Cooler and dreary. Maybe some rain? [71F and grey at 9am]
Yesterday was quite cool at around 70F and generally dreary all day.
I had quite a bit of pain and limited range of motion, so I was moving slow and doing very little. Took more tylenol yesterday than in the last 6 months. About the only thing I got done was to clean the oven and bake some cast iron at the same time. The oven really needed the self clean cycle, and I had some cast that was in the garage that needed a touchup. Two birds, one stone.
Another blogger calls it ‘piddlefarting around’. That’s what I did. Bunch of little things of no real consequence that ate the day. My wife even made the dinner. I did do a couple of pieces of shipping, one ebay sale to Canadia and some masks to my sibling. Yeah, not the one that said I was ‘killing first responders’ by ‘hoarding’ masks, that was a couple of weeks ago. This is the sibling that basically did all of the things I suggested before this hit, but secretly and without telling or thanking me, ‘cuz I’m a paranoid prepper. Grrrr. If they weren’t individually wrapped I was going to take a sharpie and write on each one, “you were right”. But I didn’t because the important thing is that my loved ones are safe and better prepared than they were. It does occasionally stick in one’s craw…
Worked on a puzzle with the wife. Ate, watched Pippi Longstocking -1973 made in Sweden version. Kids laughed and enjoyed it. I don’t think it was the version I remember from my childhood, but we’ll see on the next book’s film. It’s dubbed in english, which is effective, but there is just something half a bubble off about the timing or something that makes it seem very strange to me. The ‘character’ accents they chose for the dubbing are very strange.
Today I’ll either bite the bullet and go to the chiropractor, or I’ll feel better. I know which one I’d prefer…
Dinner was marinaded and baked chicken from the last delivery, baked acorn squash (one of my favorites to have in the cabinet as they last forever and are easy to cook), and steamed rice from storage. More Easter candy for dessert.
If it weren’t for a totally rational desire to avoid infection, I’d have gone to the chiropractor days ago, and been back to normal by now. That sucks. I’m also thankful that I can make a choice and that it isn’t life or death.
Keep stacking, keep learning, keep prepping.
nick
RIP Astrid Kirchner.
Photographer of the early Beatles.
We watched Terminator: Dark Fate last night. Meh. I’m glad I didn’t pay to see it in the theater..
Yesterday I swung over to the restaurant supply store, mostly because it was on the way as I ran other errands. Got two-gallon bottles of bleach and disinfecting counter/surface cleaner, since they had pallets full and my wife says she hasn’t been able to find any in the “consumer” stores. Picked up a 40# box of chicken leg quarters at $0.42/lb; at that price I could give away half of it and it would still be cheaper than the grocery store price. (As it happens, I gave away about a quarter. Some of the older Chinese people around here are still timid about going out.)
Beef prices (both Angus and “regular” beef, and I looked at ribs, sirloins, top rounds, bottom rounds, and ground) were up 30% or more since two weeks ago. Pork prices (loin and shoulder; didn’t look at anything else) were up slightly.
Mask kabuki was in place — masks required “by law”* for everyone entering, cashiers and other people up front had masks over nose and mouth. People stocking the aisles mostly had their masks around their necks. Customers had anything from fitted N95 masks to bandanas tied on as if they were cattle rustlers.
* In fact, masks are not required by law in NY State. The mask order is an executive order, which affects government employees but not anyone else — there’s a reason it’s called an executive order and not a law. However, a number of businesses have either been closed — shut down by health inspectors or operating license revoked — or threatened to be closed, so businesses are going along with the nonsense. It’s not Kelly the Clerk’s fault that the governor’s a tyrant and her boss is a wimp, so I (minimally) play along and don’t give her any grief.
In fact, masks are not required by law in NY State.
Doesn’t matter. People have been cowed into submission, and it takes money to push back against the state in court. Private businesses will enforce the masks or risk being tied up fighting a legal process. A court decision will ultimately be required to break up the kabuki.
If I had to guess, Walmart/Sam’s will eventually fight back. As my wife pointed out last night when we went to fill her car with Ethanol-free gas, the Walmart, technically within the city limits of Austin and subject to mask orders, had about 1/3 of the usual number of cars in the parking lot.
