Dutch scientists contradict scientists on settled science...

[Ricketty C]

On Saturday, August 15, 2020 at 3:02:11 PM UTC-4, Joerg wrote:

On 2020-08-14 16:20, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 14/08/20 21:41, Joerg wrote:
On 2020-08-14 13:04, Tom Gardner wrote:

My parents said \"Oh, byeeee\", and exited right. They too
landed OK - after an appalling journey because the
ship\'s stabilisers failed in a storm.


Oops ...

I once had a trip across the channel to the UK, very rough seas. A
crew member mumbled \"S..t, we shouldn\'t have sailed in this bloody
storm\". People hanging over the railing in the process of food intake
reversal. Long lines at the bathrooms, some folks couldn\'t hold it
anymore, awful stench. So I went to the cantina, paid for one meal and
they said \"Eat whatever you want, as much as you want, it\'ll all go to
waste anyhow!\". Woohoo!

I don\'t ever /remember/ having a rough time on a ship.
I\'ve always wondered what it felt like to be seasick.


Same here, I just do not become sea-sick or air-sick.

I have not been seasick either, but I don\'t have to wonder what nausea feels like and I don\'t say \"I don\'t get seasick\". I just say I haven\'t been seasick yet.

A previous manager was on a boat from Santander in Spain
to the UK. Ten minutes out of port waves were breaking
across the bridge.

You could have food, (but not soup!) and you had to take it
to from the galley to the table yourself.

I\'ve had two occasions when I felt mildly seasick. Once
was on a funfair ride, going up and down in a circle - no
problem until I turned my head sideways. The other was in
a glider known as the \"vomit comet\", due to the P1\'s
vigorous dolphining. Again, no problem until I turned my head
sideways.

Dolphining is putting the nose down to fly fast through
sink, then when you find lift you stay in it for longer
by pointing the nose up at 45 degrees until you have slowed
down.

None of this \"straight and level\" tedium you have in
powered aircraft, oh no.


My most fun flight was in a Boeing Stearman with a souped-up engine. The
pilot asked whether some aerobatics would be ok with me. \"Well, I did
parachuting before so I guess, yeah\" ... \"Alright! Let\'s go south of Hwy
50 just in case we auger in\" ... and the fun began. At the end he let me
fly it back to the airport. I don\'t have a pilot\'s license but he was
watching.

I think that would be fun. Well, not the prospect of augering in, but the supervised flying. I think solo would be a bit much. I guess I could learn eventually, but it\'s a pretty lengthy learning process.

--

Rick C.

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

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 16/08/20 00:28, Ricketty C wrote:

I think that would be fun. Well, not the prospect of augering in, but the supervised flying. I think solo would be a bit much. I guess I could learn eventually, but it\'s a pretty lengthy learning process.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 16/08/20 00:28, Ricketty C wrote:
> I think that would be fun. Well, not the prospect of augering in, but the supervised flying. I think solo would be a bit much. I guess I could learn eventually, but it\'s a pretty lengthy learning process.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 16/08/20 00:28, Ricketty C wrote:

I think that would be fun. Well, not the prospect of augering in, but the
supervised flying. I think solo would be a bit much. I guess I could learn
eventually, but it\'s a pretty lengthy learning process.

Learning to fly gliders is about as difficult as learning
to drive a car. You can start at 12 and go solo at 14, if
the instructors think you are safe.

Over here, the medical requirements are pretty much the
same as those for driving a car, and the cost to go solo
is about the same as learning to drive a car.

I took 5 months of weekend flying to go solo when I was 50.
Rules of thumb are 50-100 winch launches or 30+Y, where Y
is your age in years.

So go and book yourself a trial lesson.

 

[Gerhard Hoffmann]

Am 16.08.20 um 01:26 schrieb Tom Gardner:

On 15/08/20 20:02, Joerg wrote:

I\'ve had two occasions when I felt mildly seasick. Once
was on a funfair ride, going up and down in a circle - no
problem until I turned my head sideways. The other was in
a glider known as the \"vomit comet\", due to the P1\'s
vigorous dolphining. Again, no problem until I turned my head
sideways.

Dolphining is putting the nose down to fly fast through
sink, then when you find lift you stay in it for longer
by pointing the nose up at 45 degrees until you have slowed
down.

None of this \"straight and level\" tedium you have in
powered aircraft, oh no.


My most fun flight was in a Boeing Stearman with a souped-up engine.
The pilot asked whether some aerobatics would be ok with me. \"Well, I
did parachuting before so I guess, yeah\" ... \"Alright! Let\'s go south
of Hwy 50 just in case we auger in\" ... and the fun began. At the end
he let me fly it back to the airport. I don\'t have a pilot\'s license
but he was watching.

