#pretty sure this is the omicron variant or something

[brightsuzaku]

GUESS WHO IS DISEASED!!!

ya that's right me, ya boy

I live at home, and a family member tested positive, so it was only a matter of time, lol.

[mysynthfetish]

Rumble of Ancient Times 18650 Mod

So first this happened...

Feckin went and caught covid again, this time I guess it was the latest strain. Walk in the park compared to when I caught the Omicron variant, that sucked balls. But I had a high fever that lasted for four and a half freakin days, peaking at 39.9ºC, that would go down to 38ºC when I took the fever reducer meds, then shoot right back up to over 39º once the meds stopped working. It's already almost two weeks later and I'm still wrecked, feel like I've been steamrollered. Oof. But before that was going on I obtained this:

The Rumble of Ancient Times. But hold on a sec, something looks different, and not just the groovy colored knob caps from Thonk (those are the shit by the way, they work on the Aira compact and Korg Volca series too). What's that peeking out at the lower left? A USB-C PORT? What mischief is this?! Mwuhahahaha. Yeah so originally it's powered by four triple-A batteries in a holder that has no lid, just exposed to the elements on the bottom side, and I dunno, something about that didn't sit well with me. I was thinking I could power it off a small USB-C smartphone battery brick, but no matter what I did I couldn't get it to power on, then I remembered that those only put out +5V, d'oh! So I had a peep around Jamazon, and found this:

SUPER feckin small thing, that. Like the size of my thumbnail plus a few mm. So what the thing is, is a Li-ion Li-po charger PLUS a step-up transformer in a wee package there. I think it will actually go all the way up to +24V. As it was, I soldered it up according to the diagram there on Jamazon, and after charging an 18650 successfully, feckin A right skippy this shit just might work man! I wired it up to a multimeter to test output voltage, then tweaked the wee trimmer to get +6V output. Then I jimmied the power leads onto the RoAT and crossed my fingers and said three Hail Satans and threw the switch and presto! it feckin worked! SO stoked. 18650s are cheap as balls, and this whole setup is taller but not so much larger than the original configuration, have a look:

I used rather thick 3M VHB super super extra strong double-sided tape to hold the two down, then obtained 25mm hexagonal brass M3 standoff leggiwegs and put it all together, as you can see in the photo second from top. Jamazon again. Well it's either them or order from Kyohritsu and pay almost the same amount but with Jamazon the stuff arrives the next day (or same day depending on the time I place the order). Anyway...

This is what it originally looked like. The battery holder is pretty sturdy and has a goddam good grip on the batteries but still... Hmmmm.

This is the schleprock special in place. I coulda trimmed the wiring a bit but at this point I was like let's just be done with this already. And the awesomesauceiest thing about it is NO NOISE from the battery. This is something that I was super worried about, given that I was going to power the thing with a non-standard power source, but in the end it all worked out fine and YAY ME! Oh I suppose I should mention cost. The batteries were the most expensive part at about ¥2000 for two, because I chose the made in Japan option. For five of the wee USB-C charging slash step up boards plus battery socket/holders it was ¥1399. So to me it felt like $34 even though the exchange rate is ridiculous and the yen is getting its arse beaten senseless right now. Feck. Yeah so if there's anyone out there with one of these thinking ya know I dunno about those batteries... this is an easy to do mod. I don't know how long the battery will hold out for between charges, but seeing as the circuit on the RoAT probably doesn't eat current, I imagine I could go a month or so between charges. This will also work with the flat 3.7V Li-Po batteries by the way. That would yield a lower profile and give a smaller overall device to mess with. Just have to watch out for the mAh value and make sure it's above 3000. Might mess with that in the future. Hmmmm. Something else I did...

Barely visible.. The LED frequency and the shutter speed were not playing nicely with each other. I changed out the Solo and Mute LEDs on a Korg Nanokontrol, to white and yellow respectively, just because. I got a 1010music blue box digital mixer and found out you can use class compliant USB control surfaces and was like well shit. So there you go. The LEDs were SMD but since getting that SMD desolderer thingy off AliExpress, doing work like this has become quite easy. It's still a pain to solder LEDs the size of dust motes though. Jeeezus those things are feckin small.

Hope all is well with you and yours.

[theculturedmarxist]

Posted on December 29, 2021 by Yves Smith

Forgive me for doing a cursory job on such an important and sorry set of Covid developments. But I had really intended this to be a holiday week and instead I’m up to my eyeballs in family duties. But the raw facts are so bad that to a fair degree, they speak for themselves.It’s become painfully evident that the “follow the science” and Biden Administration campaign promise to act as the adults in the room are a sick joke. Policy all politics. Public health long ago left the barn and is now in the next county. Biden threw in the towel on Monday after having promised on the campaign trail to shut down the virus:

While constitutionally, public health is indeed a state and local responsibility, the Feds have the say over interstate commerce, and they also have many other powerful levers they can pull though their bully pulpit, data collection and dissemination, and their ability to fund nationwide programs. We’ve instead had not just inconsistent, often inaccurate, and actively damaging messaging (“if you are vaccinated, you are protected”; “the vaccinated can stop masking”) but also making things worse by not understanding how poor the CDC’s data is (something the agency has abjectly failed to address) and believing their own spin.

