Dutch scientists contradict scientists on settled science...

[Ricketty C]

On Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 8:06:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

If it was as terrifyingly deadly as you and Ricky seem to think they
would all be dropping like flies now. The fact is that they are not.

You seem very confused. I\'ve never made claims of the likelihood of death from this disease. I simply try to refute the claims that the disease is harmless to the young.

Perhaps you are right and rather than try to prevent the spread of this disease in the under 50 crowd, we should actively promote it. Require everyone over 50 to stay at home during the months of August and September with adequate food supplies so they don\'t require any outside contact. Then require everyone under 50 to mix and mingle like they were at a Walmart black Friday sale. It won\'t take long for a very large portion of the population to become sick and reach the level of herd immunity.

If you want to work, you first have to contract the disease. If you want any form of public assistance, you have to contract the disease.

Yeah, we will lose another few hundred thousand, but we aren\'t preventing deaths anyway, so let\'s just rip the band aid off and get it over with. Just give those of us who feel threatened a chance to finish living our lives. Let a few of the terminally stupid die in our places.

--

Rick C.

-+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Martin Brown]

On 08/08/2020 14:06, Ricketty C wrote:

On Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 8:06:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

If it was as terrifyingly deadly as you and Ricky seem to think
they would all be dropping like flies now. The fact is that they
are not.

You seem very confused. I\'ve never made claims of the likelihood of
death from this disease. I simply try to refute the claims that the
disease is harmless to the young.

I\'m not saying it is harmless to the young either. It is about as
dangerous as driving in the USA for a couple of years but taken as a
single hit in a couple of weeks. IOW 50x more dangerous than driving a
car in the USA or 300x more dangerous than motoring in the UK.

Put another way depending on your age it is one or two orders of
magnitude more dangerous than seasonal flu (which is IFR ~0.1%).

https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-compare-influenza/

The National Lottery slogan \"It could be *YOU*\" has a lot to answer for.

Perhaps you are right and rather than try to prevent the spread of
this disease in the under 50 crowd, we should actively promote it.

Not promote it, but they have much less to fear from it than those of us
who are older. The total UK fatalities in the under 45\'s would be
considerably lower than those we have already experienced to date.

Unfortunately the hot summer weather and alcohol fuelled crowds packed
like sardines on the beaches are going to have that spreading effect
whatever either of *us* thinks is sensible. The cat is out of the bag.

Very similar infection rising problems all over Europe now.

Yeah, we will lose another few hundred thousand, but we aren\'t
preventing deaths anyway, so let\'s just rip the band aid off and get
it over with. Just give those of us who feel threatened a chance to
finish living our lives. Let a few of the terminally stupid die in
our places.

You are free to hide in your bunker forever, but don\'t insist that
everyone else must do the same because you are so utterly terrified that
you cannot think straight. I prefer to live rather than merely exist. YMMV

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[server]

On Sat, 8 Aug 2020 08:31:55 +0100, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 08/08/20 00:53, John Larkin wrote:
California cases seem to have peaked, with a PPM death total now about
half the US average and 1/6 of New York. By far most cases and deaths
have been in the far south, the LA area. California is BIG, about 800
miles from Mexico to Oregon. That\'s a long walk on the Pacific Crest
Trail.

Maybe, maybe not.

https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/32/18#subj15

You can choose to interpret that as either
- John is right and realistic that the data is suspect
- John is wrong and optimistic about it having peaked
... or both.

I\'m intellectually versatile. I don\'t mind being right and wrong at
the same time.

What I\'m not willing to do is be confident that I always know
everything, especially about this stupid virus.

But I am sure that the full PCT is a long walk.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3lc87o2k3jeuvxn/PCT_8K.jpg?raw=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dvqahftjni2ncgg/PCT_Sugar_Bowl.jpg?raw=1

Actually, I think the reason I was so exhausted hiking uphill at 8000
feet wasn\'t so much the oxygen density thing, but that I was still
whacked by the virus. It wiped me out for 2 or 3 months. I fell once
on the trail, which I don\'t often do. It affected my balance too.

It messed up my brain too; I wasn\'t designing very well or getting
much done. It\'s all better now. I had a breakthrough on a terrible
problem yesterday, and realized that it wasn\'t very complex at all,
one one\'s neurons are all firing.







--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 11:13:29 PM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:

On 07/08/2020 22:58, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Friday, August 7, 2020 at 10:57:11 AM UTC-4, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
Am 07.08.20 um 14:55 schrieb dagmarg...@yahoo.com:
On Tuesday, August 4, 2020 at 4:41:15 PM UTC-4, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
Am 04.08.20 um 22:10 schrieb John Larkin:

<snip>

I think this virus is sufficiently infectious and stealthy that it was
always going to be a global pandemic the only question was when not if.