/All/ glider flights are like that, to some extent

Launch is 0-50 in 5s, then climb with your feet higher than
your head. If the cable breaks, you go over the top at 0G to
avoid stalling.

Tight thermalling pulls 3G, so your cheeks sag towards your feet.

Too high and want to get down quickly for a pee? Deliberately
spin down at 100ft/s.

For real entertainment and to scare the pants off a powered pilot,
enter a spin at 1000ft

And after all that we could consider the gliders *designed*
for aerobatics. The Fox is rated to +9G, -6G, and they tumble
through the air as well as any fighter
https://youtu.be/_zdOfhpe6rQ?t=55 (don\'t bother will all of it)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VbOJWYnyWE (only 16s)

I once took lessons with a teacher who was a former GDR agrar pilot.
The kind of people who fly all day long at 5 meters above ground
to deploy their herbicides etc.

We did steep circles with maybe 30 meters of air below the wing tip.
Teacher\'s comment: \"You see you can do that. Nothing special. It
just takes a little bit of precision.\"

I also suffered an outside looping with someone else in a glider.
Not my cup of meat.

My paragliding experience is limited to one flight in Nepals.
There is a school in Phokara at the Pewa lake. It turned out
that the world is small and the school owner and me had common
friends in Kempten, Allgäu, south Germany. In the Monsun time
when Nepals is dead she flies Chinese and Japanese tourists
around Neuschwanstein.

<
https://get.google.com/albumarchive/103357048842463945642/album/AF1QipMYBHQTwzbh2wCIPDXe5LVF6KqYaGG8NZWdYlAG/AF1QipMgNpFQaktc2o8n0hkK5wbOjhN5MVGOeF5npNAA
>

On the left in the dust is the Annapurna.
The 2nd picture to the right might be of interest to the inhabitants
of this group.

Gerhard

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-08-15 15:02, Joerg wrote:

On 2020-08-14 16:20, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 14/08/20 21:41, Joerg wrote:
On 2020-08-14 13:04, Tom Gardner wrote:

My parents said \"Oh, byeeee\", and exited right. They too
landed OK - after an appalling journey because the
ship\'s stabilisers failed in a storm.


Oops ...

I once had a trip across the channel to the UK, very rough seas. A
crew member mumbled \"S..t, we shouldn\'t have sailed in this bloody
storm\". People hanging over the railing in the process of food intake
reversal. Long lines at the bathrooms, some folks couldn\'t hold it
anymore, awful stench. So I went to the cantina, paid for one meal and
they said \"Eat whatever you want, as much as you want, it\'ll all go to
waste anyhow!\". Woohoo!

I don\'t ever /remember/ having a rough time on a ship.
I\'ve always wondered what it felt like to be seasick.


Same here, I just do not become sea-sick or air-sick.


A previous manager was on a boat from Santander in Spain
to the UK. Ten minutes out of port waves were breaking
across the bridge.

You could have food, (but not soup!) and you had to take it
to from the galley to the table yourself.

I\'ve had two occasions when I felt mildly seasick. Once
was on a funfair ride, going up and down in a circle - no
problem until I turned my head sideways. The other was in
a glider known as the \"vomit comet\", due to the P1\'s
vigorous dolphining. Again, no problem until I turned my head
sideways.

Dolphining is putting the nose down to fly fast through
sink, then when you find lift you stay in it for longer
by pointing the nose up at 45 degrees until you have slowed
down.

None of this \"straight and level\" tedium you have in
powered aircraft, oh no.


My most fun flight was in a Boeing Stearman with a souped-up engine. The
pilot asked whether some aerobatics would be ok with me. \"Well, I did
parachuting before so I guess, yeah\" ... \"Alright! Let\'s go south of Hwy
50 just in case we auger in\" ... and the fun began. At the end he let me
fly it back to the airport. I don\'t have a pilot\'s license but he was
watching.

On that trip to the North with my Dad that I was talking about on the
\"connectors for high-vibration environments\" thread, the local Cominco
folks hired a bush pilot to fly us from Hay River to Yellowknife,
across Great Slave Lake.(*) The plane was a two-engine Piper Apache
with dual controls.

It was late June 1972, and the ice was just breaking up--the whole
surface of this huge lake was covered with ice pans. I was sitting in
the right hand seat, and the pilot asked me if I wanted to fly the
plane. (I was 12.) He showed me how to hold altitude, attitude, and
heading, forbade me to touch the pedals, and then pretended to look out
the side window for the next hour or so.

Bush pilots have to have brass balls anyway, but if this one wasn\'t also
a dad, he would have made a very good one. He sure was encouraging to me.

