COVID-19: The silver lining

The problem with the nudge theory is that the death toll will likely be much higher. Medical resources are finite, and if allowed to spread unchecked will quickly be overwhelmed. That is what is happening in Italy. Doctors there are having to apply mass casualty triage procedures to select which people will be given those resources, and which ones will be left to die. They don't have enough ICU beds to treat everyone at the same time.
The fatality rate of this doesn't appear to justify this kind of response. Getting sick is part of life. Lost jobs, businesses impacted, serious economic damage.. people are so terrified of life

7.7B people, 124K infected, 6K dead since December. In comparison, roughly 1K people die each month in the United States alone in drunk driving related accidents... And it's often not just the driver, many times it involves completely sober and otherwise innocent people
 
No, no, just use the cats as emergency toilet paper. They're soft, re-usable, and self-cleaning.

Ron Wanttaja

I work at an animal shelter, here to offer my professional opinion... Horrible idea. Even if they've been declawed... They still have have teeth, unless you have a really effed up toothless cat.
 
No, no, just use the cats as emergency toilet paper. They're soft, re-usable, and self-cleaning.

I work at an animal shelter, here to offer my professional opinion... Horrible idea. Even if they've been declawed... They still have have teeth, unless you have a really effed up toothless cat.

Absolutely correct, cats are a bad idea. You gotta use newborn kittens, before their eyes open. Start gathering the pregnant mommas now, try to space out delivery dates (I think there's an app for that).
 
No, no, just use the cats as emergency toilet paper. They're soft, re-usable, and self-cleaning.

Ron Wanttaja

Just don't let the cat lick your face for a while.
 
The fatality rate of this doesn't appear to justify this kind of response. Getting sick is part of life. Lost jobs, businesses impacted, serious economic damage.. people are so terrified of life

7.7B people, 124K infected, 6K dead since December. In comparison, roughly 1K people die each month in the United States alone in drunk driving related accidents... And it's often not just the driver, many times it involves completely sober and otherwise innocent people

The people making these decisions are not basing it on what this virus has done, but on what it is predicted to do. Hard to compare a virus in it's beginning stages to any other metric. It would be like saying a a quarterback with 5 touchdowns in his first game is no good because Drew Brees had 500 last season.
 
Back to silver linings.

Since minimizing direct person-to-person social contact does the most to reduce the likelihood of catching the virus, at the end of the day we geeks and nerds will be the majority of the survivors.

(I’m pretty sure Jesus’ words were mis-translated. He really said the geek shall inherit the earth.)

ERTW

:)
 
The people making these decisions are not basing it on what this virus has done, but on what it is predicted to do. Hard to compare a virus in it's beginning stages to any other metric. It would be like saying a a quarterback with 5 touchdowns in his first game is no good because Drew Brees had 500 last season.
Fair, but we have over 100,000 cases now. Some robust statistical modelling could show some best and worst case

Either way, we're living it now and only time will tell

Also, funny to see what people buy. The whole soup aisle was empty at Ralph's except for the bone broth.. this stuff is healthier and what I was looking for anyway. Also, the only hamburger helper left was beef stroganoff

And for veggies only cauliflower, carrots, and oyster mushrooms remained
 
Fair, but we have over 100,000 cases now. Some robust statistical modelling could show some best and worst case

Either way, we're living it now and only time will tell

Also, funny to see what people buy. The whole soup aisle was empty at Ralph's except for the bone broth.. this stuff is healthier and what I was looking for anyway. Also, the only hamburger helper left was beef stroganoff

And for veggies only cauliflower, carrots, and oyster mushrooms remained

One article quoted the CDC predicting worst case if nothing is done as this. The CDC predicted 160 million to 214 million infections, 2.4 million to 21 million hospitalizations and 200,000 to 1.7 million deaths in the country.

So they are running the numbers, based on what has been seen in China, Italy, and other nations. The only thing that stemmed the spread in those nations was a 100% lockdown, something that many Americans would never tolerate.
 
