So here in Illinois, the shelter-in-place order kicked in yesterday, and I’m sheltering the fuck in place. How are you all doing in The Time of Social Distancing? Are you officially or unofficially on lockdown? What are you doing to keep anxieties at bay?
Here at the Tiny Mammoth Institute we’re … getting by, with the help of video games, breathing exercises, and my oblivious cats. Hope you’re all holding up ok.
Anyway, here’s an open thread to discuss all this or whatever else you want to talk about.
And here’s another cat, a famous one, in a box.
–DF
@Naglfar
Great question. Wonder if the DNC would consider it a contested primary and go with one of the endorsements, or nominate somebody else. I believe them fully capable of pulling that stunt.
Side note dang it site changed font on me again.
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https://imgur.com/a/2qo9uBg
@Naglfar
I, for one, welcome our new Flayed Lord masters. 😉
I’m in New Zealand and we now have 102 cases out of a population of just under 5 million people. Our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a couple of hours ago that our country is going into what is basically full lockdown. We are to stay home unless we need to get groceries or healthcare or work in essential services. Nobody has died here. Yet.
Our shelter in place order was given Tuesday. Everyone seems to be a different flavor of panic, mum keeps panic buying, MHC is grumping around, housemate straight called the cops cause the neighbors are having a party, and I’ve been battling the urge to triple the veggie patch and just can everything. (To be fair, this is my reaction to most high stress situations)
The neighbors have really been pulling together, they’re still racist busybodies, but things like tp dropoffs and care packages are happening.
Ugh, things are just ugh.
To all those ragging on Pelosi- her “means-tested plan” is to funnel money to working-class and poorer people, while you apparently feel the money should go to the rich as well, instead of people who need it.
@galanx
Or we don’t have pointless fiddling and instead just pay the people now. Means testing is just another tool to screw over minorities and other groups who just “missed the mark”
Finally unlocked a new status on facebook.
Sheila Cosby already described the situation in Spain; I’m in Barcelona.
Unfortunately you have to go out to get rid of the rubbish. If so, we use gloves and mask and we leave the shoes in an open box beside the door. Then gloves and mask are bathed in water and lie.
The virus will reach most people and I’m scared for my parents. First, it would most likely kill them and second they’re not priority patients. Because almost certainly there will be shortage of hospital equipment.
Right now it’s more than 1700 deaths in Spain. Our government has not acted like Boris Johnson, which to me borders on genocidal, but there are problems. One is impunity for racist attacks by the police. Another problem is that lots of people are losing their jobs, and people with inessential jobs don’t have the security that if they stay at home they won’t be sacked.
A person I know might be sent to disinfect places with Coronavirus without proper equipment and without training. If so, said person will just leave the job. Such things happen.
I’m changing my habits in a way I haven’t been able for years. Now I have much more energy and will to live. I’ve got also more time to study for state exams that will take place once the quarantine is over.
The contact with friends varies. To some I’ll send a how are you message some time this week. With others I talk almost every day. A group of friends organized to play Pinterest via Skype last Saturday, and we plan to meet again next Saturday. With the band I play in, we tried to rehearse via videoconference, but we couldn’t. Perhaps with the other guitarrist we will arrange to compose via Skype.
So you can do lots of things and even make the lockdown work to your advantage (if you’re fortunate and don’t live in a sardine can with five other people). The problem is that the virus is spreading and could kill the people I love the most.
Sorry, Pictionary not Pinterest. In case anybody was wondering.
I’m in New Mexico and it’s barely noticeable here. Aside from restaurants being take out only or closed, people are cheerfully going about their business. I wouldn’t want to see panic or looting, but I do wish they would take this seriously.
I’ve been staying home most of the time, and only go out to buy groceries or sometimes for a bike ride. It’s very sparsely populated compared to major cities, and there’s never a crowded place even in normal times unless it’s a festival.
I’m happy that I don’t currently have a spouse or a pet to be responsible for, even though I was lonely before this since my divorce last year and losing my pet in the process. I can rough it, but having people and animals to live with and really worry about would be hard.
I hope everyone gets through this as easily as possible.
