Zoraptor

The epidemiologists will be providing a bit more guidance than washing hands, but yeah, while they will have aspects of general population modelling and the like economic modelling won't be their job. There should however be economists doing their modelling as well and if the governmental organisations are competent they should be doing so alongside and in cooperation with the epidemiologists to show the potential effects of each policy and potential best recovery options. My presumption is that most of them are coming up with the same general result: you can have a very severe, quick but hopefully one off effect; or you can spread the effect out over time and hope it isn't as severe overall- and not much else as the situation is both unprecedented in modern times and we simply don't know how c19 and its effects/ treatments will evolve over time. And as much as it isn't a health modellers job to make economic policy it also isn't an economic modellers job to make health policy. Except, maybe, in the US and Brazil. Eh, I'm not sure even competent politicians can really do much else at this point. Several countries have ended up where they are- big example being the US- specifically because politicians have ignored advice from experts in favour of 'saving the economy'/ their poll numbers. I'd give the early effected countries' politicians some extra leeway too; it's often difficult to know which experts to listen to at the best of times, and human nature means that most of the time people listen to the view that tells them everything will be OK over the one preaching doom and gloom, especially when going for the doom and gloom incorrectly means losing your job. Then again our PM* has taken responsibility for almost literally everything politically and done very well out of it, politically, while following the advice of the bureaucrat (a scientist, not lobbyist or career aparatnik thank science) in charge of responding, with the health minister being entirely sidelined from the response and just running the admin. I'd imagine the situation is different in places where c19 has made it to epidemic status and glaring and obvious mistakes have been made as very few politicians are ever going to willingly own a mistake if they can avoid it. *and praise science that she won, and not Ximon Brudges who thinks driving ten hours in a lockdown to attend a fricking video conference is 'essential' work. The essential part is, in actuality, him being able to stand in front of press cameras in person to mumble his stupidities.

It's also been posted at least three times, and it's reverse ownage anyway since Canada's envoy to fricking NATO forgot that Kaliningrad is part of Russia- rather a large oversight for such an organisation.

There's definitely nothing in the later episodes that is worth restarting a stalled watch. Loads of maudlin for the sake of it emotion and incoherent plotting and action scenes.

Watched Picard. It was... OK and I don't regret watching it, though I think I would have struggled if watching it weekly rather than over a week. It completely fell apart in the last couple of episodes and had a substantial number of head scratching moments before that but I think that STD has largely inoculated me against the stupid and sufficiently lowered expectations so that I could park brain in neutral and not rail overmuch against the dying of the logical plot progression. I liked Victor Frankenstein and Captain Aramis (except for the stupid accented holograms) and the rest of the cast was generally OK, most of the problems they had was with inconsistent characterisation- but also no absolute standout like Captain Malfoy or Pike from STD. Though I do have to admit I've always liked Peyton List perhaps a little more than her pure acting deserves. I even got a few lols from the Mass Effect parallels. Also watched Dark on Netflix. From the name I was expecting something a bit, well, dark, but despite its name and being German it's actually an uplifting show featuring time travel and a cast of well adjusted characters whose carefree lives are seldom blighted by any trouble*. Highly recommended. *yeah okay, there might be one or two character flaws on display, and the odd bit of trouble. But nothing you wouldn't expect of a picturesque small German town next to a nuclear power plant in a show called 'Dark'.

Limiting factor for AM5's arrival will likely be when (practically, after) DDR5 gets to mass production. TSMC 5nm is basically functional now and Apple and a few other large manufacturers are set to migrate to it soon, which should free up additional 7nm fab space. AMD has been doing a new generation a year pretty regularly with Zen, so AM5/ [Ry]Zen5/ 5nm in 2021 would not be unheard of. I personally suspect the initial AM5 offerings will be on an advanced 7nm node though, even with the obvious marketing angle of [Ry]Zen5- DDR5- 5nm. Probably also depends a bit on whether Intel's 7nm is or isn't 10nm redux, if it has even standard teething troubles like 14nm had there will not be much pushing AMD onto a more expensive option. The 4000 series laptops have been released recently too with great reviews and excellent power/ performance. [have I mentioned how much I hate AMD's incoherent naming schemes recently?]