Taiwan stopped it dead (or close to) and places like South Korea , Singapore and New Zealand have come close.

The way it has resurged in Australia after Bill was boasting how well
they had got it under control shows that this one will run and run.

Perhaps not. Victoria has now imposed stage four lockdown, and they are hoping that this will get the new case number down - at the moment they are more or less stable, if higher than anybody here likes, if low by US standards.

New South Wales - the state where I live - has enough leakage from Victoria to have about a dozen new cases a day. What\'s worrying the authorities is that about a third of these new cases haven\'t yet been traced back to a known case. 15+/-3% of Covid-19 infections don\'t produce symptoms, so this is bound to happen to some extent, but nobody likes it.

New Zealand might be small enough and sufficiently remote and well
policed to actually keep the virus out but they are an exception.

One of a number of \"exceptions\".

If lock-downs worked, the virus never would have left China.

It worked in the past for containing SARS1 and MERS. This one is just
good enough to escape from anything that we try to do to contain it.

And the virus had got out of China before Wuhan got properly locked down. James Arthur doesn\'t like the Chinese government - who does - but he does seem to feel the need to be dishonestly nasty about their performance,

If by \"we\" you mean the US and the UK, that does seem to be true. You clearly aren\'t trying hard enough.

Totalitarian states can impose much more draconian measures on their
citizens to obtain full compliance than we have in a Western democracy.
Although to be fair in the UK compliance was excellent until the great
Cummings exceptionalism and then it all went to hell in a handcart.

One rule for \"Them\" and another for everyone else.

That didn\'t help, but there were quite a few other faults in the UK approach. It hasn\'t been anything close to \"best practice\".

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sunday, August 9, 2020 at 1:26:19 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sat, 8 Aug 2020 08:31:55 +0100, Tom Gardner
spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 08/08/20 00:53, John Larkin wrote:

<snip>

I\'m intellectually versatile. I don\'t mind being right and wrong at
the same time.

But outside of electroncis you show a clear preference for being wrong

What I\'m not willing to do is be confident that I always know
everything, especially about this stupid virus.

And most of what you do think you know is wrong - \"bell curves\" - and you seem reluctant to realise it.

But I am sure that the full PCT is a long walk.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3lc87o2k3jeuvxn/PCT_8K.jpg?raw=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dvqahftjni2ncgg/PCT_Sugar_Bowl.jpg?raw=1

Actually, I think the reason I was so exhausted hiking uphill at 8000
feet wasn\'t so much the oxygen density thing, but that I was still
whacked by the virus.

Probably not Covid-19. You\'d like it have been, but wishful thinking isn\'t a great diagnostic tool.

It wiped me out for 2 or 3 months. I fell once
on the trail, which I don\'t often do. It affected my balance too.

If it had affected your sense of smell, the chance that it might have been Covid-19 would be a bit higher.

It messed up my brain too; I wasn\'t designing very well or getting
much done. It\'s all better now. I had a breakthrough on a terrible
problem yesterday, and realized that it wasn\'t very complex at all,
when one\'s neurons are all firing.

Both of them? You should have 86 billion of them, but most of yours are clearly fully occupied admiring your own brilliance.,

--
Bil Sloman, Sydney

 

[server]

On Sat, 8 Aug 2020 09:37:45 +0100, Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

I am fairly convinced that the optimum strategy would have been to lock
down for those over 45 and with health conditions to keep the situation
within manageable bounds for the hospitals. They are talking about doing
that now but it is being decried as ageist by the tabloid press.

That is about the optimal breakpoint in terms of minimising fatalities
and hospital admissions whilst building up herd immunity in the working
population. There will be some collateral damage to an unlucky few.

Right. The economy could limp along for a while without the wisdom of
the over-45 guiding things. They could still manage by email.

There is plenty of collateral damage going around now.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[server]

On Sat, 8 Aug 2020 04:01:39 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com>
wrote:

On Friday, August 7, 2020 at 9:34:43 PM UTC-7, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 06 Aug 2020 07:50:06 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

What if R is high but only among a fraction of the population?

R is defined on a population, statistically; cherry-picking inside that
population is NOT DEFINED. So, the \'among a fraction\' is magical thinking.

I\'m a design engineer. Magical thinking is my profession.

You seem to take everything hyper-literally. What a drag that must be.

I\'d expect that some people are born with pre-loaded defenses against
this virus. Some simple thinking about evolution practically demands
it.