@diego
Ah master packo. I miss him
11 days with fever and coughing here.
First, I want to wish everyone good health and well-being.
What are we doing? Well, here in Oregon the stay at home unless you really need to go out order came down a few days ago. The positives first – the air in the Willamette Valley is much cleaner and sweeter, the noise pollution is gone and we can clearly hear the birds, the insects, and the wind in the trees. We are spending more time talking with each other and, even though all of our kids and grandkids live within five miles of each other, we are doing video conferencing and such all the time. Some of us are carefully checking in with neighbors to make sure they are all right. We are reading more, watching movies, doing all those chores we all have but never get around to. I am studying things of interest and doing more art, writing and music-making.
On the less happy side, both my husband and I are experiencing mild symptoms of a flu-like nature, but there is a major shortage of tests. We are taking an old folk remedy which is black elderberry syrup. There have been studies that seem to show that it decreases the severity of symptoms as well as the length of flu type illnesses, while letting the body develops the natural immunities. We have used it before and it really does help us.
Stay well, everyone, and try not to let fears get the upper hand. We decided to use the down time to play, talk about things that really matter to us, get creative and such. It helps. May we all get through this happier and healthier than we were.
UK bordering on calling for a lockdown, since too many people have been selfish AF and gone out to beaches and parks over the sunny weekend. I live in a house share where 3 out of us 6 work in catering and have had their restaurants close. One is going to have her hours halved and my job came to an end because of redundancy (not an excuse from the employer, I was given my end date two months ago).
So, really fucking bad time to be unemployed, since a recession is probably inevitable. ? In hindsight I should have searched for any job rather than picking over The Right Job, but even 10 days ago I had no idea it would get this bad this quickly. I am waiting on the result of an interview I took more than a week ago, will send one of the interviewers a friendly email later this week asking how they’re doing (they no doubt have to work from home right now) and state that I’m still available and want the job. Plus will throw in some more selling points about myself too.
Until then, I have a decent amount of savings and have been told that Universal Credit applications are being rubber stamped through right now. Also this situation has really brought the house together, which is nice.
Still working. For now. Massachusetts.
Also stress cooking. Lasagna. Mac and cheese. Sausage and greens soup. Two citrus cakes.
@Ucalegont Best of luck. I’m really glad that I’m not in a big city just now.
@Sheila Cosby: thanks.
galanx: if you tax the rich properly it doesn’t really matter if they are given money along with everyone else because you will get it back.
@galanx
The issue with means testing is twofold: first, it means it will take longer to get the money out, and that’s time we don’t have. We can tax it back from the wealthy later. Second, most of the proposed means-testing systems will exclude lots of people who do need the money on technicalities. So that’s why I’m not a fan of means-testing. That’s the kind of stuff Republicans pull to cut people’s healthcare or welfare payments.
My state hasn’t shut down quite yet, but, even if it does, I work in an “essential” field, so I’ll still be working.
Out here in Wisconsin we’re in lockdown, with something like 4 deaths and around 80 cases in the state. I am extremely lucky to be able to work from home, and to have an ‘essential’ government job – if the virus had hit us this same time last year I’d have basically starved to death in the street. I am painfully aware that things are very desperate for a lot of folks who don’t have my advantages. Our Governor is keeping grocery stores open and has suspended utilities’ ability to shut off water or electricity on people who can’t pay, so hopefully this will lessen the blow a bit, but a lot of people are out of work and it’s very worrisome.
My big worry at the moment is that a lot of the buildings and houses around me are sitting empty – all the university students have gone home – and I’m an old lady with mobility problems that lives alone. So far it’s been quiet, but I worry that someone’s going to kick in my back door some night, looking for valuables or food.
Other than that, I’m doing okay so far. I’m used to solitude and my regular D&D games have switched over to skype, so my social life isn’t much impacted.
I’m still feeling kinda run down with this damned stubborn post-nasal drip. I should have done some art stuffs over the weekend, but just didn’t feel up to it, so just ground new characters on Star Trek Online, watched Let’s Plays of the hilariously obnoxious and goofy Carol Reed Mystery Games and practiced AC/DC guitar riffs with my Les Paul Special-II and the distortion module I got for Christmas.
