Spring Banter

[Typhoon Tip]

Yesterday was a 20K case load set back on progress...

I check the numbers, ..daily, for morbid - ... 81 K ... which was about a 33% ( ~ ) increase over the previous 7-day average NC/day, was a bit of exhale ugh'er

I'm wondering if this B.1.1. variant ... espoused by the incendiary headline tactical fear mongering of CNN's spin machine as being substantially more virulent for both harm, and contagious ability, is the cause for that tide of cases .. may need a few days to make that determination - ...  I "think" the vaccine is proven still effective against it - so.. it's like bum timing in the war against this Pandemia.

It would have been sooo much more convenient if this new more virulent strain waited to surface when there was say ... 35 or 50% immunization canvas, because then it would just be CNN headlines and not possibly a deadly race. 

[Hoth]

48 minutes ago, Supernovice said:

I'd be more concerned if it wasn't a Musk operation. But snake oil sales men are going to snake-oil so...

Bingo. He is the king of all grifters. 

[PhineasC]

Just now, Hoth said:

Bingo. He is the king of all grifters. 

He does drive a lot of innovation, however. His behavior and business success drives aggressive competition and technological advancements by other companies that are good for everyone at the end of the day. Like him or not personally, he has been at the forefront of mainstreaming the current EV push and the drive towards the commercialization of space. I look at him like I looked at Steve Jobs and what he did with the personal computers, music players, and smart phones. Helps put him in proper perspective, IMO.

[PhineasC]

10 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

 Covid’s economic fallout continues.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/09/small-business-closures-tick-back-toward-covid-pandemic-highs.html

We tried to tell them about lagging indicators but they didn't listen... they are busy high-fiving over suicides supposedly being way down...

Wait until the current cohort of middle school kids hits HS...

[Brian5671]

6 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

We tried to tell them about lagging indicators but they didn't listen... they are busy high-fiving over suicides supposedly being way down...

Wait until the current cohort of middle school kids hits HS...

can you expand on this?   My guys are in 6th grade...

[Typhoon Tip]

1 minute ago, Brian5671 said:

can you expand on this?   My guys are in 6th grade...

Lol, .... not speaking for the man, but it's pretty clear to me he's talking about a sociological time-bomb ...

[PhineasC]

16 minutes ago, Brian5671 said:

can you expand on this?   My guys are in 6th grade...

Short version:

You seem like the kind of parent who takes an active interest in the education of his children and will make sure to bridge the gap left by a couple years of dumbed-down remote schooling.

Many, many kids (perhaps the majority in some places) do not have parents who are willing or able to help them in this way, and they have fallen into a very deep hole. It's being wallpapered-over right now by canceling standardized testing and automatically advancing all students. Eventually, the can will not be able to be kicked down the road anymore and it will become clear there is a large segment of children that is several iterations of educational attainment below where they supposedly should be based on grade level. I think this will start to be exposed in HS and people who thought all was well will be shocked.

This applies to more than just grades. Behavioral patterns are also affected. Kids in some schools are literally being punished for sharing, helping, and interacting with other students. That can only harm them in the long term.

[weatherwiz]

28 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Yesterday was a 20K case load set back on progress...

I check the numbers, ..daily, for morbid - ... 81 K ... which was about a 33% ( ~ ) increase over the previous 7-day average NC/day, was a bit of exhale ugh'er

I'm wondering if this B.1.1. variant ... espoused by the incendiary headline tactical fear mongering of CNN's spin machine as being substantially more virulent for both harm, and contagious ability, is the cause for that tide of cases .. may need a few days to make that determination - ...  I "think" the vaccine is proven still effective against it - so.. it's like bum timing in the war against this Pandemia.

It would have been sooo much more convenient if this new more virulent strain waited to surface when there was say ... 35 or 50% immunization canvas, because then it would just be CNN headlines and not possibly a deadly race. 

While daily cases overall have been trending upwards it's literally like 3-5 states responsible for this. For example, yesterday's totals case numbers the top 3 states accounted for about 32% of that number while the top 5 accounted for 43%. 

But I agree...that variant (perhaps others) are definitely taking charge right now and it's literally a race against time getting people vaccinated. 