The latest is the CDC making horrendous decisions based on its own crap information. The agency admitted that its December 18 estimate, that Omicron represented 73% of all cases, was too high and the point estimate should have been 22.5%.

This CDC bad call, just like its 2020 fail on test kits, has real world implications. IM Doc had been complaining that his hospital could no longer get Regeneron when his patients were clamoring for it. He learned from his mafia that the CDC had believed its 73% Omicron estimate and based on monoclonal antibodies not being effective against Omicron, it wasn’t cost justified. IM Doc is sure some of his patients have Delta and he now can’t treat them properly.

Yet alarmingly, we are also seeing, Saint Fauci and Rochelle Walenksy, despite their repeated abject failures, act as they are in running Covid policy, in defiance of Biden and the states. Fauci tried to assert authority over the airline industry during his Sunday talk show rounds by pumping for a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel. This was extremely presumptuous in light of:

The industry lobbying Congress during formal testimony for an end to masking, based on the claim that planes have super duper filtered air (yes, but what about the guy near you coughing or talking and his Covid cooties getting to you before a filter?)

Delta [the airline] petitioning for reducing vaccine quarantines to five days for the fully vaccinated…despite evidence that for Delta [the variant], and even more so for Omicron, the vaccines do little if anything to reduce spread

Many employers retreating from the >100 employee Federal vaccine mandate while it is in legal play, demonstrating they are not on board

The real possibility that the Supreme Court will overturn or restrict the employer mandate, and that could have implications for other Federal vaccine schemes

On Monday, the Administration capitulated to Delta’s request and reduced the recommended quarantine to five days, and Fauci reversed himself on a vaccine mandate for flights.

Even former Administration backers were gobsmacked. From the Financial Times:

Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, said: “It seems pretty chaotic. You have an announcement yesterday on isolation guidance with no data, no evidence, nothing. And this is from an administration that says it wants to stick to the science.

��Then today, we have the drastic changes to their genomic estimates. The last 24 hours show that the credibility of the agency is lower than it has been at any point during this administration.”

Topol has even more unkind words in The very bad day at the CDC, which I strongly urge you to read in full. He makes clearer than the press does the degree of the CDC’s data failure.

Scientist GM’s take on the quarantine reduction:

So now if you work in, for example, retail or fast food, your boss can force you to come back to work on Day 6, where you will proceed to infect all customers you interact with.

Also, people will die on the job because of this. How is that going to play out in practice?

You test positive, then you go through the flu-like phase of COVID. A lot of people will not at all be in any shape to come back to work on day 6, many are still really sick at that time.

But bigger problem comes later — you have come back to work, you start your shift, then the day-10 rapid deterioration kicks in, at which point you need to be in the hospital ASAP. But you just started your shift and will be fired if you leave so you try to carry on.

One hypothesis about why we no longer see people randomly dropping on the street as was the case early on on in China, Iran, Italy, etc. is that everyone is aware of COVID now and has tested positive before it gets to that point and is thus either in hospital or isolating at tome. While those people randomly dropping dead were the rapid deterioration or heart attack/stroke cases that thought they had the flu at the time nobody was aware of COVID and were thus were freely walking around.

We are about to test that hypothesis now…

P.S. This is straight up premeditated mass murder at this point

He added:

It includes HCWs [health care workers], but this is definitely not about them.

They could have been handled with a specific provision.

And that provision could have been temporary.

And it could have been to the effect of “if you test positive, you are assigned to the COVID ward, but you must absolutely not step foot in the oncology department next to the chemo patients”.

This is nothing of the sort — this is a permanent irreversible policy shift for everyone.

So from now on wherever you go to buy anything you have to be aware that the people working there might be on their Day 6…

IM Doc confirmed the management response:

The ERs and urgent cares in the affected areas are being cremated as we speak. The hospital units not so much – at least yet. You should hear some of the horror stories I am hearing from colleagues.

It has indeed now risen to the level of a public health menace.

After years of nurse mis-treatment, on top of COVID burnout, firing tons of staff over vaccine mandates – and now seeing whole units being quarantined – they see the writing on the wall.

The only one of those issues that is readily fixable is changing the quarantine time. Calling in the National Guard is simply not going to do much at all – as they are finding out the hard way right now.

So much for the whole argument that the vaccine people have had – I DO NOT WANT TO GET CARE FROM AN UNVACCINATED HCW – Well now you are going to get care from a HCW who may very well still be contagious.

This is a clusterfuck of obscene proportions. I can scarcely believe what I am seeing.

And if we are to hold Biden to his word – why would anyone listen to the CDC anymore – this is not a federal problem as of his speech today. Why is the CDC even making proclamations like this.

And he confirmed shortly that his hospital’s personnel department had sent out a “celebratory e-mail,” for those coming off the new shortened quarantine to contact their supervisor pronto since there were many open shifts.

Other news tidbits are similarly damming if you have a modicum of the backstory. The Financial Times tells us Biden’s promised 500 million home test kits are yet to materialize:

Last week, the US president announced that the federal government would respond by distributing 500m at-home tests. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Biden said his administration had “a bit of progress” on distributing the test kits.