That night I played touch football with a group of local kids till after
midnight, in bright though low-angled sunshine. Of course we had to
dodge the mosquitoes--up there they\'re so big that it takes just one to
turn you into an Egyptian mummy. If you get cornered, your only hope of
escape is if two of them fight over you.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

(*) The reference is to local indigenous tribes\' names for each other,
lest anyone imagine cotton plantations above the Arctic Circle.

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[server]

On Sat, 15 Aug 2020 22:16:13 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

That night I played touch football with a group of local kids till after
midnight, in bright though low-angled sunshine. Of course we had to
dodge the mosquitoes--up there they\'re so big that it takes just one to
turn you into an Egyptian mummy. If you get cornered, your only hope of
escape is if two of them fight over you.

\"The most deadly animal in the world.\"



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Saturday, August 15, 2020 at 10:16:20 PM UTC-4, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-08-15 15:02, Joerg wrote:
On 2020-08-14 16:20, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 14/08/20 21:41, Joerg wrote:
On 2020-08-14 13:04, Tom Gardner wrote:

My parents said \"Oh, byeeee\", and exited right. They too
landed OK - after an appalling journey because the
ship\'s stabilisers failed in a storm.


Oops ...

I once had a trip across the channel to the UK, very rough seas. A
crew member mumbled \"S..t, we shouldn\'t have sailed in this bloody
storm\". People hanging over the railing in the process of food intake
reversal. Long lines at the bathrooms, some folks couldn\'t hold it
anymore, awful stench. So I went to the cantina, paid for one meal and
they said \"Eat whatever you want, as much as you want, it\'ll all go to
waste anyhow!\". Woohoo!

I don\'t ever /remember/ having a rough time on a ship.
I\'ve always wondered what it felt like to be seasick.


Same here, I just do not become sea-sick or air-sick.


A previous manager was on a boat from Santander in Spain
to the UK. Ten minutes out of port waves were breaking
across the bridge.

You could have food, (but not soup!) and you had to take it
to from the galley to the table yourself.

I\'ve had two occasions when I felt mildly seasick. Once
was on a funfair ride, going up and down in a circle - no
problem until I turned my head sideways. The other was in
a glider known as the \"vomit comet\", due to the P1\'s
vigorous dolphining. Again, no problem until I turned my head
sideways.

Dolphining is putting the nose down to fly fast through
sink, then when you find lift you stay in it for longer
by pointing the nose up at 45 degrees until you have slowed
down.

None of this \"straight and level\" tedium you have in
powered aircraft, oh no.


My most fun flight was in a Boeing Stearman with a souped-up engine. The
pilot asked whether some aerobatics would be ok with me. \"Well, I did
parachuting before so I guess, yeah\" ... \"Alright! Let\'s go south of Hwy
50 just in case we auger in\" ... and the fun began. At the end he let me
fly it back to the airport. I don\'t have a pilot\'s license but he was
watching.

On that trip to the North with my Dad that I was talking about on the
\"connectors for high-vibration environments\" thread, the local Cominco
folks hired a bush pilot to fly us from Hay River to Yellowknife,
across Great Slave Lake.(*) The plane was a two-engine Piper Apache
with dual controls.

It was late June 1972, and the ice was just breaking up--the whole
surface of this huge lake was covered with ice pans. I was sitting in
the right hand seat, and the pilot asked me if I wanted to fly the
plane. (I was 12.) He showed me how to hold altitude, attitude, and
heading, forbade me to touch the pedals, and then pretended to look out
the side window for the next hour or so.

Bush pilots have to have brass balls anyway, but if this one wasn\'t also
a dad, he would have made a very good one. He sure was encouraging to me..

That night I played touch football with a group of local kids till after
midnight, in bright though low-angled sunshine. Of course we had to
dodge the mosquitoes--up there they\'re so big that it takes just one to
turn you into an Egyptian mummy. If you get cornered, your only hope of
escape is if two of them fight over you.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

(*) The reference is to local indigenous tribes\' names for each other,
lest anyone imagine cotton plantations above the Arctic Circle.

They used to joke about installing Anti-aircraft guns at the landing field at Ft Greely to stop the mosquitoes from trying to mate with the Huey Helicopters.

One morning the guy who drove the fuel truck their at night looked like crap. I asked what happened to him. He replied, \"I pumped 1500 gallons of fuel into a mosquito last night, by mistake.\"

Did you ever fly on any planes built by Aeronca? They were built in my home town. They also developed the honeycomb steel used as heat shields for our early space program. They were located right next to the city\'s airport, which made it easy to test new planes.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 16/08/20 01:34, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:

Am 16.08.20 um 01:26 schrieb Tom Gardner:
On 15/08/20 20:02, Joerg wrote:

I\'ve had two occasions when I felt mildly seasick. Once
was on a funfair ride, going up and down in a circle - no
problem until I turned my head sideways. The other was in
a glider known as the \"vomit comet\", due to the P1\'s
vigorous dolphining. Again, no problem until I turned my head
sideways.

