My purchase of a bread machine has proven to be a stroke of genius, by my own modest standards. Every day I make fresh bread, eat sandwiches for lunch and toast what's left for breakfast the next day. Best $69 I have ever spent. Was running low on jam but Amazon came through today so crisis averted. I usually eat out a lot, at our cafeteria or local restaurants. It used to drive my wife crazy. It has been an adjustment to start eating only home-cooked meals but you get used to anything after a while. The smell of fresh bread each day makes up for a lot.
Holy crap. I'm a lurker, but would someone please block Inga, Mark,Ken B for a week or two? They're sucking all the oxygen out of any interesting discussion.
Overheard at Sunday school: “Teacher, didn’t Jesus say ‘Love thy neighbor’?” “No, that's just a myth to make Donald Trump look bad. And why are you asking anyway? Butt out.”
According to the W.H.O. today, face masks do nothing to prevent COVID infection in healthy people. They said the value they have is purely psychological and social. Don't blame me. That's what THEY said just today, and maybe it's because of what a guest on the Larry Elder show said today. This makes sense since the virus can go right through the mask material or around it. Even if they stopped some coughed or sneezed viral liquid, unless you immediately removed it, you would suck the viral particles right into your lungs. In that regard they may actually be worse than nothing.
On Larry Elder's show, it was a doctor, I think, who works in the largest hospital in NYC fully dedicated to COVID-19 patients. According to him, all the transmissions they are seeing are from face to hand, self infection. If you always wash your hands or sanitize them before touching your face, your chances go to near zero of catching it, even around infected people. He said that airborne infection is very difficult requiring about 30 minutes in a small enclosed space with an infected person. This is good news, becuase it gives us control over it. We don't need to hide from it like it's a predator searching us out. We infect ourselves, and we can prevent it. Do not touch your face unless you just sanitized or washed your hands. Of course if someone coughs in your face, that's an exception that shouldn't happen anyway.
I'm as much a fan of Bonzo as the next guy but I always flipped the record early when that one came on. I think "Physical Graffiti" was peak Bonham. If you want some high-intensity drumming from that era, check out Michael Schrieve at Woodstock: link
According to the W.H.O. today, face masks do nothing to prevent COVID infection in healthy people. They said the value they have is purely psychological and social. Don't blame me. That's what THEY said just today, and maybe it's because of what a guest on the Larry Elder show said today. This makes sense since the virus can go right through the mask material or around it. Even if they stopped some coughed or sneezed viral liquid, unless you immediately removed it, you would suck the viral particles right into your lungs. In that regard they may actually be worse than nothing.
On Larry Elder's show, it was a doctor, I think, who works in the largest hospital in NYC fully dedicated to COVID-19 patients. According to him, all the transmissions they are seeing are from face to hand, self infection. If you always wash your hands or sanitize them before touching your face, your chances go to near zero of catching it, even around infected people. He said that airborne infection is very difficult requiring about 30 minutes in a small enclosed space with an infected person. This is good news, becuase it gives us control over it. We don't need to hide from it like it's a predator searching us out. We infect ourselves, and we can prevent it. Do not touch your face unless you just sanitized or washed your hands. Of course if someone coughs in your face, that's an exception that shouldn't happen anyway.
According to the W.H.O. today, face masks do nothing to prevent COVID infection in healthy people. They said the value they have is purely psychological and social. Don't blame me. That's what THEY said just today, and maybe it's because of what a guest on the Larry Elder show said today. This makes sense since the virus can go right through them anyway. Even if they stopped some coughed or sneezed viral liquid, unless you immediately removed it, you would breath the viral particles right into your lungs. In that regard they may actually be worse than nothing.
On Larry Elder's show, it was a doctor, I think, or a health care worker who works in the largest hospital in NYC fully dedicated to COVID-19 patients. He said that he is no longer scared of catching it becuase he knows how to prevent it nearly 100%. According to him, all the transmissions they are seeing are from face to hand, self infection. If you always wash your hands or sanitize them before touching your face, your chances go to near zero of catching it. He said that airborne infection is very difficult requiring about 30 minutes in a small enclosed space with an infected person. This is good news, becuase it gives us control over it. We don't need to hide from it like it's a predator searching us out. We infect ourselves, and we can prevent it. Do not touch your face unless you just sanitized or washed your hands. Of course if someone coughs in your face,... Who does that?
I read this brief essay this morning with my first glass of tea & thought it was rather provoking. Professor Lugaresi does history, early Christian and late Antiquity.
More men die on our planet for a thousand other reasons, every year in the tens and tens of millions. This does not distress us because it is, so to speak, the death of others....
Death from coronavirus, on the other hand, is our death. The one that at any time and in spite of all caution could touch me and you. The invisible and ubiquitous virus brings about, as a universal possibility, the constant imminence of my death. That is, precisely what modernity has systematically claimed to exclude from its horizon....
