fear that people would panic and run out and buy up all the available stocks of masks, thus depriving, medical and paramedical professionals of the protection, they desperately needed.

I fully accept what were effectively supply-and-demand issues at the time.  However the UK government of the day also allowed for "any form of covering" which included scarf or raised clothing so long as it closely covered nose and mouth.  So in effect they could have said something different sooner had they chosen to.  Hindsight being a wonderful beast, of course.  The mandate didn't accept the wearing of "chin-warmers" nor of mouth-coverings which left the nose free to expel contents but we all know how that turned out.  I still see the occasional blue-paper chin-warmer being worn.  

 

Far too many face masks continue to end up in landfill either because the wearer has failed to wear them correctly and they have fallen off, because they have simply been tossed aside as carelessly as other litter or because over-purchasing has resulted in a surplus in the home of a product not currently seen as essential and therefore disposed of.  

 

 

[Gwiwer]

40 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

the mass buying of food stocks .....

 

The media, across the political spectrum, has a lot to answer for in this regards

It has been argued with some basis in fact that the panic-buying, which began if you recall with toilet paper, was initiated by the posting of a single image from Australia of a supermarket shelf devoid of that essential product.  Cause and effect?  Chicken and egg?  What ever it was the image was very quickly and very widely shared around the world (with or without thanks to the internet) and the result was waves of panic-buying.

 

Supplies were not under threat at any time.  The only reason for the shortages we all saw was media-induced panic-buying.  Toilet rolls, pasta, then many other dried and canned goods which were stocked up on because they have near-indefinite shelf-lives.  The public was shafted into an end-of-the-world mentality, knowing that there were (then) health issues in part of China which were allegedly spreading, and acted with the mentality of the herd.  

 

And they'll do it again next time as well.  And the time after .......  

[The White Rabbit]

Afternoon all,

 

My morning thoughts and some ratings disappeared into the ether 'courtesy' of a digital Loki's whim. It seems to be a day for it as the printer had a major wobble when it was asked to print a carriage label and I had to apply some 'gentle persuasion' - I wonder if it's on the way out. I have had it many years. 

 

Laptops, I am not generally a fan but had to use one for work. When I was WFH I linked it in with a couple of screens on the desk I used as just using one screen was very limiting and was a serious error risk. It did tie me to the spare bedroom/home office but working from the living room's sofa was not an option anyway, so no loss. We used a cloud based system - which I was always concerned about, especially given some of the material we handled - but it wasn't my decision and I had no chance of altering that policy. Suffice to say I don't use the cloud for myself. 

 

On the subject of masks, I continue to wear one in public spaces and for medical appointments. It may well not be a guarantee of staying free of the pestilence or not passing it on but I believe it helps. I recall an analogy made by some medical person writing in the media who said that the various measures (masks, vaccination, distancing, isolation etc.) were like sheets of plastic with some holes drilled randomly in them and water being sprayed at the sheets. By themselves, just using one measure, they will let the water [virus] through [the holes] some of the time and only offer partial protection but to combine several measures meant that the chance of transmission were greatly reduced. Having lost my mother to Covid and had others close to me suffer because of it, I think it's only appropriate and a courtesy to others to take all reasonable precautions. The definition of reasonableness will of course be very subjective and be emotive, particularly when the more vocal start talking about 'their rights' 🙄. 

 

Paperwork - I used to think I had a simple life but when I look at the space this occupies, I start wondering. With 'dead' files, I do put a date for disposal on them (whatever the legal timescale is plus a bit) and how they should be destroyed. Anything confidential or with personal info on goes by fire. It's not the most environmentally friendly but is the most secure. 

 

And venison - if I can be forgiven a groan-inducing comment - as Phil [sort of] said, deer doesn't have to be dear...   deerstalker, wax jacket, gone ... 

[jjb1970]

I'd like to think the whole saga will stimulate genuine learning and improved response planning, but sadly I'm not sure it will. The response of the world in my own little bubble of shipping was shocking. There was a humanitarian crisis with seafarers stuck on-board without shore leave or access to medical care for many months beyond their contracted tours because of the difficulties in crew changing, governments basically made it impossible to keep ships in compliance with regulations and maintaining certification and then in some cases took a heavy handed approach at the inevitable consequences. At one point I was dealing with one government trying to get a seriously injured seafarer off a ship with life threatening injuries, trying to get a seafarer with an abscess to a dentist and a face looking like he had a beachball in his mouth and trying to find a port that would allow a dead body (nothing to do with the flu) to be repatriated. Hitting brick walls in all three cases. It was a nightmare of a time, it may be no surprise if I say the governments that made a genuine effort and did what they could were not the ones virtue signalling at IMO and claiming to be saving the world.

[TheQ]

Afternoon Awl,

At the Time of 9/11 I was sitting in my room just 440 miles ish away from jjb@1970, sitting in Saudi Arabia, watched the second one go in live on CNN.

The majority of Saudis were cheering the events, the Brit and Yank pilots refused to train the Saudi trainees, as they were cheering too, and they are educated Saudi's...

Everything was locked down on base for some time..

 

And to today's events.

