Thursday - May 21, 2020

Hope Or Hype?

Two more positive news items today about the COVID. Rays of sunshine or blowing smoke? It’s hard to tell.

California biopharmaceutical company claims coronavirus antibody breakthrough

A California-based biopharmaceutical company claims to have discovered an antibody that could shield the human body from the coronavirus and flush it out of a person’s system within four days, Fox News has exclusively learned.

Later Friday, Sorrento Therapeutics will announce their discovery of the STI-1499 antibody, which the San Diego company said can provide “100% inhibition” of COVID-19, adding that a treatment could be available months before a vaccine hits the market.

“We want to emphasize there is a cure. There is a solution that works 100 percent,” Dr. Henry Ji, founder and CEO of Sorrento Therapeutics, told Fox News. “If we have the neutralizing antibody in your body, you don’t need the social distancing. You can open up a society without fear.”
...
Through their studies, Sorrento screened and tested billions of antibodies they have collected over the past decade. They say this made it possible to identify hundreds of potential antibody candidates that could successfully bind themselves to the spike proteins of the coronavirus. They found that a dozen of these antibodies demonstrated the ability to block the spike proteins from attaching itself to the human enzyme ACE2, which is the receptor a virus normally uses to enter human cells.

Through further testing, the researchers at Sorrento found that there was one particular antibody that showed to be 100 percent effective in blocking COVID-19 from infecting health cells — STI-1499.
...
Dr. Ji pointed out that the antibody can be used as preventative therapy since there are no side effects, and that it can be more effective than any vaccine that may be developed.

“This is the best solution,” he said. “The point of making a vaccine is to generalize a neutralizing antibody. So, if you already have one, you don’t need to the body to generate one from a vaccine. You’ve already provided it. You’re cutting out the middleman.”
...
“As soon as it is infused, that patient is now immune to the disease,” Dr. Brunswick said to Fox News. “For the length of time, the antibody is in that system. So, if we were approved [by the FDA] today, everyone who gets that antibody can go back to work and have no fear of catching COVID-19.”

US: $1.2 For 300 Million COVID vaccinations from UK. If it works.

U.S. commits $1.2 billion to possible British COVID vaccine
U.S. secures 300 million doses, almost a third, of potential AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine

The United States will pump up to $1.2 billion into developing AstraZeneca’s potential COVID-19 vaccine and said on Thursday it would order 300 million doses, as the White House seeks solutions to the coronavirus pandemic.

The commitment provides for a possible U.S.-based clinical trial this summer involving 30,000 volunteers and adds fuel to the British drugmaker’s efforts to develop a vaccine for the disease, one of around 100 which are under way worldwide.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said he hoped the first doses of the vaccine, which is being developed with the University of Oxford in England, would be available by October, with the full order delivered by early in 2021.

However, AstraZeneca stressed that the vaccine may not work and that it was still waiting for results from an early stage trial in southern England, before any moves towards late stage testing.

The vaccine, previously known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and now as AZD1222, was developed by the University of Oxford and licensed to British drugmaker AstraZeneca. Immunity to the new coronavirus is uncertain and so the use of vaccines unclear.

The U.S. deal allows a late-stage – Phase III – clinical trial of the vaccine with 30,000 people in the United States.

Should this thing work, AstraZeneca is gearing up to crank out a billion doses.

So, we’ve got the HCQ - Zinc - Zpack - Vitamin D treatment, the blood plasma treatment, at least one antibody fix that may be only a temporary cure, and at least one vaccine that’s effective enough so far to go to human trials.  That sounds hopeful to me. At one of the vaccine links I found, there’s a British doc in a video saying that the vaccine is easy to make and inexpensive. Sounds better than the $1000/pill for Remdesivir approach that might not work either.

I wonder what happened to that bunch down in Australia that said they had an antibody cure at least 12 weeks ago? Or the one from that research place up in Norway or Sweden?  The truth is, most of these approaches will fail. But the other truth is, putting the word out that you’ve come up with something can make the money come pouring in and the stock shoot right up.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/21/2020 at 07:00 PM   
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getting geared up for the new reality

The doc I clean for is opening his offices Tuesday, so I’ve to go down and give both of them another super cleaning. Hey, it’s money.

