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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » With both Bernie and Biden close to their 80s their VP choices could be crucial

We all know that the joint front runners now in the race for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are both older than anybody who has ever run for the White House before and there must be a high actuarial chance, at least, if it is one of these who gets nominated, won’t make it until the election on the first Tuesday in November

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Chameleon

https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1234650426277945344
In addition to 1 imported case in the province yesterday from Italy. *If* this is true then Italy is not under control, and indeed, if numbers are high enough, the rate of spreading could be higher than the rate at which they're being detected and isolated.

CarlottaVance

Mayor Pete could run in 2060 and still be younger than these two.....

williamglenn

CarlottaVance said:

Mayor Pete could run in 2060 and still be younger than these two.....

https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1234263735541338114

CarlottaVance

The US Covid-19 mortality numbers are shocking - almost certainly a function of under-diagnosis - compare;

Cases / Deaths:
Japan: 274 / 6 (all Diamond Princess)
France: 191 / 3
Germany: 159 / 0
Spain: 120 / 0
Singapore: 108 / 0
USA: 102 / 6
Hong Kong: 100 / 2

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

edmundintokyo

In "Baemy was running for VP" news, KLOBUCHAR is giving her exact same stump speech but with Joe's name substituted for her own. It works better as well - "Joe knows you".

edmundintokyo

Big Biden bump in VA, even before the coveted KLOBUCHAR endorsement

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1234693241292967942?s=19

CarlottaVance

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1234695977656881154?s=20

Sandpit

Happy Super Tuesday PB!

Good news for the Asian markets, they’re heading back up this morning.

Andy_JS

CarlottaVance said:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1234695977656881154?s=20

Trump would prefer to face Sanders I think.

Sandpit

Andy_JS said:

CarlottaVance said:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1234695977656881154?s=20

Trump would prefer to face Sanders I think.

Politically yes, but he’s also probably thinking that Biden as the candidate will lead to the Sanders supporters staying at home - as they did last time.

Right now, DT is probably over the moon to be the youngest man still in the race!

moonshine

Sandpit said:

Happy Super Tuesday PB!

Good news for the Asian markets, they’re heading back up this morning.

Stock markets are reflecting the psychology of its participants. Normalcy bias, as highlighted by Eadric. Inability to acknowledge truly terrible events. Smart room fallacy (assuming someone somewhere has shit under control).

I feel today like we are in summer 1914, a happy time where everything had changed but almost no one realised it.

I met my friend for coffee today, was listening to Hey Jude as I walked over. And I suddenly out of nowhere broke down in tears on the street. Had to pull myself together before she arrived. She’s not the type to panic and she is like I was until yesterday, intellectually inoculated to what might happen elsewhere by Singapore’s very efficient response and abnormally warm and humid climate.

No one seems to have absorbed what was said by the uk authorities yesterday. No one seems to realise what is about to unfold in Seattle. For some reason I get blank faces when I ask people if they’ve seen what’s happening in Iran. It’s time for Johnson to give that speech he’s been preparing for his whole life. Square up with the public, lead them through it. He might not be the leader many of you wanted but he’s the one we’ve got.

I apologise to Alistair and Eadric who I mocked when they raised the alarm early. I suppose I have never wished i had been right about something as much as this and that’s the whole problem.

In a few days I shall be relocating from Singapore back home. Good luck to all and their loved ones.

Sandpit

Betfair under-round news.

Six layable candidates now, still including the two non-running former First Ladies.

Back prices for the six sum to 98.1%, and the four actual runners sum to 95.2%, suggesting that punters still think that there’s nearly a 5% chance of some conference shenanigans.

Sandpit

moonshine said:

Sandpit said:

Happy Super Tuesday PB!

Good news for the Asian markets, they’re heading back up this morning.

Stock markets are reflecting the psychology of its participants. Normalcy bias, as highlighted by Eadric. Inability to acknowledge truly terrible events. Smart room fallacy (assuming someone somewhere has shit under control).

I feel today like we are in summer 1914, a happy time where everything had changed but almost no one realised it.

