Do you need to vent about things COVID-19?

[Luna Bliss]

20 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Thing is, many older voters (unlike your papa) drift dramatically to the right as they age -- and they're going to vote.

More research is needed here - the jury is still out. Some studies say people actually become more liberal as they age:

https://www.livescience.com/2360-busting-myth-people-turn-liberal-age.html

Edited May 28, 2020 by Luna Bliss

[kiramanell]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

COVFEFE !

 

LOL, that one gave me a good chuckle. 😂 It's been a while already since he used it, but the classics never die.  

[Mollymews]

3 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

Just a question from me a non-computer-geek, will cloud software make internet security any stronger?  Or, could it stay relatively the same, and/or be worse?

It is kind of COVID-19 question because I am using online purchasing now more than I ever have in my entire life.  Makes me a little nervous at times, but I'm mostly cool with it, mostly.   

the thing with online purchases is that the shop receiving our online orders is not the only check in the system.  Our bank debit or credit card handler is also a third party check.  With a money transaction we can challenge it, should it be fraudulent or accidentally not as intended.  Our bank has the ability to cancel the transaction, and we can place the order again

until online electoral voting systems have the same security model:  a way to verify our vote, independently through a differently-administered system, different from the polling booth (shop) system then is going to be concerns about trust

[LittleMe Jewell]

4 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

It is kind of COVID-19 question because I am using online purchasing now more than I ever have in my entire life.  Makes me a little nervous at times, but I'm mostly cool with it, mostly.   

I missed the 'online purchasing' part of your comment until Molly replied.

Online purchasing is not necessarily "in the cloud".  Just because it involves the internet does not mean it is in the cloud.  If you buy something from the local grocery store, the entire transaction may be happening on servers that they manage in their own server building.  "Data" will travel through the internet, but that is not the same thing as "in the cloud".  As long as the website is using https, then the 'data' is about as safe during the internet travel as it's likely going to get.  As to how safe the overall transaction is, how safe your data is, that will be more dependent on the security of their servers - both physical access to the servers as well as logical via login.

An example of "in the cloud" would be if that local grocery moved all of their processing to servers that were housed at one of Amazon's cloud server farms -- buildings with lots of physical servers that companies basically rent usage of.  Since, in theory, more people have access to that cloud area, the security possibly has a higher chance of being compromised.

Your data - login info and payment info - can be compromised via a hack of either the local grocery store servers or the Amazon cloud servers.  The issue though is "is it worth it to hack them".  Target has a high enough customer count that it was worth someone hacking them for the credit card info.  Ditto for any other store that holds hundreds of thousands or millions of credit cards.  If said site is on cloud servers, then there is also a small chance that someone can breach more than just the store's info.

It's a somewhat simplistic explanation, but works for the purchase concern.

The best way that I protect myself with my online shopping is that I don't allow my credit card to actually be stored by most places.  

Edited May 29, 2020 by LittleMe Jewell

[Qie Niangao]

7 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Some studies say people actually become more liberal as they age...

Yeah, you know, I can believe that. It's the difference between longitudinal and cross-sectional studies: if the overall population is moving liberal faster, an older demographic can also move liberal and still fall behind, explaining why they still tend to vote more conservatively than the younger cohort.

(I mean, they just do. Old people are almost as vulnerable to Fox News as they are to COVID-19. Not that correlation implies causation... although when you think about it, Fox on-air personalities have promoted risky behaviors throughout the pandemic.)

[kali Wylder]

Car battery is dead.  Well duh, I haven't used it since March.

[Luna Bliss]

11 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Old people are almost as vulnerable to Fox News as they are to COVID-19.

I witnessed a beloved Uncle, always liberal in the past, turn conservative due to that Noxious Network.   

[AyelaNewLife]

A high profile special advisor to the Prime Minister drove his family for a day to self-isolate in his second home, where he would have emergency childcare on hand if needed. Once recovered, they went on a sightseeing trip to a nearby town, and the following day drove back to London, where he returned to work in person. Each step of that process is against the spirit of the guidance issued, and in many cases against the letter of it too, but despite the selfish and unnecessary risk, there is no suggestion that the disease was spread further through his actions. The public outcry is roughly equivalent to if he had stabbed a baby on live television.

A foreign nation incapable of getting the fundamentals of statehood right is exploding into riots. We've started to see mass protests start up here, especially in cities like London. The cities worst hit by Covid-19, full of the demographics that this horrific disease affects the worst. All gathering in close proximity, all but ensuring widespread transmission through that crowd; who will now disperse and take this disease to their families and communities. This protest has a death toll attached, and it will take a few weeks to work its way through the system; but somewhere between dozens and thousands of people have just been killed by this senseless action and simply don't know it yet. Commenting on this brands you as a pariah.

I don't want to get into the argument about the cause itself here, or if the ends might somehow make the tragic, senseless, unjustifiable means acceptable. This is a venting space. And I just need to put the words down somewhere. As a society, we are petty, vindictive, hypocritical, and moronic. Perhaps we deserve a great plague to wipe the Earth clean.