In fact, the normally Democrat-friendly Vanity Fair broke the story that the Administration had nixed an October proposal of a mass home test program by Christmas. On top of that, Biden hadn’t even signed a contract when he announced his scheme; a Johns Hopkins expert said it would likely be a year before the kits were distributed.

Walensky, like Fauci, is also operating well beyond her authority. She not only fell in line with Fauci on giving in to the airlines on the length of recommended quarantines, but she also appointed herself as arbiter of broad social policies:

Neither Fauci nor Walensky were subject to any democratic approval process. Decisions about non-health impacts are none of her business and should be left to those who are supposed to be in charge. Unfortunately, there appears to be a gaping power vacuum and she’s all too willing to seize ground.

A final issue, which will get only brief treatment, is putative experts and the press are pushing every bit of Omicron hopium they can find, to the degree that they are baldly misrepresenting research….which even if the spin were accurate, should be treated with caution. We still don’t know enough about Omicron to be certain of much save its very high level of transmission and resistance to vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. As Lambert put it:

If you believe in the precautionary principle, then you don’t amplify “emerging data” where the policy implication is to do nothing.

One reader with a medical background sent a link to the hopium in question, a very small South African study where the title of the preprint, Omicron infection enhances neutralizing immunity against the Delta, flat out misrepresents what the data actually says. As GM said:

The PR spin is profoundly misleading and the opposite of what the data says, but unfortunately in this case the scientists themselves are to blame as they are pushing that narrative too.

The data shows little actual cross immunity.

I would not be surprised if Omicron burns through the whole world and then in mid-2022 it all starts again in some part of the world with a new strain….

Here is the first Delta/Omicron cross-neutralization data:

https://secureservercdn.net/50.62.198.70/1mx.c5c.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/MEDRXIV-2021-268439v1-Sigal.pdf

There is some cross-neutralization, but if you look at the unvaccinated subjects, half of them were below the limit of detection at the follow up. Which was two weeks after the initial presentation.

So they were infected with Omicron but are not showing appreciable neutralization against Delta.

Overall, including the vaccinated, titers went up 14.4x against Omicron, but 4.4x against Delta.

Which is touted as great protection against Delta, but it really is not, as titers are going down from there.

This might be enough to push Delta down in the short term, though it will not be a fast displacement into oblivion.

But it will do nothing against future variants a year from now.

And yet what does the abstract of the paper say?

The increase in Delta variant neutralization in individuals 39 infected with Omicron may result in decreased ability of Delta to re-infect those individuals. Along with emerging data indicating that Omicron, at this time in the pandemic, is less pathogenic than Delta, such an outcome may have positive implications in terms of decreasing the Covid-19 burden 42 of severe disease

Which fits well with a very disturbing trend over the last few weeks — most of the top scientists in South Africa have come out in support of the governmental policy of abdicating completely from infection control and have given statements in the spirit of “Omicron is mild and will end the pandemic”.

I have no information of why that is being done, but the suspicions are obvious and natural — this has all the hallmarks of political pressure from on top.

Because those people do/should know better scientifically.

And even if the “mild” narrative were true (the UK’s Imperial College is not on board, and the UK, between having an actual national public health service plus regular surveys of 100,000 people, has some of the best Covid data in the world), that is not necessarily good news. It appears if anything that more are getting symptomatic Omicron than Delta. In particular, note the relatively high level of symptomatic Omicron in children and young adults who have robust immune systems and showed a much lower level of symptomatic cases under Delta…and this with much more of the population, even young adults and teens, vaccinated than before.

The reason for concern is that a new, reasonable size study (n>500) found that 67% of those who had mild to moderate Covid developed long Covid. There’s no reason to think Omicron will be more forgiving.

Yet the CDC keeps digging its hole even deeper:

The Administration can barely keep up its pretense of being in the business of protecting the public. Every man is now on his own, at least in the US.

[sunkensubtext]

This will be my last update on the covid situation. I'm alive and I'm finally recovering.

Breathing is still a little meh, but no more coughing until my face turns blue and no more oxygen levels in the 80s. I went up to 97% oxygen saturation today, briefly!

I'm still too dizzy and weak to move, but now that I'm a little stronger and I'm eating more, I'm able to hold conversations and sit up in bed, so I'm overjoyed.

I'm able to say, now, how horrific that was. I downplayed a LOT in my updates because I didn't want to put out bad vibes or worry anyone too much during the holidays, but I had an extremely, extremely severe case of covid. If I had gone to the hospital for a third time yesterday, there isn't a doubt in my mind I'd have been put on a ventilator, and I've been trying to avoid that at all costs.

This has been one of the scariest weeks of my life. The doctors have told me I legitimately almost died twice, at least. Even my therapist, hearing my symptoms and seeing me at my worst (very briefly before rescheduling) was stunned that I'm alive. If I hadn't waited up and called my primary care doctor the morning after my last discharge to beg for cough meds, he wouldn't have found the covid pneumonia that the hospital missed, and I would be dead.