I met my friend for coffee today, was listening to Hey Jude as I walked over. And I suddenly out of nowhere broke down in tears on the street. Had to pull myself together before she arrived. She’s not the type to panic and she is like I was until yesterday, intellectually inoculated to what might happen elsewhere by Singapore’s very efficient response and abnormally warm and humid climate.

No one seems to have absorbed what was said by the uk authorities yesterday. No one seems to realise what is about to unfold in Seattle. For some reason I get blank faces when I ask people if they’ve seen what’s happening in Iran. It’s time for Johnson to give that speech he’s been preparing for his whole life. Square up with the public, lead them through it. He might not be the leader many of you wanted but he’s the one we’ve got.

I apologise to Alistair and Eadric who I mocked when they raised the alarm early. I suppose I have never wished i had been right about something as much as this and that’s the whole problem.

In a few days I shall be relocating from Singapore back home. Good luck to all and their loved ones.

Singapore have done an excellent job, isolating people and spending time tracing back the routes by which they became infected.

I’m in Dubai, and everyone here is very worried indeed about what’s going on in Iran. Sick people from Iran have been turning up in the Gulf states for a few weeks now, it’s completely out of control there. I’m sure many have travelled in search of good hospitals that are few and far between in Iran, with reports there of medical personnel being infected in large numbers.

Hope you have a safe trip back, don’t be surprised if you get quarantined on your return to the UK though.

edmundintokyo

moonshine said:

Stock markets are reflecting the psychology of its participants. Normalcy bias, as highlighted by Eadric. Inability to acknowledge truly terrible events. Smart room fallacy (assuming someone somewhere has shit under control).

Not saying I know the answer to these questions but as far as the stock market goes:

1) Let's assume basically everyone's going to get it, there are going to be sporadic lockdowns all over the place, a lot of production is going to stop, hospitals are going to be overwhelmed, a lot of elderly people and a few otherwise healthy people are going to die. What does that mean for your dividend income over the next 20 years? Off the top of my head, there's a severe, immediate recession because of the production stoppages, then a bunch of changes that end up bleeding into the long term like more teleworking and less business travel. But some of these changes are beneficial, and you also end up with substantially fewer old people to support. I guess a cash crunch will kill a bunch of otherwise healthy businesses, but governments will print money to keep businesses it can alive, and I guess this is easier for businesses of the scale to be selling public stock. So how big is the long-term hit?

2) Say you think the economy is going to hell so you don't want to hold stocks. Where do you put the money? The government is borrowing and printing like crazy, it'll happily devalue your cash. Bonds are government debt, in a doomsday scenario are you sure the government is good for it? Plus, your debt is denominated in paper the government can print. Commodities are only valuable if somebody else wants to buy them. So non-normalcy-biased investors would sell their stocks and put the money into what?

Sandpit

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

Stock markets are reflecting the psychology of its participants. Normalcy bias, as highlighted by Eadric. Inability to acknowledge truly terrible events. Smart room fallacy (assuming someone somewhere has shit under control).

Not saying I know the answer to these questions but as far as the stock market goes:

1) Let's assume basically everyone's going to get it, there are going to be sporadic lockdowns all over the place, a lot of production is going to stop, hospitals are going to be overwhelmed, a lot of elderly people and a few otherwise healthy people are going to die. What does that mean for your dividend income over the next 20 years? Off the top of my head, there's a severe, immediate recession because of the production stoppages, then a bunch of changes that end up bleeding into the long term like more teleworking and less business travel. But some of these changes are beneficial, and you also end up with substantially fewer old people to support. I guess a cash crunch will kill a bunch of otherwise healthy businesses, but governments will print money to keep businesses it can alive, and I guess this is easier for businesses of the scale to be selling public stock. So how big is the long-term hit?

2) Say you think the economy is going to hell so you don't want to hold stocks. Where do you put the money? The government is borrowing and printing like crazy, it'll happily devalue your cash. Bonds are government debt, in a doomsday scenario are you sure the government is good for it? Plus, your debt is denominated in paper the government can print. Commodities are only valuable if somebody else wants to buy them. So non-normalcy-biased investors would sell their stocks and put the money into what?