Dolphining is putting the nose down to fly fast through
sink, then when you find lift you stay in it for longer
by pointing the nose up at 45 degrees until you have slowed
down.

None of this \"straight and level\" tedium you have in
powered aircraft, oh no.


My most fun flight was in a Boeing Stearman with a souped-up engine. The
pilot asked whether some aerobatics would be ok with me. \"Well, I did
parachuting before so I guess, yeah\" ... \"Alright! Let\'s go south of Hwy 50
just in case we auger in\" ... and the fun began. At the end he let me fly it
back to the airport. I don\'t have a pilot\'s license but he was watching.

/All/ glider flights are like that, to some extent

Launch is 0-50 in 5s, then climb with your feet higher than
your head. If the cable breaks, you go over the top at 0G to
avoid stalling.

Tight thermalling pulls 3G, so your cheeks sag towards your feet.

Too high and want to get down quickly for a pee? Deliberately
spin down at 100ft/s.

For real entertainment and to scare the pants off a powered pilot,
enter a spin at 1000ft

And after all that we could consider the gliders *designed*
for aerobatics. The Fox is rated to +9G, -6G, and they tumble
through the air as well as any fighter
https://youtu.be/_zdOfhpe6rQ?t=55 (don\'t bother will all of it)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VbOJWYnyWE (only 16s)

I once took lessons with a teacher who was a former GDR agrar pilot.
The kind of people who fly all day long at 5 meters above ground
to deploy their herbicides etc.

Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXrBDGu3UG0
N. Scotland, so those pines are small.
No engine to recover from mistakes

I always thought it would be more fun to fly an A10 than
an F15

We did steep circles with maybe 30 meters of air below the wing tip.
Teacher\'s comment: \"You see you can do that. Nothing special. It
just takes a little bit of precision.\"

But it is also standard practice when ridge soaring, where
you have <30m of air off your wingtip and sheep eyeball you
as you whizz past.

Nearby ridge (short) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U0Np1Laxy4

I\'ve done such a turn after a cable break. The instructor marked
it \"OK but exciting\"

I also suffered an outside looping with someone else in a glider.
Not my cup of meat.

Quite. Most pilots exhale deeply after doing that.

My paragliding experience is limited to one flight in Nepals.
There is a school in Phokara at the Pewa lake. It turned out
that the world is small and the school owner and me had common
friends in Kempten, Allgäu, south Germany. In the Monsun time
when Nepals is dead she flies Chinese and Japanese tourists
around Neuschwanstein.

I\'ve never wanted to fly under a handkerchief and use my
legs as undercarriage

And yes, the world is surprisingly small.

https://get.google.com/albumarchive/103357048842463945642/album/AF1QipMYBHQTwzbh2wCIPDXe5LVF6KqYaGG8NZWdYlAG/AF1QipMgNpFQaktc2o8n0hkK5wbOjhN5MVGOeF5npNAA
   

On the left in the dust is the Annapurna.
The 2nd picture to the right might be of interest to the inhabitants
of this group.

I wonder if we will ever get back there?
I still want to see Sigiriya, and Borobudur, and...

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 16/08/20 03:16, Phil Hobbs wrote:

Bush pilots have to have brass balls anyway, but if this one wasn\'t also a dad,
he would have made a very good one.  He sure was encouraging to me.

One of my daughter\'s instructors had been a fast jet pilot in
the 50s, so he had a visceral reason to be safety conscious.
Nonetheless, he let my daughter do things that other instructors
wouldn\'t, because he knew the machine\'s (and his) capabilities.

Once he allowed my daughter to make a mistake (going to the
wrong end of the airfield FFS!) and recover, ticking off her
\"low energy approach\" box.

He remarked \"well, you expect to use a few\", to which I
grinned broadly.

Of course we had to dodge the
mosquitoes--up there they\'re so big that it takes just one to turn you into an
Egyptian mummy.  If you get cornered, your only hope of escape is if two of them
fight over you.

After camping in Iceland, I will never ever laugh at
Australians with wide brimmed hats and corks dangling
on strings.

 

[Tabby]

On Friday, 14 August 2020 at 20:46:07 UTC+1, Joerg wrote:

On 2020-08-14 12:11, Tom Gardner wrote:

Over here it is illegal to have a baseball bat by your
bed to \"punish\" burglars; it would be premeditation.
But a big heavy torch would be no problem

You need better freedom over there

No kidding. It\'s gotten insane in the uk lately. The basic right to free speech is really at risk.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Sun, 16 Aug 2020 06:53:03 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Tabby
<tabbypurr@gmail.com> wrote in
<ce5ca71c-6f37-4e21-ac79-8bda9c5cb512n@googlegroups.com>:

On Friday, 14 August 2020 at 20:46:07 UTC+1, Joerg wrote:
On 2020-08-14 12:11, Tom Gardner wrote:

Over here it is illegal to have a baseball bat by your
bed to \"punish\" burglars; it would be premeditation.
But a big heavy torch would be no problem

You need better freedom over there

No kidding. It\'s gotten insane in the uk lately. The basic right to free speech is really at risk.

