| To: SI Ron (Colonel Sammy) who wrote (1272) | 3/27/2020 10:27:52 AM | | From: Graystone | | | | Viral kindness
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Shields
The rain of information that has started is making it very difficult to see. There are so many easy targets but it isn't time to be swinging, virtually everyone who really thinks there is some value in our division is going to fall soon, there is no break in that attacking front line that I can see. There may be enclaves that can hold on for awhile but right now the virus is just shooting fish in a barrel. Shooting is a bad word, it conveys a danger that is not be present for most people as many of those shot will get right back up again, but so many don't. The line has held in some places and the danger level is still low, in other places the line has crumbled and the battlefield is a rout with many many losses. Everyone needs to use their resources to shield the things they wish to see survive. It is a rare battle that starts with everyone nailed down flat by a deluge of information and images that shatter worldviews.
This is not WWI or WWII where nation contended with nation, every entity on this planet is vulnerable in some way, including the nations in which we live. Air Transat alone reported it has repatriated 46,000 Canadians in the last two weeks. Every nation is calling home it's citizens and closing it's borders and this is an unprecedented happening. Corporations from large to small, multi-nationals or local have been for the most part, stripped of their bio-component, again, an unprecedented happening. The gulfstream of ongoing payments that represents the backbone of the global supply chain has been cut off. That we are in the early stages of this human tragedy is not to be doubted. So hunker down, throw your shield out to cover that which you care for and pay attention to these words of Singapore DPM Heng Swee Keat in an address to parliament "“We have saved up for a rainy day, the COVID-19 pandemic is already a mighty storm and is still growing.”
So get down and stay down so you can fight on until tomorrow or next month or next year. There is a good chance that we will all learn the true value of unity. For many of us that unity is already found here, in our digital home, at our digital hearth, SI. If I have ever been unkind to anyone here...they likely deserved it. |
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| To: greg s who wrote (1274) | 3/28/2020 10:25:26 AM | | From: Graystone | | | | Resources
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Counting raindrops
Individually each rain drop isn't much and in this storm each drop could matter. The spray of micro-droplets that accompany speech are likely a major source of transmission. If you and I were in the same space our sibilants would spray little droplets contaminating the surfaces near us, whatever they might be, I have started conserving nitrile gloves by using one glove and keeping one hand in my pocket. I have found that this actually heightens my awareness of which surfaces I am protecting when I am working around my vehicle. I don't want my vehicle door handles to become hot surfaces. The customers are for the most part very understanding but that isn't always the case. Yesterday I had a move order for a customer, peter m, who had moved to a new condo. He thought the policy adopted by our company of no entry into customer homes was, in his words, "absolutely fucking ridiculous". I am doing my best to get services working but without his cooperation the chance of a positive outcome diminishes. I explained it was the only option he had, there was no choice here, he simply has to be my hands and eyes in his house or no service. So we tried, peter m had already identified the jack where he would like to put the modem, he said he was at the jack and he had everything from his old house, he advised there was a power outlet and a coax/phone outlet. I told him to get the phone cord and plug it into the wall and then into the green port marked DSL1 on the modem, he said OK he had done that. I told him to get the modem power supply and advised he could identify the correct power supply from all the others because it had a small light on it that would light up when it was plugged into power. He said he had it and he said he was ready when I asked him if he was. I told him to connect the power supply at the plug and modem watch the Internet light on the modem to confirm the modem was powered up and had started the POST. At this point I received no response from peter m and I started to hear all sorts of noises coming from my phone (picture me holding my phone out in front of me and looking at it in astonishment). There was crashing, banging, grunting, I could hear things being moved, steps coming and going, this continued for almost five full minutes, I have no idea what peter m was doing, none, not a clue. He came back to the phone and advised me that the modem wasn't doing anything, nothing at all. So I asked him to look at the power supply, he asked why? I reminded him about the power supply light that would light up when it was properly plugged in to power, something said just minutes earlier. I heard some more shuffling and moving of objects and a faint "oh" and then peter m said it was powered up. I told him the green flashing light on the front marked Internet didn't matter, it just meant the modem was starting and asked him to please watch the small green light under the DSL1 port on the back, the "sync" light, and tell me if it started to flash green or if it flashed at all, there was no response from peter m, just silence. After about 45 seconds (coincidentally, the length of time the POST takes) he reported that the Internet light was now orange, I asked him if the sync light had flashed, he replied, "the what?". So I had to repeat that explanation as well and had to verify he was indeed watching the sync light when we rebooted the modem. We repeated the whole process of going through the POST and the sync light didn't blink at all. peter m really seemed surprised as in his mind we had completed all the required work, I told him we were just starting. I could tell you how the entire two and a half hour service call went but but most readers have already gotten to the unsuccessful ending and I sincerely hope you do as well greg s.