Going forward they have to have a sanitizing process in place, and my part of that will be for the floors. To which end we’ve decided on a steam cleaner moppy thing. A moderate amount of research shows that the MC1375 model from McCullogh ought to do the job for a moderate price. Commerical kit costs thousands; too much. This one holds more water than others which means it runs longer, has a longer cord, and an adjustable higher pressure and temperature capacity. It also cleans showers, tile grout, BBQ grills and engine blocks. Which is a bit more than my intended use, but if it’s going to live in my garage I might have to try it out at home. Maybe blast the concrete patio clean or some such.

I just hope that the state hasn’t gone further off the deep end of reality and is demanding that this be done daily. In which case I just got a full time job, and it’s going to cost him plenty. The whole thing is pretty close to rediculous IMO, but you do what has to be done.

I also hope that the carpet can be steamed without soaking the rugs. Do I need a wet/dry vacuum now too? Yes, it’s getting crazy.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/21/2020 at 12:49 PM   
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   Wednesday - May 20, 2020

snagged another cute video

Got this one from the comments over at Stoaty’s, via Ace.

This is what a Scottish sports commentator does on his day off. He’s got several of these vids.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/20/2020 at 08:57 AM   
Filed Under: • Animals • Humor •  
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too true

snagged from Pappy’s Rants blog

One thing I’ve learned following all this COVID stuff is that any data you see is likely at least a week old. I don’t need to mention the media’s agenda and bias we’re all up against. And the Left’s. It’s ubiquitous and monumental.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/20/2020 at 07:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Media-Bias • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
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   Tuesday - May 19, 2020

More COVID Stuff: Trying To Fix The Numbers

Drewlock Holmes, COVID detective

Another Update: I’m sure it’s merely anecdotal coincidental, but NJ is suddenly listing LTC cases for both residents and staff. OTOH, those 80 missing LTC cases are still missing at the county level. Guess they’re under long term investigation.

I’m sure you’ve seen endless posts and news articles about the oddness involved in counting the cases and the deaths for this virus. Is it political, is it due to panic, profit, general ineptness, or what? I don’t want to speak to that today, but I am trying to do something to get my local numbers squared away.

New Jersey has a very well done COVID dashboard that is updated daily. My county of Hunterdon also has one. The numbers and graphs shown on these directly influence the governor’s willingness to re-open the state, so the more accurate those numbers are the better decisions he can make ... and that’s all I’m going to say about that commie Trump hating Leftist as well.

New Jersey is an odd place in many ways, and the political lines drawn on the maps for our concept of self-rule reflect that. We have counties, cities, towns, townships, and boroughs. Layers of layers. It can be a bit confusing, especially when there are also unicorporated areas. Pittstown is one of those areas, not really in any of the 3 townships that border it. But the county and state governments have to list Pittstown’s COVID numbers somewhere, although it seems some of them may have been lost. Which is typical of Pittstown:

Generally listed as being in Franklin Township, Pittstown sits astride Pittstown Road, by the intersection with Bloomsbury Road. Both roads are the borders between the three township lines that meet there; Union, Alexandria, and Franklin Townships. On the other side of the road from the barn pictured above is the Pittstown Inn, a colonial era place now called The Grill At Pittstown. 2 1/2 miles north up Pittsown Road there is a Long Term Care center, with 80 active cases for their 120 residents, on the west side of Pittstown Road, north of Bloomsbury Road. That means it is in Union Township. New Jersey lists the COVID LTC cases there as being part of Franklin Township. Which is convenient with accepted practice for PittstownI suppose.

The problem is, these 80 cases are not reflected in the county daily numbers for Union, Alexandria, or Franklin Townships. It may look like they are refeclected in the 181 cases here in Union Township, but know that 161 of those are at the growth center for the developmentally challenged. It certainly doesn’t show up in the 10 cases listed for Alexandria Township, nor the 13 cases listed for Franklin Township. Where’d they go?