One article quoted the CDC predicting worst case if nothing is done as this. The CDC predicted 160 million to 214 million infections, 2.4 million to 21 million hospitalizations and 200,000 to 1.7 million deaths in the country.
Interesting, 2018-2019 had 34,200 flu deaths.. so best (worst) case scenario it is 7X more deaths. Like anatoly dyatlov said "not great, not terrible" - I certainly wouldn't expect mass hysteria and the world coming to a grinding halt over the flu's ugly weird uncle

Plus, until there's herd immunity or a vaccine this won't go away, someone will always have it and they may spread it.. are we stopping the economy forever?

100% lockdown
Seems we're heading there, and if people are scared enough they'll tolerate it. Otherwise seemingly rationale people have emptied the grocery stores. Massachusetts just passed some of the most aggressive measures.. 25 person max, just about everything but grocery stores ordered closed. That's nuts. What is a small business owner supposed to do? Is the gov just going to print money and bail everyone out?
 
One article quoted the CDC predicting worst case if nothing is done as this. The CDC predicted 160 million to 214 million infections, 2.4 million to 21 million hospitalizations and 200,000 to 1.7 million deaths in the country.

Interesting, 2018-2019 had 34,200 flu deaths.. so best (worst) case scenario it is 7X more deaths. Like anatoly dyatlov said "not great, not terrible" - I certainly wouldn't expect mass hysteria and the world coming to a grinding halt over the flu's ugly weird uncle

On that note, around 13% of Americans are diagnosed with the flu (can we round to 34 Million?). That would make the death rate about 1 in 1000 infections. The above CDC predictions for Covid-19 are over 50% infection rate with a death rate of about 1 in 200. (How's my math?)

Here's the basis for my flu statistics:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
 
Today I was kicked out of my volunteer job because the place is now closed. I won't go to the gym because it's a germ haven so I had to go play golf. Lots of exercise and fresh air. I think I need to submit my greens fees to my medical insurance, maybe a new set of Callaway Rogues as well. Oh, nine holes, 45. about average for me.
 
Interesting, 2018-2019 had 34,200 flu deaths.. so best (worst) case scenario it is 7X more deaths. Like anatoly dyatlov said "not great, not terrible" - I certainly wouldn't expect mass hysteria and the world coming to a grinding halt over the flu's ugly weird uncle

Plus, until there's herd immunity or a vaccine this won't go away, someone will always have it and they may spread it.. are we stopping the economy forever?


Seems we're heading there, and if people are scared enough they'll tolerate it. Otherwise seemingly rationale people have emptied the grocery stores. Massachusetts just passed some of the most aggressive measures.. 25 person max, just about everything but grocery stores ordered closed. That's nuts. What is a small business owner supposed to do? Is the gov just going to print money and bail everyone out?

The goal is to test every person with a symptom, or better yet, test everyone regardless of symptom, and quarantine the positive ones. That will quickly curb the spread. If we do no contain it, and start losing people including our elderly political leaders, the balance of power may shift from the western world to China during this period, which is a more frightening outcome and the virus itself.
 
The goal is to test every person with a symptom, or better yet, test everyone regardless of symptom, and quarantine the positive ones. That will quickly curb the spread. If we do no contain it, and start losing people including our elderly political leaders, the balance of power may shift from the western world to China during this period, which is a more frightening outcome and the virus itself.

Yabut...

We don't have the capacity to test everyone. The labs in my state can do 400 tests per day, and their limitation now, as I understand it, is the availability of some of the reagents necessary for the test. I understand it's a fairly labor-intensive test as well.

But at a rate of 400 per day, it would take 40 years to test everyone in the state.

So, until simpler tests are available and/or the availability of trained lab staff and chemicals is vastly increased, we're not going to be able to test and quarantine... Thus, we stay home to slow the spread.
 
Yabut...

