Arielle Popstar

As I sit here preparing to go to work I am reminded of various movie scenes where a dozen soldiers are being transported by airplane to be dropped somewhere behind enemy lines. A few that I can't name off the top of my head, showed scenes of how each of them dealt with the fear and anxiety they had to go through at the thought they were about to be faced with a potential life and death situation. One over in the corner quietly throwing up on himself, another making light of it with humour, a third fervently praying, another checking and rechecking weapons that they are all functional and working, while a couple of others sit quietly and stoically with grim looks on their faces as the battle hardened veterans matter of factly discuss the upcoming mission. And then there is another gibbering and freaking out as fear gets the better of him. The commanding officer has to deal with that one going into hysterics because if he doesn't, the negativity and pessimism that is at the root of the fear could infect others who in spite of their calm exterior, are also on an emotional razors edge, barely keeping their own fear at bay. That is how I see this. Each of us has a different way of dealing with this covid threat. If you want to do empathy, then maybe try to identify with each one of those soldiers and how they are coping rather then just your particular way.

Counter to that I ran across this article/study by a former VP of Pfizer who is of the opinion that the virus is at about its end point: https://lockdownsceptics.org/what-sage-got-wrong/ I have no idea which opinion is the correct one but I do hope it is this one Drakon, no offence intended.

My corner of the world is what I need to look at to do a proper risk assessment for me and what I need to do to protect myself. I don't have the option of huddeling at home working on developing both agoraphobia and PTSD and cashing the government cheque at the end of the month. If I don't work, I don't eat or pay my bills. Thanks though for prompting me to look even deeper at the risk assessment for the area I live and work in. From that perspective I found out that in my area just outside Toronto, the 700,000 residents of the area spread over 2,500 sq km currently has an active Covid case load of just under 400 known with 12 in hospital and 4 in ICU with 2 of those on ventilators. There have been 186 deaths since the start with 154 of those being people in nursing homes for the elderly. It is unknown how many of the remaining 32 deaths were front line workers or people contracting the virus during a visit to a health care facility for an unrelated incident but undoubtedly they are a percentage of that 32 which then leaves only a few deaths as a result of getting the virus out in the wild. Probably if I was to do an even greater risk analysis I would find that statistically I stand a much greater chance of dying from hitting one of santa's reindeer while i drive the the 150 miles of country road I do daily or a heart attack from reading hysterical media reports of the end being nigh if I don't have a proper mask on. I'll leave you to the angst ridden hysterics but will say in parting that you might want to back away from all that high strung media reporting and go get some peace of mind playing tiddly winks or something as that will do your immune system a world of good.

In the real world, companies that cater to our leisure times, are staffed predominantly during those times. So although the golf club has groundskeeper personnel on during the off hours, the customer support staff that interface directly with visitors, are mostly on during the evenings and weekends to address any problems coming up when people are taking advantage of those leisure times. That is the nature of such a business normally. From that perspective it strikes me that there should be Lindens available during peak concurrency times, not so much during the off hours. That doesn't really seem to be the case.

One of my favourites:

My own scientific testing proves masks are dangerous because they make my glasses fog up and I walk into things.

Meh I read a few articles in the past couple days that admitted that the medical authorities are not really sure how the virus is transferring in about 50% of the community as contact tracing has been running them into dead ends in an increasing amount of cases. A lot of the lockdown stuff is them grasping at straws and its starting to be admitted. Honestly it is my own opinion that some are being overly melodramatic about it. I am an essential worker who covers a 500 square kilometer area daily, have a very large extended family as well as a good network of friends and acquaintances where I would hear of anyone dying or even being hospitalized for covid or any other reason and yet, nothing, zilch, nada, null. Thank God. Other then "the sky is falling and the world is going to end" media sites, I wouldn't even know there was a problem. So I don't see the need to get too freaked out about it.