Physical assets, as they have been doing for the past decade. Premium property, gold, art, classic cars etc. Also a fair bit going into tech startups, everyone trying to find the next company to be worth billions. That last one should be good for you and I.

edmundintokyo

Sandpit said:

Physical assets, as they have been doing for the past decade. Premium property, gold, art, classic cars etc. Also a fair bit going into tech startups, everyone trying to find the next company to be worth billions. That last one should be good for you and I.

I don't get it. If everything's gone to hell and everybody who isn't dead has got long-term poorer, who's the buyer who's ultimately going to pay loads for my classic car???

Nigelb

CarlottaVance said:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1234695977656881154?s=20

Which should one prefer ?

https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1234599053725491200

ydoethur

I would have said the arguments in this thread header apply with equal force to Trump. I know he’s slightly younger, but he’s also a lot fatter and the constant state of fury he’s in can’t be good for his blood pressure.

Plus it seems unlikely he will pick Pence again.

But would he really be mad enough to pick Ivanka? That might be the one thing that would turn the mid west against him.

edmundintokyo

Nigelb said:

CarlottaVance said:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1234695977656881154?s=20

Which should one prefer ?

https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1234599053725491200

That Fox reel would be more damaging if they cut the early ones and made it look more like dementia and less like a successful politician who's been messing up words for the last 40 years.

edmundintokyo

ydoethur said:

I would have said the arguments in this thread header apply with equal force to Trump. I know he’s slightly younger, but he’s also a lot fatter and the constant state of fury he’s in can’t be good for his blood pressure.

Plus it seems unlikely he will pick Pence again.

But would he really be mad enough to pick Ivanka? That might be the one thing that would turn the mid west against him.

Now he's got the right sewn up the power move would be to pick Tulsi Gabbard.

rcs1000

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

Stock markets are reflecting the psychology of its participants. Normalcy bias, as highlighted by Eadric. Inability to acknowledge truly terrible events. Smart room fallacy (assuming someone somewhere has shit under control).

Not saying I know the answer to these questions but as far as the stock market goes:

1) Let's assume basically everyone's going to get it, there are going to be sporadic lockdowns all over the place, a lot of production is going to stop, hospitals are going to be overwhelmed, a lot of elderly people and a few otherwise healthy people are going to die. What does that mean for your dividend income over the next 20 years? Off the top of my head, there's a severe, immediate recession because of the production stoppages, then a bunch of changes that end up bleeding into the long term like more teleworking and less business travel. But some of these changes are beneficial, and you also end up with substantially fewer old people to support. I guess a cash crunch will kill a bunch of otherwise healthy businesses, but governments will print money to keep businesses it can alive, and I guess this is easier for businesses of the scale to be selling public stock. So how big is the long-term hit?

2) Say you think the economy is going to hell so you don't want to hold stocks. Where do you put the money? The government is borrowing and printing like crazy, it'll happily devalue your cash. Bonds are government debt, in a doomsday scenario are you sure the government is good for it? Plus, your debt is denominated in paper the government can print. Commodities are only valuable if somebody else wants to buy them. So non-normalcy-biased investors would sell their stocks and put the money into what?

So... Bitcoin it is.

edmundintokyo

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Dura_Ace

edmundintokyo said:

. So non-normalcy-biased investors would sell their stocks and put the money into what?

In the darkest days of the Basra project the most coveted tradable assets were a) ammunition b) canned food and c) young women. DYOR, I am not a financial advisor.

ydoethur

Well, I suppose endless discussion of Coronavirus is better than endless discussion of Brexit.

Casino_Royale

Disappointed this thread didn't get more of an airing..

Nigelb

eadric said:

Second: some glum news: south Korea’s infection tally has accelerated again - tho not massively. And their mortality ratio has edged up. 0.7 now.

https://twitter.com/bnodesk/status/1234648694072496128?s=21

Has it, or is this simply the backlog of test results (around 30k) coming in ?