I know everyone is saying this virus isn't too bad if you're vaccinated, but please remember guys that there are still outliers. I don't know why I was one of them, but I was, and if I wasn't vaccinated against this virus, I honestly believe I would be dead right now.

It's all too easy to rationalize going out in this shit until the worst happens--we have to get back to normal, I cant live cooped up like this, this is what the vaccines are for, it's just like a cold, etc. It's sucky staying home when everything seems to be opening up and going back to normal, and it's tempting to want to take off your masks when public places have signage saying they're not required for vaccinated people, but believe me. It's not fucking worth it. At ALL.

I had VERY minimal exposure and was still infected, and I went downhill FAST. Nothing is going to be able to prepare you for the abject horror of having a doctor look you in the face while you're showing every sign of being near death, and then having them say there isn't anything more they can do that you can't do at home. That the problem with this virus is that they can only try and manage the symptoms, and I'm at home doing just as good of a job as they can.

The feeling of helplessness that comes along with this is so unbelievably scary in a way that I'm having trouble describing even now. Imagine being on your actual deathbed and knowing it isn't worth it to go to the hospital, because all it'll do is make your breathing worse from moving around, and they'll send you home anyway because they need to save the beds for ventilator patients/people with other ailments. Covid isn't something to be fucked with, even the "less intense" omicron variant.

I know this little rant isn't going to change anyone's mind on anything because I know the reach of my posts and the people I interact with, and we're all on the same page pretty regularly. I guess I just needed to get it out just in case, because this is the first time in my life where my own death seemed like such a sure thing.

I had a point, even, where I passed out and got this overwhelming sense of calm and peace, and I hallucinated this beautiful green field with tiny little yellow and white flowers, and in a shady patch was the cutest little lamb. I wanted to sit down and rest so, so, so fucking bad, but as soon as I thought about it, panic seized up in my chest so badly and I forced my eyes open because I immediately knew I wouldn't be getting back up if I went to lay down. It was an instinctual type of fear, like my body knew what it meant before my mind could clear the haze enough to figure it out.

It's completely changed the way I feel about dying. I've never been religious, and I'm still not--I think that whatever happens is what happens, and time spent arguing the afterlife could be better spent going out and being kind. I think we are what we put out into the world, and it makes me genuinely happy to be kind and helpful to others, so I don't think on religion much because I like to think that kindness at least counts for something. But goddamn. I've been going to therapy for my issues around death for years, and this one hallucination was enough to calm me down. It felt so serene, and so welcoming and peaceful. There was no pain whatsoever--in my other hallucinations I could still feel the fever in my bones and the fucking crushing weight on my chest, but it was completely gone in those few seconds. I could cry thinking about it even now.

Don't fuck around with this virus guys. Like...this has been SUPREMELY fucked up.

And thanks again for everyone's well wishes and engagement, even when I was too weak to muster up any kind of reply. I love you guys, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that your words of encouragement were really one of the only things keeping me going in a time where it seemed so easy to just give up and let it take me. You guys are the reason I forced myself to stay positive, even if just online, and that was enough to turn the tide on this for me and stop me from going down the rabbit hole and giving up. I'm so grateful that I've found people in a little online anime community that were able to do something like that, and I don't know how I can pay you back for it. I only know that I'll try.

[unorthodox-soundwave]

What the hell is news, honestly? (A sorta-rant)

The thing that's most wild about the modern age, at least from my barely-in-the-loop perspective, is just how you can never tell where something is gonna go when you first end up about it.

I remember when I first got a YouTube ad about NFTs. I wrote it off as "oh cool they're like, a virtual equivalent to baseball cards." and moved on with my life. Now they're killing the environment, literally all over the media, ugly as hell and Burger King is involved I think?

The Queen of England is suddenly being taken into the hospital. I think the internet is gonna explode because there's been jokes about the Queen being immortal for years. Then, I never heard about it again and am currently unsure if the Queen is dead or not.

There was a new variant of covid called Omicron, and for two weeks all I ever heard about it was that nobody could pronounce it. Now it's killed 900K Americans all of the sudden when I thought it was gone.

Frances Haugen comes up as something my Sociology professor finds "timely" because it lines up with our current topic of social media. The news is all over her and her 1000 pages of documents about how Facebook is even worse than we thought, somehow. Then suddenly she and all of her news drops of the face of the Earth, and all I know about Facebook is that its called "Meta" now.

"We Don't Talk About Bruno" from Encanto and Amy Schneider killing it on Jeopardy manage to flood the internet well enough that I forgot that a new Marvel movie was out. Like sure, I love that song (though I think Surface Pressure is better), and I stan Amy, but it's wild how much internet they've covered.

Now Mike Pence is denouncing Trump and I'm not sure if I'm more confused by the fact that Pence and Trump are enemies now or by the fact that Pence is still able to be in the news. I thought he was gone and like, left the country or something.

And I've JUST found out that they Pentagon declassified like, straight up UFO footage back in April of 2020??? I literally never heard about it until just a couple days ago.

At this point if someone could predict how relevant a topic would be a week into the future I'd find some way to give them a Nobel Prize right then and there because I'm pretty sure it's impossible.

