Covid19 is bullshit

Discussion in 'Off Topic International' started by Mcloud, May 2, 2021.

  1. Mcloud

    Mcloud Well-Known Member

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  2. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Crazy, but today I went to a local auto parts store and asked them to replace my GTI's battery. 2 years ago they replaced my battery when I purchased it, no problem. They refused to do it today! Some new legal restriction from their home office. I ended up buying a battery for ~ $200 and will install it tomorrow. If I return my current, low-charged battery -- purchased from the same store 2 years ago -- they will deign to give me $20 so they can "recycle" it. Well, I normally would have been a bit angry, but the sales guy was a polite young fellow who liked my car. He was such a well mannered kid, I'd have given him my 10-year-old car if I were wealthy. But alas, I am not wealthy.
     
  3. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    Inflation has hit 6,9% p.a. here, so I will consider buying myself a new set of wheels next year (the central bank is making it easy for the government, and they keep the interest rates in the cellar - which makes my mortgage and just any loan particularly attractive - as opposite to having any savings).
    Zafira stays, cause I came to like it, and (just in case) it can seat 7.
    Plus it has a built-in bicycle rack hidden in the rear bumper!
    It will find its use 3 or 4 times a year, but is nevertheless a great extra.

    As far as finances are considered.
    I'm not wealthy, but not poor either.
    Middle class I'd say.
    And that under Polish, and not "western" conditions.

    Got 5.1 kW of PV panels on my roof, so I guess the other set of wheels will be either PHEV, or pure EV.
    Expensive as they are to buy, they produce savings from the moment they are bought.
     
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  4. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    I'd like an EV too, at least in theory. The question is whether or not the true financial savings exceed the production costs and hits to the environment (photo-voltaic panels are expensive and they require rare and sometimes environmentally toxic materials). It's an interesting problem that we'll all be dealing with in the future...

    Tricky subject.
     
  5. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    It's not that tricky. Of course every industrial activity generates pollution, including the building of solar panels. But today's problem is greenhouse gasses that come from burning stuff to generate energy. That's what some people are trying to avoid.
     
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  6. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    Vasco is right here.
    The most important thing right now is to reduce pollution.

    As far as EVs are considered, as long as you'll drive one more than 10 thousand kilometres per annum for 8 or 9 years (or longer distances for a shorter period of time), it should offset the differences in manufacturing footprint. But there are savings for the environment from other things - EVs don't require oil changes, do not produce emissions, and are far cheaper to service too.

    Of course if you buy a Tesla Plaid to race that's not the way to go.

    But if you go (as I do plan) for a small city-runner, like the BMW i3 or Nissan Leaf that will alter the image dramatically.

    And when it comes to PV panels - Poland's got one of the highest electricity prices in entire EU (and EU prices top everything in the 1st world, due to the green emission certificates). When we calculated the ROI for my installation last spring it was due to come to fruition in 7 years - but since then there was a 11.7% rise in lecky prices (we adopted an anual rise of 2% for the purpose of calculation), another 15% are coming right now. And I was able to secure govt. financing for 1/7 th of the expenses incurred. So basically the financing has cut the time to return on the investment to 6 years, while the rise in electricity prices in this year alone shortened it to less than 5 years now.

    The panels I bought are covered by a 25-year linear performance warranty (loss of less of 0.4% of nominal power per annum, no more than 10% in 25 years).
    Before they pose a threat to the environment I will be about to retire.
    And there's already talk of the new perovskite cells that can be made using recycled silicone from the current generation of panels.
     
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  7. Mcloud

    Mcloud Well-Known Member

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    Last edited: Mar 28, 2022
  8. Mcloud

    Mcloud Well-Known Member

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  9. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    COVID-19 update here.
    Wife was experiencing some unusual symptoms for a week now (tooth pain first, then the "old" headache and other stuff), so she tested (PCR) today.

    POSITIVE
    For the second time this year (last time she tested positive in May).
    She was vaxed with the same stuff I was (Johnson) in early May.
    In May we thought she hit the "vax window" (I vaccinated two days earlier and it did not hit me).

    Now she's making fun of me.
    "It's all your fault, you get vaxed again (got my booster dose, this time Pfizer, last week), and I get sick again"
     
  10. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Hope your wife will be well. IMHO the Johnson single-dose thing has proved itself to be shit (pardon my language, ye gentle souls visiting this forum).

