Spring Banter

[HoarfrostHubb]

And my apologies to losetoa6.... I always read his/her screen name as "Lose-a-toe"... 

[Cold Miser]

4 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

And my apologies to losetoa6.... I always read his/her screen name as "Lose-a-toe"... 

When did Wa-wa finally close the curtains?

[PhineasC]

6 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Another option is like what my building is doing.  For parents who want kids home (for the remainder of this school year), a set of teachers is teaching them exclusively.  I will have all of my kids in person (right now I have half at a time...splitting the week) with none of my kids remote.   In the fall, I expect 100% of the kids to be either in the building or in some other type of program... there have been online schools for a while...maybe those that want to stay remote join those?

I got so excited when I had some of my lab tables returned to my room today...even though hands on labs will be near impossible with 28 kids in the room.  

 

Anyway, lunch over...back to work

It would seem MA is making the required investment to avoid the bad scenario I have been worried about; that is indeed very good to hear and a good sign other states may get there.

[WhitinsvilleWX]

29 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Oh god... open concept. 

Nobody likes it. I've not talked to one person who says "gee I love these little desks they've put me in with no walls". I'm senior enough i have my own office with a door. That'll come to a screeching halt when they remodel my floor. 

There's 40 seats on my floor that include single/double private offices and cubes. When they are finished with the remodel, there will be 82 seats in the same space.

[Hoth]

Jab one is in the arm. No horns sprouting or new superpowers yet.

[PhineasC]

27 minutes ago, WhitinsvilleWX said:

Nobody likes it. I've not talked to one person who says "gee I love these little desks they've put me in with no walls". I'm senior enough i have my own office with a door. That'll come to a screeching halt when they remodel my floor. 

There's 40 seats on my floor that include single/double private offices and cubes. When they are finished with the remodel, there will be 82 seats in the same space.

I've never seen them boost morale or productivity. They are miserable.

[Typhoon Tip]

This may come across as bit of a 'fringe' perspective ...

But from orbit ... I worry about the growing dependency -

I mean this whole WFH mode of society, one that is surely going to happen ( it's just not realistic to think returning to the previous model will take place..), could also just be another step along the way of assuring a dark destiny.   Talking species level events here.  This pandemic?  

No  ...we sent our lives through this whole thing more because we could. It was a choice, for better or worse.

When a Carrington Event, or some who-knows-what cosmic bomb really goes off ... all this bottle-necked dependency of our species upon technology ... puts us in a bad, bad place.  I think this is probably almost trope concern at this point, ..but, Fermis Paradox is spelled out right now - we're seeing 'how' any species that evolves the capacity to see its self from outside, inherently evolves its own demise.  THAT is why we don't see Star Trekkian intergalactic communities of advancing species out there - too few survive that 'great firewall test'

I think I read an intelligence report excerpt once. It assessed a pan-globular disassociative event of that caliber would claim an immediate 1/3 population biomass within the just the first 30 days.  Talking all counts, mind you - that includes the sick and maimed and abandoned very young, a population group that contrary to our choice not to admit, are only with us because of their dependency on social structures. Then, on-going incalculable social duress and conflict over dwindling resources takes the rest... Way out there some semblance of familiarity leads to acceptances ...leads to adaptive response to the primitive return state -... So the longer termed correction > 70%.  Which imagine, leaving 20% of 7.5 billion ...it's creepy to dimensionalize that way but that's still a lot of people.

Who knows what will trigger that ... James may lay out a comet impact.  Personally I think a cocktail of calamities is inevitable ... probably a slow cooked, forced reduction in population as a cozy euphemism... But the culmination forces our hand, or our removal - pick.  Say pollution breaches a threshold and the oceans stop fixing oxygen, coincident with an Iceland VEI of 8 ... just when the Earths orbit ...or magnetic field flips... WHILE the sun happened to choose then to throw a super X scaled flux.  A college professor and I were once considering, all the advances that have 'hockey-sticked' population and brought lives the way we know them, has happened in the last 300 years, and it took the prior ~ 8,000 years of relative natural quiescence prior to that 300 years, to allow the latter to happen. Tail about the enabled!