This virus has evolved against those pre-loaded defenses. Your expectation
is contrary to experience. Fantasy is another word for that.

Species wage ongoing battles for survival. Our ancestors battled the
ancestors of this virus, and we are alive to show that they sometimes
won.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Ricketty C]

On Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 10:51:50 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

On 08/08/2020 14:06, Ricketty C wrote:
On Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 8:06:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

If it was as terrifyingly deadly as you and Ricky seem to think
they would all be dropping like flies now. The fact is that they
are not.

You seem very confused. I\'ve never made claims of the likelihood of
death from this disease. I simply try to refute the claims that the
disease is harmless to the young.

I\'m not saying it is harmless to the young either.

Many people do. They read statistics showing the distribution of fatalities and assume that the 20% of fatalities in younger people is insignificant. Then they use this as a base for a suggestion that anyone over age xx should hide from the disease and let it free range over the remainder as if there will be inconsequential casualties.

It is about as
dangerous as driving in the USA for a couple of years but taken as a
single hit in a couple of weeks. IOW 50x more dangerous than driving a
car in the USA or 300x more dangerous than motoring in the UK.

Those stats already factor in the fact that many *are* hiding from the disease. Imagine how high the risk would be if no one were taking precautions.

Put another way depending on your age it is one or two orders of
magnitude more dangerous than seasonal flu (which is IFR ~0.1%).

https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-compare-influenza/

The National Lottery slogan \"It could be *YOU*\" has a lot to answer for.

That\'s a great analogy to explain why so many are \"playing\" the Covid game. Many don\'t play the lottery because they know the chances of winning are slim. With Covid it\'s similar, but opposite. They don\'t take precautions because the rate of infection is still low in the sense of absolute risk. The problem is this behavior on a large scale amplifies the disease and causes it to spread.

Perhaps you are right and rather than try to prevent the spread of
this disease in the under 50 crowd, we should actively promote it.

Not promote it, but they have much less to fear from it than those of us
who are older. The total UK fatalities in the under 45\'s would be
considerably lower than those we have already experienced to date.

You misunderstand. The halfway measures of nearly every country is causing the disease to persist even if at a lower infection rate. By not fighting it in the US we probably would have a total infection count of 100 million before the end of April. By the end of May the disease would have reached a level promoting herd immunity, if that is possible. Today we would have a few lingering cases and everyone would be back at work.

The death toll would likely be around 5 million, 2 million directly from having been infected with no way to cure the disease and the rest as a result of the health care system being massively overwhelmed preventing the basic treatments that can help people get past this disease as well as people needlessly dying from other diseases that can\'t be treated since resources are finite.

An amazing image I saw yesterday was a video of the 1,000 bed hospital China built in Wuhan in just 10 days!!! I don\'t know anywhere in the world where that could have been done. Tesla makes a big deal of building a factory and pumping out cars in a year. Pffft! Musk pulled that off in China, let\'s see him do it elsewhere. I think it had more to do with the Chinese than Tesla.

It reminds me of a WWII quote of a captured German officer who said he realized Germany would lose the war when he saw the miles long lines of trucks bringing supplies to the front lines... something the Germans didn\'t have much.

Unfortunately the hot summer weather and alcohol fuelled crowds packed
like sardines on the beaches are going to have that spreading effect
whatever either of *us* thinks is sensible. The cat is out of the bag.

Very similar infection rising problems all over Europe now.

Yeah, we will lose another few hundred thousand, but we aren\'t
preventing deaths anyway, so let\'s just rip the band aid off and get
it over with. Just give those of us who feel threatened a chance to
finish living our lives. Let a few of the terminally stupid die in
our places.


You are free to hide in your bunker forever, but don\'t insist that
everyone else must do the same because you are so utterly terrified that
you cannot think straight. I prefer to live rather than merely exist. YMMV

That\'s what any number of now dead idiots said too. Most recant on their death beds.

You don\'t seem to realize dying of a morbid disease is not like driving over the cliff in Thelma and Louise or being suddenly shot in a hail of bullets in Bonnie and Clyde or even Jack Dawson\'s death in Titanic.

It\'s more like John Wayne\'s slow, agonizing death in The Shootist. Yeah, dying of this disease is much like dying a slow horrible death from cancer. I watched an uncle die of lung cancer once. His breathing eventually became so restricted that he was no longer conscious but his body continued to struggle to gasp for a tiny bit of air. That\'s how Nick Cordoba died of COVID-19.

So anyone who thinks we are over reacting to this disease, please volunteer to get infected and play the long, slow agonizing death lottery.

