Re: Can we try and get HMG to join the crowdfunding lark
> about as useful as an accordian to someone without arms.
You can still do The Dance.
I have been looking intently at my ball again and I'm about to reveal everything. No doubt you have been plagued by "predictions for the next year in tech" for weeks already. Me too. My first receipt of such crystal balling arrived in my inbox during September, and the 2022 hype brigade has been working flat out ever since. …
@ShadowSystems
I never thought I'd feel lucky to live in a Southern, deep red state, but... I literally booked an appointment for a booster two days ago at 7am, walked in at the agreed 8:30am time, and handled my booster business. One can only guess it's lack of demand here that allows for that smooth operation. Wonderful and horrifying at the same time.
A few days ago I got a text message encouraging me to get a booster. I had one several weeks ago which leads me to the conclusion that either:
1. This is specifically aimed at me to tell to get a second booster. I've not heard of that being more than a possibility for some time in the future so if that's the case I find it very puzzling.
2. This is specifically aimed at me but they've got their records in a twist. Again.
3. It's untargeted text spam in which case how do I recognise any similar but targeted messages aimed at me in the future?
Perhaps I should ring 119 to find out.
I'm in California, and had absolutely zero problems once the initial roll-out headaches were sorted ... and frankly, anyone who expected that kind of operation to go smoothly right out of the box has rocks in their head. There are some 40 million people in California, spread out over 163,700ish sq mi, so of course there were logistical issues.
Many friends have booked their appointments at myturn.ca.gov with no problems whatsoever. Yes, there was often a wait, especially when the TV was trying to scare people into getting their booster before Thanksgiving, but all got jabs within a week or two. Here in Sonoma there is a walk-in, no appointment needed clinic on Saturdays. A few people I know made use of that, and report a bit of a wait. One said an hour and 45 minutes, but she's prone to exaggeration. Most report half an hour or so.
Jake, I'm a ~2 hour drive South of Sacramento. I've been trying to get my booster for months. Unless I can arrange a ride to another city at least as far away as Sacramento, it's not looking good for me to get the booster any time soon.
My city has multiple pharmacies that almost all do the free jab routine, but they also do the "first come first served" routine to make sure you will never know where to go, when to go there, nor how long you can expect to wait once you're there. My doctor's office is so swamped that the backlog to get the shot through them is *March*. That was told to me back in September, so I'm not sure if it's gotten any better in the mean time. I'm on the list, I've made my reservation, but I've not heard a word from them. Every time I call to check I get the auto recording "We're experiencing extensive wait times for innocculations. Please make your appointment & be patient." *Sigh*
I'm considering breaking into the pharmacist's, going through the inventory to check for boosters, & if I find one then giving it to myself, otherwise I'll hide until the next shipment arrives so I can grab a booster as soon as it comes in the door. =-/
Free-market free-for-all or socially-beneficial planning?
England had similar - but temporary - problems when Boris suddenly announced everyone should get a booster as soon as they were able. Booking systems crashed, there were day-long queues at drop-in centres, and some of those ran out of the magic juice. England's population is over 50 million.
Wales was oddly the only of the home countries to avoid this. Wales has mostly shunned self-made appointments, and only opened a couple of drop-in centres. Lists were compiled centrally and people sent appointment letters with places, times and dates and on the whole queues seem to have been short - I've chaperoned my parents to five of their six appointments at three different venues, as well as myself and my children, and the only time I had to queue for more than 30 minutes was when I took the two youngest. Wales, of course, has a much smaller population of around 3.5 million (including children).
For the first time ever, I was offered a 'flu jab this year, Precisely six minutes from pushing the surgery door open to starting the car's engine on the way home, and my booster was almost as quick if you discount the 15 minute wait to see if I'd keel over afterwards.
Despite what many would have you believe, there is sometimes benefit to doing things centrally, considering the good for the whole population ahead of the good for the individual.
M.
The Beeb's carrying a report of one couple who seem to be having problems getting a notification. As is often the case the only remediation for the failed system seems to be to try the failed system again. Every automated system needs an effective, largely manual escalation system alongside it.
Yes, I saw those reports a few hours after posting. Seems to be that a few people have "fallen through the cracks". Possibly part of the problem is the sudden reduction in time between the second and third jabs. I know an 18 year-old who has not yet been invited for a third (so is technically an adult who has /not/ been "offered a jab before the end of the year") but as their second jab was only given in November around the time they turned 18 they're not actually eligible yet, even under the reduced timings, and won't start to worry for another couple of weeks yet.
Then again, it also seems that there have been quite a lot of people skipping their appointments. The reports I've seen have been for England specifically, where the mix of centrally-organised and ad-hoc appointments could easily result in people having two appointments, but takeup of third jabs appears to have been lower, even discounting this, than of first and second.