[stevishabitat]

"It's not a cause for alarm, but a reminder that COVID is still very much among us and there are ways to help us prevent catching it, spreading it and getting very sick from it," Page said.

Page and Dr. Garza reinforced these preventative measures:

Getting vaccinated

Wearing a mask in crowded or indoor public spaces

Social distancing 

Early testing  

Early testing is more important now than ever. There is a pill to treat COVID, but it is only effective when taken within five days from symptom onset. 

Dr. Garza said it's important for people not to chalk up symptoms to a seasonal cold or allergies. 

"People should still continue to test to make sure it isn't COVID, so you aren't unwittingly spreading it, but also because now that we have effective over-the-counter treatment that prevents serious illness," Garza said.

A flurry of COVID-19 testing is keeping Total Access Care locations busy in the metro.

“People come in thinking it’s their normal sinus infection or allergy symptoms and then we test them for COVID and it’s positive,” said Dr. Dawn Spell, Family Nurse Practitioner and Medical Director for Total Access Urgent Care.

News 4 learned staff across all metro Total Access Urgent Cares are administering roughly 650 tests per day, which is up from 500 tests per day back in March.

“Our most recent data has shown 19.9 percent positive over the last week,” said Spell.

SSM Health’s Chief Community Health Officer, Dr. Alex Garza, says we can expect to see COVID-19 cases continue to increase in the region as communities return to activities like traveling and graduation all while little to no COVID-19 mitigation measures are being enforced.

“If you’re elderly, things like that, then you need to be more cognizant of what you’re doing,” said Garza. “So whether that’s gathering in large groups, or being around other people, those are the things that should really drive behavior, such as wearing a mask or not going into indoor crowded environments, things like that.’

However, he also says the true number of cases across the St. Louis metro is going under-reported.

“People either foregoing testing because they think it’s something else or frankly they don’t want to get tested,” he said. “And then the other piece of that is the proliferation of home testing as well. And, so, those are never making it to those official counts.”

“I think there’s been a little bit of hesitation for testing in recent weeks mostly because allergy season is so strong,” said Spell. “We also had a recent uptick in flu cases, which is pretty unusual for the month of May.”

Dr. Garza says the good news here is rising COVID-19 cases are not expected to strain hospitals because the community has built significant immunity or has been vaccinated and boosted.

“You can still become infected, especially with the omicron variant and things that are highly transmissible. But the key is that it doesn’t cause significant illness,” he said.

Yet, for those traveling or gathering, he says it is still better to get a test if you start to feel any sort of symptoms.

There was a popular post that went around two years ago that said something along the lines of "we have to be willing to look paranoid--it's better to be overly-cautious than to be careless and prolong the pandemic!"

It's pretty much the only thing holding my sanity together now that it's year three of the pandemic, everyone's decided it's over even though it's still killing people, local data suggests my area is under-reporting new cases, and people keep telling me VERBATIM that I'm being "overly cautious" and "kinda paranoid."

[neema-academy]

SEE Brain Booster Course for Grade 10 Students by Neema Academy

Shown for the first time in Wuhan City of China in March 2022, the third wave of Covid 19 is finally here. Nepal also undergoes severe Omicron Impact as it shares an open border with southern neighbor India. In the meantime, the government has released a notice to conduct the SEE of this year in Baisakh. 

The odd/even rule has been imposed tightly as an initial preparation of smart lockdown 3.0. More of the IT companies seemed to have been operated from home while the same remote ways of tutoring go with the educational institutions. As of previous lockdown 1.0 & 2.0, it is no brainers’ curiosity that the education field has to bear much more loss. Unlike in previous years, this time we could see schools, parents, teachers, and stakeholders being ready to combat the Omicron from every possible angle. Thank you all for being more conscious even from an individual level. 

Vividly predicted that the regular routines of academics and institutional exams will be hampered but the major impact will be on SEE 2079, which is expected to be conducted in Baisakh. Keeping the same thing i.e. the covid impact and digital/online learning in Nepal, Neema Academy, the best eLearning platform in Nepal has shown up with SEE Brain Booster esp. catering to Grade 10 Students. Most importantly, the course can be read both online as well as offline. 

Targeting the SEE 2079 examinees, Grade 10 Students, so that they can prepare in a quick and smart preparation, below are the offerings i.e. SEE Brain Booster by Neema Academy. 

SEE Brain Booster, Maths

SEE Brain Booster, Science

SEE Brain Booster Maths & Science | Combo Package

Provided that, as the cost price of these aforementioned courses ranges from 700-800 NPR, less than the price of fancy Pizzas, it can be a good push for the Grade 10 students. Interestingly, users i.e. students/teachers/parents can easily buy the course via the web as well as the app and start preparing according to CDC Approved courses.  

Lately, the technological leap the country has gained has helped not only be an alternative to the pandemic but it’s the call of digital Nepal too, says Neiha Joshi, COO at Neema Academy - the best eLearning platform in the country. It has been vividly understood that to date, due to its ease to learn from our comfort zone, the self-learning way is fun-filled and gamified with an extra bunch of resources that Grade 10 students will love exploring. That’s the main reason why SEE Brain Booster Courses including other non academic courses have been popular among smart learners.