The point, today as yesterday and as always, is that man is defenseless in the face of death, first of all because he is unable to think of it, of death. The maxim attributed to La Rochefoucauld: “Il y a deux choses qu'on ne peut regarder fixement, le soleil et la mort,” corresponds to such elementary evidence that anyone at any time could have uttered it. Death is, in itself, unthinkable. One can naturally think infinite things around it (from the idea that it doesn't concern us at all because when it is there we are not and vice versa, to the one that our being-in-the-world is to be understood as a being-for- death, etc etc) but death cannot be thought of. And in this collapse of human thought, the modern subject fails. For this reason, he absolutely needs to admit it to his horizon only as the death of others.
Have to see the doctor in the morning (nothing to do with the plague, D.g.), tsk.
Inga said... PPE is alarmingly lacking, not only in city and private hospitals but also in military hospitals. Parris Island was shut down because of an outbreak of Covid. The military just had their first Covid death. One field hospital after another is going up on military bases. I wonder how long people will keep thinking this is some plot to keep their little Suzy from her ballet lessons.
The troll always finds a dig to start the bickering. Another thread ruined just like it intended.
Since emilia romagna is among the most affected areas in italy
The agricultural sector has aimed for increased competitiveness by means of structural reorganisation and high-quality products, and this has led to the success of marketed brands. Cereals, potatoes, maize, tomatoes and onions are the most important products, along with fruit and grapes for the production of wine (of which the best known are Emilia's Lambrusco, Bologna's Pignoletto, Romagna's Sangiovese and white Albana). Cattle and hog breeding are also highly developed.
one of my favorite photos of the series. . Not sure what type of grasses in the photo, but really catches the light so well. wonderful shot, the lighting is amazing. Hopefully things are warming up there.
Lots of posts and lots of comments lately. Almost too many to stay abreast of. Would it be detrimental if some people reposted informative opinions or current info that may be helpful?
Well worth seeing https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck/status/1244805465642602497
This knee jerk contempt Velshi displays is really disgusting. The media is shit but somehow this example seems particularly galling. Perhaps because it relies on an appeal to his audience's ignorance.
On the Big Island of Hawaii (population <150k) we have fewer than 20 cases. None have required hospitalization. We have a stay at home order, but it is not zealously enforced. The streets seems emptier than usual. All of the public parks & beaches are closed so there is really nowhere to go, other than shopping. The stores are well stocked, except for canned beans and toilet paper. Today, on schedule, the local building store delivered fifteen steel roofing panels to my house. OTH, I talked to my BIL on the East Coast. He is in Delaware with his girlfriend. He has a chemo session scheduled for Wedenesday in New Jersey, and he is worried about the new travel restrictions.
Monday, March 30 – Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites Tuesday, March 31 – Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia Wednesday, April 1 – John Adams’s Nixon in China Thursday, April 2 – Verdi’s Don Carlo Friday, April 3 – Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles Saturday, April 4 – Verdi’s Macbeth Sunday, April 5 – Bellini’s Norma
Monday, April 6: Verdi’s Aida Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West Verdi’s Falstaff Wagner’s Parsifal Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette Donizetti’s Don Pasquale Sun., April 12: Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte
"As Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte fights to hold Italian society together through a crippling nationwide lockdown, the depressed south is turning into a powder keg.
Police have been deployed on the streets of Sicily’s capital, Palermo, amid reports gangs are using social media to plot attacks on stores. A bankrupt ferry company halted service to the island, including vital supplies of food and medicines. As the state creaks under the strain of the coronavirus pandemic, officials worry the mafia may be preparing to step in.
Still, southern leaders are clamoring for more. They say that cash from the solidarity fund was already due to them and the economic damage from the lockdown has brought their region to the verge of a breakdown."
How long until actual breakdown? At what point will the U.S. approach become "crippling"?
To continue the Alternate History subthread, though I'm not going to put a lot of effort into this as probably nobody will see it:
Probably the first famous example within SF is L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall, wherin a modern (1940s) man slips backwards to Gothic Rome and tries to hold back the night while not being killed by any of the various sides that might consider him a heretic or witch, and while not dieing from the era's awful sanitation or worse doctors..
Harry Turtledove has made AH his stock in trade, but he tends to go on too long, and have casts which are much too large. The Guns Of The South is probably his best as it's "done in one", and predates his being too famous to edit.
If you can wander a bit farther afield, to consider books inspired by our history, but adding fantasy elements, I can heartily recommend McClellan's Powder Mage series, and Django Wexler's The Shadow Campaigns series. Both are retellings of the French Revolution (and the Napoleanic Era in the second case) in settings with magic.
Watched Trump press conference on youtube. Speed up 1.5 and read captions. Anyway, I see he is turning criticism by reporters of him into criticism of the wonderful team working on the crisis,Army core of engineers, fema, Pence, other officials.
When Clinton started the "fake news" about right leaning internet and Fox, Trump turned it against the left. When Kapernick took a knee in protest of police brutality, Trump turned it into a "protest against America."
