Shoot the Wall (A.K.A. The Rant Thread)

[Carol the Dabbler]

5 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Have you tried turning up the brightness on your display? That often helps.

It might.  And turning off the "bedtime" setting might also help.  But I'm wanting to relax, so I'd rather not stress my eyes.  I'm currently alternating between two color puzzles, a word puzzle, and good ol' solitaire -- so if I get too frustrated with one, I just switch.

 

[Artemis]

On 6/16/2022 at 7:00 AM, Arcadia said:

And that's why some people think vaccines should be mandated ... to help stop the spread and severity of Covid. You're not just putting yourself at risk when you refuse to get vaccinated, you're increasing the risk for everyone you come in contact with.

However, I should talk, as I usually only wear a mask when I'm required to. So I get it ... I think everyone hates being forced to do something they don't want to do. I'm willing, for the sake of my own comfort, to take the risk of breathing in a nasty bug. But heaven knows how many germs I've breathed out. I'd feel pretty bad if I found out someone got sick because I was too selfish to endure the misery of wearing a mask.

Like most things, it's not as simple as people sometimes make it out to be. *sigh* I do wish life was less complicated, sometimes.

If I'm being totally honest, I think my experience has made me even less in favor of a vaccine mandate than I was before.  I know with surety who I got covid from, and this person and I were both vaccinated and both wearing masks when we interacted.  I used to be against the mandate based on principle, my own sense of logic, and anecdotes from other people.  Now I'm against it based on all those things plus personal experience, lol.

Generally speaking, I think exchanging freedom for safety is a bad idea.  On principle I don't think people should be coerced into having something injected into their body; especially something so new and untried.  Those who are afraid of getting sick are more than welcome to vaccinate and mask up.  Those who would rather take the risk should be allowed to.  If the vaccine and masks are effective, then both should be more than enough protection for the individual who wants to utilize them.  If they're not enough protection, then they're not effective enough to warrant something as serious as a mandate.  Just my personal opinion.

I'd be a lot happier if everyone would just practice good hygiene and hand-washing.

"Sigh" indeed... *sigh*.

 

[J.P.]

How does hand washing prevent you from spreading or inhaling droplets carried through the air?

[Carol the Dabbler]

14 minutes ago, J.P. said:

How does hand washing prevent you from spreading or inhaling droplets carried through the air?

It doesn't.  What it does do is help protect you from germs that were on surfaces you touched, which helps keep you from catching something, which hopefully makes one less person who could spread the illness.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

5 hours ago, Artemis said:

Generally speaking, I think exchanging freedom for safety is a bad idea.  On principle I don't think people should be coerced into having something injected into their body; especially something so new and untried.  Those who are afraid of getting sick are more than welcome to vaccinate and mask up.  Those who would rather take the risk should be allowed to.

Nicely said.

[Carol the Dabbler]

From another thread:

3 hours ago, Hikari said:

I have just returned to work after a week and half in quarantine due to a nasty eye infection.  A real industrial-strength case of conjunctivitis I know I picked up at the workplace.  So many germy surfaces, so many people coughing and sneezing.  Covid hasn't taught most people a darn thing about hygiene or staying home when ill, it seems.  Any measures they took before was only because they were forced to.  The minute the rules were lifted, it's back to business as usual circa 2019.  I don't know if I'm just hyperaware now, or if it's really gotten that much worse but I'd say a full half of the people coming into the library, including the staff, exhibit signs of illness . . and yet they are here.  I have to handle a lot of returned materials now and I suspect that I got this eye funk from touching infected books and then my face. 

Unfortunately a lot of employees are actually encouraged to show up for work even if they're obviously ill.  It strikes me as highly counterproductive for a boss to encourage (or even demand!) such behavior.  Sure, the sick employee may get some work done, but what about the half-dozen or more others who subsequently come down with their bug -- some of whom may be like me, and need to stay at home because if they don't rest they won't get better?

It does seem like if someone who's coughing and sneezing wants to go out anyhow (to work, shopping, whatever), it would be thoughtful of them to wear a face mask.  (Apparently a mask doesn't tend to be much help, but at least it would keep them from coughing or sneezing directly on you.)  Or they could make a point of coughing into their elbow or shoulder rather than into the common air space or onto objects that other people would need to handle.

In December of 2019, Hubby and I met some friends at a buffet restaurant.  One of the other patrons was a little short lady with some sort of nasty upper respiratory infection.  She kept coughing and sneezing without covering her mouth and nose, and she was so short that her face was below the "sneeze shields" that are supposed to keep germs off the food.  I never eat at that place anyhow (because the greasy food upsets my stomach), and Alex considered emulating me that time due to the sick lady, but finally went ahead and ate.  About a week later he came down with a cold (his first in years), which we're pretty sure he caught from her.  And about a week after *that* I caught a cold (my first in years), apparently from him.  Our cases weren't nearly as nasty as hers, but they lasted about a month.  