Anyways, the IHME model had been suggesting we see a bit of a spike from like the end of March through mid-to-late April with a rapid decline afterwards...even more rapid then the last decline we saw and this pretty much becoming minor moving through the second half of spring. 

[Hailstoned]

57 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Are you talking about me ... or the previous poster -

I'm not making any sort of distinction predicated upon any bias or 'cynicism' with what I posted - I'm merely stating an observation ... The science and discovery are leaving creative writers behind. That's just one example.  

For muse: Robots ...like "Gort" from the classic, "The Day The Earth Stood Still" ... were very primitive, but paved where the next 20 ...30 years of fiction would emerge. By the 1980s the Cyberpunk sub genre of SciFi was born ...Writers got free reign, honing the 'visionary science space' right down to the sophistication of cyborgs - seemingly to the point of real theory and not just the fiction of "Robocop" - big budget obsurdity, but plausible enough to suspend disbelief to the target bourgeoisie.  Soon after, "Data," depicted by the uncannily on-point performances of Brent Spiner, seemed to reign it in with a statement, 'That's pretty fun, but this is 'who' the idealized model would likely  become.' 

Now ..out here in the real world, M.I.T. engineers in robotics have recently demoed dancing 'bots to actual syncopated rhythm, ...inexorably leading to Neurolink or those like it.   Which intuitively, if one wants to make an artificial human brain utilizing the human brain as the natural model ... they are going to have to successfully engineer something like those  "neurologically linked interface-able" systems at some point or another along the inCREdibly sagacious forethought in whether we we truly want or need our species taken over by self-aware A.I.  What if that spontaneously manifested 'self preservation' as an unintended, emerged consequence of complex synergistic operating system...?  That is the key - consciousness is created 'synergistically' as a result, a gestalt, of quantum scaled interacting wave dynamics (energy); and so nested intrinsically in there is thus, the "uncertainty principle" - ... So ... hate to say the trope but it is unfortunately, apropos - we are fiddling with aspects that took a billion years of evolution to create, and it is a realm where the more of it that gets exposed, only engenders more questions of its ultimate power -  

So, for someone that is a sci fi writer ... what can one contrive that isn't already been done?  Lol..  interesting - but the purpose of sci fi is to extrapolate plausibility based upon actual science - usually the application of the latter.  Well it challenges the imagination if science fact is winning the race to those destinations.

You sound a bit like the patent office commissioner, in 1899 who was reportedly prepared to shut it down because "everything that can be invented has been invented."

 

[DavisStraight]

3 hours ago, BrianW said:

My sister in law and friend who had covid last year had pretty severe reactions to the Moderna vaccine. My sister in law said she has sores in her mouth and a skin rash and flu like symptoms. She said she might not take the second dose. It probably doesn't make sense for someone that had covid to get it. I'm thinking the vaccine messes with their natural antibodies. Both had mild cases of covid originally and said the vaccine was worse than actual covid. 

Haven't we've been hearing that people that have had covid have had problems with the vaccine?

[Brian5671]

20 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Short version:

You seem like the kind of parent who takes an active interest in the education of his children and will make sure to bridge the gap left by a couple years of dumbed-down remote schooling.

Many, many kids (perhaps the majority in some places) do not have parents who are willing or able to help them in this way, and they have fallen into a very deep hole. It's being wallpapered-over right now by canceling standardized testing and automatically advancing all students. Eventually, the can will not be able to be kicked down the road anymore and it will become clear there is a large segment of children that is several iterations of educational attainment below where they supposedly should be based on grade level. I think this will start to be exposed in HS and people who thought all was well will be shocked.

This applies to more than just grades. Behavioral patterns are also affected. Kids in some schools are literally being punished for sharing, helping, and interacting with other students. That can only harm them in the long term.

I'd agree.  We went back here in early March full time and the difference is astounding-they come home and talk about what they learned-happy to see friends etc.   Beats 7 hours staring at a zoom screen.   

[Brian5671]

17 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

While daily cases overall have been trending upwards it's literally like 3-5 states responsible for this. For example, yesterday's totals case numbers the top 3 states accounted for about 32% of that number while the top 5 accounted for 43%. 

But I agree...that variant (perhaps others) are definitely taking charge right now and it's literally a race against time getting people vaccinated. 