For now, the food “shortages” mean that none of the grocery outlets have to worry about offending shoppers, but the general merch in Walmart and Tarjay isn’t moving. And the mall anchor Chinese outlet store, JC (C is for ChiCom) Penny’s, just filed for Bankruptcy.
To be fair, JCP has been circling the drain for years. The wuflu just helped finalize their demise.
To be fair, JCP has been circling the drain for years. The wuflu just helped finalize their demise.
Sure, the chain never recovered from the Ron Johnson era, but the quality of the clothing has been off for about 10-15 years. The return of appliances to Penny’s as Sears circled the drain was a sign the end was coming.
When the Brown Truck Store runs out of gas, literally due to a reversal of trends in energy costs, a lot of retail from the past 100 years will have to be re-learned. Appliances may have worked for Penny’s as Sears created a vacuum, but no one currently working in the chain’s hierarchy remembered how to sell them.
Kabuki masks will be the next “diaper” overfilling the land fills. Which State will be the first to say “frick it” and end masks and social distancing. Environmentalists should get involved. What’s not to like: get rid of *disposables* and let people die of COVID are all good for Mother Gaia.
Not to be unkind or anything, but I’ve noticed that a high proportion of “we need to reduce the human population” environmentalists are, not to be unkind or anything, physically unappealing, which likely reduces their mating and procreation prospects. Which causes the other, one might wonder: Do they want to stop everyone from having children because they themselves were rejected so many times, or does their outside morph to match the repulsiveness of their inside?
Incels.
Kabuki masks will be the next “diaper” overfilling the land fills. Which State will be the first to say “frick it” and end masks and social distancing. Environmentalists should get involved. What’s not to like: get rid of *disposables* and let people die of COVID are all good for Mother Gaia.
Florida or Texas. Which one depends on whether the rainy season starts late in Florida.
The 100s started at the usual time (July) last year in Austin. If Florida is still dry on the 4th — hurricane and other tropical systems don’t count — Texas will say “frick it” first.
And it’s potenially dangerous to healthy people…
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2020/05/14/neurosurgeon-says-face-masks-pose-serious-risk-to-healthy-people-n392431
Incels
Back on the farm we call them folks ‘losers’, aka ‘loosers’ .
(Thanks for the new word!)
All these people claiming bad things from wearing masks… FFS. OSHA REQUIRES MASKS. I wore a well fitted N95 mask 8 hours a day for months at a time. NO ill effects and a damn sight better for my lungs to have caught all the black crap that stained the masks by the end of the day.
“Masks will hold the virus and you’ll keep breathing it”. The mask isn’t a balloon. You breath in thru it, it catches the big chunks. You breathe out thru it, it catches the big chunks. If the virus is in your breath, it’s IN YOU and you don’t get rid of it by breathing it out, you get rid of it when your immune system kills all the virus in you. Then it stops coming out of your mouth.
As for people getting hypoxic, I’ve noticed that people often don’t breath normally when wearing a mask. They take little tiny breaths like they’re afraid of whatever the mask is supposed to keep out. Put it on and forget about it. Don’t touch it, and breath normally. If you are getting light headed, take some deep breaths. FFS, if we have to remind people to breath there is something seriously wrong in the world.
Literal millions of people wear masks in an industrial setting every day (well, they used to before their jobs went away.) OSHA has a long history and tons of data regarding mask wear at work.
As for headaches, the straps are squeezing your head! Adjust your mask. Or maybe it’s because you are only taking one break a day? or your glasses don’t fit properly when you wear a mask, or the pressure on your sinuses bothers you….
and given the WIDE range of masks, and the wide range of correct and incorrect wear, there is no way you can make any sort of blanket statements about “masks”.
n
Thanks for the responses & links on FLASHLIGHTS. It is hard to keep up with the product cycle on those. Product lifetimes seems to be months, rather than years.
I think the next *mask* step is for the *sick* to wear a mask. If you feel sick, wear it. Is there a major study anywhere that shows wearing a *mask* significantly protects you from infection?
Nope, because it would be unethical to run a study like that. You can do post event review, but there are so many factors, you’d never get to the mask as one.
Does wearing a respirator when working with asbestos prevent asbestosis? Run the experiment if you’re Dr Mengele . Or review the results a couple of decades later and the best you can say is that in general people that wore respirators had better outcomes than those that didn’t…
The main difference in an industrial setting, other than having OSHA up your @ss, is you can usually see or smell the stuff you are trying to keep out, and even if you don’t see the soot in the air, when you take your mask off at the end of the day it’s full of soot, and your snot isn’t… It’s a lot easier to follow the protocol when you can literally see the results.