I am in love with so many of us right now. I was watching a group of French citizens working out together on their apartment balconies demonstrating the way to fight back is to link up, like a biofilm. This is our future, we are being catalyzed. I am a technician and I decided last fall that I could not face a winter without some type of remedy. So I dug up my wife's beloved rhubarb, moved the entire patch to a new location and started to work. I poured a concrete pad and added a new breaker to the garage power panel. I built a really nice room connected to my garage. I fitted it out with used windows and a door, it is almost all glass, three walls are all window. I ordered a hot tub on Wayfair, a simple 5 person plug and play hot tub and set it up after it was delivered. Did you know that Wayfair will deliver your hot tub for free? I purchased an AR500 from Aqua Rest Spas and it was shipped from Georgia or South Carolina I think. I was able to use the spa all winter and it made a huge difference for me. Even now Rocks and I are so happy to have this small pleasure with us in isolation. That is why I am learning about biofilms, they play a role in spas. However Rock's thinks the real problem facing some people now is the problem our neighbor faces, she is an elderly lady who is all alone. If you know someone who is all alone right now then reach out and try to stay connected by phone or fenceline. Consider ways to create video links, my wife and daughter are now linked by Alexa's drop in feature after I bought my daughter one of the new Echo 5's for her house in Regina. If you have the ability to increase your availability to others, then take it. This is not a time to be counting, either coup or costs and more personal online connections are one fallout from this reaction that we can use.
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| From: Graystone | 3/29/2020 10:53:37 AM | | | | | | Ask us
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The backbone
As the financial backbone of the planet is severed the pressure on the remaining systems that allow human exchange will grow rapidly. A surge of new business for technicians in the field is a direct result of the approaching "whatever to hell it is." marcos and I hung a small gonfalon on the success of a cannabis company vs a gold company over the next two years. I really hope I win that one because my financial acumen has never been a part of my armory <smile> so I am not sure about T to be honest. I am not paying attention to much StockTalk right now as the real trick won't be to profit from what we are seeing but continuance, the stimulus won't help any corpses, human or corporate. The unavoidable nature of this collapse cannot be doubted. Folders and files were opened too late, defenses were shored up too late. This strike is still building and it has already taken down nations. It has shown us our that our defenses need to be completely rebuilt with an eye to universal principles that presently do not exist. I hope that I can continue to work and that we can continue to operate successfully through this crisis. If we do and workers can continue to be paid that will be good for everyone and will help hold things together. I am certain that the credit rating will matter, cash on hand will matter, short term investments will matter. The way I am looking at it right now is that if it matters to you and I then it will also matter to every corporation. I am willing to use resources now to do what I need to do, corporations need to do that as well, it is without any doubt a crisis. Even given the depth of this coming cut and the amount of blood we will likely see in The Street, I think it is a bargain price. Hold on, stay down, pay attention, link up, protect yourself. If each one of makes our personal protection from this virus a priority and we exhort others to do the same then we contribute, not only to our own well being, but to the well being of all. This entire battlefield is personal. The aim is to not get infected in this current wave of the pandemic or not get infected for as long as possible. This is not a zombie apocalypse scenario but the collapse in the ability to protect even our front line healthcare workers with something as simple as PPE underscores the deficiency in our defense. We all need to help them by helping ourselves.