We don't have the capacity to test everyone. The labs in my state can do 400 tests per day, and their limitation now, as I understand it, is the availability of some of the reagents necessary for the test. I understand it's a fairly labor-intensive test as well.

But at a rate of 400 per day, it would take 40 years to test everyone in the state.

So, until simpler tests are available and/or the availability of trained lab staff and chemicals is vastly increased, we're not going to be able to test and quarantine... Thus, we stay home to slow the spread.
Testing capacity will improve dramatically in the next few days. Roche has announced they have gotten emergency approval of their test method. It has a throughput of about 1000 tests in 8 hours and they say they will be able to ship 400k test per week.
 
test every person
But at a rate of 400 per day, it would take 40 years to test everyone in the state
This is like when on Battlestar Galactica they had to test everyone to see who was a Cylon in hiding.. somehow that otherwise good show left a major plot hole as it was a complete surprise later when we found who the cylons were.. unless Gaius Baltar just lied about everyone? As he did with the 8 (Sharon 'Boomer')

power may shift from the western world to China
Why is everyone so afraid of China? They can't even get out of their own way.. why would western leaders be more susceptible to Corona than them? Their economy fell in the trash just as bad, or worse than everyone else's. They are powerless, and politically they're not doing themselves any favors, kicking those journalists out was met with universal disapproval from both parties and all media outlets. They're slowly ostracizing themselves from the world
 
The Silver lining, as I see it.

We live in an Over abundance society and lost track of reality.

The people that are the most useless, least productive, are getting all the benefits for something we can do without very easily. I am talking about entertainers, sport figures, all the useless activities, like gambling, spending huge amount of money to attend events and see some of the most useless characters that ever existed. Some people say that they create jobs while that is true it is only superficial and there are only very few people that actually benefit from it. We could pack them all in few boats and send them all to China and we would all be better off here.

We have our future generation getting loans, that they do not want to pay back, to go to the schools where the best parties are, to learn how to drink and have fun and come out useless members of society. We are now looking at being behind just about every other civilized country in the World when it comes to practical knowledge and ability to solve problems.

Silver lining would be to have people come back to reality and their senses and assess what is important in life. Become a productive member of society, work your way through school, if you cannot afford it learn a trade, find a job you can do without college degree, stop spending money that you do not have on frivolous things like sport events paying for some idiot’s million dollars salary, entertainment, expensive gadgets they cannot afford..

It is my hope that this experience may weed out some of the useless businesses that we can easily do without.
 
The Silver lining, as I see it.

We live in an Over abundance society and lost track of reality.

The people that are the most useless, least productive, are getting all the benefits for something we can do without very easily. I am talking about entertainers, sport figures, all the useless activities, like gambling, spending huge amount of money to attend events and see some of the most useless characters that ever existed. Some people say that they create jobs while that is true it is only superficial and there are only very few people that actually benefit from it. We could pack them all in few boats and send them all to China and we would all be better off here.

We have our future generation getting loans, that they do not want to pay back, to go to the schools where the best parties are, to learn how to drink and have fun and come out useless members of society. We are now looking at being behind just about every other civilized country in the World when it comes to practical knowledge and ability to solve problems.

Silver lining would be to have people come back to reality and their senses and assess what is important in life. Become a productive member of society, work your way through school, if you cannot afford it learn a trade, find a job you can do without college degree, stop spending money that you do not have on frivolous things like sport events paying for some idiot’s million dollars salary, entertainment, expensive gadgets they cannot afford..

It is my hope that this experience may weed out some of the useless businesses that we can easily do without.
That is one heck of a dark and sad view of society you've got going there. And sadly, I don't think you're going to get your wish. Sorry.
 
In my opinion it is not sad or dark, just real. If you can point to something I wrote that is not a fact I would be glad to reevaluate my opinions.


I'm not sure this is a fact:

We have our future generation getting loans, that they do not want to pay back, to go to the schools where the best parties are, to learn how to drink and have fun and come out useless members of society. We are now looking at being behind just about every other civilized country in the World when it comes to practical knowledge and ability to solve problems.


