An amazing man with an amazing life. I used to enjoy watching him, such a great interviewer. Made it to 87 after smoking 3 packs a day for 30 years. Survives a stroke and then has lung surgery and lymph nodes removed at age 84 and lives another 3 years. Sounds like he definitely died of Covid after defying so many odds.

@taiwan_girl I cannot begin to guess what the US' goal was or has been. I know this much from this country which is a confederation, that the goal varied from province to province. Some like the Atlantic provinces and the northern territories sought to minimize the spread of the virus and eradicate it altogether. In the first wave the Atlantic provinces were quite successful by building a bubble and closing off the provinces to all but essential business traffic into and out of the region. Although the Atlantic bubble was abandoned during the second wave, the Atlantic region has managed to keep cases low by maintaining clear rules for retail businesses, closing schools and enforcing rules limiting public gatherings. The Northwest Territories up north, has thus far been successful at keeping the virus pretty much out of its jurisdiction altogether through strict travel requirements and quarantine measures. Life there is pretty much normal. Elsewhere in the country the goals have been pretty much limited to minimizing the spread through voluntary compliance and short term closures of various retail outlets and schools. Some areas have more stringent measures in place than others and it can even vary among local areas within each province. Here in Alberta for example, you can be fined if you entertain guests in your house unless you live alone and then you are allowed one guest. This rule has been in place since before Xmas. Is it working? Possibly, although the I believe the numbers are coming down more because bars, restaurants and the fact that middle and high schools were closed from December 15 until January 11. Now that the schools have be reopened, I suspect we will see numbers start creeping back up again next week. However if there is one general request across the board, the overall recommendation is avoid all non essential personal travel within the country and abroad. That means have a staycation at home and don't leave the country unless it is absolutely necessary or your job is such that you must travel out your city or abroad for work.

@copper said in I Dunno About This.: Watch the video and make your own decision It is possible that they kept the staff out of the frame while the president posed for pictures. The door opened as soon as they walked to it. https://news.yahoo.com/bidens-were-reportedly-left-waiting-105244319.html LOL . I watched the video. They stood out front celebrating the music and taking it all in and then when the music ended they turned and walked in. The funniest contradiction to an argument I saw all week.

It wasn’t actually aimed at you per se, I just made this one into a pun thread.

I suppose I could be convinced to relegate Chaucer to a module within a larger course -- though it would take some extended persuasion. But to drop Chaucer to make room for courses on "race and diversity"? Get real. Maybe universities should focus less on "student tuition expectations" and more on higher education expectations from students. Ya think?

So as not to derail the "What are you reading now" thread. @bachophile said in What are you reading now?: Not sure if I want to squander the enjoyment by starting to watch the video series, because I’m still a firm believer in “the book is better than the movie” and although I’ve read the accolades here on the vid version, I still think I prefer to tackle it via the books. THere's no problem. They are complementary. The authors have said that the video and book versions are like two different tellings of the Batman story. It all goes in the same direction, but there are stories that diverge, and then, converge. For example, UN Undersecretary Avasarala does not appear in the first book, but she's prominent in the first,and subsequent seasons. Some characters are changed, such as Klaes Ashford, who was an asshole in the books, but a hero in the TV series. Some plot lines are clearer in the books that the series, such as the involvement of the Martian navy in things that play big much later on. Characters get moved around, arriving earlier, departing earlier. For example Jared Harris, who plays Anderson Dawes is effectively gone in the later seasons after he became a hot property. Cas Anvar (Alex Kamal) was accused of sexual harassment, and after an investigation, he will not be joining the cast for Season 6. It'll be interesting to see if they replace him with another character (Alex is not being re-cast). I enjoyed reading one book, then watching the season based on that book. Some things get cut (because they're irrelevant to the story), and some get accentuated because it works better on video.

Swell. We are a week away from results of J&J so we have something to be hopeful for. Also whatever happened to manufacturing facilities Gates was going to build?

Here’s their solution. Same answer as me but arrived via the angular momentum concept. Frankly I thought my approach was simpler. SOLUTION: We know from last week's puzzle, "Bugs on a Stick," that the final positions for the bugs collectively are the same as if they passed through one another instead of bouncing. If they pass one another, every bug simply travels once around the hoop and ends up where it began. With bouncing, some bug will end up where Bugsy began, but will it be Bugsy? It certainly will be if it happens that all the bugs begin facing the same way, since then there will be no collisions. But that happens with probability only 2/(224) = 0.0000001192, approximately. Wait, maybe there's another way. Note that the whole process preserves the angular momentum of the mass of bugs. Suppose, say, that 16 of the 24 bugs face clockwise; the remaining 8 are counterclockwise. Then the bugs will, as a whole, rotate clockwise at 1/3 cm/sec, and at the end, each bug will be, on average, 1/3 of the way around from where it began. But since they never pass through one another, the bugs remain in the same order; thus every bug will end up (in this case) in the position of the bug that began 8 bugs in front of it, clockwise. So all the bugs (including Bugsy) change position in this case, and indeed in every case unless the mass clockwise speed is an integer number of cm/sec. That integer can only be 1 (all bugs moving clockwise), -1 (all counterclockwise), or 0 (12 bugs in each direction). The latter is quite a lively possibility, occurring with probability (24 choose 12)/(224) ≈ 0.1611802578. Adding the 0.0000001192 from before gives us a total probability of 0.1611803770 for the event that Bugsy ends up where he started.

RIP.

The nation should pay him. We collectively got more than that in enjoyment from his Four Seasons Landscaping presser alone.

Question: Why and how did this end up getting on video? Does someone on this street film every garbage truck on garbage day? Seems a little bit too convenient that this was filmed so well, or at all.

@lufins-dad said in President Biden's Redecorated Oval Office: Even the carpet has changed in the Oval Office, with the golden-cream rug that was in place for Trump replaced by a deep blue that was in place during Bill Clinton’s presidency Wait, that was Bill’s carpet? No wonder they spent $500K sanitizing the office. Wait until they turn the black lights on...

@rainman said in Jolly Old Ammo Question: I don't know what brand of rifle. We've got a huge area of garage where all our overflow treasures junk ends up. I think I know where it is, I'll try to find it. I still have a lousy back (always will), so the treasure hunt is not easy. And, I'm lazy. There is that. Something like a pre-64 Winchester in 30-06 is worth $1000+. Something odd like a featherweight or a target model could be worth $4000-$10,000.

@lufins-dad said in Too much Trump stink on Dr Brix?: I’m sure Joe will find a weirdo somewhere to take her place. But, but.... THE SCARVES!

I applaud her integrity, I am sure her decision to support impeachment was not an easy one.

@doctor-phibes said in RIP Mira Furlan: The cast of that show seem to have had more than its fair share of early deaths. Mira Furlan age 65 Michael O'Hare age 60 (suicide) Jerry Doyle age 60 ("Natural causes perhaps related to alcohol use") Richard Biggs age 44 (aortic dissection) Steven Furst (Flounder) age 63 (complications of diabetes) Andreas Katsulas age 59 (lung cancer) Jeff Conaway age 60 (pneumonia and sepsis, perhaps related to his drug use)

@taiwan_girl said in Fact checks?: It seems that President Trump set the way on the very first day of his administration, With the claims about inauguration size and everything like that. If, in a school, there is a student who you know has problems, or there is more of a tendency to be issues with that student, you devote more resources than you would normally to other students Bullshit.