I do suspect that there is some gaming in the complaining about returning to the office, based upon what Scott was talking about ..and just wanting to preserve that is the real intent behind what's likely going to be hotly debated.  But it's like that cautionary fable expose' in "Charlie Wilson's War" - great film!   

"On his sixteenth birthday the boy gets a horse as a present. All of the people in the village say, “Oh, how wonderful!”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

One day, the boy is riding and gets thrown off the horse and hurts his leg. He’s no longer able to walk, so all of the villagers say, “How terrible!”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

Some time passes and the village goes to war. All of the other young men get sent off to fight, but this boy can’t fight because his leg is messed up. All of the villagers say, “How wonderful!”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

Obviously the moral of the story is that it is easy in the here and now to presume the outcome has a good finality to it, but the truth about reality is that it is always changing, and "bad" can emerge as a consequence, so don't be so quick to judge a circumstance/situation.. or course of action, as the best choice.

 

 

[PhineasC]

6 minutes ago, White Rain said:

Folks holding off on the vaccine that are concerned with potential negative side effects are not worried about what happens in the next week or even months, but rather medium to long term impacts that may have been more adequately mitigated with a normal vaccine development timeline. My point is, this type of short term anecdote won’t aleviate any concerns in that regard for people worried about it.

It's considered perfectly normal and prudent to be so concerned about certain nebulous and unknowable "long term effects" of COVID that you refuse to leave your house out of fear. 

On the other hand, if you even slightly question the long term effects of the first mRNA vaccine used in humans that was rushed through the development process under "Operation Warp Speed" against a virus that is survivable in 99.8% of cases, you are labeled as an anti-vaxx crackpot and science denier.

The state of the national dialog right now... 

[HoarfrostHubb]

50 minutes ago, Cold Miser said:

When did Wa-wa finally close the curtains?

Sunday at 4.   

[Typhoon Tip]

8 minutes ago, White Rain said:

Folks holding off on the vaccine that are concerned with potential negative side effects are not worried about what happens in the next week or even months, but rather medium to long term impacts that may have been more adequately mitigated with a normal vaccine development timeline. My point is, this type of short term anecdote won’t alleviate any concerns in that regard for people worried about it.

Imagine that sci fi novel... ?

Some completely unknown reaction that time bombs a spermicidal castration event, ...and all vaccinated men of the developed world's ballz up and fall off -

Ha heh... ah... right - not funny. No

Talk about the meek inheriting the Earth!   ...then these "Mad Mad World" tribal amazonian men emerge from the "bush" to find all these super horny females that would prefer not to be lesbians.

Nice - I'd buy that book -

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Work from Home is about cutting costs for businesses ,period . Maybe sold as safety or blah blah but ya it’s money And less costs 

In the not so distant future ..when the costs come down with robotics (And they will ) many jobs will be replaced , especially on the factory floors. There are other sectors to , but the stimulus checks will have more and more political capital to transition into sort of a UBI hybrid . 
 

There are so many fascinating and downright scary directions technology is going rapidly with regarding to A.I. A.I is progressing at such a level that by the time people get around to regulating it , it will be too late due to the exponential rate of A.I- machine learning compared to the rate of regulating (which is usually the result of unwanted deaths )  It sounds wild and very fringy I realize but that particular technology stands to become one of the most Dangerous advances . There will be the incentive (almost from inception) to weaponize A.I . The rate at which this particular technology improves itself seems to be the biggest issue that once the cats out of the bag it’s almost beyond control .
 

