Covid19 is bullshit

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

  1. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    I got the booster two weeks ago, the Pfizer. The first two were Astra Zeneca, in the spring. This one messed me up too, flu-like symptoms for two days. Not as intense as the first ones, but they lasted longer.
     
  2. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    Hey, macloud, this one's for you:

    What does Bill Gates call a booster dose?
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    An upgrade.

    Haha
     
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  3. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    I eat a lot of red meat (albeit mostly processed by myself, and not some manufacturing plants).
    I drink considerable amounts of strong (double IPA) beer.
    I am not something you would put forward as a "role model" for healthy nutrition (although I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables in addition to red meat, both my Frau, and my offspring eat healthier than I do).

    I do a lot of physical exercise, but I am still "quite heavy" (with BMI in the range of 29-30).

    My guess the level of physical activity is what differs myself (and my daughter) from my wife.
    My wife occasionally swims, or goes to the gym (once a week or so).
    I do walk/cycle/run every single day.
    My daughter dances in a modern dance group, trains in a gymnastics group, and has 4 hours of PE at school every week (2 hours of that swimming).
     
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  4. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Preface: I'm an atheist. IMHO, the global perception of the USA being chock full of religious zealots simply isn't true. It is true that the USA is rated as one of the most spiritual/religious countries, but the media portrayals of us being crazed religionists are mostly untrue. Ironically, most of the hard-core religionists in the States today are recent immigrants from Mexico, Central- and South America.

    The most religious/spiritual people that I've ever met are some modern Brazilians. They've traded traditional Catholicism for extreme Protestantism. That's a wild phenomenon. I get around; I didn't just fall off the proverbial turnip truck (although I am extremely stupid and unintelligent, I must admit).

    But to address more directly your post: the USA media loves to focus on weird religious zealots who have died from Covid. It may be .05 of our population, but the media love that stuff. There's a market for these tales/stories, and our capitalism provides.
     
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  5. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    My guess is that the physical exercise -- cycling, walking, etc. -- is the key.
    Your diet sounds like my own ;)
     
  6. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    I think it's clear USA is a very diverse country, where there are both modern thinking people alongside with medieval ones.

    You should see the orthodoxes here, they're a funny bunch. Imagine cats discovering religion. They think small, immediate and they're scared as fuck of any cracking twig. They resort to ritual to guard from divine punishment and most of the time feel they're above any sin.
    The divine punishment here is not hell (everyone goes to heaven), but less divine care, that leads to unfortunate events (sickness, accidents, loss of money). In extreme cases god can beat you, as the expression says "L-a bătut Dumnezeu". Literally "God beat him", the result being malformation or extreme tragedy. Dumnezeu is the local name of God, it's a contraction of dominus deus.

    Now there might be variations in ortohodoxy. Certainly the experiences are different. In Romania religion coexisted with communism, the priests being the political militia's informants.
     
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2021
  7. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    Although that is a nice thought, there are entire teams of footballers here who got sick with covid. And those boys run a lot.
     
  8. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Dumnezeu is the local name of God, it's a contraction of dominus deus.

    Wow. You know, I really do wish that I could retire immediately and work in anthropology and archaeology. These cultural and historical pieces of personal experiences are so fascinating. But there aren't enough years and even fewer dollars in my limited future. Imagine how many histories are yet to be written! And to tie all of the histories together! But I fear that we're nearing a new dark age of historical record, especially in my more depressed moments.

    It's strange how bureaucrats and government employees can transition so easily from one political -- or religious -- system to another. For example, how ex-Nazis became powerful after WW2 in West Germany, East Germany, and the United States. It's all a matter of political convenience. And a universal phenomenon across history. And I've had Nazis in my own family, so I don't just throw charges around, lol.
     
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  9. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    Who knows what monsters I've had in my family. It's even worse when you don't recognise them as such.
     