There are two big numbers we need to know: (1) when is the turning point where the number of new cases is less than than the number of patients pronounced cured and released from the hospital, and (2) the real death rate when that happens? Note that both of these require that testing become much more widespread than it is at present. I do not believe we will know the second until we get a handle on the number of mild cases and asymptomatic cases.
Robert Epstein, Research Psychologist wrote an article that pretty much cuts through the political garbage coming out of DC.
He says the deaths from the virus is doubling every three days. He's since found it might be less than three days. He predicted 200 deaths by March 26th. Instead there were 200 deaths on March 25th. That means 400 deaths by the 28th of March, and 800 by 31 March. Alas, the official number is 3000 deaths.
That means by 2nd of April, we will have 6000 deaths. So, what does the professor recommend?
He says: "The solution to the coronavirus problem is to test everyone, and then for people who are infected to self-isolate."
There is no quick fix.
If you have a serial killer wandering your streets, you need to either accept the body count or investigate everyone surrounding, or moving in and out of the crime scene.
"...the same companies that manufacture those cheap at-home pregnancy tests might quickly develop a dirt cheap, self-contained, at-home test. Just shove it up your nose, and, seconds later, a plus-sign on the device says you’re carrying the virus, and a minus-sign says you’re not."
This should be mandatory at the border. Do not let anyone in that isn't tested.
The comments are being moderated, right? So suddenly there will be a slew all at the same time and this ominous hours long singularity of a comment by the hostess herself will no longer be the slim evidence that the commentariat haven't all been eaten by giant lizards from outer space. Being socially isolated, how would we know?
I went out for a drive today. I just bought a BMW 550i with xDrive, and premium gas is cheaper now than regular was 2 months ago, so I figured it's the perfect time to let loose a little. The winding country roads I favor are usually devoid of traffic, and this evening was no different. Left home at about 6, did some speed runs through the farm roads to my south, and then looped west and north to visit the Menards in Morris.
It was quiet, but not excessively so. Maybe 60-70% of the normal weeknight crowd (I would know). Bought the plumbing stuff I wanted and then took a look around - didn't think to check on TP, but there was a good selection of canned goods and a sizable stock of water, both in small bottles and gallon jugs. They were limiting to 6 of each - I got 4 gallons (distilled) and two of the 28-packs. No need to go crazy - I use the gallons for my daughter's humidifier (her "Cloud", as our smart home system knows it). Baby girl loves her Cloud - she blows it kisses goodnight.
I looped the whole store, used the restroom (and washed my hands, as I would even without this ridiculous panic), and decided to spend a little more. I'd come in with rebates from prior purchases, and my cart wasn't enough to end up actually using any cash, so I decided to Do My Part and bought a can of turbo cleaner and a mixing syringe of epoxy for a project. This is my first turbocharged car, and it's direct-injection, which can lead to dirty intake valves, so a few shots of this stuff in one of the manifold vacuum lines at idle should do some good. We'll see.
The folks in the store were quieter than usual. Distance was maintained outside of folks coming in together. Employees were friendly but also seemed to stay a couple arms' lengths away. Usually they get closer when talking to you, but then again I wasn't soliciting help or location information, so I had no reason to get close. Finished my purchase and left, looped west to get some gas at the cheapest station on GasBuddy, then headed south to home. Made a few speed runs on this leg, all on the onramp or highway, then kept it low key the last 10 miles to home to give the twin turbos time to cool down. This baby puts over 400 horses to the pavement, and she's been a load of fun on these stupidly empty roads.
I'll ask again. The shape of your posted photos don't seem to have a modern aspect ratio. I'll ask again, respectfully, how much are you able to frame in the lens and how much is post cropping?
I'm pretty good at framing but I tend to take in more than I want because I know I'll focus on my topic better in Photoshop. And, when I'm working for publication, I always tweak the color a bit but I suspect you do that rarely.
Narciso: sorry to piss on a sunshine parade, but food stamps and WIC already take care of every actually needy person. Obesity remains the largest public health issue for the underclass.
Food banks are a nice volunteer gesture, but they're mostly bullshit in terms of addressing actual need. In Southwest Florida, we found that the majority of our food bank efforts were being picked up by illegal and legal Hispanics who used them to stock illegal (as far as infant formula goes) flea market booths. Highly profitable.
Why would anyone in America traffic in baby formula when even illegals have WIC funding to pay for all baby needs?
Because organized gangs purchased the purloined formula in bulk and sent it overseas for profit. And lest the bleeding hearts say that's still a good use of the formula, it's not. Our international aid agencies supply the same overseas. The excess was being lost to organized mafias who hijack legitimate aid and milk the local populations with the purloined stuff.
As it were. It's nice to feel nice about handing out stuff to the poor. But you should see their wide-screen tv's first. Never walked into a dependency household that wasn't stuffed with the latest computers, tv's, etc. Subsidized rent, nice furniture, newer cars, artificial nails, hair extensions, decent furniture, newest phones, lots of unattached baby daddies making money on the down-low and nobody declaring any source of income. Believe me, you don't live as well. Hair extensions alone cost at least a hundred; artificial nails 30-200.
