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What I really love is when the media says (they don't report any more) that supermarkets are out of bread, milk, dunny paper, whatever because people are panic buying and there is no justification for it. Then the next story they go to is about how most people with covid may benefit from Ibuprofen so be sure to stock up on it when you're at the shops in case you have to isolate for a week. 

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1 hour ago, FatherAlabaster said:

I  guess when trees are down across the roads, power's out, and low areas are flooded, that's when you really want French toast.

Hot breakfast of any kind is quite the luxury post hurricane, but my go to is pancakes. No refrigeration required and can be prepared with minimal work/equipment. Mix lasts quite a while in the pantry to and doesn't require last minute panic buying.

2 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

 Again in a stupid twist from last year where the union bosses all screamed that lockdowns were harmful and people needed to work, they are now saying getting people back to work if they were a close contact is too risky under all circumstances.

Exactly what's going on here now too since the government has been picking up the bill for or mandating for people to stay home. People want it both ways. No restrictions but restrictions in certain areas. Everyone has a right to go to work but everyone has a right to refuse and not suffer the consequences. Supply chain should always have enough things for everyone at low cost but workers have a right to good pay. The list of contradictions goes on and on. It's all a bit maddening.

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18 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

Mandatory vaccinations got introduced here in the UK into law this past week or so.  All frontline NHS workers have to be vaccinated and those that refuse (without valid medical exemption) are to be redeployed or dismissed.  April deadline.  In an organisation that is massively understaffed already (as a global industry, health care is in a mess recruitment and retention wise) this seems very draconian even though I get the message behind it.

It continues to astound me that only just above 70% of the population has the two doses, and has been that level for months now...i.e no progress. Way back before any vaccine was even available it was suggested that you had to hit a target like 75% to eradicate a virus.

Regarding dunny paper. No need for that really if you've got diarrhoea. Just blast it out and then use a hand-held shower head. Metal up your ass. 

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1 hour ago, JonoBlade said:

It continues to astound me that only just above 70% of the population has the two doses, and has been that level for months now...i.e no progress. Way back before any vaccine was even available it was suggested that you had to hit a target like 75% to eradicate a virus.

75% is a conservative number. Infectious disease experts don't have a consensus. I've seen numbers from 70% to 90% would be required for "herd immunity". Unfortunately, that's a best guess as there are so many factors that go into how a virus spreads (which you can multiply as it mutates). The officially reported numbers in the US are garbage on vaccination. Looking at internal reports from our healthcare system compared to those reported by the state compared to the federal government, there are significant differences. Our data shows 5-15% lower rates that what the others show for the states/counties we cover. I suspect that trend is not isolated to my area.

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Australian state governments used 80% double dosed as their trigger to start opening up and getting people out of lockdown, or where lockdowns weren't a thing opening state borders. The media stopped caring about any percentage figures a few weeks back when all but one state got to 80%. They'll probably ramp it back up as part of the lead news story when third jabs become mandatory for more people.

One problem we face here though is that many indigenous areas are well under 80% single dose and now that it's spreading around the country it's actually reaching those communities and infecting large numbers.

Something that's making our numbers look worse at the moment is that Victoria only recently started to count at home RAT tests in the numbers and New South Wales isn't counting them at all. It was big news when Victoria jumped to 50K cases in one day last week, headlines were large, reporters were screaming the number loudly, but then when they actually explained it nearly 50% of the that 'daily' test numbers were aggregate numbers for the previous 7 days. When New South Wales (and other states that aren't already doing the it) start counting RAT tests in daily numbers the same massive increase will happen. It will make headlines but it wont be as bad as they want it to sound. I think NSW is going to start doing it today but I don't know what sort of backlog of home tests they have.

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Mother Fucker! I was riding around this morning just before day break and I feel the unwanted feeling of a rear tyre under inflated. So I stop to pump it up and the bloody pump wont grip the value or seal, so no matter how much I push air through the pump none of it's going into the tube, but plenty is coming out. I fuck around with it for a few minutes finally get air in enough to ride home, at home I grab the pump I threw out (well threw in the cupboard to be eventually put in the bin), because it wouldn't work and of course it worked first time and pumped the tyre up. No idea what was wrong with the original pump when it didn't work last week while I was testing it but I was to annoyed to head back out to continue my ride. Stupid bloody pumps! Stupid bloody tyres! Now I know why the Flintstones didn't have inflatable wheels!!

 

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English Vs English/American spelling does seem to be a bit of a hot topic with you, I'll try to remember to convert metric to imperial and typing in American for you :)

I'm going to have to sit down and look at both the pump and the valve today, only thing worst than a flat tire :) would be a being miles from home and not having a working pump.

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What about being robbed and savagely beaten by a band of vicious cannibalistic one-eyed bikie bandits and left for dead in a ditch only to have your decaying corpse picked at by packs of wild dingoes and black breasted buzzards as it rots in the blazing Aussie summer sun? I reckon that might be a tad worse than a flat tyre.

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Well, the thing about the incorrect American spellings is that it doesn't really matter. English orthography only approximates pronunciation anyway and there are so many dialectical divergences in pronunciation too. In the future English could be like Chinese, and the written 'word' becomes a symbol of meaning to be pronounced however that word is pronounced in the readers particular region. (Apostrophe left out on purpose. Who needs them?)

That's what's on my mind at the moment. That and the cricket.