On this take, Elsa Jha, Principal at North Point English Medium Higher Secondary School, Bhaktapur, believes that the spare time provided by the uninvited Covid-19, has an ill impact on students and their reading routines, which now is well addressed by Neema Academy. Also, the best learning platform in Nepal, both online as well as offline offers the courses not only to Grade 10 students but also from k-12. 

The world is a smaller global village connected with the Internet and being facilitated by devices that are monitored with the technology. In these advancement hours, the initiative led by Neema Academy in Nepalese Education Fraternity is something great - praiseworthy as well as is at the right time. Education, being the primary right of the denizens, is the costly sector upon which both public, as well as private sectors, should invest. This aspect has the power of impacting the country's development index. So, rather than sporadic activity only when the corona variant(s) are active, we should choose and embrace the concept of distant learning, self-eLearning, and digital literacy too. Hence the nation’s prosperity comes into reality. 

Lastly, on behalf of Neema Academy - the pioneers of the online learning platform in Nepal, we would like to extend our good words, especially to Grade 10 Students. We are pretty sure you guys are going to love the SEE Brain Booster Course [Maths, Science, and Combo].

[lunasspecto]

I've been so angry since back in late February / early March 2020 when people in Massachusetts (where I lived at the time) couldn't get COVID-19 tests from the CDC unless they had all the symptoms on a given list and had recently returned to China. So people with all the symptoms were going to their doctors and the CDC wouldn't perform a diagnostic test because they hadn't been to China and there was "no evidence of community spread." Or sometimes they had been to China but didn't have one of the expected symptoms. I read about one woman in that situation after she visited family in China and she ended up booking a flight back there just to get tested. She tested positive on arrival and received immediate medical treatment in China. And public health policy in this country has just been a constant stream of fuck-ups since then. When vaccines were first offered in Massachusetts the web sites kept crashing and people would wait literally all day for an online appointment to book appointments for their elderly relatives in the first group eligible for them. There was a while where we could drive to any number of local PCR testing sites or buy a somewhat expensive antigen test kit at any pharmacy, but now both are in short supply as test manufacturers ramped down production and weren't prepared for this omicron spike, and a lot of those PCR test sites closed already. And that's without mentioning how US pharmaceutical interests have pressured the UN to enforce global vaccine production monopolies, without which final vaccination rates might have been high enough to prevent this omicron variant to begin with. And you look at the statistics for the US vs the East Asian countries, Vietnam, and New Zealand, and they just aren't dying the way we are. And it's a lie that this laissez-faire approach has somehow prevented us from having our lives disrupted by the virus. Hospitals across the country are constantly straining capacity. If you have risk factors that make you likely to die even from a "breakthrough" infection, if you can't be vaccinated for some reason or, like us, you have a kid under 5 who still isn't eligible for vaccination, there's a real disincentive to go out in public any more than necessary. I've had a cough for three weeks or so that I think is some kind of bronchitis or asthma or something but without a way to be really sure, I've just given up on meeting people outside the house for a while. And being surrounded by mass death for two years is pretty fucking disruptive in itself. I know I'm preaching to the choir, writing this to my Tumblr followers, but like, what the fuck is this country even doing?

[zydrateacademy]

Hey! I have covid!

Just got the rapid test this morning, positive. Yikes, was bound to hit me eventually. My current symptoms are body aches, coughing, headache, sore throat. Essentially in order of that severity, too. The bodyaches are a shock, last time I felt like this was the day after doing paintball. But they started at the evening of my two-days off work. Basically no activity.

I am vaccinated, young(ish?), and in mostly good health. I got some meat on me and I don’t eat the healthiest but I do still get real meals most evenings, as I still live with my grandmother (who is under the greatest threat of me being positive). So every little good thing there, this will probably not be fatal. Just a literal pain in the ass.

I work in produce, at a grocery store. I work with the public eight hours every day, five days a week. As usual I’m pretty sure I got it from a customer. Every single day I look up from working something on the table to see someone (sometimes even pulling down their mask) to lick their finger to open the bag, then touch some oranges or apples to find the ‘right’ one. So it’s either them or a co-worker that got me sick. 

I don’t do much except go to work and come home to play video games, so it had to be there, y’know? Still trying to work out where I can get a PCR test (mine was just rapid) because my company won’t issue out relief unless it’s the 100% accurate variant of testing. But every clinic and wal-mart is apparently having trouble getting tests and schedule times, I guess due to the Omicron surge.  If anything I got lucky just getting the test this morning. There was a line at the clinic, got an appointment for after noon. While I was waiting, two people were turned away because the understaffed clinic just couldn’t see any of them because it’s just one patient right after the other. Brutal. Anyway. Yea.

[scribbledthisout]

Hello 2022!

2020- sounds like “2020 too.” Perhaps it’s a retake of 2020- The year where things first started to get pretty bad with COVID.

2021 was an awful year.

