Help the Fight Against COVID-19

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Dave Merrill said:
Was just talking to my best friend, he lives in another state. Smart guy, fellow musician/programmer.

Turns out he thinks this whole thing is 'bullsh1t". I'm scared, and kinda pissed.

He says he's still being at least somewhat careful, but this is what we're up against.
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the measures taken by the government are to extreme for this to be bullshit. it's coming
 
I'm strictly at home with my wife and 9 week old daughter. Having children is truly a life changing thing. It's impossible to comprehend beforehand how much one can love a small baby. It makes me tear up just thinking about it. Luckily my company enabled working from home last autumn. They couldn't drag me back out now with a horse, even though I might break some rules by not going to the offices at all for a few months... We'll see.
 
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MoJiggity said:
I'm taking full advantage of the remote work situation to get my fat ass into shape before summer...'ve decided to make hay while the sun is shining...
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Amazing - good for you and great perspective.
I don't think I can be saved until this is over.
My wife is working from home; we have to get along; she's a Stress Baker.
I'm licking a beater with oatmeal raisin cookie dough right now and typing this with one hand.
 
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FractalAudio said:
Install this on your computer and help researchers develop a vaccine by using your spare computer power:
https://foldingathome.org/
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I am hoping against hope that this virus will peter out eventually much like SARS and MERS did. I am, however social distancing, washing my hands like 10 times a day, sanitizing everything. My guitar strings will probably last a lot longer, as there is no grease on my fingers (haha). I am retired and my wife is WFH fulltime. Only going out to the grocery store. Playing my AXE and AXE FX III to pass the time. I will probably become a much better guitar player (silver lining)
 
I saw this post from @Dave Merrill...
Dave Merrill said:
Was just talking to my best friend, he lives in another state. Smart guy, fellow musician/programmer.

Turns out he thinks this whole thing is 'bullsh1t". I'm scared, and kinda pissed.

He says he's still being at least somewhat careful, but this is what we're up against.
Click to expand...
...and it made me go, "hmmmm."

This is one of those situations where seemingly-strong language can be ambiguous.

Let's say we have a friend who says "this whole thing is bullsh1t"; but he goes on to tell us that he's "still being at least somewhat careful."

If he lives and works 100 miles from the closest known active case,
and his definition of "bullsh1t" is "a lot of people are panicking and buying crap they don't need, and the media is delivering more sensationalism and fear than useful information,"
and if his definition of "at least somewhat careful" is, "handwashing, keeping 10-ft distance from everyone who isn't a member of my household, working from home, and only going out for groceries,"
...then I'm relatively content with his analysis.

On the other hand, if he lives and works in Seattle,
and his definition of "bullsh1t" is "this won't cause any more problems than the flu does,"
and his definition of "at least somewhat careful" is, "I go to work, I pick my nose, and then I stop by my asthmatic grandma's house to watch Jeopardy with her, but I always wash my hands before dinner,"
...then, yeah, I'd be scared for that guy, and his grandma, and kinda pissed at him.

Dave, I'm not ragging on your post. (I don't know your friend and I don't know where he lives or what he meant.)

But some people I know verbally downplay the COVID outbreak. And when I press them on what they really mean, turns out half-the-time they're being just as careful as I am...but are expressing skepticism about news coverage, or about the decisions made by state or federal leaders, or even merely trying to counter-balance what they perceive as someone else's excessive panic.

It's amazing how communicative style can cause misunderstandings. For me, the classic example was profanity. I grew up in a mostly non-swearing family, with mostly non-swearing friends. First time I got to know a guy (now a dear friend) who grew up in Connecticut among a family of free-form profanity-artists, I thought he was an out-of-control rage-monster. It took me a while to get used to the fact that he dropped f-bombs casually in the middle of every other sentence. Where I grew up, if someone sounded like that, he was probably a violent drunk and if he was within 20 feet of you, you should probably be getting ready to fight for your life. But for my friend, "profanity in your speech is just like salt-n-pepper on your steak." (I used to have instinctive adrenaline-surges whenever he opened his mouth! But he started having kids, and started cutting back on the profanity, so that helped.)

I'm betting there'll be similar style-confusions in how we all react to COVID-19. So I'm going to try to habitually ask, "Hmm. What do you mean by that?" when I hear the short-form of everyone's opinion, and not judge until I've heard the long-form follow-up.
 
Dr. Dipwad said:
I saw this post from @Dave Merrill...

...and it made me go, "hmmmm."

This is one of those situations where seemingly-strong language can be ambiguous.

Let's say we have a friend who says "this whole thing is bullsh1t"; but he goes on to tell us that he's "still being at least somewhat careful."

If he lives and works 100 miles from the closest known active case,
and his definition of "bullsh1t" is "a lot of people are panicking and buying crap they don't need, and the media is delivering more sensationalism and fear than useful information,"
and if his definition of "at least somewhat careful" is, "handwashing, keeping 10-ft distance from everyone who isn't a member of my household, working from home, and only going out for groceries,"
...then I'm relatively content with his analysis.

On the other hand, if he lives and works in Seattle,
and his definition of "bullsh1t" is "this won't cause any more problems than the flu does,"
and his definition of "at least somewhat careful" is, "I go to work, I pick my nose, and then I stop by my asthmatic grandma's house to watch Jeopardy with her, but I always wash my hands before dinner,"
...then, yeah, I'd be scared for that guy, and his grandma, and kinda pissed at him.

