Messages

I know this has been shared a lot as of late, but Bill Gates' 2015 TED talk is pretty interesting:

Starship Troopers?

Unfortunately, I work in the television industry and my job is considered essential (although I can attest that my presence is not required for these television stations to continue to broadcast news and other important messaging).  I will have to continue going to work and putting myself at risk despite the counties in which I live and work issuing stay-at-home / shelter-in-place orders this weekend.

Are you and other workers wearing protective gear like gloves and face masks?

You're finally back, mate. Thanks for sharing!

I've never been a big Blur fan, so much so that I completely missed Coffee and TV when it made its rounds around 1999. I just randomly heard this the other day and can't get the chorus out of my head.

I guess this is the kind of stuff nobody else around here likes lol, but I can't stop listening to the new Ulcerate single. sO GOOD.

The real hero of tracks like these is the drummer. How in hell can they keep a double kick going that long?!

Is the Braid Steam key still available?

@Joseph DiPerla - That’s a tough situation to be in, man. I’m sure your family will all pull through this. I have to admit it’s the first Ive heard about healthcare workers being mistreated because people are scared they have the virus. It’s illogical. Anyone Could have it. It’s up to individuals to take precautions and wash their hands etc, not have a go at nurses who are the real soldiers in this war. Your wife is a hero.

I also haven't heard of healthcare workers being ostracised in this way. Reddit is expressing overwhelming praise for not only healthcare workers but also sanitation workers. Very sorry to hear your family is going through this, Joseph.

Hehe this looks amazing!

I just want to stop for a moment and express the relief, finally my co-workers are turning down the habit of doing a handshake each time someone arrives to the office. No longer I have to be distracted by 10+ people wanting to shake my hand while I am trying to focus on my code.

Did people do that? Did you have to shake hands with people you worked with every day, every day?

<...>

EDIT: I reread your post and now think you might have meant new clients and the like. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

No, I mean exactly the people who work there everyday. They shake hands on arrival, and shake hands again when going home. Drives me mad.

It's a cultural thing here (UAE), so I'm also shaking everyone's hand in the morning because that's courteous here, but...aren't you in the UK? What's up with that?

I actually had a dream last night that included turning people down when they tried to shake my hand. 

I always thought anglerfish were pretty metal:



OK in searching for that image I can across this gem:

"...if the deep-sea anglerfish happened to have the cognitive and physical capabilities required to produce its own such films, there’d be decidedly fewer plot twists. Every single movie would go a little something like this: Boy meets girl, boy bites girl, boy’s mouth fuses to girl’s body, boy lives the rest of his life attached to girl sharing her blood and supplying her with sperm. Ah, a tale as old as time." 

Source: https://www.wired.com/2013/11/absurd-creature-of-the-week-anglerfish/

Frighter, cool track. I hear echoes of it in some of Sting's stuff, i.e. the outro session here from 4 minutes onwards:

Nice choice mate!

Ironic Snarky ~ just had this on and thought it would be a good share:

Workplace just sent us a questionnaire, asking if we need help shipping stuff from the office to our homes.
We've been given permissions to take desks, laptops, monitors and such to our homes so we have everything we might need to continue working from home.

Good show!

Wow that's really cool of them. Ship your whole desk home? Sounds like they are banking on this lasting a few months.

Yeah, that's pretty funny. I particularly liked the end:

The CDC concluded the address by reminding citizens that they have their own podcast where they break down pandemics throughout the centuries, and to use the promo code “CDC” to get 15% off a purchase of Casper Mattresses.

Is there any podcast with sponsoring that isn't sponsored by Casper?

Yeah, no kidding ~ they seem to be  on every podcast these days. I wish they’d give it a rest. Deep, refreshing rest, in fact, the kind of rest you only get with a quality mattress like Casper.

Wow like $100B USD pulled out of BTC and price has dropped to $5300 per Bitcoin. Guess it is clear that the world still sees Bitcoin as speculative and not a true store of value.

Here in UAE gov sector we're all at home. People are taking it seriously, but we're far from the panicky scenes you see in some other countries. I hate to say it because I know these times are trying for so many people, but I have really been enjoying the down time so far. I'm up at 5:00 most mornings and getting loads of work done on private projects I thought I wouldn't have time to touch in 2020, plus also spending lots of time with my wife and son. We catch a Netflix family movie together every afternoon. The running joke is whether dad (me) can stay awake through the whole movie. Dinner is always an experimental affair as we try to use up whatever ingredients we have to limit trips to the supermarket. I can't remember when we last had so much time to do pretty much nothing together. It's been great!

My wife's Chinese, and we've been told the kids in her area of China are going to be back at school soon, so...I hope the wave of relief will slowly be making its way westward over the coming months.

Wow I was so convinced I was right! Chalk Soylent Green up on my ‘to watch’ list.

On the Japan tangent, I remember in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, people in Mainland China started spreading the rumour that salt would be radioactively affected. Many people, including family friends, started stockpiling table salt. It was only recently our family friends ate through their last bag of salt. At the time of the disaster it was irritating though, because table salt in general was hard to find for a few weeks. I mean, you could get it, but you had to visit two, three, four supermarkets to find it.