And as far as I can tell, the state gets their numbers from the counties, who collect it all either from the township governments or directly from the sources. So how can the county and state numbers not jibe? Shennanigans or mere oversight?

I can’t do much of anything about pushing for honest numbers at the national or state level, other than some fiery posts here on this blog. But I’ve written my county health executive about this twice now, politely pointing out the anamoly and asking specifically which township gets the Pittstown numbers, while mentioning that NJ may have the wrong township associated with this facility. And that’s about the most a citizen can do. Hold their toes to the fire by asking polite questions in a civil manner. So far they haven’t answered me, or changed any of the data. But I’m trying.

Update: You Catch More Flies With Honey ...
I heard back from the county; they’re working on it ... sure they are ...

Hi Drew,
Thank you for sending us your question.
We noticed this error too, and have been working to correct it with the New Jersey Department of Health. Please keep in mind that sometimes cases get added and removed here and there as we conduct case investigations so that can also contribute to number discrepancies.

Kind regards,

Janis R. Clark RN BSN
Hunterdon County Health Department
Preparedness Division Supervisor
Public Health Nurse

~~~~

Ms Clark

Thanks for your response. With so many data sources to collate, I’m sure that one or two will slip through the cracks once in a while. And I know that Pittstown is generally considered to be in Franklin Township even though parts of it are actually in all three townships.

The LTC situation is upsetting for me, even though I know noone in any of these places. I have no idea what can be done to help there short of absolute quarantine, and that would only help the rest of us. While the residents aren’t out in public, the staff is, and the infection rate at these centers is so severe I fear that it would be all too easy for them to become super spreaders. But forcing them to stay on site is akin to house arrest, approaching martial law. I can see “the needs of the many” but I also feel that we’ve lost far too many freedoms already because of this pandemic. Good luck with finding the right balance point in a solution.

I also realize that just suddenly tacking on an additional 80 cases to some township without explaination could scare the daylights out of people. This is why I feel that the daily numbers document from the county might be better if it had additional columns for LTC and Recovered, with a short sentance at the top that these are cumulative numbers, and perhaps a caveat about investigations and adjustments. OTOH, I may be the rare person who actually reads and studies that paper and then cross-references it against the state’s daily publications. Most of the people I’ve talked to are nearly oblivious to this whole situation, even though they’re severely impacted by it every day.

Drew

I think this is a much better approach than those nasty rabid comments so many people leave on the news sites and blog posts. She did respond to that last response of mine, but it was mostly pablum. “we’re isolating patients in wings, and not letting them comingle and they must wear masks and eat alone” kind of thing. Wonderful, because old granny in the home wants nothing more than to be isolated and alone AND sick 24-7.

I think we need to seriously re-think the entire nursing home thing all across the country. This is a horrible fiasco. Nearly half the COVID deaths in New Jersey are happening in LTC, along with 1/5 of the cases. From a miniscule slice of the population.

[ Pittstown is yet another place named in honor of Willaim Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. So is Chatham NJ, Pittsburgh PA, and any number of other places. He was a member of Parliament in the mid 1700’s who was very popular with the American colonists. He firmly believed in liberty, equality, self rule, fair tazes, representation, etc, and did everything he could to defuse the political situations that lead to the revolution. He was cherised over here, but not so popular over there. Until he was dead. He’s buried in Westminster Abbey. His son William followed his legacy and became one of the greatest Prime Ministers in British history. ]

Posted by Drew458     on 05/19/2020 at 12:55 PM   
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Just loafing around again