The movie Julia destroyed what was left of any accountability by the poor, and it was a total lie even then.
@ chickelit My subconscious suggests certain music or video clips in response to reading these comment sections. The comments here, until they were deleted, were a dumpster fire. I think the three things that contributed to the selection were: 1. A Moby 2. A Dick 3. Obsessive behavior
P.S. I remember where I was when I first heard Whole Lotta Love
This is a critical week for the social distancing regime. People need to break on through the frustration and anxiety they feel from not being out and embrace the new normal. My exposure, at work, is to people like me that travel a lot as part of our jobs. Not doing that has required a lot of adjustment, most significantly in how we feel about being in one place all the time. I think we'll get there.
For me the daily press briefing is helpful and comforting. Trump is doing a masterful job, partly by playing the optimist and giving hope. His optimism is sometimes over done, but the hope is grounded in fact.
People I'm interacting with, virtually, of course, are opening discussions with "we'll get through this" and closing with "stay safe". Not much bitching in between any more.
“Sixty-one doctors and other healthcare professionals have died of COVID-19 in Italy, which has been the country worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic so far, with 11,591 deaths as of March 30, according to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus resource center.”
Huh. I posted at 915 last night and left. This morning the only thing left of mine is that post, and some discussion of how awful the comments had become.
My purchase of a bread machine has proven to be a stroke of genius, by my own modest standards. Every day I make fresh bread, eat sandwiches for lunch and toast what's left for breakfast the next day. Best $69 I have ever spent. Was running low on jam but Amazon came through today so crisis averted. I usually eat out a lot, at our cafeteria or local restaurants. It used to drive my wife crazy. It has been an adjustment to start eating only home-cooked meals but you get used to anything after a while. The smell of fresh bread each day makes up for a lot.
I voted for McCain I voted for Romney I predicted two week shutdown, three weeks ago... I predicted bread machine abandoned after less than ten loaves
Think I will buy a lottery ticket today, I am due for a win..
I was able to follow the live-streaming of Holy Mass at 1000, from Paris (why they are doing this at 7 pm their time, I don't know: I suppose those involved are done with their day jobs etc etc). The parish is fortunate in its possession of a relic of the True Cross which is being used for a final blessing, after the prayers in tempore pestilentiae.
First doctor's visit the upshot of which was tests, tests, and more tests; until today, they've always been done and over with when the appointment finished. Tsk; the pleasures of aging, I suppose.
Diana Damrau singing Frederick Loewe's "I could have danced all night" (My Fair Lady) in German is lovely although a bit disconcerting.
Don't see the subthread, but I love "Lest Darkness Fall," which I first read probably 45 years ago. About three years ago I got a Kindle book version that has some fun extras.
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Howard said...
I'll start with the bread first
My purchase of a bread machine has proven to be a stroke of genius, by my own modest standards. Every day I make fresh bread, eat sandwiches for lunch and toast what's left for breakfast the next day. Best $69 I have ever spent. Was running low on jam but Amazon came through today so crisis averted. I usually eat out a lot, at our cafeteria or local restaurants. It used to drive my wife crazy. It has been an adjustment to start eating only home-cooked meals but you get used to anything after a while. The smell of fresh bread each day makes up for a lot.
Nobody gets a pass, and nobody owns discussion here, Mark.
A poster made a claim, was challenged on the point, and provided (along with others) evidence to back up the claim. Simple as that.
Narr
Useful to know, IMHO
“Let's just stick to issues, huh?
Personalities have nothing to do with anything.
And never have.”
People like Mark like to pretend they are the peacemakers, while stirring the shit pot behind their backs.
I'm content to play nice, narciso.
We've already made some steps in that direction.
Holy crap. I'm a lurker, but would someone please block Inga, Mark,Ken B for a week or two? They're sucking all the oxygen out of any interesting discussion.
Take it to the backyard, kids.
I am Seibert.
Howard said...
Personally I try to avoid having skin in the game.
This has become my view. Let the young take risks. I took my share. Now just being alive is proving more risky than I would ideally prefer.
Howard said...
Mark the newguy wants to moderate our behavior.
He's doing a bang-up job, I say.
Stick to the issues Howard.
And for the record, I've been commenting here about ten years now. If you want to call that "new."
What else you want to do, shut down the entire economy, for how long, how can you feed and cloth and keep society operating?
Theres no guarantee social distancing will do anything real, show me an example.
We know what is doing 3 million unemployment claims, food banks being overrun in duquesne cty.
Overheard at Sunday school:
“Teacher, didn’t Jesus say ‘Love thy neighbor’?”
“No, that's just a myth to make Donald Trump look bad. And why are you asking anyway? Butt out.”
@Mark, you will quickly understand why I refer to Howard as "the educated fool" (if you haven't already).
How many died of the common ordinary flu this year?