Alligators, trapdoor, it is animal cruelty not to feed those on
a regular basis.
I know <origin not disclosed to protect the guilty>
somebody who put something valuable in the window
to attract burglars if he needed it, like in \'feed time\'.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sunday, August 16, 2020 at 11:53:08 PM UTC+10, Tabby wrote:

On Friday, 14 August 2020 at 20:46:07 UTC+1, Joerg wrote:
On 2020-08-14 12:11, Tom Gardner wrote:

Over here it is illegal to have a baseball bat by your
bed to \"punish\" burglars; it would be premeditation.
But a big heavy torch would be no problem

You need better freedom over there

No kidding. It\'s gotten insane in the uk lately. The basic right to free speech is really at risk.

People like NT do feel threatened when their favourite idiocies become threats to public safety.

I can\'t remember whether he is an anti-vaxxer or not, but some of his sillier ideas about health care might be just as dangerous to other people during an epidemic.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[server]

   Did you ever fly on any planes built by Aeronca? They were built in
my home town. They also developed the honeycomb steel used as heat
shields for our early space program. They were located right next to the
city\'s airport, which made it easy to test new planes.

That trip to the North is actually my only direct experience with general aviation. I did have a pal long ago--a fine young RF guy named Ray Fast--who was a pilot and had a share in an Aeronca.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

 

[Martin Brown]

On 14/08/2020 10:57, David Brown wrote:

On 13/08/2020 18:40, Martin Brown wrote:

Indeed. Though even with imperfect information decisions have to be made.
That is one reason why I am prepared to cut the UK government a fair
amount of slack.

You are right that decisions have to be made on imperfect data, and
sometimes that means choices that are judged poor when looked at with
hindsight, despite being rational and justified at the time.

However, the UK government has made a balls-up from the start - they had
/obviously/ got it wrong. Bojo\'s stubborn idiocy about rejecting
everything EU-related meant that they rejected an invitation for a
combined effort on getting PPE supplies. The result was that British
hospital staff were wearing bin liners instead of medical protection
equipment.

I think Boris is a self entitled opportunist who still wants ot be
\"World King\" It will be interesting to see how Brexit ends up.

This has been followed by a continuous series of dithering,
mixed-messages, and utterly unrealistic promises.

Even the decisions that were made based on \"the best information
currently available\" were wrong - because in Bojo\'s little mind, the
\"best\" information to use is whatever ideas sound most optimistic, not
whatever appears to be most /realistic/.

Yes, it\'s fair to cut any government or leader a bit of slack in a time
like this - but not so much slack for Bojo to be judged anything better
than \"totally incompetent\".

I do not disagree. Looks like they are going to blame it all on PHE.
That particular sacrificial lamb is being prepared for slaughter as we
speak. I think they are hoping to divert attention away from the
disastrous Covid fake A level grades debacle which really is a sign of
the depths of monumental incompetence of this government.

Based on the UK\'s present 45k fatality to date that puts 60% herd
immunity on a community wide basis at 450k fatalities (80% 600k).
OTOH if you could keep it contained exclusively in the under 45\'s you
can almost get to 60% herd immunity just with another 20k deaths.

That\'s one idea - but since we don\'t know if herd immunity is achievable
at all, it\'s a pretty risky one!

Until we have an effective vaccine it is the only game in town.

No, it is not - for two reasons. One is that herd immunity is probably
not possible for this virus - and certainly extremely costly even if it
turns out to be possible.

Herd immunity from a vaccine is the only realistic way to get out of
this mad house. Otherwise we are stuck with the new normal forever.

The other is that there is a entirely possible alternative of fighting
to minimise the infections and spread of the virus through travel
restrictions, lockdowns, restricting social gatherings, encouraging
hygiene and social distancing, and tracking outbreaks. Other countries
manage it.

Even New Zealand which I had thought was able to nail it and be
sufficiently remote has lost control again. This virus is just stealthy
enough to escape from any attempts to lock it down in a Western
democracy. The only places that have really managed to get it under
control have done it by draconian restrictions on personal freedom.

And despite the economic and social costs involved in limiting the
disease, it is still vastly cheaper and less damaging than any \"herd
immunity\" tactic, as well as having far lower risk of failure.

I think on this one we will have to agree to disagree. The true answer
will only be discernable after the whole thing has ended until then it
is a judgement call and both viewpoints have some validity.