I made another loaf of that bread I posted about the other day. I should have started it early in the morning, as sourdough takes a good long time to rise. Instead, I mixed it up in the middle of the afternoon, didn’t put it in the dough warmer, and by bedtime it was still just sitting there. So it went into the fridge overnight, and then I put it back out on the counter at 6am when I got up to feed the cats. Back to bed, slept to 10, sweet. Put the dough in a banneton and into the warmer for a bit. Got the oven and the Dutch oven heating, and by 11:30 the dough went in. It looked a little flat, so I jacked the heat up to 515 for the first 8 minutes to get the most oven spring I could. After that I put the heat back to the regular 500 for another 12, and then took it down to 450 when the lid came off and the cold iron griddle went in under the Dutch oven. That keeps the bottom of the loaf from scorching, in theory.

I should have pulled the bread out after 10-12 minutes at 450, as the first phase baking at 515 accelerated things. And the dough was a bit mature - over proofed - which may bake faster too.

Whatever. It came out a little dark, just slightly scorched around the gringes. It didn’t oven spring as much as I’d hoped, and the slashes didnt’ open much either; another two signs of over done dough. But the crumb was very nice; that’s the air bubbles inside.

And yet the bread tastes great. It’s a good recipe. Sourdough does allow you quite a bit of rising time flexibility. The previous loaf went in the oven less than 7 hours after it was mixed. This one went in 20 hours after. Probably 12 hours is the better limit, even with a partial retarded rise.

No pictures this time ... not that I’m embarassed by it, but it’s just another loaf of bread.

Bread is always a balancing act. Young dough will have a more pronounced yeasty taste, mature dough will have a stronger sourdough taste. Adjust the rise times to give you what you want, and don’t go too hot with the first part of the bake. 500 is more than hot enough; 475 or even 450 all the way through works just fine.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/19/2020 at 12:33 PM   
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   Monday - May 18, 2020

still here, still at sea metaphorically

Funny thing ... when she was working every day, I always found time to surf the net, follow the news, react to things and then blog about it.

Now that we’ve been shut in here for - is it 70 days at this point for the two of us? We did volutarily isolate for a week even before March 13 - somehow I’m not finding any time to be glued in front of the PC. Especially now that I actually have a functional PC again.

It’s not that I don’t feel the urge, it’s just that other things seem to fill every minute of my days, even though those things are often of little consequence. Maybe I’m not so alone anymore.

Her office is slowly re-opening, seeing a few patients and turning themselves inside out to create a germ-free minimal exposure environment. She’s getting about 8 hours a week. It’s going to be a very slow restart.

On the other hand, we’ve made a whole range of plans for fixing this place up, from the least to the most. Now all we have to do is choose one, and then wait until the builders are available to do the work. Which isn’t yet.

And we’ve also watched tons of television, more in the past 2+ months than I’ve watched in a year. We binged all of Manifest, then Penny Dreadful, then True Blood, and now we’re halfway through the 4th season of Outlander. She’s a better binger than I am, able to park a couple cats on her lap and zone into 10-12 hours of it per day. I top out after about 4.

So that’s my situation right now. I’ll try to get back in the swing.

Stay healthy.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/18/2020 at 04:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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   Thursday - May 14, 2020

Cop Union Bullshit

Broward County Cop Unions Force Rehire of Parkland Cowards, With Full Back Pay

Fuck that!

Broward Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Brian Miller was fired after hiding behind his car during the February 14, 2018, Parkland school shooting, but has now been rehired following union action on his behalf.

The Miami Herald reports that Miller “was one of the four deputies who were terminated because of a ‘neglect of duty’ in the Feb. 14, 2018, Parkland shooting.” The other three terminated deputies were Edward Eason, Joshua Stambaugh, and Scot Peterson.

On June 4, 2019, Breitbart News reported that Scot Peterson not only lost his job but was actually “arrested for inaction” during the Parkland attack.

Peterson’s inaction centered on him standing outside the building in which the Parkland attack was occurring, instead of going inside to confront the shooter.