While it's certainly a popular opinion, my company has been hiring some very impressive young people in the last several years. Engineering enrollment has been increasing for a long time now. I think many young adults are working hard and are becoming productive members of society. I suspect the loud knuckleheads are getting a lot of attention, but they don't represent the 20-somethings I encounter all the time.

https://ira.asee.org/wp-content/upl...gineering-Statistics-UPDATED-15-July-2019.pdf
"Enrollment in undergraduate engineering programs increased this year continuing a decade long trend to 622,502 full-time students in 2018."
 
The people that are the most useless, least productive, are getting all the benefits for something we can do without very easily. I am talking about entertainers, sport figures, all the useless activities, like gambling, spending huge amount of money to attend events and see some of the most useless characters that ever existed. Some people say that they create jobs while that is true it is only superficial and there are only very few people that actually benefit from it. We could pack them all in few boats and send them all to China and we would all be better off here.

What do you do for entertainment?

You've actually been slowly getting your wish over the last 20 years. There are far many sources of entertainment and information than there used to be before the Internet. YouTube is putting the squeeze on traditional cable TV because now we literally have millions of on-demand channels. While "This Old House" may have been able to teach me how to fix/improve one thing in the past, now I can learn how to fix the thing that broke in my house today from several different people and I can take the best of all their techniques and learn from them, today, and fix something.

Or, I can watch Mark Rober build and use a trampoline designed to bounce a car:


There are so many sources of entertainment that it's diluted those that existed before. I rarely watch traditional TV any more.

There are also far more sources of information and things that can be done. The stuff that can be done with Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and all the toys and toolsl that can interface with them is astounding, and is going to help create our next generation of engineers.

We have our future generation getting loans, that they do not want to pay back, to go to the schools where the best parties are, to learn how to drink and have fun and come out useless members of society. We are now looking at being behind just about every other civilized country in the World when it comes to practical knowledge and ability to solve problems.

The useless ones aren't sticking around long enough for their loans to get that high. They fail out after a semester or two for the most part. Those who finish have much more in loans, and they're spending all their money repaying loans instead of having and raising kids who aren't "useless".

Silver lining would be to have people come back to reality and their senses and assess what is important in life. Become a productive member of society, work your way through school, if you cannot afford it learn a trade, find a job you can do without college degree, stop spending money that you do not have on frivolous things like sport events paying for some idiot’s million dollars salary, entertainment, expensive gadgets they cannot afford..

Sadly, it is no longer really possible to "work your way through school". Tuition has outpaced inflation by a mile, and minimum wage by far more. Now, you either have rich parents or you take out loans, or you take your brain and waste it on being a "sanitation engineer" (garbage man) instead of an electrical or mechanical engineer. I had to go work as a truck driver for several years to be able to finish school, and one of my trainees actually was a self-taught engineer and had a patent! :eek: It'd be nice if we could enable people to do their best work for society rather than leaving so much to chance.

It is my hope that this experience may weed out some of the useless businesses that we can easily do without.

Sadly, it is likely to have the opposite effect. Lots of people are gonna be watching lots of TV and such in the coming days... And those large entertainment conglomerates have plenty of money behind them to weather the storm. It's the small businesses and content creators that are going to have trouble in this crisis.
 
I'm not sure this is a fact:




While it's certainly a popular opinion, my company has been hiring some very impressive young people in the last several years. Engineering enrollment has been increasing for a long time now. I think many young adults are working hard and are becoming productive members of society. I suspect the loud knuckleheads are getting a lot of attention, but they don't represent the 20-somethings I encounter all the time.

https://ira.asee.org/wp-content/upl...gineering-Statistics-UPDATED-15-July-2019.pdf
"Enrollment in undergraduate engineering programs increased this year continuing a decade long trend to 622,502 full-time students in 2018."

