Avart wrote:
I'm doing home office too, Sometimes I need to go to the office but saving 2-3 hours just for the trip home-office-home every day is a plus. Just my laptop, a few documents and that's all.

You tech support, software engineer…?

I'm a sales analyst in my team. We sell paint applicators and a lot of accesories/hardware for painting (and other stuff like security glasses,etc.) and we have different teams for hardware stores, paint stores, customers who need their own brands and self-service stores (like Walmart and The Home Depot) which is where I am. Our teams are relatively small, from 2 to 3 people, but in my team we are 6 because is one of the most important. I support our sales executives and our team leader analyzing sales reports and inventories and many other stuff. Since everyone have a laptop, home office wasn't a problem.

My job was supposed to start May 10th. It will be June or later at this point. (The “busy time” for the park where I work seasonally is autumn.) The governor set strict stay-at-home orders for two months – which is good, because all the “rules” outlined are just what responsible people have already been doing.

Anyway, I also have a somewhat pleasant “problem” that just occurred to me. I have a litter of rex rats that I would normally be trying to find new homes for once they are weaned. But people who buy my rats often travel long distances from out-of-state, and I can't be encouraging that sort of thing. So, they are not leaving any time soon.

My husband's call center went home. And I have remote access to answer calls from my office at home. I mostly do data/reports and quality checks, so my physical presence isn't needed. I check insurance applications our sales agents make to ensure everything is filled out. So, I have been going to the office once a week to trade out checked applications for unchecked ones. My boss has decided even that is too risky for me to catch something, so we are trying to go paperless on the fly.

I wrote the article for today on time, and it didn't air on time because I put in the date wrong. DX I hate that when it happens.

My chicks arrived via the post today. All of them are healthy, which puts to rest one of my sources of worry, anxiety, and contingency planning.

Nice birdies 😁

How are you guys doing?

Thanks for checking in @Oz!

First, I am alive.
Second, I am finally given the time and opportunity to work on projects around the house I have wanted to do for ages!!
Third, I was finally motivated to clean my room today.

@Ironscarf: How is your everlasting journey to find fresh limes panning out?
@Oz: Are you still eating toast, Vegemite, and butter in the mornings for breakfast?
@FallopianCrusader: Was the Comic Convention in NYC cancelled, postponed, rescheduled, or made digital? If it was digital, I would love to see it if you have a link to the event.

ozoneocean wrote:
Nice birdies 😁

How are you guys doing?

Thanks @Oz!

Other than home office, my schedule hasn't changed that much. I have 2 more hours to sleep in the morning and 2 more free hours at the afternoon.
The bad thing is that the spring time temperatures are sooooo hot! From 35 to 40 °C (about 95 to 104 °F).

Still an essential worker. Got a mask now and trying to make it last. Disinfect the Guard shack every morning.

Wonderful that there's so little traffic but still asking “is this trip truly necessary?”

Everyone is speeding and I ask,“why you going so fast to get someplace you really don't want to go?”

And it's raining every other day.

Motivation? Out the window.

Need some comedy.

I'm having trouble focusing latey, and my hands shake a lot more often. I'm not sure the cause, but it makes drawing kinda tricky. I bought a game expansion for Sims 4 to distract myself. My many animals help too.

I got my official notice that I am hired and will have my summer job this year. I'll be starting around a month later than planned. Thankfully, my stimulus check will cover my mortgage in the delay.

I'm shocked by how badly America is doing with CoVid-19. Jeeeeeez… that's gone beyond a joke. We thought the Italians were basically being Kermit the Frog during the Muppit show when all the acts are doing silly things and it looks like the show won't go on… (running around screaming and waving his hands in the air) … (I might be remembering that wrongly)

But the USA is basically Beaker. All of Beaker. O_O

———————

It's going pretty good here in Australia, as things go. So far anyway.
Our population density is low, even in our biggest cities, and almost all cases are from people who came from outside the country or had direct contact with those that have. There are almost no community acquired cases.
You can walk around in public and be pretty sure you won't catch anything,

But I always wear a mask and stay distanced from people anyway because things can always change and it doesn't take much. It's SOOOOOOoooooo easy to be complacent and then you're the USA or Germany or Switzerland etc.
No one has any special power or god given ability to help them avoid this!

