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Yeah, it's just disgusting how he refuses to denounce white supremacists, whom incidentally I suspect are behind a lot of the riots and looting. His campaign slogan might as well be "Make America White Again". He's not even trying to hide his racism. Trump actually lost a court case for refusing...

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/30/presidential-debate-national-shame-423521 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-calls-trump-debate-performance-national-embarrassment-kicks-off-train-tour/story?id=73340823

This part definitely makes sense: "It is now not impossible to imagine the United States descending into another Civil War in the wake of this poll, as its heavily armed militias hit the streets in support of a man with the instincts of a demagogue." I've already mentioned the possibility of...

Actually, I think we're all better off not getting too emotionally involved here with the election. In the final analysis none of us can do anything major to influence the results, so no point worrying much about it. If there is some major crisis following the election, with either Biden or...

That's not true at all. Mayor deBlasio caught a lot of flak for his handling of the pandemic. He's also widely hated here for other things, like catering to motorists at the expense of pedestrians or cyclists, even though the latter two groups combined are the majority by far in NYC. There's...

More than slightly worrying. It's pretty sad when the US is in the company of countries like Brazil in their response to a major pandemic.

Don't laugh but that's not far from an actual preventative measure: https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.12444 "The author suggests that it may be possible to use alcoholic beverages of 16~20 v/v% concentration for this disinfection process, such as Whisky (1:1 hot water dilution) or Japanese Sake...

The hoarding was a directly product of people's stupidity and the failure of government to impose a strict lock down. Here's what I would have done once epidemiologists told me the virus had already begun community spread. I would have announced a lock down starting at midnight on the 11 PM...

Despite claiming to be for "law and order" Trump and his followers thrive on chaos. I'm sure that was part of the reason to ignore covid. He was probably also advised it will hit blue states the hardest. Why do anything to help people who aren't going to vote for you?

That's apocalyptic! I half expect to see giant spaceships in the background to round out the whole effect. Not surprised about Trump, either. He's running NY into the ground as well withholding help for mass transit and other things.

But a number of countries with populations in the tens of millions managed to have only a few hundred deaths. So it was possible if things were handled correctly. The left-wing media especially should keep covid front and center. It's actually the one issue more people are concerned with now...

So you got 11040 kW-hrs out of a 10.36 kW system over a year? Sounds about right. Most of the estimates give about 1000 kW-hr per installed kW in the northeast. At my current electrical usage I would need a 6 kW system to cover it, although I might prefer something like 8 kW just in case I need...

Yeah, you can judge a person by the company they keep. That list says it all.

17 years old, untrained, he really had no business being there. He should have been at home watching Netflix instead of acting like he's Bruce Willis. Unless those were his personal businesses, what's his stake here? I can see putting your life on the line to protect others, but no way would I...

This is really the biggest reason that Trump has to go. He loves to talk about safety and law and order but part of the duty of government is also to protect people from dangerous, contagious diseases like this one. In that regard, he has failed utterly. I'm even willing to give him a free pass...

https://www.salon.com/2020/07/30/would-be-dictator-donald-trump-would-be-unstoppable-in-a-second-term-that-must-not-happen/

He's probably serious about it but when people start dying in large numbers they'll take their own measures to slow the spread. You can't force people to go out and about as usual when bodies are stacked ten deep. Trump doesn't care about people dying unless it's at the hands of rioters. The...

Here's what I don't understand. On day one of the national emergency the Post Office should have stopped delivering junk mail. Besides the obvious reduction in mail volume, paper is a vector for covid-19. This policy should remain in effect at least until the emergency is over but I would prefer...

Well, in all fairness she also condemned the riots and looting: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-harris/kamala-harris-condemns-looting-violence-in-wake-of-police-shooting-idUSKBN25N344 I'm not thrilled with either Harris or Biden but it's clear at this point Trump has to go...

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On June 25 MS released a Microsoft Edge update for Windows 7. So far I haven't installed it just in case there are any potential issues. Is it safe to install, or have any problems cropped up since the release?

Trying to get to herd immunity really isn't possible. For starters, the best estimates would be 10 to 20 million deaths in the US over a relatively short time frame. That many deaths, plus several times that number too sick to work, will basically collapse society. Our supply lines will come to...

By the standards in the US, Australia barely has the virus, and yet they'll go back to drastic measures at the slightest sign of an increase. We have more people dying in 6 hours than you've had since it started. Meanwhile here in the states they were opening bars, tattoo parlors, places of...

That's vintage 1978. My parents bought it when they bought the house. Until 2018 we had a refrigerator of the same vintage: We replaced it with this because it was a power hog: Still have the old fridge in the basement as a storage cabinet. It still works in a pinch, too. I doubt anything...

Holy crap! I find 90s incredibly uncomfortable. I don't even want to think about how temps like that would feel.

We bought some Chinese food yesterday after bringing my mother home from her doctor's appointment. I thoroughly washed down the containers before opening them. When they were drying on the stove I noticed something strange: Apparently it's a new strain of coronavirus which is visible to the...