Dave, I'm not ragging on your post. (I don't know your friend and I don't know where he lives or what he meant.)

But some people I know verbally downplay the COVID outbreak. And when I press them on what they really mean, turns out half-the-time they're being just as careful as I am...but are expressing skepticism about news coverage, or about the decisions made by state or federal leaders, or even merely trying to counter-balance what they perceive as someone else's excessive panic.

It's amazing how communicative style can cause misunderstandings. For me, the classic example was profanity. I grew up in a mostly non-swearing family, with mostly non-swearing friends. First time I got to know a guy (now a dear friend) who grew up in Connecticut among a family of free-form profanity-artists, I thought he was an out-of-control rage-monster. It took me a while to get used to the fact that he dropped f-bombs casually in the middle of every other sentence. Where I grew up, if someone sounded like that, he was probably a violent drunk and if he was within 20 feet of you, you should probably be getting ready to fight for your life. But for my friend, "profanity in your speech is just like salt-n-pepper on your steak." (I used to have instinctive adrenaline-surges whenever he opened his mouth! But he started having kids, and started cutting back on the profanity, so that helped.)

I'm betting there'll be similar style-confusions in how we all react to COVID-19. So I'm going to try to habitually ask, "Hmm. What do you mean by that?" when I hear the short-form of everyone's opinion, and not judge until I've heard the long-form follow-up.
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Very thoughtful post!
 
Toopy14 said:
Any positive news at this point is a good thing.

‘FDA approves new test that could detect coronavirus in about 45 minutes.’

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/21/politics/fda-coronavirus-test/index.html
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That would make a real difference. I got a text from my health care group about a week ago saying that they had no tests, and if anyone was showing symptoms after an initial screening, they'd be referred to the local county health office. There was a drive through testing location about an hour from me that was open two days ago for a couple of hours before they ran out of tests. A 45 minute test would be a godsend if it were widely available.
 
aziz said:
I'm strictly at home with my wife and 9 week old daughter. Having children is truly a life changing thing. It's impossible to comprehend beforehand how much one can love a small baby. It makes me tear up just thinking about it. Luckily my company enabled working from home last autumn. They couldn't drag me back out now with a horse, even though I might break some rules by not going to the offices at all for a few months... We'll see.
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I hear ya. Having kids fundamentally changes you and your priorities. My twins are just shy of three and a half. Congrats on the daughter- enjoy the time with her, cause they get big fast!
 
aziz said:
I'm strictly at home with my wife and 9 week old daughter. Having children is truly a life changing thing. It's impossible to comprehend beforehand how much one can love a small baby. It makes me tear up just thinking about it. Luckily my company enabled working from home last autumn. They couldn't drag me back out now with a horse, even though I might break some rules by not going to the offices at all for a few months... We'll see.
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Having experienced the worst of what a flu can do a child last year when it landed one of my kids in the ICU and left him a diabetic for life, this stuff scares me more than ever. Anyone brushing this off as inconsequential is absolutely among the worst humanity has to offer. People will die, people's lives will be irreverssibly altered because of this.
 
In this particular case, my friend thinks this is way overblown, the risk is being grossly inflated to control us and keep us fearful. He's only being sort of careful by my not-rigorous standards.

Turns out he also thinks 9/11 wasn't what we're told it was, "evidence" being that the third tower went down without getting hit. Really weird, I've known him for 20-something years and never knew that's what was in his head.

I think a healthy skepticism about everything we hear from every source is 100% warranted and righteous. And in this interwebs age very little of what we think we know is stuff we actually saw happen ourselves. Who do you trust and why?

That said, a bunch of sources all disagree with my friend, and I'm a lot more careful than he is.
 
iaresee said:
Having experienced the worst of what a flu can do a child last year when it landed one of my kids in the ICU and left him a diabetic for life, this stuff scares me more than ever. Anyone brushing this off as inconsequential is absolutely among the worst humanity has to offer. People will die, people's lives will be irreverssibly altered because of this.
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Good luck and stay safe. I am hoping against hope the virus will die out like SARS and MERS did after a time. Stay away from everyone except family if they are well, wash you hands like 20 times a day and don't touch your face unless you just washed. Small things can prevent this for happening to you and your family.
 
Dave Merrill said:
In this particular case, my friend thinks this is way overblown, tre risk is being grossly inflated to control us and keep us fearful. He's only being sort of careful by my not-rigorous standards.

Turns out he also thinks 9/11 wasn't what we're told it was, "evidence" being that the third tower went down without getting hit. Really weird, I've known him for 20-something years and never knew that's what was in his head.

I think a healthy skepticism about everything we hear from every source is 100% warranted and righteous. And in this interwebs age very little of what we think we know is stuff we actually saw happen ourselves. Who do you trust and why?

That said, a bunch of sources all disagree with my friend, and I'm a lot more careful than he is.
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Some people seem to be prone to accepting conspiracy theories. I think they are low information people who lack critical thinking skills. I don't know if I would still be a "friend" to a guy like that anymore. He obviously does not care about you or your loved ones. Sorry for my rant.
 
https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/animal-health-and-welfare/covid-19

74CmOb5.jpg
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Last thing we need is people freaking out over their pets!
 
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