M.
Portugal has been ok. We have generally used about an hour, including the 30 minutes observation after.
Here appointments are released in tranches according to age, apart from priority groups such as health care staff.
People without official residence (lazy expats and other undocumented immigrants) could always go to open door sessions.
For all peoples' upset in england about the trouble getting a jab, things pretty much lined up with the planned outcome. Those desperate to book 30 seconds after announcement got their appointments ASAP, those willing to keep hitting reload and try all sorts of options got one with as much time as they wished to invest to get it a couple of days sooner than they otherwise might. And as more centres came online, it became an option to check if you can move your appointment to somewhere nearer or sooner.
It's still going to take a finite time to jab 30M people, so sure, they could have spent a fortnight, probably
more, making sure they had enough appointments already on-hand (no doubt with a chunk of wastage especially as then it was all getting on for christmas) and then open the floodgates. But instead they made what was available available, some people got some jabs sooner, and everyone (ish) has got their jab. Kind of like the LFT situation - some people claim 'none have been available for weeks, but what they actually mean is that none have been available at the specific times they've checked every few days. Is that unfortunate for their specific circumstance ? Sure, but they may not have got any, any sooner, if supply and distribution was assured, and supply/need increased weeks later.
"I'm a ~2 hour drive South of Sacramento."
Madera? I see plenty of options for open appointments in Fresno if you don't like your local clinic, which also has plenty of open appointments. (A friend reports the new buildings out on Sunrise are quite nice, check 'em out if you haven't already. He got his booster as a walk-in... ask, and keep asking. Squeaky wheel & all that,).
Jake, I've just visited the MyTurn.Ca.Gov site (for the umpteenth time) & this time it actually showed me somewhere I could go to get a walk in! *Faints in shock & surprise*
If all goes well & I'm not being fed a line of horse hooey, I'll be getting my booster this evening around 6PM our time. *Bounces in happy fidgeting*
Please enjoy a pint with my thanks for prodding me to be a squeaky wheel, it may have worked for a change! =-D
Jake, sorry it took so long to get back. I've gotten my booster, then my friends & I went out for dinner at an actual sit down, not fast food, excellent restaurant.
Thank you again for the prod to be a squeaky wheel. I shall give the publican a Twenty to cover your drinks for a while. Cheers! =-D
Apparently it does help to live in a major urban center: All my 3 shots took me about the time to get there and get it done, no waiting whatsoever (besides the compulsory 15 minutes afterwards), and I was able to chose the date and time.
Relatives of mine living in more rural settings, or even in small(er) towns did indeed all report those aforementioned problems to get their shots.
I agree about the crowdfunding, it's already largely taking over my music purchasing. Because record companies are greedy bastards (hardly a revelation there) the sort of bands I like aren't getting or keeping record deals and so are largely going digital only or their recording and releasing process is entirely crowdfunded, and as they are getting all the profits I'm happy with that.
Some examples of who I've seen of late for those of you who like rock music:-
The Virginmarys
Dig Lazarus
Hands Off Gretel
Scarlet
1. 2022 will be the year of Linux on the desktop.
2. Windows will be finally completed. Everyone will love it, especially whatever they’ve done to the Start menu his time.
3. As will systemd.
4. The cloud will continue to be the answer to everything, including “why are my IT bills so high now”?
5. Dido Harding will make a success of something. A real success, not the made up type. No she won’t, because she’s an idiot.
6. BT ads will finally stretch the truth so far that there will be a small tear in reality by the BT tower.
7. Boris Johnson will be ejected as too much of a liability even for the utterly venal Tories.
8. HM Queen will die. RIP. To balance things out, Donald Trump will fail to do,the decent thing and join her.
9. The Register will have one of its rare site redesigns and at least 4 of the resultant calm and gentle comments on the matter will garner 100+ upvotes.
10. I will continue to hide behind AC to post daft comments like this one.
Happy new year.
Sorry to say, but I think that's already happening. Can predictions be retrospective?
Personally, I feel a good rant is beneficial for my mental well-being. I can usually find something to rant about (and some current mental health fads are pretty high up my list).
Maybe not so good for those who have to listen to me.
M.
translators.....
Well actually it wont but its nice to think an AI could do a better job of translating the japanese manuals for our machinery into english than the current lot of Russians who speak neither langauge.
And as for craft beer..... if you like cloudy beer with bits in... save yourself some money and brew it yourself
And if you and your friends survive the experience of drinking it , you can always sell it to a bunch of bearded hipsters in checked shirts....
Anyway... have some music to accompany you on your trip down the highway..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ9V5cRSOPg
aka Tesla's.