Not to be outdone , there is a very well funded drive to sort of create a human / machine Learning  interface that actually sort of “upgrades” you . There is touted to be amazing healing and medical breakthroughs with this sort of technology using a implanted chip w tiny wires placed directly and carefully on the surface of the brain . Fully capable of reversing ailments from cognitive decline to spinal cord injuries to literally conjoining your sort of reality /intelligence abilities into the machine  exponential Learning curve and tapping into that in a way that seems fluid and part of you . It’s a very odd space with some folks who seem very fascinated with pushing the envelope and seemingly throwing caution to the wind . These advances are not extremely well detailed thou you can find executives for certain companies willing to brag about the advances in interviews thou it’s not quite broadcast yet on 60 minutes . This includes more than Elon Musk and Neuralink . If you take a careful look at how fast we have advanced in the last 30 years and look at what the cutting edge is with A.I, autonomous learning , genomics you should not be surprised if 20 years from now the world  really doesn’t closely resemble the one we are living in And that is if things go “well” once this cat is out of the bag .

 

[Hoth]

12 minutes ago, White Rain said:

Folks holding off on the vaccine that are concerned with potential negative side effects are not worried about what happens in the next week or even months, but rather medium to long term impacts that may have been more adequately mitigated with a normal vaccine development timeline. My point is, this type of short term anecdote won’t alleviate any concerns in that regard for people worried about it.

My comment was meant to be taken in a facetious light. It's fair to have some trepidation; the hasty development timeline for the vaccines concerned me as well, so I guess going forward with it was a matter of how I personally weigh the risks. I've known a few people that died and several more who had pretty severe cases in the last year, so I felt I'd rather take my chances with the vaccine, even if there are longer term risks.

[Typhoon Tip]

11 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Work from Home is about cutting costs for businesses ,period . Maybe sold as safety or blah blah but ya it’s money And less costs 

In the not so distant future ..when the costs come down with robotics (And they will ) many jobs will be replaced , especially on the factory floors. There are other sectors to , but the stimulus checks will have more and more political capital to transition into sort of a UBI hybrid . 
 

There are so many fascinating and downright scary directions technology is going rapidly with regarding to A.I. A.I is progressing at such a level that by the time people get around to regulating it , it will be too late due to the exponential rate of A.I- machine learning compared to the rate of regulating (which is usually the result of unwanted deaths )  It sounds wild and very fringy I realize but that particular technology stands to become one of the most Dangerous advances . There will be the incentive (almost from inception) to weaponize A.I . The rate at which this particular technology improves itself seems to be the biggest issue that once the cats out of the bag it’s almost beyond control .
 

Not to be outdone , there is a very well funded drive to sort of create a human / machine Learning  interface that actually sort of “upgrades” you . There is touted to be amazing healing and medical breakthroughs with this sort of technology using a implanted chip w tiny wires placed directly and carefully on the surface of the brain . Fully capable of reversing ailments from cognitive decline to spinal cord injuries to literally conjoining your sort of reality /intelligence abilities into the machine  exponential Learning curve and tapping into that in a way that seems fluid and part of you . It’s a very odd space with some folks who seem very fascinated with pushing the envelope and seemingly throwing caution to the wind . These advances are not extremely well detailed thou you can find executives for certain companies willing to brag about the advances in interviews thou it’s not quite broadcast yet on 60 minutes . This includes more than Elon Musk and Neuralink . If you take a careful look at how fast we have advanced in the last 30 years and look at what the cutting edge is with A.I, autonomous learning , genomics you should not be surprised if 20 years from now the world  really doesn’t closely resemble the one we are living in And that is if things go “well” once this cat is out of the bag .

 

Yeah... I like this cynical take too -

follow the money - if it's cost effective for sociopathic CEO's and other 'captains of industry' to pad their already interminable wealth with yet 30 someodd% transferred from overhead budgets, they'll be first in line to cry before the 'congress of public opinion' to ensure no one sets foot on premises again.

LOL

But ...we're going to be cyborgs probably...

Worse yet, we'll be cyborbs, THEN the A.I. "super agency" has a direct programmable interface conveniently in place to subjugate our slavery when the time comes - ... I can see the conceit and enginuity of man "oopsing" us into that culdesac...  Man, the dystopia knows no bounds, huh.  wow..

Kidding to some degree - ...at least I think.