--

Rick C.

-++- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Joerg]

On 2020-08-05 14:34, Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2020-08-05, Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> wrote:

Monday again we had two new cases. I think for our county the virus is
pretty much done yet they keep us shut down (with some staunch
resistance, of course).

The incubation period is up to two weeks before symptoms develop, so
they need to persist for that long with no new unexplained cases to
avoid a very nasty surprise.

As can be seen in the graph I had posted we had peaked about three weeks
ago. Actually more like 4-5 weeks considering how long it takes for test
results to come back.

http://www.analogconsultants.com/ng/sed/COVID_1.jpg

It\'s been continuing at a mere trickle, 2-5 positive cases per day.

... After that they still need to keep
the borders with other places that are still infected closed, and
quarrantine arrivals and contacts of the known cases etc.

We didn\'t close any borders in El Dorado County, that\'s not our style.
Our case numbers would be much lower if it weren\'t for Silicon Valley
folks traveling up here and enjoying a more open lifestyle. So, not
surprisingly, more than 50% of the cases are at Lake Tahoe even thoough
that represents a small sliver of our population of about 200,000.
Because that\'s the destination for most out-of-towners. We can handle it.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[server]

On Sat, 08 Aug 2020 11:27:33 -0700, Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com>
wrote:

On 2020-08-05 14:34, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2020-08-05, Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> wrote:

Monday again we had two new cases. I think for our county the virus is
pretty much done yet they keep us shut down (with some staunch
resistance, of course).

The incubation period is up to two weeks before symptoms develop, so
they need to persist for that long with no new unexplained cases to
avoid a very nasty surprise.


As can be seen in the graph I had posted we had peaked about three weeks
ago. Actually more like 4-5 weeks considering how long it takes for test
results to come back.

http://www.analogconsultants.com/ng/sed/COVID_1.jpg

It\'s been continuing at a mere trickle, 2-5 positive cases per day.


... After that they still need to keep
the borders with other places that are still infected closed, and
quarrantine arrivals and contacts of the known cases etc.


We didn\'t close any borders in El Dorado County, that\'s not our style.
Our case numbers would be much lower if it weren\'t for Silicon Valley
folks traveling up here and enjoying a more open lifestyle. So, not
surprisingly, more than 50% of the cases are at Lake Tahoe even thoough
that represents a small sliver of our population of about 200,000.
Because that\'s the destination for most out-of-towners. We can handle it.

Tahoe used to be visited by mostly locals, but it has become an
international destination. Some idiot magazine put Truckee on the list
of the 10 best ski towns in the world, and things went to hell. Think
suites at the Ritz Carlton and $160 lift tickets. We see tons of
furriners now, talking funny, especially big Chinese families that
rent a cabin for a week or two and fall down a lot.

I\'m surprised that all that international visitation, late ski season,
didn\'t seed a giant corona outbreak. El Dorado and Nevada counties
each show 1 death so far; Sierra none.

Placer county, which touches the lake, shows 20, but I think that\'s
mostly on the Sacramento end.







--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 08/08/20 21:37, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

Tahoe used to be visited by mostly locals, but it has become an
international destination. Some idiot magazine put Truckee on the list
of the 10 best ski towns in the world, and things went to hell. Think
suites at the Ritz Carlton and $160 lift tickets. We see tons of
furriners now, talking funny, especially big Chinese families that
rent a cabin for a week or two and fall down a lot.

Dodging potholes makes the skiing more interesting.

But then I started skiing before piste machines existed,
when safety bindings were newfangled optional extras, and
boots were made of leather.

Back then you skied carefully and made sure you understood
the snow on the next moguls; none of this /boring/ powering
down the piste wherever you like. Much like the difference
between gliders/powered aircraft, or yacht/powerboat,
or bike/car.

Of course you saw the blood bath in action at least once
a day. Being a passenger in one was reputedly worse than
the accident itself

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sunday, August 9, 2020 at 2:22:04 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sat, 8 Aug 2020 04:01:39 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com
wrote:

On Friday, August 7, 2020 at 9:34:43 PM UTC-7, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 06 Aug 2020 07:50:06 -0700, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

What if R is high but only among a fraction of the population?

R is defined on a population, statistically; cherry-picking inside that
population is NOT DEFINED. So, the \'among a fraction\' is magical thinking.

I\'m a design engineer. Magical thinking is my profession.

John Larkin thinks that he is a design engineer. Anybody who actually is knows that magical thinking is a fatal error.

> You seem to take everything hyper-literally. What a drag that must be.

Getting stuff right does take an effort.