Theoretically* at least we'd be including deaths at home and the like before an autopsy. After a few incidents with hospital staff being infected and our first (and so far, touch wood, only) death initially being diagnosed as just flu and forcing a regional hospital to basically shut down they changed the rules so that any clinical diagnosis of/ with covid19 symptoms is assumed to be it, and included in the figures as a probable case- even if there's been a PCR that came back negative. *They could of course still lie about it, if they wanted to, but there's a lot more point when the death toll is higher and a lot more scope for an overwhelmed system systemically under reporting.

The US is far from alone in lying/ 'lying' about the death count. I'd suspect that just about every country with epidemic level infections is underestimating deaths one way or another as deliberate policy to minimise panic. France wasn't counting deaths in either rest homes (ie among the people most statistically susceptible...) or at home in their figures for example, only deaths in hospital. The policy will absolutely be that a lot of deaths outside hospital won't be counted as they aren't 'confirmed' to be covid19, and a lot won't be counted where there are other complicating factors that can be blamed.

Rupert Murdoch: Your appointment to FEMA should be finalized within the week. I've already discussed the matter with the President. Jared Kushner: I take it he was agreeable? Murdoch: He didn't really have a choice. Kushner: Has he been infected? Murdoch: Ah yes, most certainly. When I mentioned we could put him on the priority list for chloroquinoline, he was so willing it was almost pathetic. Kushner: This plague — the poll numbers are dropping to the point where we may not be able to contain it. Murdoch: Why contain it? Let it spill over into the schools and churches. Let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end, they'll beg us to save them. Kushner: I've received reports they're trying to make voting easier. There's not enough voting booths to go around, and the underclasses are starting to get desperate. Murdoch: Of course they're desperate. They can smell their deaths, and the sound they'll make rattling their cages will serve as a warning to the rest. Kushner: Hmm. I hope you're not underestimating the problem. The others may not go as quietly as you think. Intelligence indicates they're behind the problems in Washington. Murdoch: I have McConnell in place though. I'm more concerned about Fauci. He's relocated to Vandenberg. Kushner: We have other problems. Murdoch: Biden? Kushner: A pretentious old man playing at running the world, but the world left him behind long ago. We are the future! Murdoch: Our propaganda is far in advance of theirs, as is our electronic sentience, and their... ethical inflexibility has allowed us to make progress in areas they refuse to consider. Kushner: The Putin project? Murdoch: Among other things, but I must admit that I've been somewhat disappointed with the performance of the primary unit. Kushner: The secondary unit should be online soon. It's currently undergoing preparations and should be operational within six months. My people will continue to report on its progress. If necessary, the primary will be terminated. Murdoch: We've had to endure much, you and I, but soon there will be order again — a new age. Reagan spoke of the mythical Shining City on the Hill. Soon that city will be a reality, and we will be crowned its kings, or better than kings: Gods!

Trying to show he's too naive or stupid to be Secretary of the Navy maybe? Wouldn't normally be a great strategy, but under Trump both seem to be required for a permanent appointment.

Yep. Surge is important in the general population because a large to very proportion of the general population has some sort of adverse risk factors- they are obese, they are old, they are unfit, they don't eat well, have diabetes, cancer, asthma, smoke etc etc. None of those factors apply to the average sailor on a US air craft carrier at least in theory; and very few apply to anyone on it full stop. That leaves, essentially, those with an unfortunate generic or inherent vulnerability to covid19* alone as the proportion of ship's complement that is susceptible in a potentially fatal manner. The 'surge' that happens in civilian populations happens because all those old, weak, and unlucky people get sick at the same time and all need ICU, ventilators, etc, at the same time. If you're young and fit then the likelihood of needing that specialist care at all is minute, perhaps as few as a couple of dozen on a ship the size of the Roosevelt. For the vast majority of the young, fit, otherwise healthy people that make up the crew of a USN ship covid19 really is 'a bit of a flu' or even less- though of course the actual factual flu is an extremely unpleasant experience with potential long term consequences for a minority, even if you're not at risk of dying. There would also never be 100% infection reached, except in theory. Even with covid19 being a novel virus some people will be functionally immune to it through the genetic lottery that is our immune system (a bit different from asymptomatic carriers). It's still very sensible getting everyone off the ship because they really aren't set up for large numbers of sick people, and even if they aren't in a life threatening situation a proportion of victims will be badly effected in ways that may not be directly fatal but are still dangerous- myocarditis, damaged lungs and other organs etc. You still need to allow for proper isolation which would be very difficult on a warship. *if it were to go full 'Spanish' flu the situation would reverse and young healthy fit people would actually be more susceptible than older people. But it hasn't gone full 'Spanish' flu, and we'd better hope it never does.