Got the rescue boat out, put the buoys out had bacon roll and muggacoffee.

And waited for other Yeoman crews to turn up.

None did. 

Today was a Topper Traveller and they'd got  our programme wrong, the programme didn't show that we had other racing on today as well. So I watched that..

Topper.

j

A dinghy for children or very light weight adults.

The Topper Travellers are a series of events at different clubs round the country, often including one day training ( yesterday), and one day racing.

While I was there one young lady, had won 3 of 4 races, with another young lady coming in 3rd each time.

At lunch time, there was an dads and mum race, they were getting many  calls from the children " giving advice".

Another vote for not using laptops, my PC is a quad core machine with a 15 year old motherboard., But it includes bits a lot older than that. As you can guess I rebuild my own machines.

I don't use , nor trust, cloud services.

There is a hard drive attached to the router that acts as a NAS drive, and three drives in the pc including one SSD. There is working mechanical drive, the backup mechanical drive, and the NAS drive are all backed up to each other.

EX Work uses DELL and does use cloud services, I must admit it worked mostly without problems, though with everyone on cloud services, it did cause network slowdown at times.

 

I feel the need..

The need for speedily checking eyelids.

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Dinner has been eaten and very nice it was too. I thought I hadn't injured myself this morning but evidently I've sprained a shoulder. Makes it a bit awkward moving stuff about as I need one hand for myself now. The venison came up a treat, it literally melts in the mouth, and there's still another meal there fo tomorrow. 

[Tony_S]

I use an assortment of cloud services and have NAS  and backups on separate drives and computers. If all the online providers I use go down we will be having a lot more to worry about than my music and photos. This isn’t free but I have never been of the belief that everything on the internet should be free. 

[45156]

Evening All,

 

Not a lot to report - four hours of sorting out budgets and numbers for 30747's impending pension, and many choices considered and decisions made - hopefully the right ones. 

 

Oxfam tomorrow for the first time in three weeks as the shop was closed on 26th and 2nd Jan - there are lots of books to price and sort.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[Gwiwer]

Just one more thing on mask-wearing. 
 

Dr. SWMBO still wears one on public transport and sometimes in shops. Her comfort level is however returning to pre-pandemic levels in terms of eating out and shopping

 

We recently took a train into town together in order to see the West End Christmas  lights; one of the few occasions when we have travelled together on public transport recently. 
 

Having masked up for the short Uber ride to a station which had a service she then asked me if I was going to wear the mask once we got on the train. I hesitated. I saw her look. I put it on. 
 

Five minutes later I started wheezing and coughing which required the urgent use of the inhaler. And her response of “If you can’t breathe take it off”. So I did.

 

And the wheezing / coughing went away.  I knew what would happen. And I knew she would expect me to cover up.  That is why I carry my exemption card to this day. But it doesn’t exempt me from being infected / infecting others nor did it exempt me from a filthy look when I baulked at wearing a mask for what would have been half an hour. 
 

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by Gwiwer

[grandadbob]

Evenin' each,

Travel insurance has been bought and I've paid the outstanding balance for our short cruise so it would appear that we're going....unless of course something happens to buggeritup.

Rugby watched and once again Quins managed to disappoint, I suppose you could say that at least they are consistent!

The Boss made an extremely tasty steak and mushroom pie for tonight's dinner and I've managed to surround a goodly portion of it but not all so it looks like I'll repeat the exercise tomorrow.  I do not consider that to be a problem.  Also surrounded was a glass of Black Stump Premium Durif which is not at all bad so another one has been poured.

Headphones now being deployed so that a).  I can't hear Constipation Street and b).  I can listen to some music.

Farewell for now.

 

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I use an assortment of cloud services and have NAS  and backups on separate drives and computers. If all the online providers I use go down we will be having a lot more to worry about than my music and photos. This isn’t free but I have never been of the belief that everything on the internet should be free. 

Same here. I use google cloud as a second backup device so files are on the laptop, synched to the downstairs NAS and in space somewhere. Gotta say I wouldn't be without it, since all my files are accessible anywhere via my phone, work PC etc, which has  saved me inconvenience  more than once when I need access to information or photos when I'm not at home.

 

Another cool feature that's saved me is that you can retrieve a copy of the file from various  dates,  more than once I've spent many  hours on some 3D modelling file to realise its not going the way I want to  and the quickest fix is to go back to the way it was last Thursday or whatever and start again from there, I can click the google drive button choose the version I want from the list of all the  backed up copies and just click to bring it back off the cloud.

 

Maybe it's living in Australia where natural disasters are more taken for granted but I'd say ( from bitter experience twice!) there's a lot more chance of data loss from my laptop and nas having hardware failures or from fire and flood here taking out all my physical devices, or someone breaking in and stealing them  than there ever will be from Google deciding that they are going to stop me seeing my stuff because they are aresh0les. 

Edited January 8, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Not a lot done today, fortunately the shoulder isn't hurting as much now. Arthur Itis is grumbling so Nurofen will be deployed.