I am inclined to the view that the economy could be run at a decent
fraction of capacity with the under 45\'s not under lockdown with minimal
fatalities compared to what we have experienced already. De facto that
is now what is happening anyway since social media means that the young
have got the idea that the consequences for them are not usually
serious. Teenagers and young adults feel immortal at the best of times.

The
objective at present must be to limit the economic damage with the
fewest overall number of fatalities. And that includes those who die
indirectly from other serious conditions through not being treated due
to Covid. Or because hospitals and governments run out of money.

The /worst/ choice is prolonged mid-level lockdown and restriction,
which is what you get when some twat politician says \"balance\". It is
better to take a harder but shorter economic hit to get this thing under
control.

On this we are agreed. That is a part of the reason why the UK death
toll was so high. We refused to lock down until Cheltenham races and
various big international football matches were over. Unfortunately too
many of those attending were from Covid infection hot spots.

That joy is still to come. I know a lot about Japan having lived there
and was bemused by the breakdown of bilateral trade negotiations earlier
this week over Stilton cheese! Only expats buy it so the cheese market
in Japan is of negligible value. Our \"negotiators\" are utterly clueless.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53737388?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38507481


Yes, I read about that. The Japanese do buy some dairy products for
their own use, but they are /extremely/ fussy about where they get it -
and price is not an issue. I know they buy cheese and yoghurt from
specific dairies in Norway, but everything is about the standards and
quality of the raw ingredients and the production process. Pricing
levels are basically irrelevant for that market.

It is a bit weird since so much of the Japanese population are lactose
intolerant that cows milk itself is a bit of a niche product. Blue
cheese is quite rare in Japan. Natuo is its local equivalent - think
baked beans in Evostick and smelling of dustbin and you get the idea.

Headline writers loved it:
 \"Stilton drives wedge between UK-Japan Brexit deal\".

And these two total failures by the UK government and English-led
insanities have guaranteed that Scotland will break free sooner or
later.  That will be another huge upheaval.

The only thing that might make them stay is that North Sea oil is in
freefall.
They cannot make money at the current oil price.


That won\'t help - Scotland already knows that in the divorce settlement,
England will grab most of the worth of Scottish oil anyway. Obviously
Scotland would /want/ to keep all their oil money, but no one has
thought it was realistic.

I think they probably will break away, and given a chance most of
Northern England would be happy to go with them. UK is run for the
benefit of London and the South East. That is why chunks of the Midlands
and North West are in extended lockdown right now.

Depends how dead you make the economy. Risk analysis by one of the
Bristol group suggested that if the economic recession exceeds 12% then
the longer term indirect fatalities arising from that will be broadly
comparable with the directly caused fatalities from Covid.

Does that account for all the indirect health problems from Covid - such
as the people who will never work again, or die ten years earlier as a
result of lung scarring? Does it account for the economic cost of more
people getting Covid and being unable to work for extended periods?
Does it account for keeping money in the country if people couldn\'t go
abroad for their summer holidays, but spend them in the UK instead?

I don\'t think the nasty side effects were fully known at the time he did
that analysis but the correlation between damage to GDP and death rate
is real enough. It affects the exact percentage but not the concept.

Containment went to hell in a handcart when Cummings went walkabout
taking the Covid infection with him and got away with it.

Yes - that evil little sod should have been executed as a traitor to his
country (along with Ress Mogg, Farrage, and several others) years ago.
Bojo\'s cowardly treatment of his disregard for restrictions has caused
the deaths of thousands.

Unfortunately the puppet master is needed for marionette to perform

Having so many different sets of rules floating about and changing daily
it becomes impossible to keep track.


And that is one of the biggest failings of Bojo\'s \"leadership\".

I\'m not sure he does leadership. It is all about what is best for Boris.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Ricketty C]

On Monday, August 17, 2020 at 5:24:56 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

On 14/08/2020 10:57, David Brown wrote:
On 13/08/2020 18:40, Martin Brown wrote:

Indeed. Though even with imperfect information decisions have to be made.
That is one reason why I am prepared to cut the UK government a fair
amount of slack.

You are right that decisions have to be made on imperfect data, and
sometimes that means choices that are judged poor when looked at with
hindsight, despite being rational and justified at the time.

However, the UK government has made a balls-up from the start - they had
/obviously/ got it wrong. Bojo\'s stubborn idiocy about rejecting
everything EU-related meant that they rejected an invitation for a
combined effort on getting PPE supplies. The result was that British
hospital staff were wearing bin liners instead of medical protection
equipment.

I think Boris is a self entitled opportunist who still wants ot be
\"World King\" It will be interesting to see how Brexit ends up.

This has been followed by a continuous series of dithering,
mixed-messages, and utterly unrealistic promises.