Hell, we can’t even get Drs and nurses to hand wash consistently.
How do you prove a negative? He wore his mask and didn’t get sick. He wore his mask and no tigers attacked. See- masks are effective against tiger attacks.
If it’s spread thru droplets, and you can contain the droplets, it makes sense that that will be more effective than not containing the droplets. If you can’t contain the source droplets, but CAN keep them off and out of you, then it makes sense to do that.
The problem with putting masks on sick people to contain the droplets is that they are sick before they know it. So you have to put masks on putatively healthy people. Because they might not be. Or assume everyone is potentially sick and mask yourself with an N95. Since most people didn’t prep and can’t get N95s, the best they can do is tell all the people to put on spit traps. That has the added benefit of keeping it off of surfaces too.
We’ve also got plenty of real world examples of medical staff NOT properly gearing up, treating known patients, and then getting sick. I don’t know if anyone did the DNA tracing to nail it down to the specific patient. I think they’ve been busy with other things….
n
Well, grass is cut. 82F in the shade, with nice gusts, but 99F in the sun.
I’m actually beat.
n
I think the next *mask* step is for the *sick* to wear a mask. If you feel sick, wear it. Is there a major study anywhere that shows wearing a *mask* significantly protects you from infection?
The big problem with this pandemic is that the sick people who know they aren’t well are leaving their houses with the cover excuse that testing wasn’t available to determine if they had Wuxu Flu or the standard flu bug.. The government-ordered masking of everybody is to erase the stigma. of sick people wearing the mask.
The last 20-30 years have seen a dramatic decrease in people taking responsibility for their own actions.
Big line to get in the door at Sam’s Club today as I drove by to pick up a toilet seat we ordered at Home Depot at the beginning of April.
(Today was the last day to get the before the order got cancelled.)
My wife joked that Sam’s must have pork chops back in stock.
There was also a long line at the freshly reopened Burlington Coat Factory. What is it they can’t live without at that place?
UFO: The Series
I managed to download the series from archive.org and *whoa* the quality sucks dead bunnies. So, I bought the complete series on Blu-ray. The quality is fantastic and apparently the stuff on archive.org is heavily edited. Like episode 1, a MoonGirl is walking around the locker room in her undies when another MoonGirl comes in, takes off her removable pant legs from her jumpsuit, and puts on a skirt. I would have remembered that!!! Currently finishing ripping Disc 6 with the last episode and interviews and extras.
JimM, you are correct that product production cycles are months, but if you read the specs, the emitters (LEDs) don’t change nearly as often. The Cree XM-L2 series ran for years. A single chip was rated for a little less than 10 watts dissipation and about 1000 lumens. There are hundreds of light models that used that emitter. Some claimed as high as 2000 lumens, although this is likely exaggeration.
There are newer emitters; if you read the light’s specs and remember the emitter number, you can get some idea of comparable lights. Caution: the drive circuitry and optical system greatly affect the output and usability as well. That’s where a reputable manufacturer comes in handy. We all have our favorite brands, but it can be hard to compare different ones. Some favor tight beams and others broader. The difference is important: a tight beam can have more impressive specs, but a broader one can be more useful in everyday situations. I have some really useful lights that have a broad beam, but look puny compared to others that produce a tighter spot. Depends on what you want.
Unfortunately, there is no consistently applied specification system, and most specs are just estimates. In this aspect, the difference comes down to whether you want a searchlight that can light up a distant object or a broader pattern that can light up a sidewalk at ten feet without a distracting hot spot. Scour the web for reviews. These change all the time, and some are really good; others…
I forgot to mention the importance of output levels. A typical light that puts out 1000 lumens is often way too bright for a lot of uses. You will probably rarely use the brightest setting. Many lights have, say, four levels, and the ratios are important. Many have the brightest two that are almost indistinguishable, but he dimmer one might give nearly twice the battery run time. At the low end, some lights feature a “moonlight” mode that can be around 1 or a few lumens. These low settings are incredibly useful for preserving dark adaptation, or for walking around in a dark room. The only way I know how to pick one is to try several. You will find something you really like.