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

either having hardware failures or from fire and flood

The educational computer centre I worked in during the late 1980s had a lot of expensive equipment. So the head of centre ( a very nice chap called Brian)  had to do various risk analysis reviews periodically.  Now I worked there but technically was managed by someone else and all my equipment was funded elsewhere. So Brian thought it would be good for me to learn how to do it for all the stuff that was purchased for me. So I was working through the paperwork and one of the questions was about flood damage. Now our centre was on top of a hill so my inclination was to put “not applicable”. However Brian said I should think about it, and suggested I thought about sources of water other than rivers overflowing. I correctly included the statement about the gigantic water tank on the roof above our building. I had fortunately followed all the in house procedures for other risks like being run over by a bus followed by  the unfortunate event of my demise by filing all the nework passwords in a sealed envelope in the safe. 
Tony

Edited January 8, 2023 by Tony_S

[polybear]

Bear here......

The joys of Bearylounge cleaning this morning (a proper clean - even involving a duster 😱) - and that wiped out a morning; after din dins it was a Burt Lancaster Cowboy film** followed by hoovering the kitchen, bathroom and conservatory.  And if that wasn't enough fun, this evening it was refilling the proper plastic pill bottle with hundreds of little round thingies that are delivered in those bluddy plastic thingies that clog up landfill.  And that concludes Bear's Fun for the Day.....

 

**There was a clock in it that I could just see a certain @iL Dottore hankering after - it was a clock mechanism inserted into a Skull.....💀

[Ozexpatriate]

On masks.

 

Pacific rim "Asians" (using the term with an awareness of the dangers of sweeping generalization) have commonly been mask wearers, particularly while travelling, since the SARS outbreak of 2002 - 2004, which the west was exceptionally lucky to largely avoid. Back in the 'before times',  passengers from the Pacific Rim were quite evident (through their masks) at west-coast airports.

 

Locally the pharmacy staff and my doctor's office continue to wear masks and have done so since the onset of the pandemic. Patients at my doctor's office are required to wear them. I still wear mine at the pharmacy and grocery store, though I did attend an indoor party where no one was masked.

 

There are daily online news reports about XBB.1.5* and the likelihood that it will infect people (like myself) who have so far avoided SARS-CoV-2. This week, the weekly average of SARS-CoV-2 fatalities in Oregon saw an uptick which exceeded every week since August of last year. As of now this is one data point. I am concerned that it might be a trend.

 

* Which somehow reminds me of a Star Wars 'droid (though X1B5 would be more semantically similar).

[monkeysarefun]

I remember doing a course in the city in mid 2019 down the southern end of the CBD where it meets Chinatown. Foot traffic there is around 60% Asian, pretty much all of them were wearing surgical masks even then. Then a couple of months later the bushfires started impacting the air quality and everyone was wearing them - Trying to wear an N95/P2 mask in mid  40 degree heat while cutting the grass etc, sweat soaking it is certainly an experience. Hats off to the firefighters who were wearing them at the firefronts  where the temperatures were mid 60's. 

 

Then COVID arrived and we had run out of masks by then anyway.

Edited January 8, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

19 hours ago, AndyID said:

Most laptops can connect to a "proper" keyboard and even a good size monitor so you can use it as a desktop replacement. 

Best of both worlds if you ask me. I miss my old work docking cradle to which the monitor, internet cable and keyboard were plugged in.

 

19 hours ago, AndyID said:

The reason I recommend that is reliability. Laptops have everything crammed into them and it's difficult to keep the innards cool. ... Unless they are really expensive, laptops are too heavy to keep on your lap for a long time.

Mine sits on my lap most of the day. It is not heavy at all and wasn't super expensive.

 

Lightweight does mean crammed, and though it rarely gets hot, it mostly means fragile. I treat mine gently but still managed to crack the housing* (from holding it open from one side). 

 

* Cantilever tension fracture.

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

Always check the deals!  I've got a Dell G7 "gaming" laptop, which is essentially an Alienware spec, 24Gb RAM, 17 inch screen, Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics (all nice for 3D modelling, not gaming - honest!), has all the Alienware coloured LED light bars and backlighting all over it, and the Alienware Command Centre software to control it. 

 

Listed at Dell Australia at the time for $2998, spotted on their Ebay store during a sale for $1798 so jumped on it, at checkout noticed a "Click here To Take a further something or other off" due to Ebay  48 hour sale so got it for $1399 (just under 800UK pounds shillings and ounces).

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

The weather was wet for most of the day, although it did stop raining just before dinner! So I remained inside for most of the day, but I did venture back down to the workshop to get a couple of items. The signal arm is now finished, I’m quite pleased with how it’s turned out, as promised, there is a photo below. 

 

 

I’ve spent a fair bit of time this evening perusing a website dedicated to seaplanes, the site is www.seawings.co.uk if anyone’s interested. I found it whilst a was looking for info or photos of a Supermarine Walrus, which will be my next model aircraft subject. 

Edited January 9, 2023 by BSW01

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[Erichill16]

Morning All,

Not been around much lately as nothing constructive to say.

Things not going particularly well and now the boiler has decided it’s had enough, I know how it feels. 
Robert

[Barry O]

Ey up!   Busy walking about....

 

Ttfn

 

Baz