Later on, we wondered if that might have been an early case of Covid-19.

 

[besleybean]

Yep, loads of people with their personal stories of noe realising they probbaly had Covid...

thankfully all I know have survived.

Many of my colleagues  have had Covid more than once.

Apparently we have loads in school right now.

Hazard of the job.

It doesn't phase me at all...

I have had flus where I thought I was dying.

 

[Hikari]

24 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

From another thread:

Unfortunately a lot of employees are actually encouraged to show up for work even if they're obviously ill.  It strikes me as highly counterproductive for a boss to encourage (or even demand!) such behavior.  Sure, the sick employee may get some work done, but what about the half-dozen or more others who subsequently come down with their bug -- some of whom may be like me, and need to stay at home because if they don't rest they won't get better?

It does seem like if someone who's coughing and sneezing wants to go out anyhow (to work, shopping, whatever), it would be thoughtful of them to wear a face mask.  (Apparently a mask doesn't tend to be much help, but at least it would keep them from coughing or sneezing directly on you.)  Or they could make a point of coughing into their elbow or shoulder rather than into the common air space or onto objects that other people would need to handle.

In December of 2019, Hubby and I met some friends at a buffet restaurant.  One of the other patrons was a little short lady with some sort of nasty upper respiratory infection.  She kept coughing and sneezing without covering her mouth and nose, and she was so short that her face was below the "sneeze shields" that are supposed to keep germs off the food.  I never eat at that place anyhow (because the greasy food upsets my stomach), and Alex considered emulating me that time due to the sick lady, but finally went ahead and ate.  About a week later he came down with a cold (his first in years), which we're pretty sure he caught from her.  And about a week after *that* I caught a cold (my first in years), apparently from him.  Our cases weren't nearly as nasty as hers, but they lasted about a month.  

Later on, we wondered if that might have been an early case of Covid-19.

 

Nobody ever gets ahead by overestimating the altruism of the general public.  As my father said, when we were learning to drive, "You've got to assume that everyone else is going to be an A****e."  Fewer events in recent memory have demonstrated this more vividly than the societal divide over personal freedom vs. communal responsibility that Covid brought to light.

The official position of my workplace, especially since 2020 is, if you feel sick, stay home.  This also coincided with the slashing of paid time off benefits for our staff who are part-time, meaning if they stay home, they don't get paid.  This is sort of counterproductive to the purpose . . though my library board generously paid the entire staff our regular salary for the 6 weeks we were completely shut down and the further 6 weeks after that that we had severely reduced hours.  So we got full pay for three months and only worked half-time for 6 weeks of that time.  I think it comes down to the very human tendency to denial.  People justify that they aren't sick, that they are imagining it . . or that they don't feel *that* bad, so they aren't bad enough to stay home.    I feel like my case of pinkeye (though when both your eyes look like raw hamburger, it's beyond 'pink') is directly related to the current uptick in all viruses lately.  There's now way of knowing without lab cultures what virus was in my eyes but since I made it through 5 decades and NEVER had this before--I wonder if it wasn't Covid-19 in my eyes or something else like RSV or a weird flu strain that is prevalent this year like never before.  The timing is just a bit too coincidental otherwise . . .I've been working here for 22 years and just *now* I get this?  We've had an exceptionally windy fall here, though . . .warm and windy . . . and something might have blown into my eye at some point.  

Since my job is highly public facing, I will probably be going back to masking at least for the winter.  A cruise ship just docked in Sydney with *800* active Covid cases.  No quarantines . .they let everybody off who wanted to get off and just told them "Stay off public transport."  This is the difference between March 2020 and now.  

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 9/16/2022 at 3:05 PM, Artemis said:

...On principle I don't think people should be coerced into having something injected into their body; especially something so new and untried.  Those who are afraid of getting sick are more than welcome to vaccinate and mask up.  Those who would rather take the risk should be allowed to...

No, if you are living in society and have the potential to harm others.
Covid vaccine is new, but vaccine science itself is not. 
There is something called herd immunity.

Look back at our history dealing with pandemics and vaccines. Three years is too long, don't make it longer.

[Carol the Dabbler]

11 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

Look back at our history dealing with pandemics and vaccines. Three years is too long, don't make it longer.

There is some disagreement as to whether it's still an actual pandemic or not.  Covid is not going away, any more than AIDS has.  At some point we'll just have to learn to live with it.

 

[J.P.]

"Living with AIDS" is quite a recent thing. For more than 20 years it was "dying".
BTW, I still remember times when people didn't even want to have a hospital for AIDS patients built in their city, because of fear of infection. Nobody was talking about living with it in the year 3.

BTW, there are A LOT of signs that COVID is affecting your T-cells, just like HIV does. So each infection is making it worse. With the ability to cause long time lasting inflammation of blood vessels, it is affecting literally all the organs, blood clots causing strokes and heart failures. Plus it causes damage to the brain, significantly increasing the risk of brain degeneration, similar to Alzheimer's.

