Hope you’re all safe; hope you’re all washing your hands; hope you’re all hunkering down. Our federal government (here in the US at least) has failed in pretty much every way it’s possible to fail and to a large extent we have to rely on our state and local governments — and each other.
In some ways the most horrific thing I’ve learned in the last few days was this: Trump, who hits new lows as a president and as a human being on a daily basis, has been trying to basically buy a German firm working on a vaccine that he wants to be available exclusively in the US.
Here are some other articles I’ve found useful in making sense of all this. Some of them are disturbing, but we can’t successfully confront what we don’t understand.
The Quiet Terror of Coronavirus, by Talia Lavin, GQ
Cancel Everything, The Atlantic
Social Distancing: This is Not a Snow Day, Medium
These simulations show how to flatten the coronavirus growth curve, Washington Post
The Worst-Case Estimate for U.S. Coronavirus Deaths, NYT
Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized, CNN
Please post any other articles and resources you’ve found to be helpful.
–DF
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies entirely on readers like you for its survival. If you appreciate our work, please send a few bucks our way! Thanks!
Topical to the site:
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2020/mar/12/internet-not-working-women-girls-tim-berners-lee
I half expected Anita Sarkeesian to be mentioned by name, but no.
Still, someone prominent with clout is saying something that needs to be said. That might be worth celebrating, even if we might wish this had happened sooner.
Lol I asked my husband if he could send me some new pictures of him so I can do a new art project of him. He goes “can you at least draw me clothed and awake this time”…. I feel challenged. My muse just challenged me.
@Lainy
I think these are legible. Let me know if not and I’ll try again! It says you can use either the dark or light rye dough on their own instead of marbled.
@Sadpinkpony
I’m sorry this is so rough for you. If there’s anything we can do to make things a little easier, please feel free to ask.
@kupo
Thank you so much! I know what I’m going to try and attempt to make in a few days now.
For people with minimum cooking supplies, little money, and who want to stock up on non perishables:
Barley Lentil soup
If you can boil water in a pot you can make this. Most all online recipes call for adding a whole bunch of vegetables and/or meat which certainly makes it taste better but it’s quite good with just the barley and lentils and some spices.
You can buy the barley and lentils in bulk and they are dry. It’s also quite filling.
Another idea is rice and dahl, which is mixed rice and lentils and is a staple in India.
Hello.
So, like Olhmann said, we are now confined in France. It has been determined that my service do not need a physical presence currently, so we were all send home yesterday, and have to work from home from today. And because i am airhead when i am under pressure, i damnly forgot my USB key on my work PC ! Aaaah (head bang the desk) ! I sometimes would like there is a time machine to allow me to go back just before coming back home yesterday, to kick my own ass, yelling “The Key ! Do not forget the Key !” like a surexcited For Boyard candidate.
And now, like they could have give us yesterday, there is a derogation form to fill and present if requested. Must be printed or digitally filled and keep on your smartphone. Having neither a printer or a smartphone… Well, i guess i prefer to pay a fine rather than starving. But really, they could have give it yesterday…
(Edit : well, colleagues of work just tell me that you can also write it on a white paper, so i am saved about this one)
As said on the former thread, if some want to join on Steam, you can send me your mail adress at [email protected] (it is a one way temporary mail box, i will answer you with my normal mail adress after) so to exchange our steam pseudos.
Please everyone take care of yourself and your relatives !
@kupo
Thank you for the recipes!
My workplace does prepackaged sandwiches for Starbucks and 7-11, and doesn’t seem to show any signs of shutting down yet. Which is unfortunate, because I’ve been developing a cough which I’m pretty sure isn’t coronavirus or anything contagious, but still gives me enough anxiety about going to work with.
I wish Starbucks at least would shut down for a little while (with paid leave for employees, ideally). That might cut back our hours. I don’t see 7-11 shutting down any time soon.
Otherwise, still occasionally delving into the cesspool that is my local news comment sections. Recent highlight being a person trying to mock me for asking for sources (like I’m supposed to take their word as gospel when they’re clearly not taking me at my word even with sources?) and then claiming I’m slandering some sources by calling them ‘climate change deniers’. The two sources in question were Climate Change Dispatch and Principia Scientific International, in case anybody else cares to judge for themselves whether the designation fits. (Careful looking up the second one, though, trying to find their main page gave me a bunch of annoying ads that may very well be viruses)
One of my coworkers was trying to alleviate some of my anxieties about the coronavirus situation by telling me how Fox News was saying it would be fine and that normal people wouldn’t be affected. Needless to say, it didn’t help. And, as I actually managed to quip at the time, “Are old people not normal?”
If you have an InstantPot, a slow cooker, or a pressure cooker, I can recommend this recipe site:
https://thisoldgal.com/
There’s a vegetarian version of hot and sour soup that we adore in the Parasol house.
I feared for a friend, who is technically tunisian but have all her life in France, and who was in Malta when the frontiers were closed.
But the french Ambassy was a champ’ and allowed her to come home \o/
Of course, it help that hse had a decently paid work and wasn’t your average migrant, but good news are good news.
Aaaaaand I just possibly got it. Either that or the flu. Looks like the self isolation attempt might’ve come two days too late.
Hopefully it’s the latter, but I got two seniors I rent from that I need to avoid now. Will continue the isolation and try to sleep it off. Damn sore throat was so uncomfortable I was wide awake until 4 am probably.