Just continue to wash your hands, wear masks and distance yourselves.
My Girlfriend works in direct contact with cases here. She follows strict infection control protocols and has so far tested negative, so all of that is working. If you do the right thing you can avoid this.

ozoneocean wrote:
I'm shocked by how badly America is doing with CoVid-19. Jeeeeeez… that's gone beyond a joke. We thought the Italians were basically being Kermit the Frog during the Muppit show when all the acts are doing silly things and it looks like the show won't go on… (running around screaming and waving his hands in the air) … (I might be remembering that wrongly)

But the USA is basically Beaker. All of Beaker. O_O

That happens when the Muppet-in-Chief thinks he's a scientist. XD

(To be honest, the US suffers what it has suffered since the 1700s. States do what they want, and some manage better than others. The stupidest state legislatures are the loudest, and stupid decisions leak into neighboring states. And the general population is composed of many smart quiet people and a few loud idiots who get pandered to.)

ozoneocean wrote:
I'm shocked by how badly America is doing with CoVid-19. Jeeeeeez… that's gone beyond a joke. We thought the Italians were basically being Kermit the Frog during the Muppit show when all the acts are doing silly things and it looks like the show won't go on… (running around screaming and waving his hands in the air) … (I might be remembering that wrongly)

But the USA is basically Beaker. All of Beaker. O_O

You should always try to be careful with making generalizations about an entire country like that. About half of all the COVID-19 cases here seem to be concentrated in New York and New Jersey, and it's a huge plummet to the next worst hit state from there.

Overall, if other outbreaks are to serve as an example, then we seem to be in pretty good shape; the outbreak looks like it's just running its course as it has elsewhere.



That should be good news. That's what people want to hear, right? Good news?

Welp I'm just gonna put this here as our new American flag! Mwahahahaha

MegaRdaniels wrote:
Welp I'm just gonna put this here as our new American flag! Mwahahahaha

And because of the Corona virus lockdown America discovered itself anew and became the Brony States of America.

The entire world immediately called for a military intervention under the auspices of the UN and stamped out this atrocity once and for all.

@El Cid:
I look at the USA as a whole because that's how we look at all countries.
I know the USA likes to consider itself a loose confederation of states but that's not how anyone else from the outside sees it.
But yes, it's population density that is the chief factor at the point of greatest initial infection that determines the spread- as well as measures put in place and resources.
The USA had poor measures and resources put in place for this, which is why it go so bad, but it slowly got better.

The curve is slowing down but it's still climbing, in the USA:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

No one is out of the woods yet. Optimism should be cautious because it can flare up again.

And the idea that it's only bad for immune compromised and old people is wrong. It now seems that it can cause renal failure heart, lung and neurological issues in people who recovered ok from it and it's not certain you will be immune when you recover. SO the bottom line is DO NOT catch it if you can help it.

every time i go to a restaurant there's not a single person dining in. it's all takeout. so i dine in. it's nice having the whole place to myself.

Japan has been handling this whole thing in a weird way. just last week they started hanging plastic in front of cashiers in every fucking store. sometimes its like really half-assed. they closed the pawn shop but the ramen shop is still open. i don't know about the other stuff cuz i've been staying home most of the time.

ozoneocean wrote:
@El Cid:
I look at the USA as a whole because that's how we look at all countries.
I know the USA likes to consider itself a loose confederation of states but that's not how anyone else from the outside sees it.

Then you're putting out meaningless analyses and you should stop. There certainly are instances where doing that's okay, but in a case where the outcomes are so tremendously heterogeneous, it makes no sense at all and distorts what's actually going on.

ozoneocean
But yes, it's population density that is the chief factor at the point of greatest initial infection that determines the spread- as well as measures put in place and resources.

The USA had poor measures and resources put in place for this, which is why it go so bad, but it slowly got better.

The response on America's west coast was no better than that on the east coast, but the outcomes have been nowhere near as bad, and there are plenty of big population centers there. “Poor measures and resources,” whatever that means to you, is probably not the primary factor in why this is. Seasonal climate, geography, dumb luck, who knows.