We may still live with it, but what life is it then? Thousands and thousands of people with LongCovid would like to just live with it, but they cannot. There is no cure, there is no concept for rehabilitation, you wait months for a doctor to see.

[Fantasy Lover]

On a unrelated note, there is something that pisses me off. So I googled bed sheets, and I'm scrolling on tumblr, what do I see? A commercial for bed sheets. A few days later I googled cardigans, what do I see on a banner  on random page? A commercial for cardigans. A week later I googled googled a dishwasher and what do I see? A commercial on dishwashers! Stop stalking me google!

[J.P.]

It's a common thing. This is how the internet and cookies work.
It's a misconception if we think of ourselves as "users" in the www. We are assets. We are the commodity.

[besleybean]

Yeah and I fall for it!

[Caya]

16 hours ago, J.P. said:

It's a common thing. This is how the internet and cookies work.
It's a misconception if we think of ourselves as "users" in the www. We are assets. We are the commodity.

Old but unfortunately still true:

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 12/3/2022 at 2:26 PM, Fantasy Lover said:

On a unrelated note, there is something that pisses me off. So I googled bed sheets, and I'm scrolling on tumblr, what do I see? A commercial for bed sheets. A few days later I googled cardigans, what do I see on a banner  on random page? A commercial for cardigans. A week later I googled googled a dishwasher and what do I see? A commercial on dishwashers! Stop stalking me google!

You could try using DuckDuckGo.com instead of Google.  Google seems to be a bit better at finding certain things, but then you pay the price.  DuckDuckGo says they don't use or share your data, and I've never seen anything that makes me suspect otherwise.

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 11/29/2022 at 6:10 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

At some point we'll just have to learn to live with it.

Most countries have tried to resume lives, but the ability to do so to a certain extent is thanks to vaccination.

So it's disturbing for me to read the arguments against it over and over again. Same with other kinds of 'vaccination cause autism', 'my body is my temple, you can't tell me what to do' arguments in this (Covid and vax). Thanks to that, we are going backward now, seeing a number of eradicated diseases rebound. Polio is making a comeback.

 

[besleybean]

Sad.

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 12/4/2022 at 4:34 AM, J.P. said:

It's a common thing. This is how the internet and cookies work.
It's a misconception if we think of ourselves as "users" in the www. We are assets. We are the commodity.

I have reasons to believe it crosses over to peer's phones as well.

[Fantasy Lover]

6 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

Same with other kinds of 'vaccination cause autism', 'my body is my temple, you can't tell me what to do' arguments in this (Covid and vax). Thanks to that, we are going backward now, seeing a number of eradicated diseases rebound. Polio is making a comeback.

These idiots don't realise that were vaccinated as a child, do they have autism? No they don't because vaccines don't work that way. And even if they did, it means that the percentage of people with autism should be far higher than it is now. Also I can't believe you prefer a sick and possibly dead baby over a disabled baby, whatever happened to as long as it's healthy? Does that a disabled baby isn't healthy? God, these people piss me off. 

[J.P.]

I just think, we are living to long without the diseases we were vaccinated against.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I think of vaccines in terms of a risk-benefit analysis.  Yes, there are bound to be side effects -- darn near everything has side effects.  And I've read some fairly convincing evidence that vaccines can cause autism (though obviously in only a small percentage of cases, or autism would be far more common).  But compare that risk to the obvious advantages.  For example, when was the last time you heard of a child dying of diphtheria?  That used to be a fairly common occurrence -- my husband would have had another uncle if the diphtheria vaccine had been invented sooner.

So even though I can understand why some people object to vaccines, and even though I am not vaccinated against absolutely everything, I'm glad that such a thing exists.

 

[J.P.]

Could you share that evidence?

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 12/7/2022 at 1:10 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

I've read some fairly convincing evidence that vaccines can cause autism (though obviously in only a small percentage of cases, or autism would be far more common).

10 hours ago, J.P. said:

Could you share that evidence?

I read this somewhere several years ago, so my recollection is hazy, but basically they did a large-scale study of Amish communities, and found only (I think) two cases of autism -- one of whom had been adopted into the community after having been vaccinated as an infant.  I believe the other had also been vaccinated, but I don't recall the circumstances.

I personally feel that the benefits of vaccination generally outweigh the risks, but of course everyone has their own way of looking at things, so opinions will vary.  I know some anti-vaxxers who believe that vaccination can also cause long-term effects such as cancer, but what little I've read about their evidence didn't convince me.

 

[Caya]

Amish aren’t exactly a good control group, though. After all, pollution and other environmental factors have been linked to autism far more reliably than vaccines (if at all) so the air is more likely to be the culprit here.

Besides, I mean I don’t have children but I’d much rather have one on the spectrum than have them die from a preventable disease.