All Purpose Coronavirus Discussion Part V - Janitor in a Drum

[VladDrag]

 

[Rebels57]

f*** me.

 

[VladDrag]

f*** me.

More info:

Guide: Responding to COVID-19 in Pennsylvania

"Those who are staying home and have no close contacts who are infected with COIVID-19 don’t
need a mask most of the time. However, wearing a nonmedical or homemade mask may be helpful
in certain situations or for certain populations.

• Shopping at essential businesses, like grocery stores or pharmacies.
• While visiting your health care provider.
• Traveling on public transportation.
• Interacting with customers/clients at essential businesses.
• When feeling sick, coughing, or sneezing.

Because homemade masks protect everyone else from the droplets created by the wearer, it is
important that as many people as possible wear these masks when leaving their homes.
This helps prevent those who may be infectious but are only mildly symptomatic or not symptomatic from spreading the virus to others in the community."

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

“Recommending”

Another fancy way to tell people to do it but there’s no actual enforcement.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

@deadhead As a professional, would you consider this voting board to be a source of quality? Obviously the schools are many of the heavy hitters and I recognize many of the awards, but I'd like to use this as evidence in a discussion and I fully understand that I don't have the tools to make that determination.

http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/policy-for-the-covid-19-crisis/

Thanks in advance for your time either way.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

According to this the FDA approved the first of anti-body blood test that are set to begin trails now.

Cellex and Mayo Clinic Launch Tests to Determine COVID-19 Immunity from Previous Exposure | BioSpace

 

[deadhead]

@deadhead As a professional, would you consider this voting board to be a source of quality? Obviously the schools are many of the heavy hitters and I recognize many of the awards, but I'd like to use this as evidence in a discussion and I fully understand that I don't have the tools to make that determination.

http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/policy-for-the-covid-19-crisis/

Thanks in advance for your time either way.

They've got a bunch of "heavy hitters" and it seems pretty balanced between Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Stanford and Chicago (Stanford and Chicago tend to be more conservative).
I recognize about 2/3 of the names, but looking at the brief bios, the others are also impressive, though in fields I don't follow closely like Labor or Health Policy.

It's not a representative sample of the profession, but a good collection of top scholars covering a range of schools of thought.
The ten new experts on the right are also top economists, and also seem to be evenly distributed.

 

[Beef Invictus]

It doesn't have end-to-end encryption and instead uses something called transport encryption. It doesn't pass the most basic sniff test when a company tries to claim end to end with that methodology.

I'm going to tag @Beef Invictus here because this is the hellscape he's entering and because he's one of the few who will get this part, but I'll try to make it readable and use some visual examples. A Zoom meeting uses one AES key of 128 Bits in ECB for everyone. Here's the classic illustration of why ECB is not the way to go.

In short, it was built without a clue. I don't know who their software engineers are/were, but they don't understand crypto. ECB has reasonable uses, like when you're encrypting randomness of length equal to the block length of the block cipher. But not this. This is day one stuff.

Here's an article written by a friend much smarter than myself in which he tries to make it digestible for people outside the industry:

Does Zoom use end-to-end encryption?

With that being said, it's fine for average people to use casually. Don't use it for sensitive information.

All I can guess with my limited knowledge is that because their platform can be used on mobile they wanted a less CPU intensive encryption method to max out battery life.

 

[Beef Invictus]

You’re refusing to even consider that there could have been alternate (perhaps better) ways of handling this besides locking down everyone & everything in the entire US.

Amazing to me there was no weighing of options or careful discussion before the country went headfirst into total lockdown.

I give Sweden credit. Their plan is a lot like what I was suggesting, & they haven’t caved yet.

Sweden is a disaster, are you serious? Their per capita death rate is a gong show.

There isn't an alternative, superior way to handle a pandemic for which there is no treatment besides quarantine. This was true in the 17th century. It remains true now. The basic facts of the situation haven't changed.

DHS, FEMA, CDC, NIH, every one of their global counterparts and every research institution of any merit has arrived at that conclusion after research, planning, and simulation stretching back for decades. Just because someone is different doesn't mean they are right. Being an outlier doesn't grant some magical properties or merit. Sweden is performing pretty damned poorly. Giving them credit for continuing to do the thing that isn't working as well is nonsensical.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

Throw Kushner into the fires of Mount Doom.Gif

Repulsive.
States like Florida get everything they need. The blue states have to claw and scratch for everything. Bullshit like this should be illegal and punished to the full extent of the law

 

[Beef Invictus]

I believe, the first mistake was, granting shore leave/ liberty in vietnam. In the midst of a pandemic, in asia. That is upto the discretion of the captain.But i'm sure it could be blamed on others if you wish.

The military was ordered not to take any action to counter the pandemic because it would run directly against their incompetent commander in chief.

 

[Beef Invictus]

The problem is right now in the middle of a pandemic everybody wants to blame the President, the Democrats, the Republicans, instead of shutting the f*** up and helping out your family, neighbors, and community, the time wasted on making this thing political is time that could have helped someone, I'm so sick of oh Trump did this, the Dems did that, no one and I repeat no one was prepared for this I don't give a f*** what President was in office, the saddest part is the same people worrying about the politcs of this are the same people who aren't going to actual take the time to reset their lives after this is over and shuffle their priorities, it will be back to the status quo

There are a chunk of agencies who were prepared for this. There are plans and manuals.

All of it is still being actively ignored. DHS exists to manage something like this. DHS isn't running it. DHS doesn't even have an actual head. Kushner is handling it.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

All I can guess with my limited knowledge is that because their platform can be used on mobile they wanted a less CPU intensive encryption method to max out battery life.

That's a good theory and I'm positive it was a factor.

The way I understand the challenges of this type of software, my best guess would be that the chief concern was packet loss or more specifically the ability to be able to recover from losing packets without having to send them again. But there are other ways to solve this. Unless there's some reason Galois/Counter Mode wouldn't work, that should have been the choice. Or more specifically, they should have asked any cryptographer on the planet who would have laughed and then enjoyed the billable hours going forward they were going to be getting.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

We got a memo at work today. It stated they are ordering 3,000 masks and non contact thermometers. They will be shipped next week. Shit is getting real now.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Do I need to post the Kermit tea meme again or have we gotten the point?

 

[Beef Invictus]

That's a good theory and I'm positive it was a factor.

The way I understand the challenges of this type of software, my best guess would be that the chief concern was packet loss or more specifically the ability to be able to recover from losing packets without having to send them again. But there are other ways to solve this. Unless there's some reason Galois/Counter Mode wouldn't work, that should have been the choice. Or more specifically, they should have asked any cryptographer on the planet who would have laughed and then enjoyed the billable hours going forward they were going to be getting.

Ah, must be the wonders of UDP.

I don't see why they don't offer more than one encryption choice. If you're drinking with friends or a happy hour they can roll with performance. If you're, say, the PM of the United Kingdom discussing affairs of state, you can select something that provides actual security at the cost of lost quality.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Do I need to post the Kermit tea meme again or have we gotten the point?

I mean I'd go ahead and keep doing it. Up that site traffic.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Or... hear me out... they could get paid 0% because they’re not playing games.

Because you know damn well if the season resumes into August or something they will complain about not getting paid.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Or... hear me out... they could get paid 0% because they’re not playing games.

Because you know damn well if the season resumes into August or something they will complain about not getting paid.

Does the NBA have escrow arrangements and a guaranteed player share?

If they do then legally they probably have to be paid out of whatever income is still flowing into the league. Which is probably enough to keep the league itself running at a barebones level, but would be a paltry amount to send to players.

I think a better solution would be sending them 0% now to help ensure the league is solvent, and then increase the players' share until the difference is made up once things are better.

If the players are talking about game checks though, that's crazy talk.

 

[Beef Invictus]

I forget if I posted an update or not, or even what the hell I posted about yesterday. Did I even post?

Anyhow, the pickled peppers are an incredible success. And it was absurdly simple. Everyone should do it.

I look forward to cubing some porn tenderloin with these peppers. Legendary sandwiches incoming.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

This was collectively bargained. There is a force majeure provision in the CBA that states that players can lose 1/92.6 of his salary per regular season and playoff game missed. This does not trump the BRI split, but it does allow teams to reduce the moneys paid without going through escrow and/or redistribution.

It also allows the NBA to terminate the entire agreement. Basically, buckle up.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Does the NBA have escrow arrangements and a guaranteed player share?

If they do then legally they probably have to be paid out of whatever income is still flowing into the league. Which is probably enough to keep the league itself running at a barebones level, but would be a paltry amount to send to players.

I think a better solution would be sending them 0% now to help ensure the league is solvent, and then increase the players' share until the difference is made up once things are better.

If the players are talking about game checks though, that's crazy talk.

I’m pretty certain it’s game checks.

The NBA has a doomsday provision in their CBA where they can not pay the players but they haven’t enacted it out of good faith.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

I forget if I posted an update or not, or even what the hell I posted about yesterday. Did I even post?

Anyhow, the pickled peppers are an incredible success. And it was absurdly simple. Everyone should do it.

I look forward to cubing some porn tenderloin with these peppers. Legendary sandwiches incoming.

Porn tenderloin, eh?