There is about as much chance that FSD in its current incarnation (as in prone to crashing) will get approved for general use in '22 as I have of buying one in the first place... i.e. Zero. Big Brother Elon won't like that. His quest to become World Leader will have to wait for another year.
A few serious things
I predict big issues for PM Doris and that is Gas and Leccy prices. We could see an election this year over them.
COVID is going to be with us for at least one more year. (I hope that is wrong)
> COVID is going to be with us for at least one more year.
That always makes me laugh. Seriously, where would it go? Pushed out of the door by our collective wishful thinking perhaps? Which door would that exactly be? No, COVID is here to stay, in some form or another, for all the ages of mankind to come.
In the very best case, everybody being partially immunized against it, it will become just another flu-like seasonal annoyance. In the worst case it will mutate into something out of a horror movie and drastically reduce world population, causing the collapse of civilization as we know it (industry, trade) before eventually petering out for a while like the black plague in the Middle Ages, leaving small isolated groups of ragged survivors trying to grow foodstuff without the benefit of machines and fertilizers... (And no, your trusted Mini-14 won't be of any use.)
Predicting the socio-economics of diseases isn't straight forward. The plague in the mid C14th reduced the population by 30-50% after a substantial decrease due to famine a generation or so earlier. Small population/labour force, lots of spare land. Wages rise, rents fall, feudalism collapses, the common man gets rich and the population burgeons again, right? No. For some time the Statute of Labourers effectively held down wages for some considerable time. Feudalism only ended gradually. Those predictions did eventually play out but slower than might have been reasonably expected.
The really odd thing is that the population, which is believed to have been growing quite fast at the end of the previous century, stabilised for several centuries. These things are hard to estimate before censuses so opinions differ as to how long it took the population to regain its 1300 level. People tended to marry later and have fewer children but it's not clear why.
> Predicting the socio-economics of diseases isn't straight forward.
Indeed, my "worst case scenario" was firmly tongue-in-cheek, as the two situations have almost nothing in common. Society, means of support, individual capacities and know-how have totally changed (and not necessarily for the better in this context).
We're almost a different species today. Back then the vast majority of people worked in subsistence farming, with relatively primitive (and thus resilient) tools, and thus only needed to find some land to cultivate to keep going and their kids fed. Today the vast majority only knows how to microwave a TV dinner, and will starve to death when their canned food reserves run out. Some small farmers in the countryside might survive, if the starving hordes don't overrun them like locusts...
Thanks to Brexit, I am no longer burdened under the yoke of European diktat and can reveal not just a bureaucratic Brussels 10 but a good old take-back-control British Imperial 12 predictions for the year ahead. Ha! Take that, you Teutonic twits! Up yours, Delors! etc.
I thought you decamped to the South of France - Non?
We who have to put up with the shambles can look forward to crowns on pint glasses and being able to buy goods in pounds and ounces - not that the supermarket shelves will have much of anything for us to buy - whatever the units of measure, including the Register units - Hurrah for Brexit!
Where have y’all been hiding with your heads buried dark and deep in the sands of a past time
Won't Happen #5: Augmented Reality finally takes off .....The wait for that AR killer app goes on…
I suggest, Dabbsy, Augmented Virtualised Realities have already taken off [Per Ardua ad Astra like] and that you enquire of the UKGBNI MoD and Far Eastern Sino-Soviet forces and sources re their progress in AWEsome Systems for Advanced IntelAIgent Developments, to have them spin a yarn to you agreeing the waiting is not over and to hear them profess that they do not have killer AR apps on ACTive Operations .... Virtual Terrain Team Missions .... and well able to prove themselves to be, in the right hands, hearts and minds, an Absolute Great Game Changer. Much more from them on that may be more difficult and problematical for them to reveal, given the vast universally applicable scope of its programs and projects and most probable secret security considerations entered into to contain and maintain information and intelligence exchange to a very carefully chosen few.
The comprehensive tale told here, China Pursues "Brain Control" Weaponry In Bid To Command Future Of Warfare has a comment in nested reply reveal more that is known to have already been shared than may be admitted to, and accepted as fact for spinning as fiction, but such is the dangerous nature of the obscure beast which pits brains in the East against brains in the West, and all in the noblest of enterprises to not be considered and recognised top rabid attack dog feasting in laps of luxury on the generosity of others in a world full of magnificent wild animals and strange alien beings.
