Announcement

Collapse

Please support the Forum by using the Amazon Link this Holiday Season

Amazon has started their Black Friday sales and there are some great deals to be had! As you shop this holiday season, please consider using the forum's Amazon.com link (listed in the menu as "Amazon Link") to add items to your cart and purchase them. The forum gets a small commission from every item sold.

Additionally, the forum gets a "bounty" for various offers at Amazon.com. For instance, if you sign up for a 30 day free trial of Amazon Prime, the forum will earn $3. Same if you buy a Prime membership for someone else as a gift! Trying out or purchasing an Audible membership will earn the forum a few bucks. And creating an Amazon Business account will send a $15 commission our way.

If you have an Amazon Echo, you need a free trial of Amazon Music!! We will earn $3 and it's free to you!

Your personal information is completely private, I only get a list of items that were ordered/shipped via the link, no names or locations or anything. This does not cost you anything extra and it helps offset the operating costs of this forum, which include our hosting fees and the yearly registration and licensing fees.

Stay safe and well and thank you for your participation in the Forum and for your support!! --Deborah

Here is the link:
Click here to shop at Amazon.com
See more
See less

Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • BTW, I flew from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta yesterday on Jet Blue. The RT fare for two was $286 about $100 less than Delta, our go to carrier. First time in probably 9 months I've traveled by air.

    What was impressive was the care taken to inform me about what I was expected to do when boarding, flying and de-planing. All very well laid out in 2 emails that I received starting a week before the flight. I checked in on line. There was a page that I had to accept restating the mitigation protocols that were going to be in place - mask at all times, board from back to front, no one would occupy middle seats, de-plane from front to back - stay in your seat until the row in front of you is in the aisle and moving forward. We did not check bags, went straight to the gate. It felt orderly and safe. The plain was full except for middle seats so, probably 60-70 capacity - usually enough for a flight to be profitable but that was in normal times. Lots of money has gone into hygiene and infection control in aircraft.

    Both the departure and arrival airports were nearly empty, ATL a bit busier than FTL. That was actually kindof nice. It was sad seeing all the shops and bars closed. Restaurants with seating were open but tables spaced and masking required to enter, OK to take them off when seated.

    ATL is huge and has a rail system connecting gates with the two main terminals. We rode the train and since there were so few people, spacing was available in the cars. People seemed responsible. We saw 2 unmasked persons during the entire trip among the thousand or so we probably ran across.

    We live in the Northern suburbs of ATL and are connected by light rail (MARTA). We rode that to our destination station and Uber'ed from there to our home. MARTA is usually very busy and probably like the NYC subways just less extensive. There was no capacity enforcement but signs about masking and distancing and public address announcements multiple times on the 40m trip. Not everyone was masked - probably 7 of 10 and distancing was not observed. It wasn't crowded though so, we were able to distance. It wasn't ideal but, I don't think MARTA authorities can do much more than they have done. I don't think I'll ride MARTA back to the airport when we go back to FTL next week. We'll just Uber all the way.

    Overall it felt good to travel, I felt we limited our COVID exposure to the extent possible and as long as I don't come down with the virus within the next 10d, I won't hesitate to do it again - a trip to MI is shaping up in the October time frame. Usually that would be for a game. Hate it that's gone along with cruising ...... two things I love to do and that I'm going to lose a year of it, maybe more, and if and when those two things I love return, they will be starkly different and how much I'll enjoy them is in question.
    Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.

    Comment


    • Supreme Court declines to support one of Trump's voter suppression projects.


      https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/polit...ots/index.html
      “Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

      Comment


      • This is where we are. You must be very skeptical of the reporting of the public data as well as the press's interpretation of it.
        Yep. On everything, btw, not just Covid. This is no longer anything close to resembling a neutral media.
        Dan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]?
        Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.

        Comment


        • Neutral Media.

          Oxymoron
          Shut the fuck up Donny!

          Comment


          • The Wizard.

            Regular moron.
            Dan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]?
            Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.

            Comment


            • Oh good, not only is soon-to-be-in-Congress Marjorie Taylor Greene a Qanon believer, she's also a 9/11 Truther

              Comment


              • What does Sen Harris bring to the Biden drive for the White House? I see nothing.
                2012 Detroit Lions Draft: 1) Cordy Glenn G , 2) Brandon Taylor S, 3) Sean Spence olb, 4) Joe Adams WR/KR, 5) Matt McCants OT, 7a) B.J. Coleman QB 7b) Kewshan Martin WR

                Comment


                • Setting Qanon aside for a moment and the scary prospect of people who associate themselves with crap like this are going to be legislators some interesting facts about SARS-CoV-2.

                  An article appeared in the August 10th issue of the Economist authored by an MD, epidemiologist and sociologist teaching and doing research at Yale that pointed out important differences between MERS, SARS-CoV-1 (SARS) and SARS-CoV-2 that should guide public health responses to the later. There are 7 known coronaviruses. 4 of them produce symptoms associated with a cold, 3, the ones listed above, are more dangerous but in different ways.