@Diego duarte : I hope for the best for you, but that kind of throat isn’t looking good 😡
@Diego Duarte, hope you recover quickly and do you have/can you get anyone to throw throat pastilles to you from a distance? :-s Whatever the infection, wishing you all the best y que te mejores pronto.
@Ohlmann, I’m glad your friend was able to get home :-s
Dunno if anybody chimed in from Canada but it’s a bit of a shitshow over here too. The prime minister’s wife tested positive so now Justin has plausible deniability to continue barely doing anything as he’s on lockdown too (he closed the borders to non-US non-residents yesterday but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t his initiative/idea), in Ontario Doug Ford was still farting around until yesterday, an article in the Globe and Mail claims that the federal minister of health claimed that the virus could infect up to between 30 and 70% of the country’s population (which I frankly consider either preposterous or anywhere near possible only because of incompetence and/or inaction, and even then I’m doubtful).
Fortunately for me I live in Quebec, and while I otherwise may not like our premier much otherwise (too right-wing), credit where credit is due: François Legault looks like he’s actually doing a decent job of things, so much so that it looks like the rest of Canada’s PMs are playing catch-up/follow the leader.
Also, my mother and I did our last big grocery run on Wednesday night. Just before the panic really started up on Thursday and when almost nobody was in the store, so we’re not gonna really miss anything for a while (except tomatoes, carrots and salad, but we got other veggies so it’s fine).
Public transportation is pretty empty, and the drivers are taking precautionary measures, so even though I still go to work my risks should be pretty minimal. I wash my hands/slather them in Purell about a dozen times per day (each) just in case.
Hope everyone else manages to cope; good luck and don’t get sick folks!
@Diego
Best of luck my friend. If you have a Netflix account I have a few shows I can recommend for you to watch if you feel up to it.
Thanks guys.
It seems for the time that it might just be the flu (I mean, I DID sleep in my underwear with the window open and the fan full blast the night before) though I’m still wary. I sort of nuked it with anti-flu medicine and I’m feeling better, so it might just be that.
That being said I just discovered something about myself, which is that I can’t operate a simple thermometer. So far I have a slight fever, but nothing uncommon for the flu. I got work to do, but I’m still keeping away from the rest of the household, if it is the virus I don’t want it to spread.
Unless it’s my roomie, fucker gonna learn not to loudly play videogames until 2 am on weekdays. Fuck around and find out. Imma lick that damn doorhandle if he keeps this shit up.
@surplus
a) if you get bread-making wrong it will probably benot very good but still edible, and the next lot will be better, and the third lot better still.
b) People have made bread for thousands of years without special equipment. Chapatis are a kind of Indian bread. How much equipment do you think a peasant in rural India has?
Good luck
@Lainy and other bored Mammotheers
I have an ebook I’m trying to make free on Amazon but I’m struggling with the interface. Anyone who emails me on sheila at sheilacrosby dot com can have a free copy – just say whether you want PDF, mobi (for Kindle) or epub (for Apple) It quirky SF. Reviews would be nice but they aren’t a condition. My “grain of sand” as they say in Spanish
Christ, this is painful to read.
I learned how to bake bread from books by the time I was 20. I was cooking generally since 12-13.
And, fine, you may not have the skills right this second…so maybe this is a great time to learn. Google can help.
Not like there’s anything else to do at the moment…
I know we’ve got a couple other diabetics here, so here’s one of my favorite little breads to make. Carb content is roughly 20 g per muffin, depending on how many muffins you can make.
https://thesugarfreediva.com/sugar-free-chocolate-chocolate-chip-muffins/
If you don’t have chocolate chips handy, you can leave them out. Or if you have only a small amount, save them for the topping.
My new temp job gave me a good lifeline today, extending contract to 1st May (Originally it was going to end at the end of March) and letting me work completely remotely. It’s going to be an adjustment in terms of tasks but its better than nothing. It’s going to be very lonely in terms of face to face contact, not sure about my brother who I live with though, he has to travel to work so if I’m going to catch Covid19 off anyone, it’s going to be him (Not his fault though).
I’m more worried about him than myself as he’s asthmatic, he doesn’t seem too worried but my hypochondria has been in overdrive since the reality is now hitting us all. We could be fine (And fingers crossed we are!), but it’s going to be a rough few months at least. I made a big daily checklist of things for me to track with our health.
What I want to know more than everything is will my friends, family and myself be all okay.
For the first time since I installed into my current city, I hear sparrows and tits singing. I guess the lockdown have good parts too.
To think I was recently considering getting rid of my bread maker, to save space! I’d forgotten how miraculous it is to put ingredients in and get fresh bread out, with zero effort.
My baker is on the way I take to do my minimal daily exercice, but I don’t exactly dare putting myself on the line just right now, on account of being probably contagious.
It’s sort of a strange thing to see people *make* their bread when you’re accustomated to have a shop that sell decent quality stuff at every corner.
Finland is largely closing down, including my university, and I just faced that I have to figure out how to work from home, without basically any institutional support. I was just recovering from winter depression and apathy, after 4+ months of depressing November-like weather. Spring and early summer is usually my “get shit done” season.
Now I’m feeling vaguely insecure and already slightly lonely, despite being generally a hermit by preference. The weather is grey right now, although there’s been occasional sunshine lately.