It especially feels that way because December was a rough month for me. The Omicron variant of COVID spread like wildfire. Work wise things got super intense (resulting in heart palpitations at night). I couldn’t relax at home either because I was constantly on edge with the thought of my parents trying to set me up with someone again. This resulted in me stopping talking to my dad for two weeks. Relationship wise my life felt like a mess. Even the parcel FSP sent me ended up with a random Scottish family before arriving to me. Money wise I felt the tension and my brother’s health started falling apart.

A lot of these problems still linger. E’s health is still bad and deep down I’m worried if it could be something more serious than a bad case of acid reflux. Every time the phone rings I’m scared it’s going to be about some guy. I really do need to let go of that particular fear a lot. I’ve dealt with far worse and more importantly, I don’t want it to affect things with my mum.

On New Year’s Eve at 23:30 I was still gaming with E- lost track of the time. Dad was in his room laughing at some videos and mum was downstairs alone. I thought she was fine because I heard her laugh a few times, but evidently not because eventually when I made it downstairs, she stormed upstairs saying she would go to bed. She didn’t. She came downstairs just before midnight and we watched the fireworks together.

My mum’s a strong believer that how you enter the year affects the rest of the year. For this reason I put more effort in today to make her happy by going to the park to feed squirrels together.

I want this year to be better than the last. Whilst a lot of things are out of my hands, I need to try harder to make sure of it. I’ll think of my Christmas travelling box as a good omen- whilst it ended up in Scotland, it eventually got back to me- with crayon drawings of Christmas trees and I got to spread some Christmas cheer as a result of it.

As awful as 2021 was, I did achieve some cool stuff. Off the top of my head, this includes becoming a post-doctoral scientist, getting some first author papers out and learning to cook some good food (favourite meal cooked: prawn & pea linguini in white wine sauce, favourite baked treat: black forest gateau).

Having this week of time off has done me wonders. I looked in the mirror today and realised I somehow look younger- the dark circles from under my eyes have disappeared! This is something I need to keep up. New Years Day and I got an email from work. Sent a quick email to say thank you and then put my out of office email on. This girl has left the building.

What were my new year resolutions for 2021? I haven’t found them on this blog. I’ll just assume I did them all B-) No getting away with that this year, here they are!

- Be more cheerful/Be less grumpy

- See & video call friends more often (burger date with O!)

- Publish 3 more first author papers

- Become a confident cook & baker

- Become a confident driver (I really hope we get a new car soon- mainly for mum!)

- Be more professional at work (i.e. know my shit more)

- Learn how to use R for stats

- Figure out what I want to do next work wise

- Have over £100,000 in savings

*Pours some white wine* This is a toast to all those who put up with me in 2021 and made me smile.

[someone-who-has-changed]

who am I in the midst of anxiety and panic

hi, nice to meet you again my old friend. I feel shaky and unsteady, panicky and unsafe - it’s some familiar feelings that like to float around and make me feel like shit. you know, the usual when stuff comes around to change. just a heads up for the friends that don’t know me yet, I have pretty severe anxiety, some PTSD, and an unidentified seizure disorder - all of this making for a great situation when it comes to mental health.

lets do the usual rounds when this happens; talk about who I am and how it is all going to be okay in the end.

i’m currently at the residents of my parents, “home”, some would say. Since it’s the holiday season - today being Christmas itself - it is a given that one would want to be around family. this season though (season meaning season of life, not season as in winter) there is a profound stench in the air. everyone is sad, everyone is anxious, and being home doesn’t feel the same. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I feel so unsafe - because no one actually is. The world is changing so rapidly that I honestly don’t think anyone can actually keep up. Maybe that’s something to feel security in though, that no one knows whats going on, and no one feels security in the upcoming events. with Covid-19 and the omicron variant people are still flipping out. its been almost two years know and were still in this pandemic, which is 100% the reason for the sadness of the season. that and, maybe global warming, with it being 65 degrees outside in Ohio in the middle of december, something is definitely changing in climate. and in everything else actually. 

growing up is weird because while it’s happening you think you’re the only one experiencing it. you’re a kid one day, then the next everything has changed and you’re not really sure who you are anymore. one day you know where you’re walking, but the next you’re lost and confused on what even life is supposed to mean. i have recently come to acknowledge that this actually isn’t an event particular to me. i think everyone fails to realize is that this is the same for everyone. whether you’re 12 going on 20, or 40 going on 60 - everyone is growing up. For instance, i think about my parents. they already grew up, they don’t have to experience the fear and struggles anymore - right? they got married, have/had jobs, were successful in making it. they had kids and experienced the joy of raising them ---- but wait. You’re that kid. what happens when you leave? what do your changes do to their changes? its weird to put it in the perspective of the individual: they are also growing up. they watched you grow and change, while they were growing and changing. growing up isn’t something that stops when you become an adult. it isn’t something that stops when you have children. growing up is a continuous and ever-present ideal in your life until the day you die. growing up is changing. growing up is changing. everyone changes. everything changes. always.

anyways, merry christmas, I hope you’re having a good day

[junker-town]

3 winners and 5 losers from an incomplete Week 15 in the NFL

Photo by Jorge Lemus/NurPhoto via Getty Images

What a weird, weird week.