    Do you think your wife may have picked up her latest infection from your children? Nearly all infection seems to occur indoors.
     
  11. Mcloud

    Mcloud Well-Known Member

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  12. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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  13. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    It's the first time I hear about reinfection after such a short period. What did the doctors say? Is this common?

    How does she feel compared to the first time? I hope she'll get well soon.
     
  14. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    It can happen outdoors in crowds. I remember Italy's epidemic was hugely accelerated by a football match.
     
  15. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    It is rather uncommon they say.
    Wife is OK, it's just that tooth pain etc., that made her do the test, cause there was no other feasible explanation of her condition.
    She was more surprised than I was.
    After 2 days of her headache she's now becoming a major reason for my headache (I chose to self-isolate for a bit, since I was not officially quarantined by the authorities - I have no symptoms, and I'm already after my booster dose).

    They younger one has no symptoms whatsoever.
    Brought the bunch of two for the tests yesterday just to shorten their quarantine (it's 10 days of isolation in case you're infected, but 10+7 days of quarantine, if you're living under one roof with a "positive" person here (those vaxed are excluded if they're asymptomatic)). Son was positive, but the daughter negative.

    The daughter had contact with her headteacher, who tested positive last week.
    So we do believe she brought that shit back again.

    The sole things of my concern are:
    - why did my Frau fall sick, just 7 months after her prior COVID infection?
    - why did the daughter test negative? (she will have to leave school almost up to Christmas due to that)
    - where's the sanity gone in the system that allows me to roam free... with two "positives" at home?
     
  16. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    I am almost certain my wife and the younger one picked that from my daughter.
    The daughter tested positive in May, so she simply had the sufficient response of her immune system to suppress that infection below the detection limits, once I brought her for the test. Still, she experienced some serious headache last week, so we do believe it was her, who brought us this crap this time (while it was, without any doubt, my mother in-law in May).

    This seems just plain stupid, but I seem to be immune to that shit.
    All (or most in the latter case) people around testing positive... and I'm fine.
     
  17. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    But who really knows? In general the outdoor rate of transmission seems low (according to some US sources). Of course, any gathering in Italy normally includes much shouting, close physical contact, and a lot of emotions unleashed :)

    Travelling from Italy to Germany by train, during the Cold War, really opened my eyes to cultural differences in the real world. So many stereotypes about cultures are true. Some stereotypes about us North Americans are true, too (damn it).
     
  18. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Is there anything special about your diet? Perhaps it's your ancestry/genome that lends you some advantage? What is your best guess?
     
  19. hezzey

    hezzey Well-Known Member

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    I got the big one around Christmas 2019.
    I was not diagnosed by a quack but since then I have found out that I had all the symptoms and everyone of them were scary as fuck.
    I woke without the ability to inhale.
    It was sudden I was awake and unable to inhale.
    So I wacked my toes into some furniture next to my bed and it hurt so bad it made me gasp and that gasp was my breath coming back. I mean I could breathe in and out in and out.
    And that happened again a few nights later.
    I had my knee feel as if I had injured it in the soccer game or something it hurt like a bastard I couldn’t put any weight on it I was paralyzed pretty much.
    I limped to my bed read a while and then fell asleep.
    When I woke I could walk.
    It didn’t hurt at all!
    I had a couple maybe five of the most serious deadly toothaches I’ve ever had it was like all of my teeth had an abscessed nerve…
    My eyes went independent of each other and I couldn’t see straight for a few minutes or even a half hour at a time half a dozen times…
    Anyways I read about those symptoms and a few more.
    And all those symptoms were written in such a way that they weren’t supposed to appear all at the same time or simultaneously…
    They all happened to me and some other weird things to…
    By the coming of the month of February I really didn’t notice the change but it seem better and since then it has too.
    I do not know what that means I haven’t seen a quack however I have been vaccinated a couple times and if that booster one comes around OK I vill go get that too!
     
  20. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    What I find amazing about the US is the huge number of novel religious denominations. It's like India, but with variations on christianity only.
    I wouldn't be surprised to find there was a Church of the Covid with the Holy Spit as the main vector of divine love, not as a parody, but as a serious institution.
     
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