I\'d expect that some people are born with pre-loaded defenses against
this virus. Some simple thinking about evolution practically demands
it.

This virus has evolved against those pre-loaded defenses. Your expectation
is contrary to experience. Fantasy is another word for that.

Species wage ongoing battles for survival. Our ancestors battled the
ancestors of this virus, and we are alive to show that they sometimes
won.

Our ancestors got lucky. Our much more numerous non-ancestors didn\'t.
Global extinction have killed of 95% of the species around at the time. That\'s entire populations. It helps to be small and numerous. Nothing that weighed more than a couple of kilograms survived the asteroid impact that finished off the dinosaurs.

The battle for survival is waged on a lot of fronts. Adaptions that kept your ancestors alive when the asteroid hit probably won\'t be much help against Covid-19.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[server]

On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 00:00:24 +0100, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 08/08/20 21:37, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Tahoe used to be visited by mostly locals, but it has become an
international destination. Some idiot magazine put Truckee on the list
of the 10 best ski towns in the world, and things went to hell. Think
suites at the Ritz Carlton and $160 lift tickets. We see tons of
furriners now, talking funny, especially big Chinese families that
rent a cabin for a week or two and fall down a lot.

Dodging potholes makes the skiing more interesting.

But then I started skiing before piste machines existed,
when safety bindings were newfangled optional extras, and
boots were made of leather.

I have dodgy ankles, so the rigid plastic high-rise boots are great.
I\'d like to try skateboarding but that would end badly.

Back then you skied carefully and made sure you understood
the snow on the next moguls; none of this /boring/ powering
down the piste wherever you like.

If you go fast enough, sometimes backwards, it\'s not boring. Features
are fun too.

Much like the difference
between gliders/powered aircraft, or yacht/powerboat,
or bike/car.

Of course you saw the blood bath in action at least once
a day. Being a passenger in one was reputedly worse than
the accident itself

My cousin, the jet fighter pilot, came down a couple of thousand feet
in the meat wagon last year. I carried his skis down for him. He
wasn\'t hurt much... his bindings just exploded. Big guy, lots of
stress. Back up after lunch.

Skiing isn\'t really very dangerous.

Any ordinary vacation, like a beach or something, I keep thinking
about stuff. Skiing is totally absorbing, an entirely different world,
and you can do it all day.







--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 09/08/20 01:47, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 00:00:24 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 08/08/20 21:37, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Tahoe used to be visited by mostly locals, but it has become an
international destination. Some idiot magazine put Truckee on the list
of the 10 best ski towns in the world, and things went to hell. Think
suites at the Ritz Carlton and $160 lift tickets. We see tons of
furriners now, talking funny, especially big Chinese families that
rent a cabin for a week or two and fall down a lot.

Dodging potholes makes the skiing more interesting.

But then I started skiing before piste machines existed,
when safety bindings were newfangled optional extras, and
boots were made of leather.

I have dodgy ankles, so the rigid plastic high-rise boots are great.

The plastic boots are a wonderful invention. Mine are
(or were since I\'ve given up skiing) strange old Salomon
\"rear entry\" boots with two very sensible adjustments:
- a novel clamp which tightens a wire running from one
side of the heel, across the front of the ankle, to
the other side of the heel. This kept the foot from
sliding around in the boot.
- a conventional clamp around the shin. When partially
released it enables easy /normal/ walking in the boot.

But plastic boots aren\'t all good. They transmit all the
forces to \"god\'s mistake\", so now there are many ACL and
other knee injuries.

Bones heal well; soft tissue doesn\'t.


> I\'d like to try skateboarding but that would end badly.

Yup.

Back then you skied carefully and made sure you understood
the snow on the next moguls; none of this /boring/ powering
down the piste wherever you like.

If you go fast enough, sometimes backwards, it\'s not boring. Features
are fun too.

Back then every run was /full/ of features, and they
got more pronounced every day until the next snowfall.

To avoid broken ankles, you frequently stopped, assessed
the moguls, and plotted your path through round and
over them.

There was no option: beginners were given \"racing length\"
skis up to their wrist, which didn\'t play well with
loosely fitting flexible leather boots.

Much like the difference
between gliders/powered aircraft, or yacht/powerboat,
or bike/car.

Of course you saw the blood bath in action at least once
a day. Being a passenger in one was reputedly worse than
the accident itself


My cousin, the jet fighter pilot, came down a couple of thousand feet
in the meat wagon last year. I carried his skis down for him. He
wasn\'t hurt much... his bindings just exploded. Big guy, lots of
stress. Back up after lunch.