                  SARS and MERS tend to be more lethal, symptoms appear more quickly and there is a very short "latent" period (the period between infection and the appearance of symptoms). These two versions of the coronavirus and humans infected with it tend to be identified quickly and kill more quickly. That leads to better containment and quick control .... which is exactly how SARS and MERS fared (the author gives impressive CFR and R0 stats to demonstrate the differences). Accordingly, SARS and MERS waned quickly after being very lethal (high CFR) but not spreading much. That's becasue SARS and MERS have low R0 and another term K or attack value, also low, which is equivalent to R (t); we've talked about that extensively here.

                  SARS-CoV-2 takes much longer for symptoms to appear and during that latent period, asymptomatic infected persons tend to go out, unmasked with little regard to distancing and be shedding virus, sometimes a lot of it, and in the case of SARS-CoV-2, the highest amounts 1-2d before symptoms appear. It is also much less lethal compared to SARS and MERS - that's good, right? Well, no. It means that SARS-CoV-2 spreads faster than SARS or MERS and, unlike those two where super spreader events are critical to ID and control, SARS-CoV-2 spreads more dangerously with a high K or attack value and R(t) values often way above 1. Therefore, its difficult to contain indicating spending time and resources on ID'ing super spreader events is less effective than simply employing wide spread measures, like masking, to contain the spread ...... and that's about all we're going to get with SARS-CoV-2 until a vaccine is available and distributed at scale. At that point SARS-CoV-2 control is achievable; eradication possible but difficult.

                  You've heard it and I've seen it ..... if Americans had uniformly masked up early, social distanced and carried on most normal activities in that mode, a degree of control, without draconian measures to shutter businesses and heavily restrict mobility would have seen us through this thing with less deaths and much less economic and social disruption. Shuttering and stopping all mobility is still an optional approach (see the PRC) but in democracies it will be resisted and ultimately fail, rinse and repeat (see Melbourne).

                  Masking, distancing and carrying on is still possible but the final point the author makes - and this has been said repeatedly here and elsewhere - when you have a rapidly spreading, less lethal virus like SARS-CoV-2, where community spread is assured, widespread testing and tracking, establishment of rigorous test processing and reporting procedures and enforced quarantining of the infected is absolutely necessary to achieve containment. I can list examples of countries that did this, did it well from a coordinated federal level and achieved containment much more effectively than the US did..... and the US is still really struggling with testing, tracking quarantining and, as a result, struggling to contain the virus.

                  Applying this to situations we know about and have discussed here, sports can be safely played using this approach, schools can be safely opened and students can safely go to class. I think the testing and tracking thing and more have been achieved in pro-sports, could have been achieved in BT and PAC12 fall sports and have yet to be achieved, but close if counties would allocate the time and resources and get federal help to do that, for schools. It's all a matter of priorities.
                  Last edited by Jeff Buchanan; August 13, 2020, 03:46 PM.
                  Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.

                  Comment


                  • Lets talk about antibody immunity. Only the severely affected patients developing antibodies? That doesn't bode well for immunity, herd or otherwise. A high level story about Sweden.


                    https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2020...5131597335593/
                    “Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

                    Comment


                    • What a stupid fucking article. Sweden's cases peaked in June and have rapidly decreased over the past two months. Sweden's deaths peaked in April and rapidly decreased. So, yeah, Sweden had a bunch of deaths very early and consistenly rising cases until June.

                      Sweden's stats support herd immunity (to the extent they support either side) to anyone capable of taking the time to actually look at the numbers and think for themselves.

                      https://www.worldometers.info/corona...ountry/sweden/
                      Dan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]?
                      Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by iam416 View Post
                        What a stupid fucking article. Sweden's cases peaked in June and have rapidly decreased over the past two months. Sweden's deaths peaked in April and rapidly decreased. So, yeah, Sweden had a bunch of deaths very early and consistenly rising cases until June.

                        Sweden's stats support herd immunity (to the extent they support either side) to anyone capable of taking the time to actually look at the numbers and think for themselves.

                        https://www.worldometers.info/corona...ountry/sweden/
                        So your position is that the US should go for herd immunity and let the chips fall where they may?
                        2012 Detroit Lions Draft: 1) Cordy Glenn G , 2) Brandon Taylor S, 3) Sean Spence olb, 4) Joe Adams WR/KR, 5) Matt McCants OT, 7a) B.J. Coleman QB 7b) Kewshan Martin WR

                        Comment


                        • I’m not Talent but we have to mitigate where we can but get the economy open and keep it open. We’ve lost trillions with a T in just months. We are bleeding out. If we don’t keep things open, we may get case load down, but it won’t really matter.
                          "The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is sometimes hard to verify their authenticity." -Abraham Lincoln

                          Comment


                          • My question is about the antibody production. The article is just a conversation starter. Is it significant if antibody production is typically found in only severe survivors? Would it be a clue in the vaccine hunt or just another rabbit hole? Can antibodies be cloned or are they host specific? Layman's terms please.
                            “Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

                            Comment


                            • In entertainment news, a federal judge has ordered Trump to put up or shut up.


                              https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020...2551597352516/

                              “Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

                              Comment


                              • Whitley:

                                It find it remarkably odd to point to Sweden as failing to achieve some sort of level of herd immunity. I don’t know if they did or not, but the stats are consistent w/ greater immunity. That was why I found the article stupid.

                                I’m with AA. Sensible precautions but, under no circumstances, going fetal.

                                Sweden, incidentally “only” lost 8% GDP or whatever. Better than most others in Europe.

                                Dan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]?
                                Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X