‘Daegu has peaked; Korea will be 90% contained in a couple of weeks'
http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=285489
... I had a morning teleconference with Dr. Hakim Dajballah, New York-based virology expert, who has shared his expertise with The Korea Times since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic. During this latest conversation, the former head of Institute Pasteur Korea told me that we may be seeing a tail end of the crisis.

He forecast (I use this word because his ongoing commentaries and interviews are quite prescient often enough) that the situation in Daegu, the epicenter of the epidemic in Korea, and its surrounding North Gyeongsang Province would be brought under control in the next couple of weeks.

This means that "Daegu is done" with the number of new cases tapering fast in that period and Korea will be "90 percent contained." But this does not mean Korea is home free considering that the remaining 10 percent depends on "hygiene."

He predicted Italy might surpass Korea in terms of damage from the epidemic because of Italians' tendency to like physical contact without an alerted sense of sanitation, as has happened in Korea. Surely, Koreans nowadays wear masks and frequently wash their hands or use hand sanitizers that prevent the spread....

We’ll know one way or another soon enough.

Casino_Royale

Sandpit said:

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

Stock markets are reflecting the psychology of its participants. Normalcy bias, as highlighted by Eadric. Inability to acknowledge truly terrible events. Smart room fallacy (assuming someone somewhere has shit under control).

Not saying I know the answer to these questions but as far as the stock market goes:

1) Let's assume basically everyone's going to get it, there are going to be sporadic lockdowns all over the place, a lot of production is going to stop, hospitals are going to be overwhelmed, a lot of elderly people and a few otherwise healthy people are going to die. What does that mean for your dividend income over the next 20 years? Off the top of my head, there's a severe, immediate recession because of the production stoppages, then a bunch of changes that end up bleeding into the long term like more teleworking and less business travel. But some of these changes are beneficial, and you also end up with substantially fewer old people to support. I guess a cash crunch will kill a bunch of otherwise healthy businesses, but governments will print money to keep businesses it can alive, and I guess this is easier for businesses of the scale to be selling public stock. So how big is the long-term hit?

2) Say you think the economy is going to hell so you don't want to hold stocks. Where do you put the money? The government is borrowing and printing like crazy, it'll happily devalue your cash. Bonds are government debt, in a doomsday scenario are you sure the government is good for it? Plus, your debt is denominated in paper the government can print. Commodities are only valuable if somebody else wants to buy them. So non-normalcy-biased investors would sell their stocks and put the money into what?

Physical assets, as they have been doing for the past decade. Premium property, gold, art, classic cars etc. Also a fair bit going into tech startups, everyone trying to find the next company to be worth billions. That last one should be good for you and I.

Gold always works. It's rare and shiny and makes jewels and stuff.

Not sure where you go to physically buy it though..

Casino_Royale

FPT - I see we've gone from bed-wetting to pant-shitting.

For Christ's sake: pull yourselves together people.

DecrepiterJohnL

Casino_Royale said:

Disappointed this thread didn't get more of an airing..

A number of so-called zero-day vulnerabilities for Wordpress plugins have been announced recently so presumably the people advertising Russian medical schools are using one of them. See for instance
https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-are-actively-exploiting-zero-days-in-several-wordpress-plugins/

Foxy

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

Sandpit

Casino_Royale said:

Sandpit said:

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

Stock markets are reflecting the psychology of its participants. Normalcy bias, as highlighted by Eadric. Inability to acknowledge truly terrible events. Smart room fallacy (assuming someone somewhere has shit under control).

Not saying I know the answer to these questions but as far as the stock market goes:

1) Let's assume basically everyone's going to get it, there are going to be sporadic lockdowns all over the place, a lot of production is going to stop, hospitals are going to be overwhelmed, a lot of elderly people and a few otherwise healthy people are going to die. What does that mean for your dividend income over the next 20 years? Off the top of my head, there's a severe, immediate recession because of the production stoppages, then a bunch of changes that end up bleeding into the long term like more teleworking and less business travel. But some of these changes are beneficial, and you also end up with substantially fewer old people to support. I guess a cash crunch will kill a bunch of otherwise healthy businesses, but governments will print money to keep businesses it can alive, and I guess this is easier for businesses of the scale to be selling public stock. So how big is the long-term hit?