[Hoth]

2 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Work from Home is about cutting costs for businesses ,period . Maybe sold as safety or blah blah but ya it’s money And less costs 

In the not so distant future ..when the costs come down with robotics (And they will ) many jobs will be replaced , especially on the factory floors. There are other sectors to , but the stimulus checks will have more and more political capital to transition into sort of a UBI hybrid . 
 

There are so many fascinating and downright scary directions technology is going rapidly with regarding to A.I. A.I is progressing at such a level that by the time people get around to regulating it , it will be too late due to the exponential rate of A.I- machine learning compared to the rate of regulating (which is usually the result of unwanted deaths )  It sounds wild and very fringy I realize but that particular technology stands to become one of the most Dangerous advances . There will be the incentive (almost from inception) to weaponize A.I . The rate at which this particular technology improves itself seems to be the biggest issue that once the cats out of the bag it’s almost beyond control .
 

Not to be outdone , there is a very well funded drive to sort of create a human / machine Learning  interface that actually sort of “upgrades” you . There is touted to be amazing healing and medical breakthroughs with this sort of technology using a implanted chip w tiny wires placed directly and carefully on the surface of the brain . Fully capable of reversing ailments from cognitive decline to spinal cord injuries to literally conjoining your sort of reality /intelligence abilities into the machine  exponential Learning curve and tapping into that in a way that seems fluid and part of you . It’s a very odd space with some folks who seem very fascinated with pushing the envelope and seemingly throwing caution to the wind . These advances are not extremely well detailed thou you can find executives for certain companies willing to brag about the advances in interviews thou it’s not quite broadcast yet on 60 minutes . This includes more than Elon Musk and Neuralink . If you take a careful look at how fast we have advanced in the last 30 years and look at what the cutting edge is with A.I, autonomous learning , genomics you should not be surprised if 20 years from now the works really doesn’t closely resemble the one we are living in .

 

I've seen Tesla's "Summon" feature scrape the shit of the car while performing the simple act of backing out of a garage, so there's no way I would let Elon Musk anywhere near my brain lol. That said, the exponential growth of various technologies will certainly bring some remarkable--what we might even term miraculous now-- things to pass in the next decade. It would not surprise me in the least if, in 10 or 20 years, one swallows a pill of nano-bots whose task it is to pass through the blood stream and clear away plaques or senescent cells or rejuvenate telemeres. In terms of medical treatment, the advances in the next several decades may be quite stunning and radically improve both length and quality of life.

[PhineasC]

2 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Yeah... I like this cynical take too -

follow the money - if it's cost effective for sociopathic CEO's and other 'captains of industry' to pad their already interminable wealth with yet 30 someodd% transferred from overhead budgets, they'll be first in line to cry before the 'congress of public opinion' to ensure no one sets foot on premises again.

LOL

Don't forget how much of this pro-lockdown narrative is pushed by a small number of "influencers" and media types who are working from home and want to keep doing so. They are part of the "techno-capitalist" class. They are able to stay home forever and make money online while ordering from Amazon and DoorDash. They want 2020 living to stay in place as long as possible. They aren't hiding it; they are writing tons of words lamenting the end of lockdowns on social media and in the major news outlets.

[Typhoon Tip]

5 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Don't forget how much of this pro-lockdown narrative is pushed by a small number of "influencers" and media types who are working from home and want to keep doing so. They are part of the "techno-capitalist" class. They are able to stay home forever and make money online while ordering from Amazon and DoorDash. They want 2020 living to stay in place as long as possible. They aren't hiding it; they are writing tons of words lamenting the end of lockdowns on social media and in the major news outlets.

Yeah...I've been opining the "real intent" hidden behind a guise of other virtue argument, aspect...all afternoon - I realize I have a learning disability to end posts within one sentence so perhaps it's missed. Lol   nah it's all good. 

[Brian5671]

35 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

It's considered perfectly normal and prudent to be so concerned about certain nebulous and unknowable "long term effects" of COVID that you refuse to leave your house out of fear. 

On the other hand, if you even slightly question the long term effects of the first mRNA vaccine used in humans that was rushed through the development process under "Operation Warp Speed" against a virus that is survivable in 99.8% of cases, you are labeled as an anti-vaxx crackpot and science denier.