Anyways, the IHME model had been suggesting we see a bit of a spike from like the end of March through mid-to-late April with a rapid decline afterwards...even more rapid then the last decline we saw and this pretty much becoming minor moving through the second half of spring. 

Let's hope.  But it's becoming more and more clear the herd immunity % is going to be high.    Many have had Covid and we're 20-40% vaccinated depending on state and it's still stubbornly high....

[Typhoon Tip]

31 minutes ago, Hailstoned said:

You sound a bit like the patent office commissioner, in 1899 who was reportedly prepared to shut it down because "everything that can be invented has been invented."

 

Actually it's my fault that 'hot take' sounded myopic like that -

What I left out, I should have discretely stated:   the area of SciFi I'm describing is a sort of sub-genre at the "formulaic"  end, story telling aspects at the ah ha moments of discovery.  That's the fun meat for formulaic SciFi - where the protagonist zygotes the course around a truly novel idea - the 'noveling' itself, is getting crowded by fact... because discoveries already having been made.

'Sides, hyperbole or not I wouldn't suggest shutting it down - 'everyone go home and just exist'.. haha.. funny tho.

But, writing cyberpunk sub-genre ...agreed, there's virtually an ad infinitum of cause-and-effect consequences yet untapped,  when it comes to imagining positive and negatives in how science both affects and effect people, at both the individual ...but then integrating whole groups...communities, worlds and realms.  That's not really the space I was thinking when I wrote of difficulties imagining new discoveries.

[weatherwiz]

Just now, Brian5671 said:

Let's hope.  But it's becoming more and more clear the herd immunity % is going to be high.    Many have had Covid and we're 20-40% vaccinated depending on state and it's still stubbornly high....

I absolutely agree with this. 

Another big challenge we face too is how long "immunity" lasts and it's because it varies from individual-to-individual (speaking about those who have had COVID). With the vaccines that information is unclear as well, but the idea seems to be upwards of 6-months (at least for Moderna). 

What's really hurting things too I think is there is no consistency in vaccine rollout or guidelines in terms of who's eligible across the country...it's different from state-to-state. 

I'm kinda stunned here in CT we've been hovering between 3-5% positivity rate and for the most part have seen an uptick in hospitalizations despite our impressive rollout. I think what should have happened for rollout was

1) Do 65+ plus essential healthcare, school teachers, or most at risk

2) Then do 16-30 since that age group seems to be responsible for the majority of spread.

This next month will really tell us everything...if we really don't see a significant drop off by mid-May...then something isn't right. Hopefully some boosters will be created which can help with some of the newer variants which seem to be driving things 

[Typhoon Tip]

25 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

While daily cases overall have been trending upwards it's literally like 3-5 states responsible for this. For example, yesterday's totals case numbers the top 3 states accounted for about 32% of that number while the top 5 accounted for 43%. 

But I agree...that variant (perhaps others) are definitely taking charge right now and it's literally a race against time getting people vaccinated. 

Anyways, the IHME model had been suggesting we see a bit of a spike from like the end of March through mid-to-late April with a rapid decline afterwards...even more rapid then the last decline we saw and this pretty much becoming minor moving through the second half of spring. 

Yeah ...good point .. I haven't been breaking down to the state level in my daily hand-throwing frustration over numbers look up efforts. It's a reach for the iPhone moment I do on the couch while the Bruins are - usually - coughing up a late lead to lose at least excuse imaginable.

Although they held out on the Caps last night and that was huge win, albeit a bit of a anomaly in how they did it. good sign..

But, also don't really follow the projections/ .. modeling either.

So basically everything I wrote was just morning coffee cranks - haha

[weatherwiz]

Just now, Typhoon Tip said:

Yeah ...good point .. I was breaking down to the state level in my daily hand-throwing numbers look up I do on the couch while the Bruins are - usually - coughing up a late lead to lose at least excuse imaginable.

Although they held out on the Caps last night and that was huge win, albeit a bit of a anomaly in how they did it. good sign..

But, also don't really follow the projections/ .. modeling either.

So basically everything I wrote was just morning coffee cranks - haha

Swayman has looked very sharp in his two games. Hopefully he can bring some stability in net until Rask comes back (assuming he can remain healthy). 

I wish data was more widely available (or easily available) for each state where you could see what age brackets are driving numbers...I'm sure that data is available but would require a quite a bit of "research". 