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  10. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    I'm trying to do the most possible things outside work, which itself is sometimes very boring. For example now I study goats as a hobby. You know the big five personality traits? You can find them all in goats. Even conscientiousness, manifested as an adherence to rules. Then the differences in intelligence and its effect on feeding techniques are amazing.
     
  11. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Are you keeping the goat data in a database, spreadsheet or a text file? :) Any data are good data.

    This sounds like an interesting study, really. We can really learn a lot about Darwinism from goats.
     
  12. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    Yes, I do. Measurements, observations, pictures. Got my son into it too. And I want to turn it into a community project, as I'm hoping to involve more goat keepers in various degrees.
    One of the outcomes might be the transformation of the pastures in the area, in order to allow local bushes and trees to grow on them. Goats prefer those to grasses. It's probably going to take years to convince anyone to make major changes, but there's hope.
    During the socialism, the pastures here were omnibus, but mainly for cattle and sheep, who ignore high vegetation. So they only kept small grasses, easier to maintain, measure and account.
     
  13. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Vasco, that's very cool. If there's OK cell phone service farmers could upload data (GIS, photos and other relevant stuff) to a server that puts it all together. That would be a good project. But there are many variables involved.

    Did the RO government during socialist rule ever work much with Cybernetics? (My guess is that they were aware of it, but just as most everywhere in the USSR and satellite nations, theory never was realized with in-production systems. The Soviets were the best at theorizing about those systems. They really invested a lot of resources and manpower.) Yes, I'm digressing, apologies. I'm famous for going off-topic ;)
     
  14. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    Out internet services are fast and cheap. One of the best in the world. Much better than in the US, I hear. I'm paying $12 a month for unlimited phone and internet on 4 phones.
    A home optical fiber connection is $10 / month. Nowadays shepherds and others with lonely jobs talk all day on their phone or watch youtube.

    Everything is off topic. Remember this thread is called covid is bullshit haha

    Yes they were onto that. I'm sure there were some good professionals, but the implementation was a wank. In the most authentic sovietic style, there was a lot of planning, without implementation. And any implementation was an ideologic one, so they were mostly crap.
     
  15. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Damn it all. Now here you see some of my old Cold War-era prejudices (preconceived notions) creeping in. Sometimes I forget that you are in the EU. So yes, you all probably have better infrastructure in many ways! Internet connectivity, good transportation systems, many new roads and bridges, etc. That's an advantage over most USA regions, where politicians are fighting for money and resources. Recall that the USA had its major mid-20th century infrastructure building in the post-ww2 era (Eisenhower+), and then a new burp of activity during the Reagan terms (1980-1988). And now we here are struggling to maintain an empire, but there's an existential crisis: what is the purpose of our empire :-0 Is it Liberal Democracy (TM)? Is it protection of our energy sources, supply chains of essential consumer goods (TVs at Walmart for the masses, inexpensive EVERYTHING from Chinese manufacturers, etc., etc.

    Really, maybe it is I who is having the existential crisis, and not the world ;)


     
  16. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    Oh, no. Our roads are the worst in the EU. We have the highest mortality in the EU in car accidents, because we have the least safe roads. There are very few highways, the rest being regular roads with one lane per way. The state has been struggling to build highways during the last 30 years, but very few kilometres have been built. Some were overpriced (in fact there was a highway built by Bechtel, an US company, which was the first scandal regarding overpriced highways.
    The railway system, well, that's another jewel. The mean speed for cargo is 17km/hour, taking into account stops, waiting times etc due to bad management. The passenger trains suck too. In the 90's, on the route from Bucharest to the seaside, the fastest train needed 1h40' for 225km. Then they started upgrading the line. It took a lot of years (maybe 8 years, I don't recall exactly) during which the same trip took 7 hours.
    After the upgrading and repairing was finished, the fastest train could do it in 1h40'. It's not a joke.

