Re: When did El Reg get so old?
Troll.
4161 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
There are at least two genetic elements to deaths and serious illness from Covid-19. One relates to blood group, and the other to ACE2 and chemokyne receptors. People with blood group A have a greater chance of death or serious illness than other blood groups. See https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/two-genetic-regions-linked-with-severe-covid-19-67619, for example.
I haven't had chance to refresh my memory on the distribution of blood groups amongst different ethnicities, but I do remember that group A is more prevalent amongst some non-European groups.
"When disease wipes out millions of people?
Black death"
Serious lack of historical knowledge again! Bubonic plague (before it got that name) was called "the Black Death" because of the distinctive buboes which appeared black, especially after death. It was and is a purely descriptive term based on what was observed. It has nothing whatsoever with people of other skin colours. See also "yellow fever".
Oh, how I wish people were educated to a reasonable minimum standard.
@Dr S: a serious question deserves a serious answer, so here goes. These are my reasons for not wanting to be an M.P.
1. I am not, and never will be, a "good" Party member (i.e. a back-slapping, two-faced extrovert willing to change opinions based on whoever tells you what your opinion is).
2. Living life in the public eye. I don't want everyone knowing who I am and what I (may have) have said or done in the past.
3. More importantly, my family don't want (2) above.
4. I don't want to be defined by my political opinions.
5. I actually have scruples that I'm proud of.
6. I would become VERY frustrated at nor being able to change what I see as fundamental injustices in the system (welfare, court system, democratic deficit).
There are probably more, but those five reasons are sufficient. Change the Party system, get rid of FPTP voting, set some enforceable limits on what journalists can invade, and I *might* change my mind.
My last two Samsungs (Note 4s) will probably be my last Samsungs. Both were second-hand (I don't buy anything new unless there is a very good reason) and both ate their OS at about the same age (based on manufacturing dates), starting with random reboots and progressing to just not booting at all. One of them seems to have gone so far as to lose the bootloader. I haven't had time or patience to track down a solution for this (assuming there is one), so run a Jolla and an Ulefone Armor X5 these days. I miss using a stylus, but not to the extent of trusting Samsung again, since the experience with the Note 4s suggests a built-in problem. I have a Note 1 that I bought in 2012, which is now for the children to play games on. It is going strong, so Samsung at least used to be able to build things properly.
The app is at https://covid.joinzoe.com/. I've been using it for several months.
I understand some of your anxiety, but please remember that *across the world* fewer than 500k people have died of this virus (I'm taking the current figure, since the claims of under- and over-reporting seem to balance out at the moment). This is not an "at any costs" situation by any means - let's look at the broader picture.
It looks increasingly like keeping schools open was an entirely legitimate thing to do. "What we’re seeing more and more from the data that comes out is that child-to-child or child-to-adult spread is actually not common”. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/covid-19-is-very-different-in-young-kids-versus-adults-67637
From the article, "Even a certified device could have a commitment to support for only five years after the release date of the underlying version of Ubuntu Core. That means you could have a certified appliance based on Ubuntu Core 18 and it might only be kept updated until 2023 (though the OS itself has updates at least until 2028)."
And here is the major problem (and not just with this Canonical project). Support should be for x years after EoL, not from release. I'm also a strong advocate of legislation making EoL software open source, to reduce the deliberate obsolescence manufacturers insist on.
As well as the time element, there is an environment element. Being outdoors is much different from being in a large building with is different from being in a small building, for example. Also, what people are doing makes a difference - talking, shouting and singing have different threat profiles. None of the apps seem to take this into account, so people will rapidly lose any trust they might have, anyway.
master
with main
across its services
Mrs IP is not originally from these shores, but has a similar average skin colour to those who are historically considered to be native to the British Isles. She does have problems with racist attitudes directed at her but, because she doesn't have dark skin, she gets no support. The Black and Minority Ethnic committee at her employer won't consider supporting her because she isn't from a continent other than Europe.
Some racists aren't being called out enough.
Interestingly, it seems that there wasn't a major early-modern society that didn't have slaves. In Europe, Vikings and the Germanic societies certainly had them, as did the Moors in Iberia. What is even more interesting is that most Western societies abandoned slavery per se around a thousand years ago whilst it was still common elsewhere around the world. Many hundreds of thousands of white people, often living around coasts, were taken to be slaves in e.g. Africa over several centuries. Britain was the first country in the world to make slavery illegal, long after the actual practice had stopped in the country.