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1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

Well, the thing about the incorrect American spellings is that it doesn't really matter. English orthography only approximates pronunciation anyway and there are so many dialectical divergences in pronunciation too. In the future English could be like Chinese, and the written 'word' becomes a symbol of meaning to be pronounced however that word is pronounced in the readers particular region. (Apostrophe left out on purpose. Who needs them?)

That's what's on my mind at the moment. That and the cricket.

All good points Doc. I had to look up orthography, I thought it probably either had something to do with birds or folding paper into animals. In all seriousness though it can be quite funny when you see where some fairly common English words originated, as far as how much we've twisted and corrupted them into something completely different than where they began. I enoy words and the English language, but spelling tires with a Y has always bugged me. That as well as the there-their-they're thing really winds my clock. But I don't need anyone to spell anything any certain way for me, I figure we should all spell our own words as we see fit. My comment on 'tyres' doing my head in was really just an observation that I had read that whole paragraph and at the end that's all I could think about, which really says a lot more about me than it does about the author. It was not meant to be taken as a complaint or an appeal for anyone to spell anything my way. Crack on with your funky-ass Commonwealther spellings boys!

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I've had much better longevity out of tires with Presta valves than Schrader, most likely because the valve is threaded so you can secure it against the rim.

Spelling is interesting. From what I've read about it, standardizing it has historically been about trying to cement regional dominance as much as it has about more high-minded ideals of mutual intelligibility or preserving etymology. Gotta admit I've always cared about it, attached more importance to it than it deserves. But I enjoy seeing regional/national variations and cases with more than one acceptable alternative, like judgement/judgment.

I don't follow tennis but Djokovic seems like a goon.

 

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I always spell judgement wrong, but then without spell check my writing often reads like Chinese anyway. I've got an Australian dictionary on my browser and it still uses American spelling on many words, it doesn't matter on forums and the like but when I'm filling out a form or something that is business related or financial etc it's bloody annoying.

I don't follow tennis either but it's neigh on impossible to turn the TV on here without hearing about the case. No one really has any news, the court case is currently adjourned for lunch, but every bloody station is still trying to beat the others with something "new". It's a bloody circus and no matter what happens it's going to please some and annoy others.

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I am amazed at how much the government fucked the whole Djokovic thing up. Seriously you couldn't fuck it up any more if you tried.  

 

But then it is par for course given they have fucked evey other thing up. 

On 1/13/2022 at 1:39 AM, JonoBlade said:

It continues to astound me that only just above 70% of the population has the two doses, and has been that level for months now...i.e no progress. Way back before any vaccine was even available it was suggested that you had to hit a target like 75% to eradicate a virus.

 

 

Australia is at like over 90% but ot means precious little when vaccines  are largely ineffective at stopping spread of omicron.

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I was listening to Gimme Metal radio and they played a set list consisting of thrash, death, grind, metallic hardcore and black metal as well as some off kilter stuff ala Meshuggah.  From memory it was stuff like Lockup, Carnifex (newer more DM stuff), The Haunted, Nails,  Slayer,  Death Angel (both modern tracks) Trap Them etc etc.  BM bands were like Tsjuder and other ones with Nordic names.

The black metal bands stuck out like sore thumbs and generally reduced the overall intensity of the playlist.  Some of the BM bands did OK when playing a thrash or death style riff but as soon as they went to black metal the momentum would be lost.

It was like pummel, pummel, then a BM song would come and literally cool down the vibe and go down the gears.

Not the first time I have encountered this - i remember a local multi band gig whereby literally the rather rabid pit cleared when the BM band started playing.  Literally the BM guys didn't sound  intense or riffy enough compared to everything else and you colus see the fans lose interest and leave the pit.

I really think the archetypal black metal riffs and cold production kill the genre's intensity over others (even modern thrash).  

In many ways I think BM is more atmospheric than rifftastic headbanging goodness like other genres  - ie cold Norwegian fjord vibes.

 

 

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I stick to the intense riffy headbangable black metal for the most part. Which is why my list of top bm albums always looks so different than even other black metal lists. There is for sure a shitload of boring and pretentious black metal happening out there. Personally though, I would definitely put Tsjuder into the riffy intense black metal category.

But of course it's also true that like Deadovic and Kuke there are many other mainstream metal fans who for various reasons dismiss black metal out of hand. They don't like it, are not open to it and don't want anything to do with it. To each his own. 

 

Desert Northern Hell

 

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We got about 4" overnight with a layer of ice on top. They got more snow inland, we were on the warmer side of the storm. Haven't been outside yet but I don't have anywhere we need to go today. The roads are all clear but the long driveway and car are covered in snow/ice. I'll wait for my buddy to come and plow me out later, he has to come by anyway to siphon some more heating oil out of my tank that I'm giving to him because my oil burner carked it and I won't be needing it anymore. Then he says he'll take the empty oil tank cut it in half and make a pig smoker out of it. That's redneck ingenuity for ya.

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27 minutes ago, markm said:

Anyone in the U.S. get nailed by the storm yesterday/ last night? DC-Baltimore area was sooo overhyped. My area turned to rain in the evening and washed away mostly, no real ice problems here. 

Do have some shoveling I've been putting off all morning. 

My folks in central NC got hit pretty hard - no power, wood stove for heat, put a bunch of water aside. I haven't heard back from them this morning but they should be fine even without electricity for a little bit. Up here in MA it was pretty tame, just some snow and rain this morning followed by warm enough temps to wipe out most of the accumulation we had from our snow last week. 

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