Boris Johnson now in hospital as he still has coronavirus symptoms 10 days after testing positive.

Hmm, let's see what the Donald Trump of 8 years ago has to say about US Presidents attacking Iran... Truly, a prophet of our times.

Trouble is, who would actually create a TCP/IP replacement that doesn't have control mechanisms built in? Not China- but equally, not the US or any other western country. Indeed, if a western backed replacement like NDN got traction you can pretty much guarantee that every single security improvement touted by it would instantly get turned into an air quoted version by a plethora of backdoors built into the encryption, and no doubt there would be controls of pretty much the exact same type proposed by the Chinese added to the protocol itself by western powers wanting to defend against 'terrorist propaganda' 'external threats and bad actors' 'fake news' or anything else deleterious to the public spooks and politicians' good. Of course, they'd be used to 'protect' their own citizens, the diametric opposite of any Chinese proposal that would be used to oppress their citizens, by, er, doing exactly the same thing. It would all be very good having an independent group of scientists, computer experts or whoever come up with a country/ ideology agnostic, secure, and genuinely control free new protocol that also fixes the flaws of TCP/IP, but to get adopted it would have to be backed by the same sort of people who are currently desperately trying to destroy any and all encryption they don't control. The Chinese would also definitely work on network type stuff intended or potentially only for use in China. They're spending billions upon billions removing their dependencies on compromised western tech- fabs and CPUs to avoid the NSA backdoors of IME/ PSP (Zhaoxin), creating a SWIFT alternative, creating an Android alternative etc etc.

They don't really own any 'standards' though. They make #g repeaters/ exchanges and other internet/ telecommunications stuff which anyone can do. They have some patents for 5g and other IP, but so do others; and to a far greater extent. The vast majority of 'standards' are owned by and exploited in the cause of the west with the rest of the world meant to simply accept it. They may well try and apply leverage at some unspecified time in the future, but that's hardly unique and it's totally hypothetical. OTOH the US leveraging its standards- Android, threatening fabs/ chip makers with exclusion from the banking system if they don't drop supply to Huawei- so the rest of the world is forced instead to buy infrastructure replete with NSA spyware- is 100% non hypothetical and demonstrably happening right now. (Huawei's economic strategy is an entire different matter, and it certainly does follow the trajectory of other Chinese State Backed enterprises- loss lead to drive out competition; then jack up prices and down quality once market dominance is achieved and if anyone threatens that dominance revert to step 1 until they've run out of money. They are however only in the preliminaries of step 1 of that, and there is zero realistic chance of them getting to step 2 due to national security concerns)

Huawei has no leverage. What are they going to do, turn off the infrastructure? Refuse to upgrade it? Perhaps they could cut out the intermediate steps and just abolish their international arm and gift its business wholesale to Cisco/ Samsung etc etc. The US would love that. The sad fact is that liberal western democracies object to the source of the proposal and them not having control, they do not object to the spirit of it- per NSA intercepting Cisco shipments to add spyware, Intel's IME and AMD's PSP and a host of other examples. Indeed, given the complete lack of actual evidence about Huawei's malfeasance and reliance on, basically, racist dog whistling from Pompeo and friends I'd submit that the main reason, ultimately, for these articles is that Huawei still won't put NSA spyware into its systems. The presence of some completely theoretical Chinese spyware or them wanting to supercede TCP/IP and DNS- both of which are deeply flawed- at some point in the future is somewhat, er, trumped, by the west doing the exact same thing, provable spyware and having its own TCP/IP/ DNS replacements under development since 2014. Pretty much 100% 'do as I say, not as I do', and the articles are modern yellow scare.

That is two weeks old, and they did drop the suit and offered 'free licensing' instead. Which, hopefully, no one took them up on as that would just validate an utterly ludicrous patent that should never in a million years have been granted in the first place (US patent 8283155, don't think the USPTO allows direct linking but its easily accessible via PATFT). The 'patent' they were trolling was literally for any portable system which could read samples of bodily fluids and communicate with a base unit. Unsurprisingly, such systems existed well before some abject gibbering moron in the USPTO granted them their patent while drooling onto his keyboard and being amused at the magic desk accessory that made night into day if you pushed a button. They existed before they filed the patent- I used a portable system in 2001 that was as described. I don't think anyone would particularly care if the US inflicted its own brand of IP stupidity solely on itself, but as with other infamous cases like Larry Proctor's Mexican yellow bean patent and Ricetec 'inventing' Basmati Rice the- deliberately- broken patent system is used to kill competition and extort rather than protect actual inventions. Then, the US has the temerity to lecture China about respecting IP...