Thank you for the good news Pants.
According to the W.H.O. today, face masks do nothing to prevent COVID infection in healthy people. They said the value they have is purely psychological and social. Don't blame me. That's what THEY said just today, and maybe it's because of what a guest on the Larry Elder show said today. This makes sense since the virus can go right through the mask material or around it. Even if they stopped some coughed or sneezed viral liquid, unless you immediately removed it, you would suck the viral particles right into your lungs. In that regard they may actually be worse than nothing.
On Larry Elder's show, it was a doctor, I think, who works in the largest hospital in NYC fully dedicated to COVID-19 patients. According to him, all the transmissions they are seeing are from face to hand, self infection. If you always wash your hands or sanitize them before touching your face, your chances go to near zero of catching it, even around infected people. He said that airborne infection is very difficult requiring about 30 minutes in a small enclosed space with an infected person. This is good news, becuase it gives us control over it. We don't need to hide from it like it's a predator searching us out. We infect ourselves, and we can prevent it. Do not touch your face unless you just sanitized or washed your hands. Of course if someone coughs in your face, that's an exception that shouldn't happen anyway.
Jon Ericson linked...Moby Dick
I'm as much a fan of Bonzo as the next guy but I always flipped the record early when that one came on. I think "Physical Graffiti" was peak Bonham. If you want some high-intensity drumming from that era, check out Michael Schrieve at Woodstock: link
According to the W.H.O. today, face masks do nothing to prevent COVID infection in healthy people. They said the value they have is purely psychological and social. Don't blame me. That's what THEY said just today, and maybe it's because of what a guest on the Larry Elder show said today. This makes sense since the virus can go right through the mask material or around it. Even if they stopped some coughed or sneezed viral liquid, unless you immediately removed it, you would suck the viral particles right into your lungs. In that regard they may actually be worse than nothing.
On Larry Elder's show, it was a doctor, I think, who works in the largest hospital in NYC fully dedicated to COVID-19 patients. According to him, all the transmissions they are seeing are from face to hand, self infection. If you always wash your hands or sanitize them before touching your face, your chances go to near zero of catching it, even around infected people. He said that airborne infection is very difficult requiring about 30 minutes in a small enclosed space with an infected person. This is good news, becuase it gives us control over it. We don't need to hide from it like it's a predator searching us out. We infect ourselves, and we can prevent it. Do not touch your face unless you just sanitized or washed your hands. Of course if someone coughs in your face, that's an exception that shouldn't happen anyway.
Boy, this thread got out of control in a hurry.
According to the W.H.O. today, face masks do nothing to prevent COVID infection in healthy people. They said the value they have is purely psychological and social. Don't blame me. That's what THEY said just today, and maybe it's because of what a guest on the Larry Elder show said today. This makes sense since the virus can go right through them anyway. Even if they stopped some coughed or sneezed viral liquid, unless you immediately removed it, you would breath the viral particles right into your lungs. In that regard they may actually be worse than nothing.
On Larry Elder's show, it was a doctor, I think, or a health care worker who works in the largest hospital in NYC fully dedicated to COVID-19 patients. He said that he is no longer scared of catching it becuase he knows how to prevent it nearly 100%. According to him, all the transmissions they are seeing are from face to hand, self infection. If you always wash your hands or sanitize them before touching your face, your chances go to near zero of catching it. He said that airborne infection is very difficult requiring about 30 minutes in a small enclosed space with an infected person. This is good news, becuase it gives us control over it. We don't need to hide from it like it's a predator searching us out. We infect ourselves, and we can prevent it. Do not touch your face unless you just sanitized or washed your hands. Of course if someone coughs in your face,... Who does that?
Bad day to skip trek episodes.
Alien robots are the next wave, from ross 128
I read this brief essay this morning with my first glass of tea & thought it was rather provoking. Professor Lugaresi does history, early Christian and late Antiquity.
More men die on our planet for a thousand other reasons, every year in the tens and tens of millions. This does not distress us because it is, so to speak, the death of others....
Death from coronavirus, on the other hand, is our death. The one that at any time and in spite of all caution could touch me and you. The invisible and ubiquitous virus brings about, as a universal possibility, the constant imminence of my death. That is, precisely what modernity has systematically claimed to exclude from its horizon....
The point, today as yesterday and as always, is that man is defenseless in the face of death, first of all because he is unable to think of it, of death. The maxim attributed to La Rochefoucauld: “Il y a deux choses qu'on ne peut regarder fixement, le soleil et la mort,” corresponds to such elementary evidence that anyone at any time could have uttered it. Death is, in itself, unthinkable. One can naturally think infinite things around it (from the idea that it doesn't concern us at all because when it is there we are not and vice versa, to the one that our being-in-the-world is to be understood as a being-for- death, etc etc) but death cannot be thought of. And in this collapse of human thought, the modern subject fails. For this reason, he absolutely needs to admit it to his horizon only as the death of others.