The state of the national dialog right now... 

some of this was developed after SARS 2003-there ended up not being a market for it since the virus fizzled so I would not say its all new from 2020 on....

[PhineasC]

Just now, Typhoon Tip said:

Yeah...I've been opining the "real intent" hidden behind a guise of other virtue argument, aspect...all afternoon - I realize I have a learning disability to end posts with one sentence so perhaps it's missed. Lol   nah it's all good. 

LOL

I was doing what is called "amplifying" your point, and perhaps packaging it into a form that is more palatable for the masses. We make a good team!  

[WhitinsvilleWX]

I'm actually not worried in the least about mRNA effects. You have hundreds of strands of mRNA at any given time in almost every cell in your body coding for all manner of proteins most people cant even begin to pronounce. mRNA is pretty short lived. They get gobbled up pretty fast once they code for whatever protein they are designed to make. 

[PhineasC]

Just now, Brian5671 said:

some of this was developed after SARS 2003-there ended up not being a market for it since the virus fizzled so I would not say its all new from 2020 on....

I haven't read much about this, but somehow I find this post to make the vaccine even less compelling...

Well, glad they found a willing "market" now at least. I guess not enough people were dying from SARS to make it worth their while.

[powderfreak]

18 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Yeah... I like this cynical take too -

follow the money - if it's cost effective for sociopathic CEO's and other 'captains of industry' to pad their already interminable wealth with yet 30 someodd% transferred from overhead budgets, they'll be first in line to cry before the 'congress of public opinion' to ensure no one sets foot on premises again.

 

Bingo. I mean it’s not rocket science to see that many companies just figured out they can have their employees pay for their own office spaces than the company needing physical space.  Why should the company take that real estate burden when you can just do it by paying your mortgage?

Its 100% about saving money... I have several friends even up here who have been told their job is now remote and the office is going up for rent.

[Brian5671]

1 minute ago, PhineasC said:

I haven't read much about this, but somehow I find this post to make the vaccine even less compelling...

Well, glad they found a willing "market" now at least. I guess not enough people were dying from SARS to make it worth their while.

that virus was only contagious when the person had symptoms.  Easy to stamp out.  No one's going to spend millions on a vaxx with so few people ill/dying.

[bch2014]

I sympathize with you Phin that the “lockdowns” have been too hard on small business, many politicians love the power, and teachers unions suck. I’m with you on all of those. 
 

I don’t understand  where you’re coming from re: the cynicism on the vaccines and why they are being deployed. It’s very, very clear that there have been significant excess deaths compared to the baseline over the last year. Similar excess deaths did not occur with SARS. Hence, less of a necessity for a vaccine. 

Also, earlier you cited a 99.8% survival rate for Covid. That’s not true. There have been 570k deaths in the US from Covid. If the survival rate was 99.8%, that would imply ~86% of the US population has been infected. The real proportion is closer to 30-35%.

[PhineasC]

15 minutes ago, bch2014 said:

I sympathize with you Phin that the “lockdowns” have been too hard on small business, many politicians love the power, and teachers unions suck. I’m with you on all of those. 
 

I don’t understand  where you’re coming from re: the cynicism on the vaccines and why they are being deployed. It’s very, very clear that there have been significant excess deaths compared to the baseline over the last year. Similar excess deaths did not occur with SARS. Hence, less of a necessity for a vaccine. 

Also, earlier you cited a 99.8% survival rate for Covid. That’s not true. There have been 570k deaths in the US from Covid. If the survival rate was 99.8%, that would imply ~86% of the US population has been infected. The real proportion is closer to 30-35%.

Looks like the CDC updated their "best guess" in mid-March and are saying 99.35% now (0.65% of people die from COVID).

Of course, the deaths are still heavily clustered in the 65 and up age group with underlying diseases and can vary greatly between states and regions.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

Doesn't seem to change the overall situation, but OK.