Miller, on the other hand, “lost his job after it was found he hid behind his car as the first shots rang out,” according to the Herald. But he challenged his termination “with union backing” and secured an “arbitration ruling” that says, “BSO violated [his] constitutional due process rights and improperly terminated him.”

Miller is being rehired and will receive back pay.

Not one goddam union for any government employee of any kind anywhere ever. They are anathema.

I hear they’re repainting all the Broward County cruisers. Now it says “To Serve And Protect ... Ourselves” on the doors.

How. Dare. They.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/14/2020 at 09:55 PM   
Filed Under: • Government • Unions-Labor •  
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still not dead yet

I thought this was pretty good.

Other than that, I’m not getting much bloggy done lately. I can’t say if I’m burned out again, or if I’m sick and utterly lacking in energy, or if I’m just sick of the crap that passes for news. Politics is BS, covid is BS, there’s no sports, and Hollywood sucks hole. So what’s left, other than bread and turtle racing?

Nobody wants to hear about stupid COVID, that’s clear.  I’ve tracked it locally every day I’ve had a functional computer, and at this point I’m even writing emails to my county health office. As far as I can tell (https://www.state.nj.us/health/healthfacilities/documents/LTC_Facilities_Outbreaks_List.pdf vs https://co.hunterdon.nj.us/Coronavirus/casecountbymunicipality.pdf) EVERY SINGLE CASE OF THE VIRUS IN MY TOWNSHIP IS AT THE COUNTY DEVELOPMENT CENTER around the corner. It’s where they house the mentally deficient. They do not go off the property, ever. 159 cases, 600 residents. A 25% infection rate, but nearly no deaths so far. My county reports 152 cases in our township, albeit that data is a day old. So AFAIK, there is not a single case of the shit out in public. And yet several businesses are closed, and no one can sit down at one of dozen restaurants. And all we get from our progressive governor is hemming an hawing, and a set of impossible re-opening conditions that can’t be met unless he can squeeze a few more billion out of Trump.

Oh, and the latest doc from Massachussetts is pretty illuminating too. I’m sure you’re all experts at reading between the lines with these kinds of reports by now.

I’m feeling very rebellious.

Oh joy, the tests are crap. Of course!!

And now we’ve got bunny virus? [ no, readers of Watership Down, this is not the White Blindness, myxomatosis. Is it from China too? Nobody knows yet. But it’s in California and the West Coast.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/14/2020 at 09:32 PM   
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   Tuesday - May 12, 2020

One of the best recipes so far

Yup, I made another loaf. After leaving the starter in the fridge for at least 3 weeks, I had to revitalize it a bit; it was pretty sharp. Two feeds of whole wheat in one day, another feed of AP the next day, and it was sweet and strong again. The starter was probably a bit wet, call it 120% hydration ... which means this is another No Knead dough, somewhere around 81% hydration overall. Doesn’t matter, I knead it in the mixer, half and hour in, an hour in, and when the dough has doubled. And then again, gently, with a bit of countertop flour - a good handful - before it goes into the banneton for about an hour. This brings the total hydration down to around 77%, which is plenty, and guarantees huge overn spring. After 4 hours rising at room temperature, I got impatient and put it in an 83° warmer for a couple hours. Once the dough was in the banneton I jacked the temp up to 87° for an hour, then let it come down to room temp while the oven and Dutch oven got hot.

I used a part = 40 grams, so my dough came out to exactly 700gm, which baked up to 612gm. That’s a nice size. a 22oz loaf.

1 part rye (40gm)
1 part whole wheat (40gm)
3 parts all purpose (120gm)
3 parts bread flour (Gold Medal this time) (120gm)
3 parts nicely fed starter (120gm)
2.5% salt (9gm kosher salt)
6 parts warm water (240gm @ 100°F) [ might need a bit more or less water, so don’t dump it all in at once. You want a very wet dough, but not runny as cake batter ]
1 tsp sugar or a small dollop of honey

Feed your room temperature starter 4 or so hours ahead of time. If it’s been in the fridge for weeks, take it out, let it warm up, and feed it several times over a day or two.

Whisk the flours and salt to blend. Dissolve starter and sugar or honey in the water in a small bowl.

Combine wet and dry, mix on slow, rest 15, knead on slow, knead on medium, get impatient and knead on high until all the dough comes off the bottom of the mixer bowl, then knead it another minute or two. Transfer to greased covered rising bucket. Let it go for at least 6 hours but less than 12. You can knead itt in the bucket a few times, but you really don’t have to.