Have to see the doctor in the morning (nothing to do with the plague, D.g.), tsk.
Brought to you by Fake But Accurate
Inga said...
PPE is alarmingly lacking, not only in city and private hospitals but also in military hospitals. Parris Island was shut down because of an outbreak of Covid. The military just had their first Covid death. One field hospital after another is going up on military bases. I wonder how long people will keep thinking this is some plot to keep their little Suzy from her ballet lessons.
The troll always finds a dig to start the bickering. Another thread ruined just like it intended.
Please return the John Krasinski "Some Good News" posting from earlier.
First cases among the homeless present in la and seattle.
Good news --
David Lat Tweet
@DavidLat
Please feel free to try me next week, when I hope to be out of the hospital and in better shape.
6:29 PM · Mar 30, 2020
Accentuate the positive.
Let's shake hands.
Since emilia romagna is among the most affected areas in italy
The agricultural sector has aimed for increased competitiveness by means of structural reorganisation and high-quality products, and this has led to the success of marketed brands. Cereals, potatoes, maize, tomatoes and onions are the most important products, along with fruit and grapes for the production of wine (of which the best known are Emilia's Lambrusco, Bologna's Pignoletto, Romagna's Sangiovese and white Albana). Cattle and hog breeding are also highly developed.
I just had this dream that there were 93 really ugly and personal responses on this post.
Has this thread been nuked a time or two?
Time machine working? I was reading some comments here before dinner, came back and refreshed and now 0 comments. Interesting.
I think the fishtank lady killed her husband.
What is the criteria for someone who has had the virus to become an effective plasma donor for treatment of others?
I'm still not completely clear on the parameters.
Chicken with blueberry dijon sauce?
It's true that there's nothing like a quality meal to make you feel a little normal again, but chicken and blueberry seems a bit unusual.
I suppose it is too much trouble to pass some down to this end of the table. Sounds interesting.
one of my favorite photos of the series. . Not sure what type of grasses in the photo, but really catches the light so well. wonderful shot, the lighting is amazing. Hopefully things are warming up there.
Theoretically, you can talk all night. Or think your silent thoughts... in this time of distancing.
I was mentioning the very glossy international take on war of the worlds.
Did you use a flash fill to illuminate the foreground? Either way it looks great
Lots of posts and lots of comments lately. Almost too many to stay abreast of. Would it be detrimental if some people reposted informative opinions or current info that may be helpful?
There are people out there who have not felt the touch of a fellow human being for weeks now.
Almost nobody cares.
Well worth seeing https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck/status/1244805465642602497
This knee jerk contempt Velshi displays is really disgusting. The media is shit but somehow this example seems particularly galling. Perhaps because it relies on an appeal to his audience's ignorance.
I hope they are keeping Pence hermetically sealed.
On the Big Island of Hawaii (population <150k) we have fewer than 20 cases. None have required hospitalization. We have a stay at home order, but it is not zealously enforced. The streets seems emptier than usual. All of the public parks & beaches are closed so there is really nowhere to go, other than shopping. The stores are well stocked, except for canned beans and toilet paper. Today, on schedule, the local building store delivered fifteen steel roofing panels to my house.
OTH, I talked to my BIL on the East Coast. He is in Delaware with his girlfriend. He has a chemo session scheduled for Wedenesday in New Jersey, and he is worried about the new travel restrictions.
Metropolitan Opera free streams this week:
Monday, March 30 – Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites
Tuesday, March 31 – Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Wednesday, April 1 – John Adams’s Nixon in China
Thursday, April 2 – Verdi’s Don Carlo
Friday, April 3 – Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles
Saturday, April 4 – Verdi’s Macbeth
Sunday, April 5 – Bellini’s Norma
Next week:
Monday, April 6: Verdi’s Aida
Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West
Verdi’s Falstaff
Wagner’s Parsifal
Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette
Donizetti’s Don Pasquale
Sun., April 12: Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte
Costs are rising in Italy:
"As Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte fights to hold Italian society together through a crippling nationwide lockdown, the depressed south is turning into a powder keg.
Police have been deployed on the streets of Sicily’s capital, Palermo, amid reports gangs are using social media to plot attacks on stores. A bankrupt ferry company halted service to the island, including vital supplies of food and medicines. As the state creaks under the strain of the coronavirus pandemic, officials worry the mafia may be preparing to step in.
Still, southern leaders are clamoring for more. They say that cash from the solidarity fund was already due to them and the economic damage from the lockdown has brought their region to the verge of a breakdown."
How long until actual breakdown? At what point will the U.S. approach become "crippling"?
To continue the Alternate History subthread, though I'm not going to put a lot of effort into this as probably nobody will see it:
Probably the first famous example within SF is L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall, wherin a modern (1940s) man slips backwards to Gothic Rome and tries to hold back the night while not being killed by any of the various sides that might consider him a heretic or witch, and while not dieing from the era's awful sanitation or worse doctors..