Wow, that show had Christopher Lee in it. Would have thought he'd be pretty memorable too, even if it was before Star Wars/ LotR made him recognisable to a new generation. Checked wiki and you probably were remembering Robin of Sherwood, I remembered a lot of spooky lighting and the like for Herne etc but it looks like it had a fair bit more outright magic than I remembered.

Had Herne the Hunter looking a bit like a Leshen from TWitcher 3, but it was more mysticism than outright magic if memory serves. Also had a very memorable Clannad soundtrack which I'd suspect would be the first thing most would remember about it ("Roooooooooooooobin, the Hooded Man")

Even if you're trying to be careful you're battling a bunch of near autonomic functions constantly. It's like watching politicians and experts advising people not to shake hands and then shaking hands at the end of the press conference- it's just done automatically unless you're actively concentrating on not doing it. Which you can't do all the time, especially if stressed. Most people would touch their faces hundreds of times a day without any conscious thought and it really is hard to stop doing it because you have to actively think not to do it, and if you're shopping there are a lot of distractions. I'll go shopping on Monday and I'll likely forget to be careful at some point and that despite having done some relevant training. I guess some people will actively be being knobs about things, but most people simply won't be able to concentrate all the time on not doing multiple things that they usually do without thinking about.

No deaths here so far, but we do have our first person in intensive care. The country is two days into a full lockdown- I'm 4 days in, due to having both my parents staying with me now and them being over 70. I do rather suspect there's a lot of mild/ asymptomatic covid19 cases around that aren't getting counted in the stats, but 350 cases and no deaths yet seems to be pretty good going overall. Me having what is, almost certainly, a bog standard seasonal cold at the moment is not great timing. I'd also suspect that given the number of asymptomatic cases showing up in some of the mass testing that the mortality rate is, fortunately, a decent amount lower than 3%.

Meh, I kind of loathe the term 'ethnicity' and 'race' since they seem to mean whatever is convenient at the time and are used subjectively all the time. Despite all the inbreedings and invasions- romans, angles, jutes, saxons, vikings and rebadged vikings- there's no significant objective difference between English and other Celts- it's all learned stuff like which language they speak. Same for the Russian/ Ukrainian/ Byelorussian ethnicities. So far as I'm concerned they're all Celts or Ruthenians/ East Slavs because there are scientifically discernable differences between those groups, but not between the subgroups.

Russia has next to no Arab population. It does have a large muslim Tartar population, but Tartars are Turkic, not Semitic. I'd be pretty sure 80%+ of Russia's population is white though. And yeah, census 2010 gives 80.9% Russian (sic) ethnicity by itself. I don't have any problem with it being called the Wuhan Virus or similar, it's accurate and discrete enough to be useful. But yes, Trump is certainly insisting on calling it the "China Virus" to try and deflect blame for the handling of the crisis away from him and onto foreigners for purely political reasons. If the rest of the response had coherence and competence I think people would largely ignore the dog whistling, but unfortunately it's very far from it. His press conference yesterday was an utter embarrassment, and he's going to get a lot of people killed trying to bullasterisk away a virus in the same way he tries to get rid of other problems.

There's definitely US forces in New Zealand as well. The supply for their Antarctic bases is run out of here, and while the bases are (theoretically at least) civilian much of the supply is done by the USAF from Christchurch.

Went shopping today a bit earlier than I had planned today, busy but shelves mostly stocked fine. Half an hour later they announced a move to a total shutdown by Wednesday, cue pictures of queues out of supermarkets and hundreds of cars waiting to get into the car parks...

Eh no. It would be nice if WaPo actually read the material they cite; 2.2 million is their worst case scenario*, and that excludes any extra deaths from other causes due to the health system breaking down. (Technically the absolute worst case scenario would be ~50% infection rate with 3% of those infected dying, or about 5-6 million people for the US. Fortunately, that is highly unlikely no matter how incompetent the response is) *p7 "In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality."