Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[Sharpandpointies]

...I am astounded to say that Savage Avengers #23 gives us our best depiction of Dr. Strange in...oh, probably twenty years, silly new goatee notwithstanding (the goatee, at least, is a thing across Marvel titles anyway, why do they keep trying to make him hip? He's not).

I'm quite impressed with how he's written, how things transpire, etc.

Not a huge fan of Savage Avengers in general, but this issue was good.

[Sharpandpointies]

And after doing spectacularly well with our vaccine roll-out - credit where credit due - once again Canada buries its head in the sand and tries to ignore the issue (in this case, Delta). Rather, SOME provinces do.

Times like this, I wish I lived on Prince Edward Island.

[Beadle]

Other than vaccine roll-out, over here we continue to stumble on incompetently.

I was forced to self-isolate last week due to the ridiculousness of our test, track and trace system, in which the UK government has apparently invested £37 Bn over a two-year period.

The system has been heavily criticised for inaccuracy, ineffectiveness, over-sensitivity, and triggering a ‘ping-demic’ where companies are unable to function because too many people are being told to self-isolate. It’s also been criticised because Bluetooth works through walls, so people are being pinged because next door neighbours, or apartments above/below have COVID, and because people have discovered that if they remove the app and reinstall it forgets too completely and clears all requirement to isolate.

But this failure I discovered was a new one for me.

One of my colleagues, who is himself still negative and is vaccinated, has a young son who came home from school and tested positive. Because his son doesn’t have a mobile phone, the rule is apparently that a parent should report the positive test on their app.

(You can probably already see where this is going.)

So the system now has a positive test logged on the app on my colleague’s phone. A phone that has been near us in the office, even though the person who had COVID had been nowhere near the office. And the phone is the beacon for the ‘tracking’ part.

So everyone in the office got pinged.

I mean what kind of dumb-arse spends £37 Bn on a system and, when they introduce the ‘Report for someone else’ functionality, doesn’t do the ‘What if…?’ analysis to consider this eventuality?! It’s literally what the system is designed to do!

To make it worse, when one of my colleague called up the official Track and Trace hotline to discuss it, no less than two people told her that it was clearly a false positive so she should just delete the app and reinstall it. The official advice. I mean… wow.

[Sharpandpointies]

wat

Seriously, that's pretty dumb. Like, ridiculous. Facepalm pic, plz.

.....

Over here nobody takes the damn app seriously, which is a shame. Plus, all of the usual suspects are basically reopening everything, Delta be damned. Oh, we're not vaccinating kids under 12? Nope! But sure, we're putting them all back in school and resuming full activities, including contact sports!

But they'll have masks, you know. Which should protect them fine. With 30 of them in a room together. Breathing the same air. All day.

What's that? Delta affects kids? Pshaw. I'm sure everything will be okay. Economyeconomyeconomy, don't you know!

Also going to basically reopen everything. Without mask madates in some provinces (Alberta, Manitoba, looking at you...). I mean, who cares if it's Delta, and vaccinated people can catch it. Spread it. To, I don't know, those at risk and the kids? Whatever. We're worrying too much.

*strangling motions with hands*

And a federal election is coming. Ten bucks says we get stuck with the Libs again. Hopefully it'll be a minority government, with the NDP the big winners (Cons are...not looking good this year) for official opposition. Then people will get to see the true side of the Liberals as the NDP puts forward bill after bill after bill that essentially match what the Liberals promise every election (and never deliver)...and the Libs side with the Cons (as they do on these votes) and vote them down.

[Nik Hasta]

I'm constantly aware that I will likely go to my grave saying "where did the fucking money go?!" regarding our test and trace system.

Comparable and superior systems have been produced and operated well at a fraction of the cost in other counties.

It's not just corruption, it's insultingly obvious corruption.

[Sharpandpointies]

I'm constantly aware that I will likely go to my grave saying "where did the fucking money go?!" regarding our test and trace system.

Comparable and superior systems have been produced and operated well at a fraction of the cost in other counties.

It's not just corruption, it's insultingly obvious corruption.

Like you say, other countries have produced good trace systems. I doubt they cost 37 billion pounds (WTH?).

Canada's app - which is apparently decent for WARNING you about being exposed, but turns out to be worth crap, not because the quality of the app, but because of the stupidity of the roll-out and the fact that the provinces and feds aren't talking to each other - apparently ran $500k, including setting up the people and such. Now some of that was because the companies who developed the App actually volunteered their work.

Granted, the App doesn't do any contact tracing - you know you've been exposed, but not by whom, and that information isn't flagged. But it would have been pretty easy to add it, had the government decided to have some guts.

I'm sure it wouldn't have come to THIRTY SEVEN BILLION POUNDS.

Alberta made an app that ran $650k (and then probably didn't put it out or something, just made it so they could thumb their nose at the feds and not use Trudeau's app).

Also, nobody uses the Canadian app, according to stats. I have it on my phone, on, but I'm part of a group that was a whopping 17% of the population back in April 2021 (assuming 'downloads=use') and I imagine not a lot has changed.

Apathy - typical problem with Canada.

[Tami]

I have a COVID Alert App on my phone, though I rarely use it. So far it has never suggested that anyone i may ave come in contact with might have COVID. Then again, I work mostly from home so that might be the reason.o

Looking at it now, and it says that there are 692,000 users. Of that number, 5,823 have checked in, and of that number 99% are feeling good and 1% has some symptoms.

It's mostly useful just to follow the data, not so much so for being warned about a possible outbreak or for tracing.

[Sharpandpointies]

Going to train with my teacher, tomorrow. First time in a year and a half.

Going to be rusty....

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Going to train with my teacher, tomorrow. First time in a year and a half.

Going to be rusty....

Nice thing about a rusty blade is that it's a whole different kind of dangerous.

I'm bad at motivational speaking.

You got this.

[Beadle]

By contrast, I am a clean, razor-sharp blade of the finest steel!

And by ‘clean’ I mean ‘soggy’.

And by ‘razor-sharp’ I mean ‘blunt’.

And by ‘blade’ I mean ‘stick’.

And by ‘the finest steel’ I mean ‘celery’.

[Sharpandpointies]

Nice thing about a rusty blade is that it's a whole different kind of dangerous.

I'm bad at motivational speaking.

You got this.

Well, he's rusty as well.

And older.

Like, by a lot.

And I do appreciate your style of motivation.

...though to be honest, I'm going to train with him, not kill him. I'm not Miburo.

By contrast, I am a clean, razor-sharp blade of the finest steel!

And by ‘clean’ I mean ‘soggy’.

And by ‘razor-sharp’ I mean ‘blunt’.

And by ‘blade’ I mean ‘stick’.

And by ‘the finest steel’ I mean ‘celery’.

A soggy, blunt, stick of celery.

Got it!

[Postmania]

Nice thing about a rusty blade is that it's a whole different kind of dangerous.

I'm bad at motivational speaking.

You got this.

Something about "amateur swordsmen being more dangerous than masters" quote

[Sharpandpointies]

Something about "amateur swordsmen being more dangerous than masters" quote

Ooooo, man. That's worth one of these.

Gundam again.jpg

^_^

[Sub-Zero MKA]

Something about "amateur swordsmen being more dangerous than masters" quote

This is 100% accurate. You never know what an amateur will do next. It'll keep ya on your toes!

[Beadle]

But what’s most important is that the sword has good balance.

And preferably rings and things through it to add to the pain.