I have zero issue with the vaccine being "deployed." I hope everyone has a chance to get it if they want it. No, I don't trust big pharma to always make the right call when they have zero liability on the line, so that's why I don't think this vaccine should be mandatory. That's all.

[Typhoon Tip]

20 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Bingo. I mean it’s not rocket science to see that many companies just figured out they can have their employees pay for their own office spaces than the company needing physical space.  Why should the company take that real estate burden when you can just do it by paying your mortgage?

Its 100% about saving money transferring even more wealth to a select few... I have several friends even up here who have been told their job is now remote and the office is going up for rent.

word 

I just don't like 'saving money' as a turn of phrase, because it kind of pads their greed - accidentally - in good intent. LOL

seriously though... if that much wealth gets transferred ... that's going to piss a lot of people off and we'll start to see ( getting sort of visionary macro-socio-perspective here ) some sort of genera paradigm shift in sociopolitical/econ structural push... 

Trust me....  Tsars do fall

[weatherwiz]

Well almost 29-hours since the first shot...very minor side effects really. Arm got sore through the day yesterday and became quite sore during the evening and overnight but the soreness has really gone down since this morning. I did get this crazy brief spell of fatigue yesterday afternoon like around 3:30...laid down for about 30 minutes and was fine after that. Felt a little nauseous at times (especially earlier in the morning) but not bad!

I am anticipating some harsher side effects from the second shot. Has anyone here gotten the second dose of Pfizier yet? If so, did you experience symptoms? From the several I know the signals have been very mixed. I don't care about the side effects, just planning ahead for work purposes as to whether I should take a day off or just plan to work from home.  

[Lava Rock]

50 minutes ago, WhitinsvilleWX said:

I'm actually not worried in the least about mRNA effects. You have hundreds of strands of mRNA at any given time in almost every cell in your body coding for all manner of proteins most people cant even begin to pronounce. mRNA is pretty short lived. They get gobbled up pretty fast once they code for whatever protein they are designed to make. 

Not to mention those that are fearful of anything genetic including those that think the covid vax takes over and/or rewrites (this was posted on reddit) your DNA. If they understood that getting infected with any virus be it flu, cold virus, etc, exposes the body to so much viral genetic material during virus uncoating, they might not be so concerned about it.

[PhineasC]

Along with pushing the vaccine, the experts ought to be using this moment to reverse the narrative of the last decade that says being obese is still healthy. Obesity is very strongly correlated to negative outcomes from COVID. It seems to have become socially unacceptable to point out that someone is grossly overweight and unhealthy. We need to bring back "fat shaming" as a part of combating disease, IMO. I have seen basically zero voices pushing for diet and exercise as a major preventative measure against diseases such as COVID.

[Hoth]

10 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Well almost 29-hours since the first shot...very minor side effects really. Arm got sore through the day yesterday and became quite sore during the evening and overnight but the soreness has really gone down since this morning. I did get this crazy brief spell of fatigue yesterday afternoon like around 3:30...laid down for about 30 minutes and was fine after that. Felt a little nauseous at times (especially earlier in the morning) but not bad!

I am anticipating some harsher side effects from the second shot. Has anyone here gotten the second dose of Pfizier yet? If so, did you experience symptoms? From the several I know the signals have been very mixed. I don't care about the side effects, just planning ahead for work purposes as to whether I should take a day off or just plan to work from home.  

Sames to vary quite a bit. My mom had almost no reaction to the second shot beyond a little fatigue; dad was like a two day flu virus. He was down and out.

[Lava Rock]

3 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Along with pushing the vaccine, the experts ought to be using this moment to reverse the narrative of the last decade that says being obese is still healthy. Obesity is very strongly correlated to negative outcomes from COVID. It seems to have become socially unacceptable to point out that someone is grossly overweight and unhealthy. We need to bring back "fat shaming" as a part of combating disease, IMO. I have seen basically zero voices pushing for diet and exercise as a major preventative measure against diseases such as COVID.

very much agree with this and like you said, not one mention on msm about correlation between being less healthy and covid risk and how we as a society should take better care of ourselves, but then that's a whole different conversation.