Even the decisions that were made based on \"the best information
currently available\" were wrong - because in Bojo\'s little mind, the
\"best\" information to use is whatever ideas sound most optimistic, not
whatever appears to be most /realistic/.

Yes, it\'s fair to cut any government or leader a bit of slack in a time
like this - but not so much slack for Bojo to be judged anything better
than \"totally incompetent\".

I do not disagree. Looks like they are going to blame it all on PHE.
That particular sacrificial lamb is being prepared for slaughter as we
speak. I think they are hoping to divert attention away from the
disastrous Covid fake A level grades debacle which really is a sign of
the depths of monumental incompetence of this government.


Based on the UK\'s present 45k fatality to date that puts 60% herd
immunity on a community wide basis at 450k fatalities (80% 600k).
OTOH if you could keep it contained exclusively in the under 45\'s you
can almost get to 60% herd immunity just with another 20k deaths.

That\'s one idea - but since we don\'t know if herd immunity is achievable
at all, it\'s a pretty risky one!

Until we have an effective vaccine it is the only game in town.

No, it is not - for two reasons. One is that herd immunity is probably
not possible for this virus - and certainly extremely costly even if it
turns out to be possible.

Herd immunity from a vaccine is the only realistic way to get out of
this mad house. Otherwise we are stuck with the new normal forever.

That is like saying the only way to win WWII was to develop the a-bomb. No, it was a good tool to expedite the end of the war, but we would have won either way.

Likewise, the various measures are shown to reduce the spread of the virus. Once the infection rate is ADEQUATELY low, we can track and trace effectively. Even if there are outbreaks, we can deal with those locally without shutting down the nation\'s or world\'s economy. This IS working in many places. The fact that they have an outbreak does not mean it isn\'t working.

When it is massively spread as in the US it shows that precautions are not taken seriously. Too many corners are cut. Too many risks are taken on a regular basis.

The economy will improve when we fight this virus the way we should and do so consistently. Right now people are acting like it is a problem for someone else to solve.

The other is that there is a entirely possible alternative of fighting
to minimise the infections and spread of the virus through travel
restrictions, lockdowns, restricting social gatherings, encouraging
hygiene and social distancing, and tracking outbreaks. Other countries
manage it.

Even New Zealand which I had thought was able to nail it and be
sufficiently remote has lost control again. This virus is just stealthy
enough to escape from any attempts to lock it down in a Western
democracy. The only places that have really managed to get it under
control have done it by draconian restrictions on personal freedom.

Pure BS. Requiring people to stay at home and not spread a contagion is not \"draconian\". I don\'t know about the rest of the world, but it is common place in the US to take actions to protect the public health. We fought malaria here by forcing people to take actions against mosquitoes. When serious disease broke out people have been quarantined. This is not draconian.

And despite the economic and social costs involved in limiting the
disease, it is still vastly cheaper and less damaging than any \"herd
immunity\" tactic, as well as having far lower risk of failure.

I think on this one we will have to agree to disagree. The true answer
will only be discernable after the whole thing has ended until then it
is a judgement call and both viewpoints have some validity.

I don\'t think we need to wait for it to be \"over\". We have information available. The main point is that the economy IS taking a huge hit and will continue to do so as long as we ignore the facts of the disease and the infection rages.

It is science. It\'s not rocket science. Any high schooler can grasp the concepts and understand why we need to take action against the disease.

I am inclined to the view that the economy could be run at a decent
fraction of capacity with the under 45\'s not under lockdown with minimal
fatalities compared to what we have experienced already. De facto that
is now what is happening anyway since social media means that the young
have got the idea that the consequences for them are not usually
serious. Teenagers and young adults feel immortal at the best of times.

Yes, exactly, many of the under 45 crowd have decided they don\'t need to do much since they are not \"likely\" to be impacted. That is one of the main problems with this disease, it has a larger impact on the old. If it mainly impacted those under 5, we would be seeing heavily infected cities bombed with nukes.

The
objective at present must be to limit the economic damage with the
fewest overall number of fatalities. And that includes those who die
indirectly from other serious conditions through not being treated due
to Covid. Or because hospitals and governments run out of money.

The /worst/ choice is prolonged mid-level lockdown and restriction,
which is what you get when some twat politician says \"balance\". It is
better to take a harder but shorter economic hit to get this thing under
control.

On this we are agreed. That is a part of the reason why the UK death
toll was so high. We refused to lock down until Cheltenham races and
various big international football matches were over. Unfortunately too
many of those attending were from Covid infection hot spots.

Sorry, it didn\'t need to involve hot spots. Either you reduce the infection, or your actions spread the infection. You don\'t need to involve things you can\'t control or measure.

I really don\'t know why people want to bother with the flourishes when we don\'t address the main issue as we should.

--

Rick C.