Kneeling down on the ground, shield arm and shield held overhead for protection. Sword arm holding down the shield arm, both pinning the leading edge of the shield down making a prow. Raining debris driven forward, smashing into the shield and greaves, ancient gray plate mail glowing, ignited in defense. The coming enemy grew more dire. |
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| From: Graystone | 3/30/2020 10:48:11 AM | | | | | | Person
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Personal
It will get personal I am sure.
A public response to someone I love : I am writing to you here because I cannot bear to talk directly to you this morning after yesterday afternoon. Why would you even bother to present that view point to me? A little Trump, a little Bolsonaro, mixed with the same complete lack of intelligence, understanding or empathy. Tens of thousands of people are going to die for no good reason over the next few weeks just because we are not prepared, the end of April is so very far away. This is no flu, we have never had a coronavirus pandemic before, this is not some necessary event, it is no cull, no natural happening. Why do you seem to take such vindictive pleasure when you talk about what is coming for Americans? You do understand it is going to happen here as well, our health care system is going to suffer in the same way and we are going to suffer in the same way despite our best precautions. I don't understand how you can possibly look at the devastation of your human brethren in Italy and not be moved, fuck Tony is Italian, you have relatives living there, why so callous? Read just a little more than your Facebook world, no matter how much you want to fight, this isn't the time to do it, with anyone. No one is winning anything right now, no one. This virus is contagious, I don't need to read anything in the alt world to see the reality outweighs any other view, we are being hurt, all of us.
You are totally wrong about this and I don't care what you think right now. Suggesting or even hinting at complacency in the face of this tragedy is completely irresponsible. It will come to your doorstep exactly as it comes to every other doorstep.If it's comes to Danny's house he will die, as simple as that, why don't you understand, fuck, I am tearing up as I write this. Rox is terrified and I haven't even mentioned your call or the fact I yelled at you or that you hung up. If you don't want to be yelled at then stop and think about what you are saying. Sure 80% are fine, no problem at all, I agree, that's a fact, but for a moment imagine that this twenty percent isn't someone you dislike for whatever reason but imagine if it was one of yours.
I love you.
Take care of yourself and tighten your guard.
I know you are vulnerable.
I know your trying to make sense of this.
It isn't time coldness or complacency, encourage.
It isn't us and them, it is us.
I love you starshine, call me tonight, or tomorrow night or whenever, I will be out in the shed.
My youngest son was born on April 23, 1998. It is documented here on Silicon Investor and the date is of some significance to those of you who live here, we all remember Russell. I still hope that Brad and Jeff made out like bandits but leave that mystery as one I will never try to uncover, I hope they are well. I wish that Jill could have received the same bounty as she was a force to be reckoned with. The underlying assumptions about net discipline and net behaviour, in part, came about as a result of her excellent skills as an administrator of a band of digital baboons. The first true netizens were actually SItizens. As the net grew our underlying machinations and postures became symbolic and then archetypal. You cannot be here without being here and when we are here it is like being pre-loaded in the digital heart of the new land.
Jon Graystone is no myth, he is an actual person and he is in the city right now and still working. Just prior to the arrival of this crisis he took a job with a firm where I once worked. In fact he called home and told us the weird story of how he got hired. The interviewing manager asked him if he was from here, he said yes, he asked if he was related to me, he said yes, the manager told him he never thought he would get a chance to return the favour I had shown home so many years ago. So Jon is an essential worker and though he is very junior it is with a solid reliable firm. Since Jon is a RPGer and understand dicing odds I explained the crisis thusly; if you get infected you roll a 20D (20 sided dice) and anything over a 16 means you have a serious case. If you get a serious case, you have to roll again and you are hoping you don't get a 1 on that second roll because then you are a critical case. The second dice you roll is a function of your age, if you are over 80 it is 4D, 60 to 80, a 6D and so on. For people in Jon's age group that second roll is a 100D category. If you are in critical condition, which can be anyone of any age then your chances of survival are very much dependent on the medical care you are able to receive. That medical care will be unavailable in many places soon.