When it’s time to bake, preheat oven and Dutch to 475. Put dough in on parchment, crank heat up to 500 for 20. High heat gives awesome oven spring, and those nice big air holes in the crumb.
Remove lid, lower temp to 450, bake another 20, with cold iron griddle under Dutch so the bottom doesn’t char. Turn off oven, open door, take bread out of Dutch, let everything cool 5 minutes, put bread back into cooling oven with door held open 1” with wooden spoon; allow to cure for 20 minutes.

This is one of the best bread recipes I’ve come up with so far. Not hard to make if you scale the ingredients. Yum!!!!

Posted by Drew458     on 05/12/2020 at 08:12 PM   
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Tuesday’s Garbage

•   New Jersey “kindly” opens public parks again, but not the bathrooms. Gets (ahem) really pissed about all the poop left around. Because people are disgusting animals. Hey duh, open the bathrooms.

‘Inordinate’ Amount Of Urine, Feces At Reopened NJ Parks: Police

NEW JERSEY — There was an “inordinate” amount of urine and feces left in bottles at recently reopened parks in New Jersey over the weekend, officials said on Monday.

“There is a zero tolerance policy for that,” Colonel Patrick J. Callahan, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, said during the governor’s daily coronavirus news conference. “The whole idea behind the parks is to give our citizens the ability to go out and enjoy the fresh air and have time outside. That report from Park Police was certainly disheartening to say the least.”

Police at the state and county levels will be on the lookout for that from now on.

“You are not going to get a warning if we catch you leaving something like that behind, so please don’t do it,” Gov. Phil Murphy said.

New Jersey Coronavirus Updates: Don’t miss local and statewide announcements about novel coronavirus precautions. Sign up for Patch alerts and daily newsletters.

“We understand that the public restrooms are closed, but people should be planning accordingly and shouldn’t be urinating in bottles and leaving them behind,” Callahan said. “That might lead us to take a different approach in the future. We really ask that that type of behavior not go on.”

Let me guess: the bathrooms are closed because the government workers at the parks - still on the payroll - can’t manage the restrooms because COVID is spread by public toilet seats? Oh give it up. “Poo at your own risk” sign ought to cover it, in a sane world. When you locate a sane world, let me know.




•   Essential Jobs Available Soon!! NJ Gov. Murphy said he plans to release a “robust” coronavirus test and tracing plan for reopening, as soon as Trump pays for it.

NEW JERSEY – Gov. Phil Murphy said he plans to release a “robust” coronavirus test and tracing plan during a 1 p.m. news conference on Tuesday that will be necessary for New Jersey’s reopening.
...
Murphy said implementing this plan “will be very costly” but he’s been in contact with the Trump administration and he hopes “our relationship we have fostered will deliver a significant sum for the state” that will pay for testing and contact tracing.

The program could be similar to one being set up by NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who estimated that his state will hire up to 17,000 contact tracers, depending on case projections. The tracers will help identify the contacts of those who test positive and then facilitate their quarantine to lessen the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Being a tracer sounds rather Gestapo to me.




•   Obama was behind Flynn-flan and RussiaGate. Wow, it only took 3 1/2 years to find out what we all knew instantly back then. But the cats are finally getting out of the bags, and bringing documentation with them. Will heads roll? Will any of the power elite suffer the slightest consequences for their despicable, treasonous acts? Are you high??




•   Tests show COVID in Ohio since January. Well no kidding. Here’s a link.

Maybe when they develop even better tests they’ll find it was in every state well before Christmas. I’m really coming to believe that COVID-19.1.0 was the special ultra-long gestation version with minimal early symptoms. Infect the whole damn world and nobody notices, then a few mutations later it suddenly becomes nasty. I don’t put anything past these dirty yellow bastards at this point.




•   Let’s Start The Revolution; Get That Freedom Train Moving Lockdowns only work because the people go along. NO government has the real right or power to do such things. And it’s probably time to remind them of that, one way or another, in most places. (keep NYC locked down for another year, most of us don’t care).