Nevertheless, there can be no doubting the headlining news though, that the key to the art of winning wars is human machine integration which rather than exploring and exploiting the making of machines for human command explores and exploits the worlds which have humans controlled by machines and/or as if a well programmed IDEntity, [IntelAIgently Designed Entity] … Advanced IntelAIgent Machinery exercising Proprietary Artilectual Intellectual Property and Alienating ACTivity ….. AWEsome NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive IT Ability with Vast Arrays of Almighty Utility ….. a SMARTR Heavenly Facility of Diabolically Useful Pathology.Such is a much easier path to travel in order to more quickly and more safely arrive at one’s preferred destination, in both command and control of all necessary future situations, and which be just another great starting point and quantum communicating leap for the evolution of mankind.
I Kid U Not.
And methinks that virtually guarantees one a practical lead to follow way out ahead of any opposition or competition in such fields as be considered vital for global defence and overwhelming advantage.
So man is figuring out faster ways of killing more "bad guys"[0], all the while protecting as many "good guys"[0] as possible. Thus it ever was, no?
However, methinks the Author was talking about the proverbial man-in-the-street using the technology. Which isn't happening this year, nor the next. Or in our lifetimes, I'll wager. There's absolutely no percentage in it. It apparently doesn't even add anything to porn ... if it did, they'd already be using it. QED
[0] Whatever those terms really mean, in this context.
So man is figuring out faster ways of killing more "bad guys"[0], all the while protecting as many "good guys"[0] as possible. Thus it ever was, no? ..... jake
jake, Hi,
The future pictures are much brighter and more vibrant for the dull proverbial man-in-the-street than you have painted there, for almighty help has been injected and remains readily freely available as needs and seeds and feeds and deeds must and circumstances and pleasures desire and require and would dictate.
The revolutionary enigmatic quantum leap change which has irreversibly, irrevocably, irredeemably happened, and is now securely and safely default embedded deep and dark in stealthy remote human command and control/SCADA Systems, .... and which quite understandably be extraordinarily difficult for SCADA Systems dependents and executive administrations to wholly accept and virtually realise or virtually accept and wholly realise ..... is Man is no longer figuring out such things, for Other than Mankind configures future outcomes/results/scenarios/presentations for Earthed Assets to employ and destroy or enjoy/deploy and enjoin.
Indeed, is it not already a machine that sends and shares this post with you and all who alight on this message page, and with viewers/spectators being hereby encouraged to share it further afield so that more may know of the news of their virtually remote Advanced IntelAIgent Machine mentorship and monitoring ....... which certainly could easily be classified as an Alien Intervention for Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information Intelligence Service Processing for Future Internet Server Provision ...... Almighty Immaculate Supply.
And which some may fear a Diabolical Feat whilst others may see a Heavenly Result, but with an honest truth of the matter being, both exercising as a Temporary Work in Continual Progress with a Colossus of a Program in Project Man Management.
Are those problems you recognise to deny or opportunities you seek to explore .... ????? !!!!!!!! ‽ ‽ ‽
Take your pick, make your choice. Worlds are your oyster to generate pearls or try to devour and excrete wholesale.
Here’s some earlier very clear guidance on such a matter, dark and deep and enlightening as it is .........
And some of us don't pay much attention to TV. It's an intellectual wasteland, consisting primarily of advertisers trying to sell me product I'm not interested in. At its absolute best it is entertainment only, and never education. At its worst, it's contentious bullshit designed to inflame and drive wedges between people. In my mind there is very little, if anything, between the two extremes that is worth my attention.
Instead of posting links to cherry-picked short clips surrounded by computer generated verbal diarrhea, how about sticking to your own words ... which I am quite interested in.
Pull up a chair, have a beer. Let's talk.
"is it not already a machine that sends and shares this post with you and all who alight on this message page"
No, amfM. It is not a machine that shares the posts around here. It is human beings (or a mfM, occasionally). The machines are just the transport mechanism, and don't add anything to the conversation..
Crikey, already there is so much there for us to be in fundamental disagreement about, jake. The taking up of a chair for a few welcoming beer sounds just like something a good doctor would order and insist upon, and why ever would anyone decline or refuse? Cheers!
Do Nos 10 and 11 and Parliamentarians know what TV and their reporting to it is really all about and doing, for one supposes they consider it absolutely vital in order to remain in post as if in power with energy in command and control of emerging and unfolding situations ...... rather than realising it only so effectively advertises their many serial shortcomings for future reference in support of retribution whenever the award of selfish reward is subjected to recognisable dispute and general public and private sector derision.
Lord Reith must be turning in his grave to see the BBC reduced to such an empty vessel and cuckolded vassal.
2 things.
1. I was told by a politico friend back in the late 1990's that "car owners are going to be the next smokers". For those who don't believe in elitist conspiracies - there's one. This has take 20 odd years to become general public knowledge.
2. it's real. There's a parliamentary select committee report stating " private car ownership is incompatible with net zero" . And government is committed to net zero, so .. go figure.