Sorry - ran out of time to edit my post. I wanted to address your question seriously.
The answer is that I don't know, because I am not minded to screw people over. However, there are lots of people who are. For example, the first telephone suppliers and owners had no concept of the potential for abuse that scum rapidly jumped on. Information is power, and it can be used against you. Reducing the attack surface is the best defence, but companies like Facebook take away options do that (usually deliberately, but in this case accidentally).
"No numeric keypad = no thanks."
Horses for courses. I dislike keyboards with numeric keypads because they make the keyboard asymmetrical and push the mouse further away from the centre-line. I also discovered a long time ago that I like a row of number keys rather than a stack which can be either 1-9 or 7-3 (top-left to bottom-right) depending on... whatever.
"... if being in the EU is so good, why do the Scottish Nationalists want to leave the UK?" You answer it yourself - "... consider exactly what sort of union is involved."
"The UK has been a fairly successful and well-integrated political and economic union for 300+ years,.." Yes, for the English.
"We can trade without selling the country out to another gov to run."
When did that happen? The UK had a very powerful position in the EU, and rarely lost what it wanted. With derogations, it was very much a deal in which the UK took what it wanted and ignored what it didn't. That's a very funny version of "selling the country for another gov to run". Now, if you want examples of countries run by another gov, let's look at Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Catalonia etc in which another country takes all the taxes and gives back what's left after the dominant bit has had its pick.
@Phil: "At the moment the person working hardest to destroy it is Nicola Sturgeon, with assistance from some EU members who would love the chance to smack the UK for daring to leave, and who have always found that a divide-and-conquer strategy is best for them."
Once again, a Brexiter using the same argument *against* Scottish independence that they used *for* coming out of the EU. You can't have it both ways - either independence* is good for all or it isn't good for anyone. What is it about the English that makes them want to keep a failing union together? Is it that they know that the Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are a huge net benefit to them?
*Note: being a member of the EU never actually took away independence from the UK in any meaningful sense.
The pint I'm making is that the national figure is not granular enough. Have you been to any ex-industrial towns with their swathes of terraces? Have you been to many seaside towns, where parking at all is a luxury? Fine, suburbia might outnumber these areas, but those stats do not reflect the lived reality of millions of people. Of the dozen or so places I've lived in my life, a full half of those had no off-street parking, or any way of putting it in. Two were unusual in that they were the only houses on the road that had off-road parking near the house. One had parking perched precariously above the front garden (you'd have to see it to believe it). My hit-rate for on-road parking would be higher, except I made parking on my land an absolute requirement as soon as I could afford not to consider anything else.
"Government stats show about 75% of people have off street parking."
You, or someone with a similar writing style, keep posting this, and I keep replying that I don't know how that figure is reached. In many towns/cities, there are entire areas which consist solely of terraced housing spreading over acres. The people who live there are usually at the lower end of the socio-economic scale, though not always (think big Victorian/Edwardian terraces). There is no off-street parking, nor will there ever be short of bulldozing and starting again. Your blithe "75 percent", even if true, denies reality.
"You've never wondered if the laundry was done, listened, it sounded quiet so you figure it is done, then went to the wash room and found it was still running?" No - I know how long a cycle runs. Don't you?
"And how are you going to open the fridge to check how much milk you have while at the grocery store?" I'm not - I know exactly how much milk is In the fridge, either because I keep a running tally in my head*, or I check before going to the shop. Planning - you must have heard of it.
*Rapidly maturing children may alter this, of course, though not to the extent of needing a spy-fridge.
I didn't digress into my opinion of people like yourself because the post was a bit long already. In a sense, I admire you - you have chosen something that suits *you*, not to shout "Look at me!!!"* I *would* recognise your watches if I noticed them - to be honest, if I was looking at your watch whilst talking to you, the conversation must be incredibly boring - but any general clothing would be entirely lost on me (see earlier comments on my attitude to clothes).
*I'd admire you even more if they were previously owned.
"Except it would be the Christian bookshop getting told it cannot sell the Bible or follow Christian beliefs, but must sell the Koran and all other Holy books instead. This is what the UK calls "Equality" and "Religious Tolerance"."
Citation or it didn't happen. If it didn't happen, then what's your point?