On April 22, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf outlined a three-step process for reopening regions of his state, with counties progressing from “red” to “yellow” to “green.” Counties can be fully reopened when there are fewer than 50 cases per 100,000 residents over two weeks. The state has cleared 37 counties (out of 67) to move to the “yellow” stage on May 15.

Less than three weeks later, officials in six Pennsylvania counties that have yet to meet that threshold have declared their intention to reopen anyway, and sheriffs in two other counties say they will not issue citations to businesses that open in defiance of the state’s shutdown order. Although the county commissioners acted independently from one another, all make more or less the same argument: The state-mandated economic shutdown has been ruinous, the vast majority of coronavirus deaths in Pennsylvania have been in nursing homes, and the 50-in-100,000 threshold will take too long to reach.

The response to the coronavirus pandemic may appear to have been directed by government edict. State governments ordered people to stay home and forced businesses to close, and the White House had daily press briefings to prescribe courses of action. Frustrated residents of various states have directed their outrage towards governors by staging protests at state capitols.

But the weekslong shutdowns that some parts of the country continue to endure were never enforceable from the White House or from any state capitol. They always depended on voluntary compliance from residents.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/12/2020 at 11:42 AM   
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chugging away at the new PC

OMG. Working on the old HD in the new PC. Have to transfer thousands of files. Tens of thousands? Old pics, docs, text files. Most everything else on that drive is old junk. Don’t know how I’m supposed to get rid of the old copy of Windows on there. Maybe I have to reformat the drive? Can you even do that with a SATA drive? It would clear things up totally, and I’d never have to deal with permissions again.

But I think I have everything at this point. Better check another 4 times to be sure. What a pain. On the whole drive there was just one program worth keeping. And it came down to the no-brainer choice of either buying a new copy for $39 or spending $179 for one of those data/application migration programs. Duh, I bought the new one. Most everything else I had on there was freeware. I did manage to save my old school version of FreeCell, which runs slow as a dog on this new cheap system with it’s lousy onboard video driver. Power supply is too weak to add a graphics card. Old machine has better everything, but the power connectors aren’t the same, so transferring over the new motherboard may not be a good idea. I’ll think about it, because the old case has a hefty power supply, the new motherboard has the right open slots for a good graphics card, and the price of those things has really come down. But then I’d be tempted to become one of those Gamer Boys, get a 4K monitor, and my life would be over. Probably better to have crappy graphics and minimize my PC addiction. At least I’ve got the internet and WiFi situation mostly squared away.

Seems I’ve collected a huge number of cute animal pics. I’ve got 20 years worth of graphics to sort through. 

Posted by Drew458     on 05/12/2020 at 11:30 AM   
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   Monday - May 11, 2020

the usual virus crap

Norway, oh Norway !! Norway takes a staged approach to reopening the country. Why not? There aren’t even half as many cases in the whole nation as there are in little Bergen County NJ.

Oh just bloody wonderful. Now COVID can be an STD as well??

File this one under “No Kidding”: The Wu Flu may have been around in October.

Totally related: October? How about October 6th or 7th, when something seems to have happened at a certain bio lab in some place called Wuhan.

Yeah but China says ... : First official case dates to November 17, 2019.

Putin ain’t gonna like this! Russia now #3 in cases as numbers spike.
Are more Russian doctors going to fall out of windows because of this?

Oh joy, it’s dark as heck outside and pouring rain. We had our 2 hours of sun this week, so we now return to the usual dark wet and gloomy.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/11/2020 at 12:51 PM   
Filed Under: • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

is it spring yet?

Someday, maybe. At least it isn’t snowing again today.

so far

Posted by Drew458     on 05/11/2020 at 12:49 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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