I don't know what you're talking about when you say “it got so bad,” either. Look at the graph I posted. The course of the US outbreak is not exceptionally different from the other major flashpoints.

ozoneocean
The curve is slowing down but it's still climbing, in the USA:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

That's the wrong graph to look at. Total death and infection numbers can only go up, unless COVID-19 finds a way to start resurrecting people. Daily infections and deaths are down, and seem to be continuing on that trend, which is what has happened elsewhere. That's why there's cause for optimism.

ozoneocean
No one is out of the woods yet. Optimism should be cautious because it can flare up again.

And the idea that it's only bad for immune compromised and old people is wrong. It now seems that it can cause renal failure heart, lung and neurological issues in people who recovered ok from it and it's not certain you will be immune when you recover. SO the bottom line is DO NOT catch it if you can help it.

Agreed, for the most part. Yes, it should be taken seriously, and there probably is no “woods,” per se. The disease will likely become endemic and be something we need to learn to live with.

I keep getting told I'm “not taking demographics and geography”, etc. into account (when I criticise U.K. stats), and that may partly be true, but what I (and perhaps Oz) keep coming back to, is that well over 90% of Australians live in the metropolitan areas…it's much less for the U.S., although admittedly, with a few huge cities to take into account.

It might be a bit simplified, but I look at Australia's stats, then multiply by 2.5 for a U.K. equivalent, or 13.5 for a U.S. one…and by that measure, both countries stats look horrendous !!

We've had less than 7000 cases, around 90 deaths, and over 5000 recovered. Obviously the greatest number of cases are in our biggest cities.
Multiplying our stats , as above, would give 17,500 cases/ 225 deaths for the U.K., and 105,000/ 11,700 for the USA - nothing like the actual total. (1.01M and 56000 deaths, so far in the U.S. !)

Was it just because we got into gear earlier, in Australia…are we being too complacent …should we worry our stats will go bonkers, here, when lockdown is eased..??

You should be cautious. You guys are in the southern hemisphere. You've caught little whiffs of what everyone else is dealing with due to global travel, but they really don't know yet whether this mirrors the patterns of a seasonal bug. If that's the case, you guys may get zonked pretty soon too. Your flu season starts in June normally, if I'm not mistaken.

usedbooks wrote:
(To be honest, the US suffers what it has suffered since the 1700s. States do what they want, and some manage better than others. The stupidest state legislatures are the loudest, and stupid decisions leak into neighboring states. And the general population is composed of many smart quiet people and a few loud idiots who get pandered to.)

And this is why usedbooks has always been one of the smart ones.

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:

usedbooks wrote:
(To be honest, the US suffers what it has suffered since the 1700s. States do what they want, and some manage better than others. The stupidest state legislatures are the loudest, and stupid decisions leak into neighboring states. And the general population is composed of many smart quiet people and a few loud idiots who get pandered to.)

And this is why usedbooks has always been one of the smart ones.

And it's why Churchill called representative democracy the worst of all possible government systems, except when compared to all the others.

One of the best examples is school textbooks. Expressly written and edited to gain the acceptance of the most close minded and ignorant.

Just been writing my script for the upcoming pages. I sent my already inked pages to the colorist. Now I wait. :)

I'm starting to suspect one of my chicks is a rooster. :( I have two of them acting literally cocky, but only one has started showing masculine features.

The good news is they are finally big enough to live outside! So now inside my house is just me, the dog, two cats, and twenty-five rats.

@El Cid
That conception of the US as a loose Federation of states IS only an internal thing. Most countries see themselves differently to how we see them externally. The USA isn't a special case here. Not in any way.
The fact that others view it as a huge mass all together is fine and correct because that's how you view China, Russia, Indonesia, Australia etc.
All places are internally complex. The fact that people think that only the USA should be viewed that way lacks perspective.

——–

I bought a new big TV and I'm happy with it. Way bigger and cheaper than the last big one I got years ago. It was an extravagce and I should just be saving, but it forced me to rearrange my home office for the better and it also made me feel a bit better about things (been a bit down).
I gave my old one to my mum (including a Chromecast) for a bedroom TV. It works great :)

usedbooks wrote:
I'm starting to suspect one of my chicks is a rooster. :( I have two of them acting literally cocky, but only one has started showing masculine features.

The good news is they are finally big enough to live outside! So now inside my house is just me, the dog, two cats, and twenty-five rats.