    The internet has a different story. It all started in the late 90's and early 00's with small, private, mostly informal ISPs that had very small networks (sometimes 10 or 20 subscribers). They provided the fastest possible communication at the lowest price, because people wanted to see american films and play video games and were poor. Of course everything was pirated. Many times the subscribers were their neighbors. Then some of these networks grew larger, going to maybe thousands of subscribers.Many were badly managed, sometimes they weren't even able to collect all their money, so they let people use it for months before disconnecting. Then the bigger companies came and bought these small ISPs. But the expectations were set, people wanted fast internet at a low price. I've always felt they're ripping you off in the US.
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2021
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  17. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    That is indeed sad. How did Bechtel get a contract to build highways in Bulgaria (sponsored by the EU?). I've never been a fan of the EU, truth be told. We can joke about both the EU's and NATO's "headquarters" being conveniently located in Brussels, but that's another tale.

    I guess I have heard stories about Greece, for example, getting so much funding for building highways and railroad improvements. Then the Germans, who really finance the EU -- same as the US finances NATO -- complained about, and blamed, the poor Greeks for not suffering enough to pay back their share for the wonderful improvements.

    A supplication now: Oh, Clio, Greek muse of history, please look favorably upon us wretched mortals! Clio, babe, we're always in a hell of a mess! Clio, you're the last lady in the bar and it's closing time. Sorry for joking around, but history (with Clio's voice) is truly a capricious bitch, and we ignore her at our peril :( And don't let's get started about Fortuna...

    Yes, we are getting ripped off in the USA for internet access and electrical power to our homes. Today I was doing a Zoom call about an emergency issue related to work, and my power "blipped." To use WB terminology, I <i>discoed</i> and it was very bad timing. It took about 15 minutes for my router, PC and so on to reboot. That's a rare event, but it happens.

    It's funny(?), but my internet provider has a junction box about 35 meters from my back door. I can see when they work there. A couple of times my internet connectivity died, and I went outside and told the guys working there :( Once they had simply disconnected my home's plug and I had to show them. Bastiges.

    Ironically, I now have Google fiber cabled underground about 5 meters from my home. Yes, I will change soon.
     
  18. hezzey

    hezzey Well-Known Member

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    In my tiny city (it is called city because it has its own engineering department apparently towns don’t have those….) there are so many Wi-Fi stations around that I never have to pay for my Internet connection as long as I stay around here.
    I do like to have a hardwired ethernet connection though!!
    Many years ago decades Evan the taxpayer in Canada was paying the social state to wire all the major population centres and the nexus is between them…
    I don’t suppose the few million Canadians that live a long ways from the Yankee internets are benefitting like those Canadians who live in the loving embrace of the Yankee networks….
    Oh I know that a farmer 1000 KM NE of Regina, Saskatchewan, is going to have to pay lots so he can look at his Internet.
    Hi I am well aware that I am here in a population centre and that is much by accident.
     
  19. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    I was talking about Romania, maybe they had one in Bulgaria too, I don't know.
    I think it's "diplomatic relations" that got them here. Plus a lot of corruption.
    It wasn't the EU who financed it. EU financed projects are a lot harder to trick. And it will probably get even so, since the EU prosecutor's office was founded.

    I like EU a lot, really. In fact I think euroscepticism is one of our biggest problems. Of course there's room for improvement and I think it's improving. See how deviations from democracy in the member states are being linked to funding now. Which is great.
    The greeks, well I think there was an economical ideological dispute that they felt victims too. Like it was their fault the whole fucking world changed overnight due to financial speculators in the US.
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2021
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  20. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Oof, sorry that I had BG on my mind and made that mistake :(

    (Damn it. I hate reinforcing stereotypes about Americans. But stereotypes do not appear from nothing. I had a prof from BG who influenced me a lot so I go off the rails sometimes, but that's a shitty excuse...) Apologies.

    I hear you. Well said.

    Haven't heard about "deviations from democracy" yet here. Now that will be interesting. How can it be quantified? You don't need to answer that :)
     
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