I find wearing an N95 mask causes me a little problem when shopping a larger store. I do have some respiratory issue but not normally enough to impair me when walking store aisles for half hour or so. So I guess others mileage varies. Then there was this guy who wore an N95 while driving and found it to be bad for his health: https://people.com/human-interest/man-wearing-n95-mask-passes-out-while-driving-car-crashing-into-pole/

In firestorm you can see the complexity of others by going to Preferences-General-Show Avatar Complexity. It will then be shown above their name tag

Nothing wrong with voicing a complaint. How else will the Lab know where they might need to add some personnel especially considering their client base is multinational and it is only the USA that has a thanksgiving holiday. Perhaps they did not realize that and needed to have it pointed out.

Sometimes it is easier to get someone in by telling them the group needs help from one who already knows it all.

Well then just remember to duck!

Its the way the thread was going and so my comment was simply a recognition of that as was Drakon's post. Reading of Skel's post I am not sure if he has been personally affected by a covid death so am a little confused as to whether I need to apologize for the dark humour intended in my own post. I am missing why the sudden need to freak out at Drakon's post specifically. I do hope he/she works out the bitterness at life that seems prevalent in many of the posts I see but that's for them to recognize and deal with should that path be chosen. I don't see it helping when a slew of posters do a pile on.

In spite of your own projecting about me, I am left of center and would usually choose the path of liberals if the party leader is someone reasonable. However, Clinton was not a good choice imo and Trump seemed a better choice, especially since the far left broke a cardinal rule in sales while arguing for a democrat vote. Instead of focusing on Clintons strong points (did she have any?) the norm was to criticize and make fun of Trump as being inept for office, as you continue to do to this day. I've taken a few sales courses over the years and in all of them one of the first rules was to never criticize the competition because you take a huge risk in pushing your potential client to view the other side as the underdog and that's what happens each time you post something critical of Trump. People by and large tend to root for the underdog, just as you do, even if it might be against their own best interest. Its a human nature thing and no amount cajoling from your end can change that. Another point about criticizing the competition is that the sales person increasingly loses credibility each time they double and triple down on their critiques. Others see the critiques as the promoter trying to ego boost themselves at the expense of the competition. That just tends to not go over well, even if no-one says anything directly. So in conclusion, you are single handedly pushing me to to root for the underdog, just as you do for those you perceive as being such.

Problem as i see it is twofold. 1 you still need a desktop/laptop capable of running S/L well in addition to a reasonably good tablet or phone. The second problem is that the viewer UI being setup for a larger screen size, would not work so well when viewed on a 6 inch phone or even 10 inch tablet. A native app with a UI designed specifically for a phone or tablet would be much nicer.

Yes, same as me in that regard except in this case I see the little guy as the other side though myself I tend towards left of center....whatever that means anymore.

Yes I did and am not sorry as it pushed you to share something about yourself I don't normally see in your postings in this forum, though I do remember seeing signs of what you said in another forum a few years ago.

You'll be saying the same about the next Republican leader as you did about the previous ones.

Hard to lick boots with a ball gag.....just saying.

You made yourself out to be the sciencey person by calling out conservatives as being anti science so am assuming you have read all the proper studies that support your position. Share the knowledge!

Yeah and maybe as i been doing, refocusing on hand washing which i have to admit i was letting slide as everyone was too preoccupied with masks.

Well feel free to post links to those opposing studies. Several other posters have hinted they exist but failed to provide anything so hopefully you can.

But then I didn't say they were no good. I said they were not a great line of defense. That was backed by at least 2 of the studies i referenced that were tl;dr for you. The difference between those who contracted the virus and wore a mask and those who didn't varied only by a few percentage points.

I agree that the numbers are going to spike regardless of whether masks are worn or not. That's not to advocate not wearing them but to point out they are not a great line of defense and even the social distance of 6 feet is really not enough when talking to people. And yes on the politics and human nature. Some seem to not get it that trying to lay blame only makes the other side dig in their heels more defending their position, whether it is about not wearing masks or that peacefully rioting in the streets with thousands of people magically exempts them from contracting Covid 19. Politics just polarizes people from dealing with the reality. The best reason to wear a mask though is so you don't give people a heart attack!

Link to a pub med study? Did you see this bit? So breathing and talking are already enough to transmit the virus to others and from that perspective alone, it shows why masks are perhaps statistically negligible in preventing the spread. One study noted the difference between control groups of mask wearing people and ones without would account for 1 additional case in 200,000.