Skiing isn\'t really very dangerous.

My daughter and I watched someone die at Breckenridge.
A local man fell, slid, made a memorable \"crump\" as he
hit a water cannon, and didn\'t move. I called out the
blood bath when our chairlift reached the top.

Any ordinary vacation, like a beach or something, I keep thinking
about stuff.

Yes. I can sit on a beach for a day or so, then I\'m off
using local busses to explore local towns, or off on the
train to another destination.

Skiing is totally absorbing, an entirely different world,
and you can do it all day.

Gliding is intense relaxed concentration, very similar
to skiing except it can be done locally.

 

[server]

On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 06:57:04 +0100, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 09/08/20 01:47, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 00:00:24 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 08/08/20 21:37, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Tahoe used to be visited by mostly locals, but it has become an
international destination. Some idiot magazine put Truckee on the list
of the 10 best ski towns in the world, and things went to hell. Think
suites at the Ritz Carlton and $160 lift tickets. We see tons of
furriners now, talking funny, especially big Chinese families that
rent a cabin for a week or two and fall down a lot.

Dodging potholes makes the skiing more interesting.

But then I started skiing before piste machines existed,
when safety bindings were newfangled optional extras, and
boots were made of leather.

I have dodgy ankles, so the rigid plastic high-rise boots are great.

The plastic boots are a wonderful invention. Mine are
(or were since I\'ve given up skiing) strange old Salomon
\"rear entry\" boots with two very sensible adjustments:
- a novel clamp which tightens a wire running from one
side of the heel, across the front of the ankle, to
the other side of the heel. This kept the foot from
sliding around in the boot.
- a conventional clamp around the shin. When partially
released it enables easy /normal/ walking in the boot.

Not to change the subject (not me!) but I finally needed new boots
early this year, to replace my ancient Nordica rear-entry ones. I went
to a super fitter shop and tried on a bunch of trendy boots. They have
a zillion latches and toggles and adjustments and velcro things and
are impossible or painful to put on or take off. The guy finally
rolled his eyes and went out back and returned with a new pair of...
Nordica rear-entries! Super comfy! I didn\'t know they still made them.
Now my problem is amusing myself while everyone else is struggling to
get their boots on or off.

I think some people, maybe most people, are impressed by complexity,
in cars, microwave ovens, washer/dryers, phones, thermostats, function
generators. I hate all that junk. Too many hidden states.

But plastic boots aren\'t all good. They transmit all the
forces to \"god\'s mistake\", so now there are many ACL and
other knee injuries.

Bones heal well; soft tissue doesn\'t.

Right. One cousin blew his knee apart, racing 60 MPH past his age, and
has missed two seasons so far. Several surgeries, crutches for 6
months. He might try the bunny hill this year, if skiing is allowed. I
tweaked my knee pretty hard at Squaw (I HATE Squaw) but I think it\'s
OK now.

I\'d like to try skateboarding but that would end badly.

Yup.


Back then you skied carefully and made sure you understood
the snow on the next moguls; none of this /boring/ powering
down the piste wherever you like.

If you go fast enough, sometimes backwards, it\'s not boring. Features
are fun too.

Back then every run was /full/ of features, and they
got more pronounced every day until the next snowfall.

To avoid broken ankles, you frequently stopped, assessed
the moguls, and plotted your path through round and
over them.

Too much thinking!

There was no option: beginners were given \"racing length\"
skis up to their wrist, which didn\'t play well with
loosely fitting flexible leather boots.

Bumper sticker

SHORT SKIS SUCK
SAVE ASPEN MOUNTAIN

(I learned to ski in Aspen. The snow wasn\'t as good in New Orleans.)

Much like the difference
between gliders/powered aircraft, or yacht/powerboat,
or bike/car.

Of course you saw the blood bath in action at least once
a day. Being a passenger in one was reputedly worse than
the accident itself


My cousin, the jet fighter pilot, came down a couple of thousand feet
in the meat wagon last year. I carried his skis down for him. He
wasn\'t hurt much... his bindings just exploded. Big guy, lots of
stress. Back up after lunch.

Skiing isn\'t really very dangerous.

My daughter and I watched someone die at Breckenridge.
A local man fell, slid, made a memorable \"crump\" as he
hit a water cannon, and didn\'t move. I called out the
blood bath when our chairlift reached the top.


Any ordinary vacation, like a beach or something, I keep thinking
about stuff.

Yes. I can sit on a beach for a day or so, then I\'m off
using local busses to explore local towns, or off on the
train to another destination.


Skiing is totally absorbing, an entirely different world,
and you can do it all day.