But...I guess my point was, while there has been an uptick, it's really several states driving it and I think many of those states are also "behind" with the vaccine rollout (with exception of maybe NY). 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

36 minutes ago, Hailstoned said:

You sound a bit like the patent office commissioner, in 1899 who was reportedly prepared to shut it down because "everything that can be invented has been invented."

 

Folks should read Elon’s thoughts on this 

Odds are he is “Smahtah” than any one on this board AND  more in the know as far as this goes and what applications this has potential for .
 

The technology is not complete but it’s moving along ,  whether we see the Wide spread breakthroughs where machine intelligence (Which is far superior in learning speed and comprehension potential to humans  )  being tapped into /phased with these implants doesn’t seem to be a done deal .  One of the most advanced A.I companies is Deep mind which was acquired by Google years ago . This will be used to increase profits given the world we live in .

People seem to like to classify things as “good” (legitimite Concerns are labeled extreme To maintain this Positive outlook or “bad” as maybe they dislike the idea of change and it seems More convenient and natural to just form binary opinions as it’s easier to Convey and support them .

If you choose not to look into both (A whole spectrum of outcomes ,uses) and thus Not think critically how do you  form a  intelligent opinion?

It’s a very dynamic change as obviously there would be potentially very positive medical breakthroughs but that is not where the buck stops with this technology , not by a long shot .
 

[BrianW]

I have a few friends that teach in some of the cities in CT. They all said like half the kids had little or zero remote learning. I don't think people fully realize the psychological harm done to these kids. It was reported last December that there were more child suicides in CT in that single month alone than all of 2019. 40 kids a day are  waiting to get into the Yale Psychiatric hospital

Here is a good article on the topic. 

Thousands of students didn’t show up for school this year. Where are the children?

Hospital officials warn they have reached “a crisis level” as more kids show up at their emergency departments in distress, typically with threats of self-injury or suicide — and a record number of 40 children from low-income families on any given day are now stuck in the hospital while they await a bed in a psychiatric treatment facility. One in three students with ADHD is now chronically absent from school, and half of those with a diagnosed emotional disturbance, such as anxiety or bipolar disorder, are missing an excessive amount of school.

https://ctmirror.org/2021/03/15/thousands-of-students-didnt-show-up-for-school-this-year-where-did-they-go/

[Typhoon Tip]

Isn't the 'herd immunity' theoretical relative to circumstances of virulency anyway - ?

I mean it seems intuitive to me.. herd immunity should depend on the nature of the offending contagion.  I mean, what if an infectious agent can say, ... stay in an environment on flat surfaces much longer and remain viable ...or in he air, and travel in the jet stream ( speaking of SciFi...) and strike the Tibetan Plateau goat herders when the origin was the Navajo Nation Reservation ... what's herd immunity, then?

If this new variant is more aggressive and able to transmit, that should move the herd immunity requirement to a higher percentage.

[SouthCoastMA]

But the dude in Southie says it's all good - no societal ramifications whatsoever!

[STILL N OF PIKE]

28 minutes ago, SouthCoastMA said:

But the dude in Southie says it's all good - no societal ramifications whatsoever!

I believe everyone understands there has been lots of suffering from the virus and from the response to the virus , unless of course they have done just fine and don’t really weigh others misfortune from the response .

The Issue with  social ramifications were that they were not born out equally or even close .

Also the social ramifications were not plastered on the evening news 24/7 , so most people didn’t really have much information or feeling as to this suffering .

There was a fairly generous monetary response via PPP / unemployment/ child tax credits , stimulus checks . It is going to be very difficult to take away that punch bowl, as that and reopening are the only reasons are economy is “booming” this year .
 

Bottom line was That  a response was needed to a extremely contagious virus  , desired behavior was determined , and the methods to induce that behavior was unloaded via a full court press to create a public perception or opinion that would support that behavior deemed safest . There seemed to be Less resistance to the experts response in the beginning when there were much more unknowns. There was never an option To do nothing or something  without great suffering. Different responses were going to create different groups who took brunt of suffering. The biggest fumble I see is the way that nursing homes were handled after the first wave . Thank goodness effective vaccines were found quickly as society was devolving mentally .

