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Lipstick on a Frog

ACIP voting member Helen “Keipp” Talbot, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, spoke of hospitals crammed with unvaccinated patients sick with COVID-19. “In all honesty, we could give boosters to people, but that’s not really the answer to this pandemic,” Dr. Talbott said. “I feel like we’re putting lipstick on frogs. This is not going to solve the pandemic.”

Source: CDC advisors OK boosters for 65+, those with health risks—not occupational risks | Ars Technica

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Rhode Island 2021 – 2022 Hunting Season Fluorescent Orange Requirements

The state of Rhode Island requires all visitors to wear safety orange during the busiest hunting seasons. For the 2020-2021 season the regulations are:

All other users of State Management Areas and designated undeveloped State Parks, including but not limited to: hikers, bikers, and horseback riders are required to wear 200 square inches of solid daylight fluorescent orange from the second Saturday in September to the last day of February and the third Saturday in April to the last day in May.

500sq. in. by all hunters (including archers) and all users of management areas and undeveloped state parks during all portions of shotgun deer seasons.

Here’s my publicly available Google calendar showing the 200 & 500 sq. in dates.

Note: the calendar dates only apply to Zones 1 & 2 which is the vast majority of the state. For Zones 3 (Patience & Prudence Islands) & 4 (Block Island), refer to the regulations for those dates.
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We Lost the Race :-(

Earlier in the year I wrote about the fact that we were essentially in a race between achieving herd immunity through vaccination and the appearance of more infectious variants. Well – we lost the race. That is to say, anti-vaxxers and the vaccine hesitant lost the race for all of us. There is no way to sugar-coat this. We had a window of opportunity, and now the window is closed, and it is entirely due to people who refused, against all evidence, to get vaccinated. The delta variant is now surging, vaccine efficacy is waning, and children are now being affected in greater numbers.

First the anti-vaxxers and the vaccine hesitant brought back measles and increased infant suffering and death from pertussis. Now they have very likely guaranteed that there will be suffering and death from Covid-19 variants for decades to come.

Source: Masks Work | NeuroLogica Blog

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How Long Will It Take?

With the right wing loonies going all in against all vaccinations, how long will it take for the population of their followers to shrink to the point that they are no longer a concern?

Clearly it won’t happen in the next decade because of other medical interventions preventing so much serious disease and death. So their strategy of going all in on the insanity will likely help keep their base together for the next few presidential election cycles.

However, eventually too many people will have seen too much needless suffering and death among Republican and independent Trumpist’s families that they’ll stop following the insane advice and also stop voting for those who want to encourage their suffering & death for power and profit.

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DDT Problems In Humans

Enough time has finally elapsed that we can now measure the long term health impacts of DDT. We banned most uses of DDT after decades of ordinary people overusing DDT. A woman I worked with in the 80’s once bemoaned the banning of DDT because by spreading lots of it around her garden she kept the ants off her tomatoes. She did this because in the 50’s & 60’s industry insisted that DDT was completely safe for humans and other mammals. At the time of the banning in the early 70’s we were only seeing the early affects of our overuse in the population declines of birds, raptors in particular. Now that enough time has passed:

Scientists found health effects in grandchildren of women exposed to the pesticide

Source: Consequences of DDT Exposure Could Last Generations – Scientific American

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Great Commentary from Hackaday

The $2500.00 (MSRP) Kick Ass PC I had built by HP 4-1/2 years ago exceeds all of Microsoft’s performance requirements for Windows 11. However, because the 3.4GHz, quad core, 8 processor, CPU that I can never load more than 50% with intense CAD and multimedia work, is not a new enough Intel i7, I won’t be able to run Windows 11. 😦

I’ll probably migrate to a Linux Distro in 2024 especially since most of what I run can already run in *nix and I already use VM’s to run older Win32 CAD packages.

Unfortunately for the majority of people on the planet this won’t work for them. Instead many will trash the old systems leading to this potential outcome:

A NEW OS SHOULDN’T CAUSE AN E-WASTE CRISIS

Source: The Great Windows 11 Computer Extinction Experiment | Hackaday

I understand that Microsoft and it’s PC manufacturing partners need to sell new hardware. However they really should think more carefully what they are doing to the planet with this rather arbitrary forced obsolescence based on processor age, not performance. (My i7-6700 3.4GHz is way more powerful than many of the supported CPU’s)

Of course given the longer term industry trends this may backfire and force many more Windows users to switch to Chrome books and boxes, which frankly are a better choice for ordinary users. It seems really weird that Microsoft doesn’t seem to recognize that their migration of everything to the cloud has removed the need for a Windows PC for the vast majority of people on the planet.