Gliding is intense relaxed concentration, very similar
to skiing except it can be done locally.

I tried parachuting, but the duty cycle was absurd. At great expense
(and risk) you might actually do it for 10 minutes per day.

There is some very good gliding near the Sierra peaks. Good updrafts.
That\'s why we get so much snow, and why Nevada is so dry.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Joerg]

On 2020-08-09 07:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 06:57:04 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 09/08/20 01:47, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

[...]

Skiing isn\'t really very dangerous.

My daughter and I watched someone die at Breckenridge.
A local man fell, slid, made a memorable \"crump\" as he
hit a water cannon, and didn\'t move. I called out the
blood bath when our chairlift reached the top.

Our insurance agent almost died. He hit a tree. The tree won.

Any ordinary vacation, like a beach or something, I keep thinking
about stuff.

Yes. I can sit on a beach for a day or so, then I\'m off
using local busses to explore local towns, or off on the
train to another destination.


Skiing is totally absorbing, an entirely different world,
and you can do it all day.

Gliding is intense relaxed concentration, very similar
to skiing except it can be done locally.

I tried parachuting, but the duty cycle was absurd. At great expense
(and risk) you might actually do it for 10 minutes per day.

Not if you open up three seconds after the exit once in a while. The
others thought it was foolish to waste all this freefall fun but once in
a while I just wanted to \"soar\", find thermals and all that. Especially
if the pilot would drop us above 16,000 ft. Which, of course, wasn\'t
100% legit sans oxygen but fun.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

[server]

On Sun, 09 Aug 2020 08:46:20 -0700, Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com>
wrote:

On 2020-08-09 07:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 06:57:04 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 09/08/20 01:47, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

[...]


Skiing isn\'t really very dangerous.

My daughter and I watched someone die at Breckenridge.
A local man fell, slid, made a memorable \"crump\" as he
hit a water cannon, and didn\'t move. I called out the
blood bath when our chairlift reached the top.


Our insurance agent almost died. He hit a tree. The tree won.


Any ordinary vacation, like a beach or something, I keep thinking
about stuff.

Yes. I can sit on a beach for a day or so, then I\'m off
using local busses to explore local towns, or off on the
train to another destination.


Skiing is totally absorbing, an entirely different world,
and you can do it all day.

Gliding is intense relaxed concentration, very similar
to skiing except it can be done locally.

I tried parachuting, but the duty cycle was absurd. At great expense
(and risk) you might actually do it for 10 minutes per day.


Not if you open up three seconds after the exit once in a while. The
others thought it was foolish to waste all this freefall fun but once in
a while I just wanted to \"soar\", find thermals and all that. Especially
if the pilot would drop us above 16,000 ft. Which, of course, wasn\'t
100% legit sans oxygen but fun.

[...]

I only made a few static jumps, from 3000\' or so, and the view was
cool, but it didn\'t seem to last long. How long does it take from 16K
feet?

I guess a wing-type chute could soar for a while. What\'s the glide
slope like on a good chute?



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 09/08/20 15:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 06:57:04 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 09/08/20 01:47, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 00:00:24 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 08/08/20 21:37, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Tahoe used to be visited by mostly locals, but it has become an
international destination. Some idiot magazine put Truckee on the list
of the 10 best ski towns in the world, and things went to hell. Think
suites at the Ritz Carlton and $160 lift tickets. We see tons of
furriners now, talking funny, especially big Chinese families that
rent a cabin for a week or two and fall down a lot.

Dodging potholes makes the skiing more interesting.

But then I started skiing before piste machines existed,
when safety bindings were newfangled optional extras, and
boots were made of leather.

I have dodgy ankles, so the rigid plastic high-rise boots are great.

The plastic boots are a wonderful invention. Mine are
(or were since I\'ve given up skiing) strange old Salomon
\"rear entry\" boots with two very sensible adjustments:
- a novel clamp which tightens a wire running from one
side of the heel, across the front of the ankle, to
the other side of the heel. This kept the foot from
sliding around in the boot.
- a conventional clamp around the shin. When partially
released it enables easy /normal/ walking in the boot.


Not to change the subject (not me!) but I finally needed new boots
early this year, to replace my ancient Nordica rear-entry ones. I went
to a super fitter shop and tried on a bunch of trendy boots. They have
a zillion latches and toggles and adjustments and velcro things and
are impossible or painful to put on or take off. The guy finally
rolled his eyes and went out back and returned with a new pair of...
Nordica rear-entries! Super comfy! I didn\'t know they still made them.
Now my problem is amusing myself while everyone else is struggling to
get their boots on or off.