[Orwar]

59 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

Perhaps we deserve a great plague to wipe the Earth clean.

   Oh, oh, zombies please! 

[Coffee Pancake]

The fast moving kind. 

[Amina Sopwith]

I had an old friend who spent some time in a Gor sim. He wished for a meteorite. 

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

Where are my zombies.. I'm all ready with  my spear and flame thrower..

[Madelaine McMasters]

4 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

Where are my zombies.. I'm all ready with  my spear and flame thrower..

[Amina Sopwith]

Wait, you mean queuing around Parliament wasn't a good idea?

 

[Bree Giffen]

I went to a garden center and it was packed! All these people buying plants cause they’re at home and want to grow flowers. Everyone was wearing masks thankfully. They really all should be staying home. 

[Cindy Evanier]

6 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

I went to a garden center and it was packed! All these people buying plants cause they’re at home and want to grow flowers. Everyone was wearing masks thankfully. They really all should be staying home. 

Going to a garden center is top of my list of things I want to do.  I have been reclaiming my garden over the last 2 summers from kids.  I was a childminder and also had 3 boys so you can imagine it was more playground than garden.  I am itching to go out somewhere.  13 weeks without stepping off the front step is hard.  I finally lost the plot yesterday sparked by dust on a skirting board.  I was just raging loudly to nobody in particular about stupid dust on a skirting board.  My mental health is really starting to suffer now.  

[Amina Sopwith]

Oh God. As the Americans would say, s*** just got real.

[JanuarySwan]

19 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

I went to a garden center and it was packed! All these people buying plants cause they’re at home and want to grow flowers. Everyone was wearing masks thankfully. They really all should be staying home. 

I feel like I could use some plants, Bree.  Perhaps it's too see things growing again and a reminder of life.  

As far as COVID-19 and venting about it, I'm confused about the talk of a second wave.  From the charts and sparse news, it doesn't seem like the first wave is even over yet.  

I worry about the protesters and I worry about people on buses having to go back to work.  I think I'm worrying too much.  Don't know what to do about all the worry though.

[Amina Sopwith]

I went to sign this. I was devastated to find it had disappeared. 

[Cindy Evanier]

6 minutes ago, Amina Sopwith said:

I went to sign this. I was devastated to find it had disappeared. 

Looks like we tried

Edited June 16, 2020 by Cindy Evanier

[Amina Sopwith]

1 minute ago, Cindy Evanier said:

Looks like we tried

At least their track and trace works. But ours will knock the stuffing out of it when we get it going in 2030.

[Cindy Evanier]

Just now, Amina Sopwith said:

At least their track and trace works. But ours will knock the stuffing out of it when we get it going in 2030.

Matt is that you?   

[Amina Sopwith]

[FairreLilette]

I need to vent about my possibly having Covid-19 in January of 2020.  

First of all, as far as reports go, Covid-19 may have been in California as early as the Fall of 2019 but is now known it was here in the Winter of 2019 as a person from Wuhan, China was in California in the late Fall/early Winter time frame.  Many of us were sick here in my apartment building in January of 2020 from an absolutely horrid flu-like illness.  I had fever, chills, sweats, body aches but not too much phlegm, other than it was phlegm that would not leave my nose.  I could not blow it out of my nose.   I had almost no cough either.  

I improved but it's taken me to today (six months) to feel I am about a good 90% better now with the phlegm not clogging my nose as it has since I became ill in January of 2020 with this flu-like illness.  I take vitamins and daily vitamin C also.  

A very positive thing I wanted to share.  Since I've been dealing with phlegm build up for so many months, I started gargling with Hydrogen Peroxide and it clears the phlegm out of my throat like nothing I've ever seen before.  The hydrogen peroxide is getting rid of the phlegm that is building up in my throat which travels down from my nose.  If you read a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide, it says it reduces phlegm.  So, if you know anyone with phlegm build up or ever have a cold or a flu, try gargling with Hydrogen Peroxide, it really, really clears all that phlegm out of your throat so you don't swallow it and swallowing phlegm is bad as it could go into your lungs.  Hydrogen peroxide is widely used in dental and oral hygiene in America.   But, if you have any doubts, ask your doctor before you gargle with Hydrogen Peroxide.  I read on the internet to dilute the Hydrogen peroxide with water prior to gargling.  It says 1 part Hydrogen Peroxide to 2 parts water for a good gargling and phlegm is gone!    I have been using a 50/50 gargle now though of half Hydrogen Peroxide and half water.  Ask your doctor!   Get that phlegm out as it's very bad for us to swallow it!  I wish more doctors would recommend this since it says right on the bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide, reduces phlegm.   When you feel the phlegm starting to come up, spit it out, do not swallow the phlegm.    It doesn't happen instantly that the phlegm will be released but it will happen for sure - gets it out and spit it out!   Carry napkins with you too.  

Edited June 21, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Selene Gregoire]

Native American tribal nations take tougher line on COVID-19 as states reopen