Harry Turtledove has made AH his stock in trade, but he tends to go on too long, and have casts which are much too large. The Guns Of The South is probably his best as it's "done in one", and predates his being too famous to edit.
If you can wander a bit farther afield, to consider books inspired by our history, but adding fantasy elements, I can heartily recommend McClellan's Powder Mage series, and Django Wexler's The Shadow Campaigns series. Both are retellings of the French Revolution (and the Napoleanic Era in the second case) in settings with magic.
Watched Trump press conference on youtube. Speed up 1.5 and read captions.
Anyway, I see he is turning criticism by reporters of him into criticism of the wonderful team working on the crisis,Army core of engineers, fema, Pence, other officials.
When Clinton started the "fake news" about right leaning internet and Fox, Trump turned it against the left.
When Kapernick took a knee in protest of police brutality, Trump turned it into a "protest against America."
Theoretically, the stones will save the world.
Interesting, moderation seems to be back on.
There are two big numbers we need to know: (1) when is the turning point where the number of new cases is less than than the number of patients pronounced cured and released from the hospital, and (2) the real death rate when that happens? Note that both of these require that testing become much more widespread than it is at present. I do not believe we will know the second until we get a handle on the number of mild cases and asymptomatic cases.
Robert Epstein, Research Psychologist wrote an article that pretty much cuts through the political garbage coming out of DC.
He says the deaths from the virus is doubling every three days. He's since found it might be less than three days. He predicted 200 deaths by March 26th. Instead there were 200 deaths on March 25th. That means 400 deaths by the 28th of March, and 800 by 31 March. Alas, the official number is 3000 deaths.
That means by 2nd of April, we will have 6000 deaths. So, what does the professor recommend?
He says: "The solution to the coronavirus problem is to test everyone, and then for people who are infected to self-isolate."
There is no quick fix.
If you have a serial killer wandering your streets, you need to either accept the body count or investigate everyone surrounding, or moving in and out of the crime scene.
"...the same companies that manufacture those cheap at-home pregnancy tests might quickly develop a dirt cheap, self-contained, at-home test. Just shove it up your nose, and, seconds later, a plus-sign on the device says you’re carrying the virus, and a minus-sign says you’re not."
This should be mandatory at the border. Do not let anyone in that isn't tested.
Reading Facebook posts, the only social media I'm on, it's becoming increasingly obvious who among the people I know would be willing Stasi informers.
The comments are being moderated, right? So suddenly there will be a slew all at the same time and this ominous hours long singularity of a comment by the hostess herself will no longer be the slim evidence that the commentariat haven't all been eaten by giant lizards from outer space. Being socially isolated, how would we know?
I went out for a drive today. I just bought a BMW 550i with xDrive, and premium gas is cheaper now than regular was 2 months ago, so I figured it's the perfect time to let loose a little. The winding country roads I favor are usually devoid of traffic, and this evening was no different. Left home at about 6, did some speed runs through the farm roads to my south, and then looped west and north to visit the Menards in Morris.
It was quiet, but not excessively so. Maybe 60-70% of the normal weeknight crowd (I would know). Bought the plumbing stuff I wanted and then took a look around - didn't think to check on TP, but there was a good selection of canned goods and a sizable stock of water, both in small bottles and gallon jugs. They were limiting to 6 of each - I got 4 gallons (distilled) and two of the 28-packs. No need to go crazy - I use the gallons for my daughter's humidifier (her "Cloud", as our smart home system knows it). Baby girl loves her Cloud - she blows it kisses goodnight.
I looped the whole store, used the restroom (and washed my hands, as I would even without this ridiculous panic), and decided to spend a little more. I'd come in with rebates from prior purchases, and my cart wasn't enough to end up actually using any cash, so I decided to Do My Part and bought a can of turbo cleaner and a mixing syringe of epoxy for a project. This is my first turbocharged car, and it's direct-injection, which can lead to dirty intake valves, so a few shots of this stuff in one of the manifold vacuum lines at idle should do some good. We'll see.
The folks in the store were quieter than usual. Distance was maintained outside of folks coming in together. Employees were friendly but also seemed to stay a couple arms' lengths away. Usually they get closer when talking to you, but then again I wasn't soliciting help or location information, so I had no reason to get close. Finished my purchase and left, looped west to get some gas at the cheapest station on GasBuddy, then headed south to home. Made a few speed runs on this leg, all on the onramp or highway, then kept it low key the last 10 miles to home to give the twin turbos time to cool down. This baby puts over 400 horses to the pavement, and she's been a load of fun on these stupidly empty roads.
I'll ask again. The shape of your posted photos don't seem to have a modern aspect ratio. I'll ask again, respectfully, how much are you able to frame in the lens and how much is post cropping?
I'm pretty good at framing but I tend to take in more than I want because I know I'll focus on my topic better in Photoshop. And, when I'm working for publication, I always tweak the color a bit but I suspect you do that rarely.
Narciso: sorry to piss on a sunshine parade, but food stamps and WIC already take care of every actually needy person. Obesity remains the largest public health issue for the underclass.
