Covid19 is bullshit

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

  1. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Be well, -frog- and family. I cycle "online" a lot, and see many Polish riders.
     
  2. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    I had these guys doing the plastering and other works, a few years ago, at my house. It was quite a lot of hard work and shitty weather (they worked the whole winter in a precariously heated house), but these were country people, used to doing hard works in bad conditions.
    One of them brought his 16 years old kid with him for some days, a ditch needed to be made. So I met the kid, it looked like any other kid of his age, same clothing, same attitude, a polite kid. His father was very nice to him, they had a good relationship.
    One day I ask him about his kid, how was he, how was school and he proudly tells me that his son has made a shower cabin at their home, using what was available in their yard - a plastic barrel, bits of hose, a plastic foil. Because he wanted to take a shower like everybody else, and not in a washing bowl anymore. Fucking hell.
     
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  3. Mcloud

    Mcloud Well-Known Member

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  4. Mcloud

    Mcloud Well-Known Member

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  5. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    IS COVID AN EXPERIMENT?!


     
  6. Red Ant

    Red Ant Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, medicine is such a wide field. I would no more trust a dentist's opinion on virology than I'd trust a virologist's opinion on knee surgery.
     
  7. Red Ant

    Red Ant Well-Known Member

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    Hey, what happened, did you lose your password?
     
  8. Mcloud

    Mcloud Well-Known Member

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    Why do I get the feeling we're going to see a thread from oldthermateman, okay Ill shut, lol.
     
  9. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    Just exiting quarantine.
    As far as cycling is concerned - I don't overdo...
    I have a trekking bike (and a MTB - but I use it less often) and I just do trips.
    From small ones, up to 20-30kms in April/May, up to those larger ones (100kms+) in August or September, when I am already "well prepared".
    No record-breaking speeds, rather sightseeing trips with averages of some 20-23kph.

    That's what I enjoy.
    I see a lot of folk cycling on those ultra-light "racers", pushing their training apps to the max, just to unlock another "achievement".
    Bullshit.
    That's bullshit for me.
    I visit abandoned mansion houses, abandoned war cemeteries, places few people know about instead.
    That's what's "fun" for me.
     
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  10. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    I'm curious, what would bring it back?

    I wouldn't want you to feel encouraged tho :D
     
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  11. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    There's a kid who should get a scholarship and be encouraged to be a civil engineer! Is there no possibility of municipal water reaching their home? Maybe it's a farm; they will need an electric pump for the well.

    During the pandemic I didn't need to shave and shower every day, because I didn't need to go to any meetings in person, and I now live alone. My lifetime record for not bathing is about two weeks. But I learned that if everyone around you doesn't bathe, one doesn't notice the stink so much. Now that the pandemic is ending here, I need to shower again on an almost daily basis, damn it all... In the 1940s and 1950s, many people bathed only Friday or Saturday night, I think. In a tub.
     
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  12. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    I agree with you. But now I'm an old man: no trainers will be pushed to the max, and I don't care about achievements ;)

    The older sites I can ride to around here aren't so old. Most are from the 19th century. One place near to me has graves from the 18th century, but they are rare.

    Of course we have many historical sites related some of the original -- so-called "indigenous" --North American settlers around here, too, but they can only be identified by archaeologists.
     
  13. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Ja, genau. How many computers have I had over the years? When one's lost due to hardware failure, I typically destroy it and begin anew.
     
  14. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Please do bring on your old Termite Man persona, McLoud! It's twenty (20) years on now since the event. One mellows with age.
     
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  15. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    "Soiree de poesie avec thermite man", that should gather the ladies of the village
     
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  16. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    Many of the rural areas here are lagging in developement. The corruption is high, so a lot of the village money goes to very private pockets.
    Where I live, for example, I get water from the deep aquifer, from a village pump. But less than 10% of the village has running water from this pump. Most people, in the last 10-20 years, have installed their own pumps and get water from the shallow aquifer (because of the drilling costs). This shallow aquifer water has a higher content of nitrites, which is bad. The village hall has recently drilled more deep aquifer wells, but they haven't started connecting the main line to the houses. Nobody knows what they're waiting for, they promised they'll connect them like one year ago. They've surely pocketed a lot of the money. Sometimes they wait to do the right thing right before the elections, in order to get reelected.

    So the people are still waiting. I could pick a house with running water, because I bought it when I moved in from the city. But most people live in the same houses that their grandparents lived.
    Not so long ago they didn't even have pumps in their wells, they had to reel up the bucket, some still have to do that.
     
  17. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    In fact I demolished the house and built a new one.
    The old houses around here are made of adobe, and have more than 50 cm thick walls. Two years ago i also bought neighbor's house, so I now own an adobe house as well.
    I wouldn't live in it, but I will repair it and turn it into a workshop. I'll probably have to rebuild part of a wall, so it's not going to be easy. I want to preserve it and to use the same materials.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2021
  18. Mcloud

    Mcloud Well-Known Member

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  19. Red Ant

    Red Ant Well-Known Member

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  20. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    Over 99% city dwellers have access to running water in Poland, compared to a 91% figure for village inhabitants.
    The problem is not the accessibility (as it was for years), but the prices.
    The water from one's own well is free (apart from some minor taxes for having that well), the water from waterworks is paid for.
    Farmers who need water for their crops usually have their own wells, even if they are "connected" to the water lines.

    Sewage system is another issue.
    Only 78% of households in cities and towns are connected.
    And only 52% in rural areas.
    The rest relies on septic tanks, which are a pain in the backside to keep.

    As for development of rural areas here - it's been better than in some built-up areas here due to the private land ownership that the Polish communists did not abolish (there was a limit of farm size, capping it at 50, and later 100 hectares, but this was easily circumnavigated by the more "business-spirited" farmers by early 1980s).

    Corruption levels, at least when it comes to subsidies, are very low, and the entire system is pretty transparent.

    I guess it's about having a developed, and well-established "farmer class" that makes the difference between Poland and Romania today.