Just so.

Looking at fleabay (which is easier than excavating my attic),
it looks like mine are Salomon sx31. That low number hints
at the age!

I think some people, maybe most people, are impressed by complexity,
in cars, microwave ovens, washer/dryers, phones, thermostats, function
generators. I hate all that junk. Too many hidden states.

I tolerate complexity where I understand what is being
controlled, and that the controls are orthogonal.

The sx31 adjustments are orthogonal and comprehensible

But plastic boots aren\'t all good. They transmit all the
forces to \"god\'s mistake\", so now there are many ACL and
other knee injuries.

Bones heal well; soft tissue doesn\'t.

Right. One cousin blew his knee apart, racing 60 MPH past his age, and
has missed two seasons so far. Several surgeries, crutches for 6
months. He might try the bunny hill this year, if skiing is allowed. I
tweaked my knee pretty hard at Squaw (I HATE Squaw) but I think it\'s
OK now.

Yes.

I, somewhat foolishly, got myself off the mountain with a
loose knee, was flown home. The French would have operated
immediately. The English attitude was \"see what it is like
after 6 weeks in plaster\".

I escaped an operation by the skin of my teeth, that time.
Not so when I snapped my patellar tendon outside my house.

Back then you skied carefully and made sure you understood
the snow on the next moguls; none of this /boring/ powering
down the piste wherever you like.

If you go fast enough, sometimes backwards, it\'s not boring. Features
are fun too.

Back then every run was /full/ of features, and they
got more pronounced every day until the next snowfall.

To avoid broken ankles, you frequently stopped, assessed
the moguls, and plotted your path through round and
over them.

Too much thinking!

No option, back then.

I still like having to modify my actions based on what
the conditions will allow. It is more interesting than
simply powering down yet another identical piste-bashed
run, thinking of something else.

Skiing is totally absorbing, an entirely different world,
and you can do it all day.

Gliding is intense relaxed concentration, very similar
to skiing except it can be done locally.

I tried parachuting, but the duty cycle was absurd. At great expense
(and risk) you might actually do it for 10 minutes per day.

I did half a dozen solo static line jumps from 3kft. The
first 4 seconds were interesting, then it was a slow video
game where I never landed more than 20m from the bullseye.

The sixth jump was the same as the second, and I realised
that if I persevered I would eventually be able to hold
someone\'s hand for a few seconds.

There is some very good gliding near the Sierra peaks. Good updrafts.
That\'s why we get so much snow, and why Nevada is so dry.

If you have updrafts, you have downdrafts. Rotor shouldn\'t
be forgotten.

Sometimes the sky treats you like a homesick angel, sometimes
it just spits you out. Unlandable mountain terrain concentrates
the mind.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 09/08/20 16:46, Joerg wrote:

On 2020-08-09 07:34, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 06:57:04 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 09/08/20 01:47, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Skiing is totally absorbing, an entirely different world,
and you can do it all day.

Gliding is intense relaxed concentration, very similar
to skiing except it can be done locally.

I tried parachuting, but the duty cycle was absurd. At great expense
(and risk) you might actually do it for 10 minutes per day.


Not if you open up three seconds after the exit once in a while. The others
thought it was foolish to waste all this freefall fun but once in a while I just
wanted to \"soar\", find thermals and all that. Especially if the pilot would drop
us above 16,000 ft. Which, of course, wasn\'t 100% legit sans oxygen but fun.

No (planned) freefall for me at 3kft

Oxygen recommended above 10kft, mandatory above 12kft,
but I\'m sure you know that!

ISTR a paragliding contest in the Phillipines where the
contestants found too much updraft, and quite a few were
turned into corpsicles (to borrow a phrase from Larry
Niven).

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 09/08/20 18:20, Tom Gardner wrote:

Looking at fleabay (which is easier than excavating my attic),
it looks like mine are Salomon sx31. That low number hints
at the age!

I irked myself.

They are sx50, announced in Dec 83.
https://skiads.com/for-sale/ski-snowboard-boots/salomon-sx50-lady-size-300-ski-boots-5781.html

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xskxzQ2I784C&pg=RA1-PA171&lpg=RA1-PA171&dq=salomon+sx50+introduction&source=bl&ots=ZtdqjjNS7h&sig=ACfU3U1ac2Fjb8418U5PpsDxoCHgG1tesg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw74je1Y7rAhVGT8AKHWLZC0cQ6AEwDHoECAAQAQ

The sx50 on fleabay are mislabeled something else - unless the
sx50 is prominent on the side.