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

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

mandag den 17. august 2020 kl. 18.02.17 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

On Monday, August 17, 2020 at 5:24:56 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
On 14/08/2020 10:57, David Brown wrote:
On 13/08/2020 18:40, Martin Brown wrote:

Indeed. Though even with imperfect information decisions have to be made.
That is one reason why I am prepared to cut the UK government a fair
amount of slack.

You are right that decisions have to be made on imperfect data, and
sometimes that means choices that are judged poor when looked at with
hindsight, despite being rational and justified at the time.

However, the UK government has made a balls-up from the start - they had
/obviously/ got it wrong. Bojo\'s stubborn idiocy about rejecting
everything EU-related meant that they rejected an invitation for a
combined effort on getting PPE supplies. The result was that British
hospital staff were wearing bin liners instead of medical protection
equipment.

I think Boris is a self entitled opportunist who still wants ot be
\"World King\" It will be interesting to see how Brexit ends up.

This has been followed by a continuous series of dithering,
mixed-messages, and utterly unrealistic promises.

Even the decisions that were made based on \"the best information
currently available\" were wrong - because in Bojo\'s little mind, the
\"best\" information to use is whatever ideas sound most optimistic, not
whatever appears to be most /realistic/.

Yes, it\'s fair to cut any government or leader a bit of slack in a time
like this - but not so much slack for Bojo to be judged anything better
than \"totally incompetent\".

I do not disagree. Looks like they are going to blame it all on PHE.
That particular sacrificial lamb is being prepared for slaughter as we
speak. I think they are hoping to divert attention away from the
disastrous Covid fake A level grades debacle which really is a sign of
the depths of monumental incompetence of this government.


Based on the UK\'s present 45k fatality to date that puts 60% herd
immunity on a community wide basis at 450k fatalities (80% 600k).
OTOH if you could keep it contained exclusively in the under 45\'s you
can almost get to 60% herd immunity just with another 20k deaths.

That\'s one idea - but since we don\'t know if herd immunity is achievable
at all, it\'s a pretty risky one!

Until we have an effective vaccine it is the only game in town.

No, it is not - for two reasons. One is that herd immunity is probably
not possible for this virus - and certainly extremely costly even if it
turns out to be possible.

Herd immunity from a vaccine is the only realistic way to get out of
this mad house. Otherwise we are stuck with the new normal forever.

That is like saying the only way to win WWII was to develop the a-bomb. No, it was a good tool to expedite the end of the war, but we would have won either way.

Likewise, the various measures are shown to reduce the spread of the virus. Once the infection rate is ADEQUATELY low, we can track and trace effectively. Even if there are outbreaks, we can deal with those locally without shutting down the nation\'s or world\'s economy. This IS working in many places. The fact that they have an outbreak does not mean it isn\'t working.

When it is massively spread as in the US it shows that precautions are not taken seriously. Too many corners are cut. Too many risks are taken on a regular basis.

The economy will improve when we fight this virus the way we should and do so consistently. Right now people are acting like it is a problem for someone else to solve.


The other is that there is a entirely possible alternative of fighting
to minimise the infections and spread of the virus through travel
restrictions, lockdowns, restricting social gatherings, encouraging
hygiene and social distancing, and tracking outbreaks. Other countries
manage it.

Even New Zealand which I had thought was able to nail it and be
sufficiently remote has lost control again. This virus is just stealthy
enough to escape from any attempts to lock it down in a Western
democracy. The only places that have really managed to get it under
control have done it by draconian restrictions on personal freedom.

Pure BS. Requiring people to stay at home and not spread a contagion is not \"draconian\". I don\'t know about the rest of the world, but it is common place in the US to take actions to protect the public health. We fought malaria here by forcing people to take actions against mosquitoes. When serious disease broke out people have been quarantined. This is not draconian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts

 

[Ricketty C]

On Monday, August 17, 2020 at 12:20:02 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

mandag den 17. august 2020 kl. 18.02.17 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

Pure BS. Requiring people to stay at home and not spread a contagion is not \"draconian\". I don\'t know about the rest of the world, but it is common place in the US to take actions to protect the public health. We fought malaria here by forcing people to take actions against mosquitoes. When serious disease broke out people have been quarantined. This is not draconian.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts

I wonder how many holdouts there will be once a CV-19 vaccine is found? There are a lot of nutcases in the US who think vaccines are inherently bad for you and prefer to live under the herd immunity umbrella. That might not work so well with CV-19. The initial vaccines may not protect very well and may not be recommended for certain age groups allowing the disease to continue at a low level.

There are no magic solutions. In the US we seem to be operating under the \"vaccine around the corner\" mode of fight. I\'m not sure Dudley Do-Right really is on the way to save Nell from the evil Snidley Whiplash virus.

--

Rick C.

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