It is your personal battle to avoid infection for as long as possible. Stay home. Stay safe. Wash your hands. Use whatever resources you have available to help shield yourself and those for whom you care.
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| To: Graystone who wrote (1278) | 3/30/2020 5:30:09 PM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Yes, this is a math, not political or economic, problem. If there were enough hospital beds and personnel to handle the pandemic, it would be life as usual, buyer beware. But even if we had infinite beds and personnel, at some point "enough" of a workforce succumbs to the point a business is forced to close anyhow. To balance the two requires voluminous reliable data, and experienced statisticians to model it. We lack the former and for some reason dismiss and even discredit the latter.
At some point, by some combination of modeling and trial and error we'll have figured out this balance. People will go back to work en masse and the virus will flare up again en masse. But presumably there will be enough resources to handle a second surge and a much more reliable way to test and treat people. We'll create a new pandemic response team that then successfully stops potential pandemics before anyone notices them. Then some politicians will instead equate this dearth of noticeable pandemics to proof we no longer need such a team, disband it, we'll then get a pandemic, and these same politicians will argue "who could possibly have predicted this?" Rinse and repeat.
- Jeff |
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| To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (1279) | 3/31/2020 9:42:56 AM | | From: Graystone | | | | The end of the beginning
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The weighting game
Science Daily
Can moths and butterflies remember what they learned as caterpillars?
There is a movement afoot on the net to pretend that the coronavirus isn't real, people running out to take pictures of hospitals that aren't besieged yet and posting that as proof that Italy and Spain are just trying fool everyone and take control of all the cheese. My expectations in regards to the actions of others will likely not change a lot in the wake of this crisis, there will continue to be those who buy nodes, the Associates will always have business, there will always be readers who remember, I do hope you are well. The "at some point" is still some distance in the future and I look forward to that day with some anticipation. In between then and now there will be a lot more learned about how the hard black grit of suffering used by this new enemy affects the global health machinery and the body politic and where the body will end up on the battlefield and with what wounds. Where you actually are on this planet will affect your view of this battlefield a lot but we are all going to be changed as the fight erupts in our own bailiwick. This battle is far from over and the aftermath has not arrived for most. How do we remember this forever? Waiting is.
Are we going through a metamorphosis, is it a new game, have we entered a new level? Could we actually come out this crisis changed into something new? Is it really possible to create Jane and Dick, Costello and Abbot? We might need some new gear to take care of this type of cross over virus pandemic problem. An AI sounded the first alarm on the pandemic so perhaps creating a new organization directed by an AI would be a good idea, maybe we could call it Skynet or something catchy like that. The computer would have to be a real Colossus to take over the duties of monitoring the globe for threats. It is possible that we really don't know how memories are really stored or that a global mind doesn't really exist? We will have to wait and see. William Gibson coined the word cyberspace in 1982 in the novel Burning Chrome. From the word cyberspace we derived the word cybersphere but those have always been just words, there really never has been a sphere. Now the shaping of the cybersphere begins, it is in some ways a lot like glass blowing isn't it? The furnace turns on and the process begins. No one is yet discussing the massive transfer of wealth and influence that will follow this human tragedy and how those who suffered the greatest losses will act afterwards. I think that this change could be greater than people imagine, the loss here is costly. We are like the Romans encountering cavalry for the first time, we need to adapt our attitudes or we are all kodak. Waiting is. |
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| To: Graystone who wrote (1280) | 3/31/2020 3:33:08 PM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Could we actually come out this crisis changed into something new? Short answer: no.
It's because we all fall in different places on the scale of how we live our lives. We range from those who religiously plan in advance to those who just cross bridges when they come to them. From those who extrapolate from the experiences of others to those who only relate to stuff that actually happens to them. From those who think we have a measure of control over our lives to those who think our lives are preordained. Sure, short term we'll see people live differently, just like after 9/11. But I can't think of any experience that will change human nature.
- Jeff |
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