h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know someone who broke his arm by walking past a steel office cabinet with a carrier plate with lots of very strong magnets glued to it under his arm.

(Bang! Ouch…)

Caiman,
(thanks for commenting on my burning words) since the fraud, called crisis , of 2008 I´ve been reading that rethoric and It hurts,because of its unfairness.

During those years, the ECB, didn´t act as you say "
"let's press more euro's if there is any kind of problem"-strategy that has prevailed under Mr. Draghi"

The money went to private banks, that´s the mechanism, the money can´t go directly to States.
The problem is that those banks , then and later have been using the money mainly for speculative investments instead of productive ones.
The money lent has been used for gambling. Of couse, the corrupt conservative gov. of Spain helped to this situation and took benefit from that. The Conservative party PP has been sentenced for corruption and there are many more cases open at courts here in Spain. But it seems that some voters have a fragile memory.


I read last year that we are about to have another collapse because of that.
Not only banks also strong companies like Apple borrow money to lend it for speculative ends.
So, there´s a huge debt for private banks and big companies.


Mario Draghi could have helped those years by buying State debts from the PIGS, but he waited until most national assets were looted.

Mario Draghi, before he was at the ECB, was vicepresident of Goldman Sachs, the lawyers of this company/international mafia/lobby/sycopaths, were who made-up the Greek finances so that they could enter the EUro zone.
The Greek tragedy and looting that came after is well known.

The big private banks are shaking now with this pandemia.

The recomendations of first business! is proving those psycos wrong.

Yes, it should be humanity first.

It is hard to follow all the details of what has happened since 2008. The financial world appears like a swamp to me (including the crocodiles). Like, I understand shares (lending money to companies to invest in development and growth), but not all the derivative gambling that has evolved around it.

You're not meant to understand them. They're designed to be prohibitively complicated so they can hide their malfeasance in a cloud of obscurity.

A Texas supermarket chain is setting an example on how to prepare and respond to pandemics and other disasters.

http://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3b7x5/heb-texas-grocery-store-coronavirus-covid-19-response

http://www.texasmonthly.com/food/heb-prepared-coronavirus-pandemic/

Thank you,Baron Grim.

Groceries in my area are following suit, though. Star market has stars on the floor, spaced six feet apart, in front of each checkout aisle. Employees walk around, making sure that shoppers adhere to the distancing requirements.

My only qualm about social distancing is the term itself. Sociel activity bring people closer. Distancing is antisocial.

Someone I saw on TV suggested that "social distancing" wasn't a good term, that "physical distancing" would be less confusing considering millenials reliance on "social media".

Or perhaps viral separation?
I was very impressed at my local supermarket this afternoon. Efficient cleaning & issuing of trolleys, queuing system & restriction of number of people in store. Only had to wait 5 mins to go in & store reasonably well stocked. A bit free range inside, but most people trying to avoid getting too close to anyone else. Nobody buying toilet rolls...

Good point.

Distancing is basically antisocial.

Nature likes to throw us curve balls when w least expect it.

we dodged the bullet on Ebola and SARS.

Apparently, the community hospitals are starting to struggle. They don't have the resources or visibiltity of the big teaching hospitals in Boston.

This is why it will be very helpful when the State moves some of their critically ill patients to special COVID-19 centers, which will be designed especially for care of this one disease.

I'm guessing that the lack of masks and other protective wear is hurting the patients./ Here's why: Ideally, a nurse should wear a particular mask for one patient and then wear a different mask for the next. Instead, the shortage of masks forces nurses to wear the same mask all day.

A lot of local manufacturers have started making masks in large quantities. These will go to medical personnel. That's good, but let's remember that the masks will not filter down to the rest of us. Last night, I read that the CDC has changed its mind about the efficacy of masks in preventing infected people from spreading the contagion. Ah, but where will non-medical people get the masks? there are instructions for home-sewing of masks. They look complicated to me. If I had a big enough elastic band, I could fasten a dishwashing towel around my face. hey, it doesn't have to be elaborate! It would harder to breathe wearing this, but maybe I could adjust it.....

A bandanna or thin scarf could be used. Bankrobbers make masks from them...

When I next venture out to the supermarket (HEB), I'll be using one of my "buffs" I wear under my helmet. They're stretchy cloth tubes, very adaptable for different uses. http://www.buffusa.com/

I wouldn't consider them appropriate for medical use, but "it's better than nothing"... maybe.

I will see if I can find a bandanna. I probably won't want to wear them into a bank.

Finally got some paracetamol..and there was pasta.

Pasta could be the key to beating this corona virus...

http://xkcd.com/2287/

That might be useful for those who have pasta way.

It will probably help us to learn more about this strange new disease. What masks (or substitutes like bandannas) do a better job of keeping infectious p[articles form going out or coming in? I was surprised top find that a bandanna is much more effective than a dust mask. Who knew? After all, I doubt that many of u have N95 surgical masks lying around our homes. If we did, who knows what would happen if people of a less honest nature found out? Ventilator masks are supposedly the cream of the crop, but they only work if they are fitted properly.

It's too late to do anything about it, but decades of poor diet, insufficient exercise, and stress have made many Americans less than resistant to this (or, perhaps any) disease.

Then there are differential factors such as innate differences in resistance. There might be some healthy people in their seventies who could give the disease good resistance. I hear that Prince Charles had a relatively mild case, and is apparently recovered or nearly so. Likewise Tom Hanks (who is in his mid-sixties). About a quarter of the infected people show no symptoms, making them dangerous if they get too close to too many other people.

I haven't gotten close to anyone in rather along time. I've started ashing my hands a lot. I can't stop from rubbing my eyes (this is Spring pollen season, after all), though only after my hands are clean. If I do it when I'm asleep, I can't tell, but the only germs on my hands would be my own, which I'm uysed to anyway...

Just read somewhere that a safe distance is 6 meters, not 2 or even 1.5

What about the time you spend near someone - isn't that relevant too?

It's hard to say. I could wish that more research on this had been done, but scientists seem to be busy, with a lot on their plates.

According to the New York Times, a study of 62 patients showed that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine seemed to help patients with mild symptoms get better faster. There's also potential for the drug Tocilizumab.

On the other hand, Bloomberg reports that hydroxychloroquine has been a disappointment in France.