It's entirely plausible many of those 12,000 who didn't die from that list of ailments did in fact contract covid, which in turn killed them. Remember this diseases LOVES preexisting conditions. Also, many of those with those conditions would be in nursing homes, and hence more likely to...

That's downright icy compared to the 128°F recorded in Death Valley. After sparing us so far it looks like the Northeast is getting hit by heat also this week. Not quite 120, but mid 90s and high humidity, which likely feels like 110. Totally disgusting outside.

I think it's more a case of being cautious so they don't have to back track later if they give out incorrect info. As we've seen, there's only so many times experts can be wrong before they lose credibility with much of the general public. As an engineer and scientist myself, I'm a lot more...

I agree but given the PPE shortage I don't see how they could have handled it any differently. Also, we knew about the virus in December. We should have used that time to build up a supply of masks to avoid the exact situation we found ourselves in. Another factor here is we're learning about...

Since "freedom" is often been the reason people aren't wearing masks, here's a good article on what freedom really means: https://theweek.com/articles/925896/what-americans-are-finally-learning-about-freedom In essence, you only own something if the government says you do. If so, then said...

A spread in nursing homes is probably inevitable due to the nature of them, with caretakers often working at multiple facilities. I know it's fashionable now to blame the governors in some US states for helping it spread in nursing homes, but it was destined to happen. Nursing homes has always...

I wanted to address this separately. No, the riots aren't about Floyd. They never were. They're partially career criminals simply taking advantage of the situation, partly white supremacists and/or cops trying to discredit protesters, and partly just a lot of pent-up anger over what has been...

Because those same police forces are actively staging a work slowdown which their unions are doubtless strongly encouraging. The unions obviously don't want to have fewer members, which is exactly what would happen if police forces are cut. And in most cases, those cuts won't result in more...

You're forgetting that deaths lag case count by at least several weeks. In this case, it might be more because the majority of new cases are younger people, versus when this started and a lot of older people were getting sick. Basically, it would work something along the lines of young people...

The smarter states like those here in the Northeast are now requiring a 14-day quarantine for people traveling in from states where the virus is out of control. Of course, the larger question is how rigorously will this be enforced. If it were up to me, I would march people right from planes...

This was the hottest I ever saw by me (July 22, 2011):

Some of us said as much in the coronavirus thread. I see several angles to his tactics: 1) Use the protests to create disorder by infiltrating the ranks of protesters with white supremacists or even police offices. This will appeal to people's desire to get back security at any cost. Of course...

Honestly, this is the start of a planet of the apes scenario. Today the cities burn. Who knows if or when we'll come out of the ashes? I would hate to be a kid in today's world. I've already told young people don't waste your time or money on school since there's no future for you. That's even...

The difference is that you can always put on more clothing to deal with the cold. We had no power after Sandy for 4 days. Temps outside were in the 30s. I kept a pot of water boiling on the gas stove. That was good enough to keep us in the high 50s/low 60s indoors. With an extra layer of...

I was wondering about that as well. We've only had a few warmish days in NYC this May, meaning upper 70s to low 80s. That's hot enough to remind me how much I hate hot weather, and dread the coming of summer. The house holds at least 10 degrees over outdoor temperature, so even mid 70s makes...

Yes, it looks like the number of new cases is still rising linearly worldwide but linear is far better than exponential. I also noticed the increase in the number of deaths actually is slowing down. You can clearly see it here: We're probably getting better at treating this, which is good...

Brazil is now in the number two spot for number of cases. Number six for number of deaths but that's rising so rapidly I'd say they'll be at number two in less than two weeks. They may even ultimately give the US a run for its money for the top spot. So much for the hopes the virus doesn't...

Of course not. It's just a little humor. I wanted to photoshop bat wings on her as well, but I couldn't get the end result to look credible. Cats can actually get covid from humans but my understanding is they can't pass it to humans and they don't show severe symptoms...

It looks like my cat caught it. She's fine other than for some very strange side effects.

You're probably right. A lot of Democrats are hypocrites where they might do stuff like give lip service to climate change, but are driven everywhere in limos, have huge houses, and constantly fly. Of course they don't want a true progressive to come to power because it might knock one zero off...

Totally agree with everything. Biden is better than Trump in the way a glass of lukewarm milk is better than sour milk but seriously, what an uninspiring choice. The Democrats complain about Trump winning, but maybe if they ran and picked better people in the primaries this wouldn't have...

Yep. I've noticed the same. For what it's worth narcissistic personality disorder leads exactly to the kinds of brutal dictatorships I mentioned under the right circumstances. Thank goodness for our system of checks and balances, at least so far. Give Trump another term though, and he might find...

Kind of like some other people we know from history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

If nothing else, this might make the election a nonissue. If he kills himself taking this, I doubt Pence will get enough votes to become President. I know Trump wasn't the brightest bulb on the string, but this just shows the depths of his ignorance.