To be fair, JCP has been circling the drain for years. The wuflu just helped finalize their demise.
Sure, the chain never recovered from the Ron Johnson era, but the quality of the clothing has been off for about 10-15 years. The return of appliances to Penny’s as Sears circled the drain was a sign the end was coming.
I used to buy all of my shirts and pants at JCP. That went away 10+ years ago when the Big and Tall shop quality went to crap. I still have JCP shirts that I bought over 20 years ago.
When the Brown Truck Store runs out of gas, literally due to a reversal of trends in energy costs, a lot of retail from the past 100 years will have to be re-learned. Appliances may have worked for Penny’s as Sears created a vacuum, but no one currently working in the chain’s hierarchy remembered how to sell them.
The Brown Trucks and all of the large users of transportation fuel all get first dibs on the fuel supply. And they buy a year or more of fuel at a time, they may actually move to electric very soon if the battery supply comes on line as planned. Of course, COVID-19 may mess this all up.
All of their business models work until $6/gallon for diesel. And at that point most of them will have converted to electric, LNG, or compressed natural gas. The Brown Trucks have been experimenting with all three in preparation for this for a decade now.
“Death and disease from climate-sensitive diseases and events are small relative to those from all causes, and getting smaller”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/17/death-and-disease-from-climate-sensitive-diseases-and-events-are-small-relative-to-those-from-all-causes-and-getting-smaller/
“Between 1990 and 2017, the cumulative age-standardized death rate (ASDRs) from climate-sensitive diseases and events (CSDEs) dropped from 8.1% of the all-cause ASDR to 5.5%, while the age-standardized burden of disease, measured by disability-adjusted life years lost (DALYs) declined from 12.0% to 8.0% of all-cause age-standardized DALYs. Thus, the burdens of death and disease from CSDEs are small, and getting smaller.”
So this means that we had a lot more older people in the population that did not die previously due to diseases ??? And now SARS-COV-2 is killing a lot of them.
I used to buy all of my shirts and pants at JCP. That went away 10+ years ago when the Big and Tall shop quality went to crap. I still have JCP shirts that I bought over 20 years ago.
I remember in the late 90s when the Penny’s Arizona brand did a lot of damage to Levis, to the point that all of the Levi Strauss manufacturing plants in the US closed and the US denim production machinery went to Japan.
I used to buy all of my shirts and pants at JCP. That went away 10+ years ago when the Big and Tall shop quality went to crap. I still have JCP shirts that I bought over 20 years ago.
I remember in the late 90s when the Penny’s Arizona brand did a lot of damage to Levis, to the point that all of the Levi Strauss manufacturing plants in the US closed and the US denim production machinery went to Japan.
Wow, that is sad. And then the machinery probably went to China.
“I remember in the late 90s when the Penny’s Arizona brand did a lot of damage to Levis, to the point that all of the Levi Strauss manufacturing plants in the US closed and the US denim production machinery went to Japan.”
Wow, that is sad. And then the machinery probably went to China.
Probably not. The Japanese appreciate quality as well as history, and the machinery was unique. A century of denim rolled out of Columbus, GA and the surrounding area.
Americans have spent the last 40 years pursuing the possibility of $20 Reeboks.
“Some Virus Stories That Have Grabbed My Attention”
https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2020/05/some-virus-stories-that-have-grabbed-my.html
“Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University, who also serves on the research and development advisory board for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, plotted the rates of new coronavirus infections of the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain. The numbers told a shocking story: irrespective of whether the country quarantined like Israel, or went about business as usual like Sweden, coronavirus peaked and subsided in the exact same way. In the exact, same, way. His graphs show that all countries experienced seemingly identical coronavirus infection patterns, with the number of infected peaking in the sixth week and rapidly subsiding by the eighth week.”
““Whether or not they have openly embraced the Swedish approach, many other countries are now trying to emulate aspects of it. Both Denmark and Finland have reopened schools for young children,” wrote Professors Nils Karlson, Charlotta Stern, and Daniel B. Klein. “Germany is allowing small shops to reopen. Italy will soon reopen parks, and France has a plan to allow some nonessential businesses to reopen, including farmers’ markets and small museums, as well as schools and daycare centers.””
@~jim @paulthemanc brand names from yesterday, UK version.
Disprin is Aspirin.
Dettol is/was pretty generic for disinfectant.
