Infoseepage @Infoseepage@mastodon.social

Scotland just held their parliamentary election and 72 of the 129 seats are going to be held by explicitly pro-independence candidates. I personally really hope Scotland opts for independence, rejoins the EU and adopts a liberal immigration policy. Scotland is one of the few countries I've visited where I felt "this could be home."

Israel reported just 34 new cases of Covid-19 today. They have just 85 seriously ill patients in hospital, with 50 of those on ventilators. There are just 151 total patients in hospital with Covid-19 in Israel.

Israel is currently racking up <half as many cases daily as Wyoming, the smallest US state by population, with about 575k people in it. Israel, if it were a state would be the 12th largest, right behind New Jersey with a bit more than 9 million citizens.

It sounds like the B.1.617.2 variant causing such hell in India is spreading rapidly in the UK. It is making up an increasing share of sequenced cases relative to the already high spread rate B.1.1.7 variant.

P.S. The only way we know this is that the UK does a TON of sequencing, something like half of all cases get sequenced. This sort of genetic surveillance is extremely valuable and not enough countries are doing near enough of it.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/984274/Variants_of_Concern_VOC_Technical_Briefing_10_England.pdf

New York State has 6.5x as many people in hospital per capita as Israel and had 32 people die of Covid today...but sure lets just open up all the restaurants and bars at full capacity 11 days from now because everything is just fine now, right?

I'm considering blowing away the existing Windows install on my Thinkpad Yoga 11e, which I'm using as a secondary computer hooked up to a Samsung tv and controlled using my X395 via Mouse without Borders. The existing install, although upgraded to Win 10, dates back to the 11e's factor install of Windows 8 and despite all my efforts to clean it up, it is getting more than a little crufty.

That such a system wasn't created from the get-go you can lay on the Trump administration, but that people aren't being given the option for voluntary participation at this point is squarely on Biden.

I would like for such a system to be created, so that I can voluntarily utilize it, as some other countries may require strongly authenticated proof of vaccination to avoid quarantine. The poorly thought out current CDC card system makes it difficult for non-VAMS users to retroactively strongly prove their vaccination status. For instance, strongly proving you've been vaccinated at this point might require a blood test.

The reason I can prove my vaccination while so many cannot is that I registered for my vaccination through VAMS, and my vaccination record is linked to a VAMS unique id which features my name and date of birth and dates of both my vaccinations. I can currently print out a VAMS vaccination certificate. This could be the basis for the creation of physical "vaccine passport" with strong inbuilt anti-counterfeiting protections or a digital public lookup system.

I'm one of only a handful of US citizens who can prove they've been vaccinated. No, not because I have a CDC vaccination card. Those have no inbuilt document security and are counterfeit-able on a home laser printer. They were never meant to be proof of vaccination. They were meant to provide a person being vaccinated with the type of vaccine used and manufacturing lot numbers should some future need arise. They were never intended as "proof of vaccination" and should not be treated as such.

A bunch of changes at Geldingadalir overnight, with a series of cone wall collapses which seem to have changed the eruption pattern. The 4-10 minute periodic geyser/lava fountain effect appears to be over with for now and the original splatter cone is active again. So long lava geysers! I will miss that drama.

I hope that if I die due to getting hit by a piece of space junk, I get to become a Grim Reaper like George from Dead Like Me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Like_Me

#itsgoingtolandonme

If it does land on me tomorrow, I don't wish for any sort of retaliation or acrimony against the Chinese. My last wish is for whirled peas. Take that as you will...

Believe it or not, this isn't the stupidest thing China has done in space. That would have to be when, in 2007, they decided to conduct an anti-satellite weapons test which ended up creating at least 3,438 trackable (and MANY more untrackable) pieces of debris intersecting commonly used orbital tracks. Some 30% of all debris deemed a hazard to the International Space Station originate from this one event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test#Political_reactions

Chances are it is going to end up in an ocean somewhere, but there is a slim, non-zero chance that it turns someone's house into a smoking hole in the ground.

I predict it is going to land on me here in Maui. I think everyone on social media should claim it is going to land on them and that way if it does we can have our own modern day Nostradamus and we can poor over their every utterance for the next few hundred years for insight into future events.

#itsgoingtolandonme

So, China did a really irresponsible thing and launched a really big rocket without a way to deorbit it in a controlled manner. It is going to be the single largest piece of space junk to reenter earth's atmosphere since about 1990. Chances are it is going to deorbit in the next day or so and it could land just about anywhere. It is so large and made of fairly heat tolerant material that 5+ tons of it are likely to survive and hit the earth REALLY FAST.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjEfpRAt0MA

A Covid long-hauler I've been following for a while just died of Covid. He has tested positive for Covid continuously since October and suffered an ongoing and ultimately unmanageable series of vascular complications from the disease since then. 9 months of absolute physical misery followed by death. This too is Covid. Vaccinated or not, you don't want this virus to have ever entered your system.

India reported in with 401k new confirmed cases and a 22.1% SAMPLE positivity rate. 4,187 new deaths reported. Probably just a few days away from setting a new deaths record.

Israel's latest report is just 48 new confirmed Covid cases and a miniscule .2 % test positivity rate. Just 156 patient remain in hospital, with 87 of them deemed serious. Of those, 38 are on ventilators.

Israel currently has about as many patients remaining in hospital as King County WA checks in to hospitals as new admissions.