It’s amazing how many AC/DC songs are just combinations of the same three or four chords: A5, D/F#, G, E5. Occasionally there’s a D5 as well. Angus Young guitar solos aside, these chords make up the rhythm riffs on “Highway to Hell”, “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N Roll)” and “Rock ‘N Roll Train.” Malcolm, rest in peace, sure got those hard-hitting primal rock rhythms down to a science.
But oh man, those Carol Reed games… one of the Let’s Players I follow on YouTube who plays mystery games (Resulka) began to play one of them and it just opened up this incredibly bizarre series of 15(!) point-and-click games made by this Swedish guy named Mikael Nyquist which come across less as mysteries and more as weird photo-essays about abandoned areas around Norrkoping, Sweden. How Nyquist somehow crafted a Sweden entirely devoid of people, I have no idea. Seriously, the only people that exist in Carol Reed games are Carol Reed herself (the player character), her friend Stina, her other friend Jonas (<3 <3 <3 such a dreamboat) and the two or three possible suspects. Apparently Norrkoping has like twelve thousand museums that nobody is interested in because they're all deserted. They only exist for murder suspects to leave obnoxious puzzle clues specifically for Carol to figure out the combination to another freakin' lockbox that contains another freakin' key to another locked door that leads to another freakin' lockbox.
But the recurring motifs are what keep me watching. Every game has Stina asking Carol to do some really stupid chore, Jonas is always the helpful hunk, a weirdo named Bigge always appears to say something creepy and off-putting (and usually makes Carol do something in exchange for a clue) and there's the same stable of actors that play the suspects each time. And of course, at the end of every mystery, once you find the incriminating evidence that points to one suspect above all others, that suspect is naturally right behind you and ready to kill you, but you have one inventory item to distract/disable the suspect and flee to the police.
Needless to say, the online commentaries are simply hilarious, particularly when the player gets frustrated at Carol being unable to reach a clearly visible clue ("If only I was a few inches taller!"), which necessitates finding a nearby ladder that somehow fits in your inventory the same as a key. Fun times.
All my London things have been postponed, so I’m hunkering down here in the south west. The local government has asked people to stay away but…
Ah well.
Feeling a bit more secure today, I’ve figured out what’s happening with a bunch of appointments I had coming up, so that’s good.
I also did some cable management over the weekend, and am feeling pretty good about how they all work. I thought about how they would need to lay and be switched up (one peripheral needs to be able to be plugged into my work computer for work, and my home computer for fun) so that needs to be moveable.
I don’t remember if it was this thread or a different open thread, but someone was asking about using 2 workstations at home. I am now having to do that, because my computer is good enough for me, but not for work. XD
What I did was buy a USB switch, and plug my keyboard, microphone, and webcam, into it. I then plugged that into both computers, and I can swap between them. It would also work for my mouse, but I have two wireless receivers and a mouse that easily switches between them, so I’m not worrying about that.
(I might be having some issues with it, so I don’t want to recommend this *particular* one yet, until I figure them out. But I think this idea is going to be a winner, for me.)
My monitor will also allow different cables to be plugged in, so it’s using one that’s plugged in to my work computer, and one that’s plugged into my home computer.
I’ve got a power-saving power bar, (similar to this one) where one plug is the ‘boss’ plug, that is always on. When something plugged into it is drawing power, it turns on the ’employee’ plugs. This lets my monitors etc turn off, without me needing to turn them off, and I really like it.
BUT now I have TWO computers, both need to be plugged into the boss outlet, what do I do?
I bought a Y power cable, that lets me plug 2 things into one outlet. I only needed the 2, and I was worried about buying one of those blocks, that maybe my plugs wouldn’t physically fit into it because of space on the powerbar itself, but this worked perfectly!
I also labelled all of my cables, using something like these adhesive labels.
I used a bunch of velcro ties to organise ’em all, and boom! I think I’m ready to be set up on 2 computers, with the minimum amount of fuss to use both.
Now I just need to handle my taxes, and I won’t have anything too pressing to be worried about. Well, other than people getting sick, and my job, etc etc etc. But y’all know what I mean!