Hoover when I was a kid and I don’t remember there being another brand.
Lots more I’m sure, but I’ve been out of the country so long it’s hard to remember.
Americans have spent the last 40 years pursuing the possibility of $20 Reeboks.
Well, we cannot have $20 Reeboks from outside the USA. We need a 25% tariff on all inbound products to save our industries. And that includes crude oil.
And I wear $100 Asics.
So, the rates are the same, but how about the numbers – such as a percentage of population? Were those percentages the same?
A ‘rate of infection’ of 10% of 100,000 population is a lot different number than 10% of 1,000,000.
Not according to the liberal media. It is absolute numbers, not ratios or percentages, that keep clueless reporters on the air. Bimbos, not brains.
“Americans have spent the last 40 years pursuing the possibility of $20 Reeboks.”
Well, we cannot have $20 Reeboks from outside the USA. We need a 25% tariff on all inbound products to save our industries. And that includes crude oil.
And I wear $100 Asics.
My wife paid $50 for reissued Reebok Classics a few years ago, but they weren’t Made in Korea like the originals, which cost ~ $130 IIRC — in 1982!
The urban legend in the 80s was always that someone’s brother came back from serving in the Army talking about buying Reeboks at the factory for $20. *Everyone* heard the story and wanted that opportunity, and I often wonder if that didn’t start us down this rabbit hole of outsourcing of the last 40 years.
I wasn’t a fan of the Korean Reeboks. They made my feet smell weird.
plotted the rates of new coronavirus infections
So, the rates are the same, but how about the numbers – such as a percentage of population? Were those percentages the same?
A ‘rate of infection’ of 10% of 100,000 population is a lot different number than 10% of 1,000,000.
You can see the numbers for each country at
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
I don’t care about the total number of cases for each country. That is nonsense. I reset the list for number of deaths per million population. Spain is 591. Italy is 528. Belgium is 781. Sweden is 365. The USA is 275.
Sweden never locked down. And it has an older population which we know is more subsecptible to the virus.
I endorse. I wear Asics too and pay less than that And in AUD. 🙂
I currently have a $40 pair of Adidas from Costco. I just get whatever is on sale and looks good. For my running shoes, After trying several brands, I will only get New Balance 870’s. They keep my feet and ankles stabilized the best. They run anywhere from $70- $120 depending on sales.
The only really expensive pair tennis shoes I ever had was in seventh grade. That was when the first Air Jordan’s came out. I had a pair of the blue ones. I don’t remember what they cost…
I wear Keen. Supposed to be made in USA, but I’m skeptical. HUGE toe box, so they are very comfortable. The sole on the one I like is deadly slippery when wet.
Reebok’s last is very skinny, so they never fit me. ASIC either. Nike canvas always fit when I was a kid. Converse Chuck Taylors and the Van’s copies fit me fine but have no cushion.
I mostly wear low hikers now, or mid hikers, but I’ve got a variety of sneaks to wear to school and the pool. I like classic boat shoes and have several pairs but I don’t wear them much anymore. No arch support and no cushion. I got some crepe soled Clarks and love them. And I’ve always liked Dr Martins.
It’s always been about fit for me. And I haven’t had white shoes in decades. Nor white socks, or underwear…
n
Neat. A Space Plane inside a rocket.
BTW: If you like to track space information, you could do worse than following Eric Berger at Ars.
First post with a link for me. I seem no to be good at it…
And I wear $100 Asics.
I endorse. I wear Asics too and pay less than that And in AUD.
I wear the Asics Gel-Nimbus right now in size 12. I wore the Asics GT-1000 before. I go walk a mile each day. Tears the crap out of my shoes.
Shoes for sports became a problem a few years ago. I play several hours of tennis weekly and used to buy whatever was on sale, since the shoes wear through in a few months. Cheap, poorly padded shoes caught up with me (as did age I suppose): plantar fasciitis on the left foot. That was very painful for about 6 months until stretches and a change of shoes fixed it. I looked for tennis shoes that gripped the heel as best as possible (no movement so no “hammer effect” when running) and had the best padding. Of course, those were the most expensive shoes: high end Babolat or Adidas at about $200 CAD a pair. Not only did they end the foot problems, the surprise is they actually last at least a year (outdoor summer and indoor winter season). So I am roughly breaking even on cost and I am without pain. You get what you pay for.