Food banks are a nice volunteer gesture, but they're mostly bullshit in terms of addressing actual need. In Southwest Florida, we found that the majority of our food bank efforts were being picked up by illegal and legal Hispanics who used them to stock illegal (as far as infant formula goes) flea market booths. Highly profitable.
Why would anyone in America traffic in baby formula when even illegals have WIC funding to pay for all baby needs?
Because organized gangs purchased the purloined formula in bulk and sent it overseas for profit. And lest the bleeding hearts say that's still a good use of the formula, it's not. Our international aid agencies supply the same overseas. The excess was being lost to organized mafias who hijack legitimate aid and milk the local populations with the purloined stuff.
As it were. It's nice to feel nice about handing out stuff to the poor. But you should see their wide-screen tv's first. Never walked into a dependency household that wasn't stuffed with the latest computers, tv's, etc. Subsidized rent, nice furniture, newer cars, artificial nails, hair extensions, decent furniture, newest phones, lots of unattached baby daddies making money on the down-low and nobody declaring any source of income. Believe me, you don't live as well. Hair extensions alone cost at least a hundred; artificial nails 30-200.
The movie Julia destroyed what was left of any accountability by the poor, and it was a total lie even then.
They live better than we do.
@ chickelit
My subconscious suggests certain music or video clips in response to reading these comment sections.
The comments here, until they were deleted, were a dumpster fire.
I think the three things that contributed to the selection were:
1. A Moby
2. A Dick
3. Obsessive behavior
P.S. I remember where I was when I first heard Whole Lotta Love
This is a critical week for the social distancing regime. People need to break on through the frustration and anxiety they feel from not being out and embrace the new normal. My exposure, at work, is to people like me that travel a lot as part of our jobs. Not doing that has required a lot of adjustment, most significantly in how we feel about being in one place all the time. I think we'll get there.
For me the daily press briefing is helpful and comforting. Trump is doing a masterful job, partly by playing the optimist and giving hope. His optimism is sometimes over done, but the hope is grounded in fact.
People I'm interacting with, virtually, of course, are opening discussions with "we'll get through this" and closing with "stay safe". Not much bitching in between any more.
Wishing you well and to stay safe.
In the meantime PPE is still in short supply.
When talking to someone, stand at an angle so you are not facing directly at one another.
“Sixty-one doctors and other healthcare professionals have died of COVID-19 in Italy, which has been the country worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic so far, with 11,591 deaths as of March 30, according to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus resource center.”
Medscape
How long until actual breakdown? At what point will the U.S. approach become "crippling"?
@Sebastian, Donald Trump already told you: Easter. The Protestant & Catholic one, not the Orthodox one.
Blogger Inga said...
In the meantime PPE is still in short supply.
And the usual media suspects were ridiculing Trump thanking private companies for pitching in, especially the My Pillow guy.
Huh. I posted at 915 last night and left. This morning the only thing left of mine is that post, and some discussion of how awful the comments had become.
I must have missed some impressive stuff.
Narr
Judging by the smoking crater
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
My purchase of a bread machine has proven to be a stroke of genius, by my own modest standards. Every day I make fresh bread, eat sandwiches for lunch and toast what's left for breakfast the next day. Best $69 I have ever spent. Was running low on jam but Amazon came through today so crisis averted. I usually eat out a lot, at our cafeteria or local restaurants. It used to drive my wife crazy. It has been an adjustment to start eating only home-cooked meals but you get used to anything after a while. The smell of fresh bread each day makes up for a lot.
I voted for McCain
I voted for Romney
I predicted two week shutdown, three weeks ago...
I predicted bread machine abandoned after less than ten loaves
Think I will buy a lottery ticket today, I am due for a win..
Not doing so great on predictions myself.
Thought Biden would be a non-factor.
Thought we would have a small fraction of the problems Italy has had with this virus.
I was able to follow the live-streaming of Holy Mass at 1000, from Paris (why they are doing this at 7 pm their time, I don't know: I suppose those involved are done with their day jobs etc etc). The parish is fortunate in its possession of a relic of the True Cross which is being used for a final blessing, after the prayers in tempore pestilentiae.
First doctor's visit the upshot of which was tests, tests, and more tests; until today, they've always been done and over with when the appointment finished. Tsk; the pleasures of aging, I suppose.
Diana Damrau singing Frederick Loewe's "I could have danced all night" (My Fair Lady) in German is lovely although a bit disconcerting.
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
Not doing so great on predictions myself.
Thought Biden would be a non-factor.
Thought we would have a small fraction of the problems Italy has had with this virus.
Not bad,subtle, gonna give it a 7/10. Unfortunately larger audience has moved on. Ima guess minimum of a dozen responses were it not so..
>>To continue the Alternate History subthread
Don't see the subthread, but I love "Lest Darkness Fall," which I first read probably 45 years ago. About three years ago I got a Kindle book version that has some fun extras.
--gpm
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