[HoarfrostHubb]

As Phin and others have said, the long lasting damage isjust starting to manifest itself.  One thing that is really showing is how some parents are really not able (for whatever reason, in many cases not their fault) to help their kids... they were 100% dependent on the physical school building and the staff being there for their child.  

The resiliancy of many kids is astounding though.  As we get more and more back, more and more kids will be getting better.  It won't fix all ills, but it is something.

Not sure how we will fit them all into the cafeteria though...

[PhineasC]

39 minutes ago, BrianW said:

I have a few friends that teach in some of the cities in CT. They all said like half the kids had little or zero remote learning. I don't think people fully realize the psychological harm done to these kids. It was reported last December that there were more child suicides in CT in that single month alone than all of 2019. 40 kids a day are  waiting to get into the Yale Psychiatric hospital

Here is a good article on the topic. 

Thousands of students didn’t show up for school this year. Where are the children?

Hospital officials warn they have reached “a crisis level” as more kids show up at their emergency departments in distress, typically with threats of self-injury or suicide — and a record number of 40 children from low-income families on any given day are now stuck in the hospital while they await a bed in a psychiatric treatment facility. One in three students with ADHD is now chronically absent from school, and half of those with a diagnosed emotional disturbance, such as anxiety or bipolar disorder, are missing an excessive amount of school.

https://ctmirror.org/2021/03/15/thousands-of-students-didnt-show-up-for-school-this-year-where-did-they-go/

Some folks are still in denial. A few here even assert 2020 was "good for the kids." Just incredibly myopic and tone-deaf stuff.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

12 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

I believe everyone understands there has been lots of suffering from the virus and from the response to the virus , unless of course they have done just fine and don’t really weigh others misfortune from the response .

The Issue with  social ramifications were that they were not born out equally or even close .

Also the social ramifications were not plastered on the evening news 24/7 , so most people didn’t really have much information or feeling as to this suffering .
 

Bottom line was That  a response was needed to a extremely contagious virus  , desired behavior was determined , and the methods to induce that behavior was unloaded via a full court press to create a public perception or opinion that would support that behavior deemed safest . There seemed to be Less resistance to the experts response in the beginning when there were much more unknowns. There was never an option To do nothing or something  without great suffering. Different responses were going to create different groups who took brunt of suffering. The biggest fumble I see is the way that nursing homes were handled after the first wave . 

As you and I have discussed, the pandemic has further fueled the great wealth transfer from middle classes and poor to the super wealthy.

https://www.businessinsider.com/pandemic-widened-millennial-wealth-gap-economic-inequality-rich-poor-henry-2021-1?op=1

Obviously it began long before Covid,

https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/

I remember reading Donald Barlett and James Steele's excellent "America What Went Wrong" the year after I graduated college. At 30 years old it is still a completely relevant read about the betrayal of America's middle class by our corporate lobbyist corrupted politicians.  Bill Moyers did an excellent TV special that contains the TLDR version.  Not the easiest video to find anymore.

 

 

[PhineasC]

This might be one of the few times in recent history (or perhaps ever) where a bunch of adults got together and decided it was OK to totally screw over the children because the adults were afraid for their own safety.

Really says something about our society.

[CoastalWx]

Tip, I got in from a comorbidity. 

[CoastalWx]

For Pickles sake, AI can’t train milfs for a long time so he has security there. 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Timely article

Here is a short article ( Q&A with answers by A.I ) on investment advice 
 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/artificial-intelligence-has-advanced-so-much-it-wrote-this-article-11617639437?link=sfmw_fb&fbclid=IwAR3yLBhecLNrfw3G6AnTQ7mK-CjdItaO16mmowi039Pw89kHAYbjLtT2mO4
 

Why can’t they give weather forecasts better as well .

[SJonesWX]

1 hour ago, DavisStraight said:

Haven't we've been hearing that people that have had covid have had problems with the vaccine?

you got a link for that?

i have heard that some have had worse side effects, but i wouldn't call that a problem.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

35 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

This might be one of the few times in recent history (or perhaps ever) where a bunch of adults got together and decided it was OK to totally screw over the children because the adults were afraid for their own safety.

Really says something about our society.

Ever since a TV and a radio convinced the public it was “ok” to set on fire and kill hundreds of thousands  of innocent women and children in Japan (who had zero part in Pearl Harbor) , this was nothing . I don’t see that being topped .