This all feels weird. Here we are, at a time where Week 15 should be more-or-less “done,” and yet there’s four games left to play. It’s a constant reminder of what a mess the NFL has created by its stubbornness to push through, rather than just delaying the season through Christmas and reconvening at a later date.

I don’t pretend to have a good answer for this. I don’t think anybody has come up with the correct response. I do know that delaying three games, exclusively for potential playoffs teams dealing with major Covid outbreaks is not the right response. I know that letting asymptomatic Covid-positive players take the field is not the right approach. I know that so obviously putting money ahead of potential risks from long Covid, or worse, also is not the right response.

When people show you who they are, believe them. For its entire modern existence the NFL has shown time and time again that its focus is money over player safety. We saw it with CTE, we’ve seen it with extending the regular season, and Thursday Night Football. Now it’s Covid’s turn. The once hardline stance of the NFL, has now relaxed — in the middle of the worst outbreak this year, with winter and the Omicron variant leading to soaring infection rates. If that doesn’t sound like it makes sense, it’s because it doesn’t.

Happy Holidays, you all have Covid before getting to spend time with your family. If you don’t have it yet, just wait — the NFL will make sure you’re infected as quickly as possible. But hey, at least there’ll still be butts in seats and TV revenue!

Winner: The Detroit-friggin-Lions

I’ll preen a little bit, because last week I wrote about how Detroit had a really bright future because of what Dan Campbell is building with the Lions, and almost universally people said I was giving them praise too soon.

How’s that look now, eh?!

Honestly, beating the Cardinals as a 1-11-1 team is a hell of an achievement, but this means so much more than just a poor team beating one of the league’s best. It’s a culmination of everything the Lions have been building this season.

I’ll tell you, I know something big is brewing here. Detroit will have an extremely high draft pick because of their record, and are starting to find their form. It’s so nerve wracking to say “this is it” when it comes to the Lions, but I actually think this will be — so I’m calling my shot.

Winner: Yo ... bravo, Colts

I’ve been pretty bullish on Indianapolis since they beat the Bills, and I wasn’t sure how deserved it was. Until now. I’m not going to pretend the Colts looked majorly convincing in their win over the Patriots, but damn I appreciate a team knowing who they are and leaning into it.

Indianapolis are aware Carson Wentz doesn’t quite have the talent at receiver needed to have a great passing attack, but instead of trying to mash a square peg into a round hole, the team is content having Jonathan Taylor carry the load and sprinkle passes in where needed.

The Patriots looked utterly lost against the Colts, not scoring until the fourth quarter when the game was out of reach. This was a statement win for Indianapolis who look like a sary team to face should they get into the playoffs.

Winner: The Eagles, because of Indianapolis

With the Colts win, Carson Wentz played enough snaps on the season to officially mean Indianapolis has to send their 1st round pick to the Eagles. Considering Philly is already a decent team, having more draft capital could put them over the top and boost them to becoming a winner

Loser: The Giants “fan appreciation”

I’m obsessed with how hilariously cheap New York was with all this. So the big reward for season ticket holders sticking with the organization during the pandemic, and turning up every single week was ... a medium soda.

That alone was worthy of headlines, but man they made it so much worse.

Someone just told me that the free Pepsi at MetLife today is not one drink per ticket. It’s only for the person whose name is on the account

— Pat Leonard (@PLeonardNYDN) December 19, 2021

So if you gave your tickets to a friend, because I dunno, you left town the weekend before Christmas, they didn’t get a free soda.

Reminder: NFL owners are billionaires.

Loser: Everything about the Panthers

If the Lions are a bad team with a really bright future, Carolina is a middling team with a horrendous outlook. Everything about this team is bad, and it’s not about losing to the Bills, it’s how the team responded.

Matt Rhule basically threw Cam Newton under the bus in his post-game press conference, presumably because he couldn’t throw Joe Brady under the bus (because Rhule fired him) and the dumpster fire is well and truly getting lit now.

The Panthers are an utter mess and playing worse each week now. Time will tell how long pride will prevail because this was owner David Tepper’s big first pick. Conventional wisdom says Rhule will get one more year, but woof ... this is looking so bad.

Loser: Buccaneers

lol

Looks like Tom Brady goes to the #Saints sideline and says: "Go f*** yourself." pic.twitter.com/CA2tDakqXn

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) December 20, 2021

Loser: This dude’s ill-timed bathroom break

We have to close this week with this poor, poor man.

Amazing. So they just did a scoreboard proposal here at Hard Rock. However, when they cut away from this graphic to where the two are supposed to be sitting, the guy wasn’t there! Just the girl, sitting there, hand over mouth! Dude must have been in the concession line lol pic.twitter.com/Jy1FkN4Tkf

— Connor Hughes (@Connor_J_Hughes) December 19, 2021

I’m extremely against public proposals like this, but man ... I feel for this couple. Choosing to put it on the video board of an NFL game has to be expensive, and whether you chose to take a leak, or hit the concessions stand, I hate that this happened.

I really hope the couple are happy, whatever the result. If they end up getting married at least they have a heck of a story about their engagement.