My sister-in-law had the same issue with one of her chicks. Have to keep a careful eye on it when it starts crowing or chasing hens around.

—
The worst problem with seeing a diverse country as one entity is usually all the WORST traits of a number of groups are grouped into one image of an individual from that country. Even though you'd be hard pressed to find any individual from that country with all those traits.

Have to admit I do kind of enjoy living up to the obnoxious American tourist stereotype whenever I go overseas.

And that usually ends up with me doubled over in laughter to people's reactions.

Like that time in London my wife innocently bumped into a British punk-goth type who glared at her and told her to “fuck off!” Could not stop laughing for a good five-ten minutes.

Perfect example of American tourist meets nasty Brit.

ozoneocean wrote:
@El Cid
That conception of the US as a loose Federation of states IS only an internal thing. Most countries see themselves differently to how we see them externally. The USA isn't a special case here. Not in any way.
The fact that others view it as a huge mass all together is fine and correct because that's how you view China, Russia, Indonesia, Australia etc.
All places are internally complex. The fact that people think that only the USA should be viewed that way lacks perspective.

Ozone, stop arguing with yourself. Those are YOUR arguments; not any that I've made. If you have a general gripe with a position taken by some generic group of people, then you should find one of those people and, when they make that argument, discuss it with them. There are times when it makes sense to consider a country (or even a continent, for that matter) as a single consolidated entity, and there are times when it does not. The case in which you used it, was inappropriate, and I explained why.

Here's Google's Corona Death Map of the United States (unofficial title):





The dots are to scale with amount of CoViD-19 infections for the given state/region. It's not the best tool out there, but it's easy to interpret for people who don't like numbers. Now, while it's clear we have a nasty case of the Americapox going around, does it really make sense to say that the country, as a whole, is doing “shockingly bad?” Well, no measurement makes sense without context, so here's the Corona Death Map for Europe, to the same scale:





Now, because I'm not a jerk, I'm not going to call Europeans a bunch of muppets (also because they're NOT muppets; they're good people dealing with an unfortunate situation like the rest of us). But what can we take away from this? Allowing for the fact that the United States is more spread out, it's still evident that there is nothing particularly remarkable about the United States here, with the exception of the northeast, which accounts for a disproportionately high number of our CoViD-19 cases. It's also extremely dubious to attribute any of the variation between the east and west coast to better measures and resources. We now know that SARS-CoV-2 was kicking around California at least a month earlier than anyone believed, making their response even slower than we already thought, yet they haven't had it nearly as bad as New York.

You'll notice I'm not posting a Death Map for Australia. I don't think you guys are all that analogous a comparison for a number of reasons (maybe to South Africa?). And like I mentioned before, the southern hemisphere in general might be on a different corona clock than the rest of us, so don't let your guard down just yet!

Happy “May the 4th be with you” day! I hope all are doing ok despite everything going on.

I see there's a big convo going up above me and I'm just gonna have to do the TL;DR because damn boi, that's a lot of text.

Anyway, this has been one heck of an interesting and sad year.
I'm trying to keep myself distracted by burying my face in my art and working on the script for my second comic and just doing anything art related.

I've also been playing quite a bit of ESO, which is helping me in the distraction department.
Unfortunately I'm unemployed because of the whole virus, doesn't help I'm in NY either, but I'm doing whatever I can to get by and just take care of my father, luckily my boyfriend has been helping me with bills, so I'm really grateful for him.

Anyway, I hope you guys have a wonderful day <3

You'll notice I'm not posting a Death Map for Australia. I don't think you guys are all that analogous a comparison for a number of reasons (maybe to South Africa?). And like I mentioned before, the southern hemisphere in general might be on a different corona clock than the rest of us, so don't let your guard down just yet!

Well, in any case, it looks like yours, in that, naturally, the “big blobs” are around the metropolitan areas, except that, on a per-capita basis, ours are ‘ludicrously’ low, compared to…well almost anywhere. It's a worry that that might change, given the later strain is more of a worry.

No-one seem to mention the 3 different strains of it, either, for some reason - nor why whoever has which. Aus., USA and one of the European countries (Spain ?) had the same strain, while others had another.
Now I can only find info for TWO atrains, the latter being more contagious than the first, and becoming the dominant strain everyhwere.