That pace keeps up and you won't be able to swing a cat and not hit a PE in a decade or so. Do we really need that many people designing crap?
 
That pace keeps up and you won't be able to swing a cat and not hit a PE in a decade or so. Do we really need that many people designing crap?


No, we need 'em to replace old farts like me who will be retiring soon.
 
Yup... All WAY easier to do now than it was 20 years ago.
Well, I prefer making stuff that hasn't been made before. However, I do try to fly to places that have been flown to before (by others but new to me).
 
Why is everyone so afraid of China? They can't even get out of their own way.. why would western leaders be more susceptible to Corona than them? Their economy fell in the trash just as bad, or worse than everyone else's. They are powerless, and politically they're not doing themselves any favors, kicking those journalists out was met with universal disapproval from both parties and all media outlets. They're slowly ostracizing themselves from the world
We've done so much better then China, with a 2 month warning.:rolleyes:

Back in 2018, the White House shut down the Pandemic office in the National Security Council whose job it was to advise the government about the lessons learned in Singapore and places where SARS and other viruses have hit, and apply those lessons in the context of our own culture. We chose to make our own COVID-19 test kit, even though there was one that worked perfectly well developed in Germany, and fouled that up. There are some other things this government has said or done poorly as well that are more political.

The Chinese certainly do the sciences well enough.
 
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Well, I prefer making stuff that hasn't been made before.

Still doesn't mean your development process has to be 100% trial and error. You can learn skills like 3D printing, laser cutting, CNC, Arduino/RasPi, and many others on YouTube. On one of the local Makerspace forums, someone posted a video showing the basics of traditional Japanese (Sashimono?) wood joinery - Without the Internet, I never would have known that existed, yet it's possible to learn online.
 
You can learn skills like 3D printing, laser cutting, CNC, Arduino/RasPi, and many others on YouTube.
That's one of my least favorite ways of learning. Hosts tend to talk too slow for my tastes and it's too hard to skip over the boring bits to get to the good stuff. I was really glad when YouTube introduced adjustable playback speed, but it's still to coarse and either too slow or unintelligible.
 
That's one of my least favorite ways of learning. Hosts tend to talk too slow for my tastes and it's too hard to skip over the boring bits to get to the good stuff. I was really glad when YouTube introduced adjustable playback speed, but it's still to coarse and either too slow or unintelligible.

Plenty of other places on the Internet where you can still read words about it too. ;)
 
Plenty of other places on the Internet where you can still read words about it too. ;)
Even those are getting near unusable. For example, search up a recipe for some dish. Author starts talking about her dog, her kids, her yoga class. Get frustrated and hit the "End" key. Darn, now I'm in the comments section. "PgUp", "PgUp", "PgUp"... oops, now I'm looking at some useless beauty shots of her chopping onions. Scroll, scroll, scroll. Ah, there's the recipe. What the $#%@? It's a cut&paste of the recipe in the other tab except they subbed in coconut oil for butter!
 
Unfortunately the test is done with the Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR. I can see why there are problems. The technique requires sophisticated reagents and equipment, and good aseptic technique. If you really know what you're doing it's quite facile, I used to set up 300 before my 9am lab meeting. But that's a big if. And PCR is notorious for false positives.
 
Even those are getting near unusable. For example, search up a recipe for some dish. Author starts talking about her dog, her kids, her yoga class. Get frustrated and hit the "End" key. Darn, now I'm in the comments section. "PgUp", "PgUp", "PgUp"... oops, now I'm looking at some useless beauty shots of her chopping onions. Scroll, scroll, scroll. Ah, there's the recipe. What the $#%@? It's a cut&paste of the recipe in the other tab except they subbed in coconut oil for butter!
YES! This is an even bigger trigger for me than Skyhawks.. it is remarkably frustrating

The New Yorker did a great satire on it actually, here: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/dai...-you-must-read-this-crazy-long-preamble-first

upload_2020-3-19_13-53-5.png
 
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