2) Say you think the economy is going to hell so you don't want to hold stocks. Where do you put the money? The government is borrowing and printing like crazy, it'll happily devalue your cash. Bonds are government debt, in a doomsday scenario are you sure the government is good for it? Plus, your debt is denominated in paper the government can print. Commodities are only valuable if somebody else wants to buy them. So non-normalcy-biased investors would sell their stocks and put the money into what?

Physical assets, as they have been doing for the past decade. Premium property, gold, art, classic cars etc. Also a fair bit going into tech startups, everyone trying to find the next company to be worth billions. That last one should be good for you and I.

Gold always works. It's rare and shiny and makes jewels and stuff.

Not sure where you go to physically buy it though..

I do.

But then again, I live about five miles from one of the world’s biggest gold markets!
https://www.goldanddiamondpark.com/

DecrepiterJohnL

Will corona virus fears set back the campaign for unpackaged fruit in supermarkets?

DecrepiterJohnL

VP choices: Kamala Harris looks more likely than Elizabeth Warren, I'd have thought. Warren is still in the main race; Sanders can anyway probably count on inheriting her support when she does drop out; their differences on health policy might be exploited by opponents. I've (previously) backed Harris but will not (yet) be joining OGH's Warren punt. It should perhaps be noted OGH is far better at this political betting game than I have been.

CarlottaVance

https://twitter.com/mikegalsworthy/status/1234478527677898759?s=20

CarlottaVance

Sandpit said:

moonshine said:

Sandpit said:

Happy Super Tuesday PB!

Good news for the Asian markets, they’re heading back up this morning.

Stock markets are reflecting the psychology of its participants. Normalcy bias, as highlighted by Eadric. Inability to acknowledge truly terrible events. Smart room fallacy (assuming someone somewhere has shit under control).

I feel today like we are in summer 1914, a happy time where everything had changed but almost no one realised it.

I met my friend for coffee today, was listening to Hey Jude as I walked over. And I suddenly out of nowhere broke down in tears on the street. Had to pull myself together before she arrived. She’s not the type to panic and she is like I was until yesterday, intellectually inoculated to what might happen elsewhere by Singapore’s very efficient response and abnormally warm and humid climate.

No one seems to have absorbed what was said by the uk authorities yesterday. No one seems to realise what is about to unfold in Seattle. For some reason I get blank faces when I ask people if they’ve seen what’s happening in Iran. It’s time for Johnson to give that speech he’s been preparing for his whole life. Square up with the public, lead them through it. He might not be the leader many of you wanted but he’s the one we’ve got.

I apologise to Alistair and Eadric who I mocked when they raised the alarm early. I suppose I have never wished i had been right about something as much as this and that’s the whole problem.

In a few days I shall be relocating from Singapore back home. Good luck to all and their loved ones.

Singapore have done an excellent job, isolating people and spending time tracing back the routes by which they became infected.
Hope you have a safe trip back, don’t be surprised if you get quarantined on your return to the UK though.

Singapore's about the last country you should be quarantined for arriving from. France, the USA, Italy, on the other hand....

Sandpit

CarlottaVance said:

Sandpit said:

moonshine said:

Sandpit said:

Happy Super Tuesday PB!

Good news for the Asian markets, they’re heading back up this morning.

Stock markets are reflecting the psychology of its participants. Normalcy bias, as highlighted by Eadric. Inability to acknowledge truly terrible events. Smart room fallacy (assuming someone somewhere has shit under control).

I feel today like we are in summer 1914, a happy time where everything had changed but almost no one realised it.

I met my friend for coffee today, was listening to Hey Jude as I walked over. And I suddenly out of nowhere broke down in tears on the street. Had to pull myself together before she arrived. She’s not the type to panic and she is like I was until yesterday, intellectually inoculated to what might happen elsewhere by Singapore’s very efficient response and abnormally warm and humid climate.

No one seems to have absorbed what was said by the uk authorities yesterday. No one seems to realise what is about to unfold in Seattle. For some reason I get blank faces when I ask people if they’ve seen what’s happening in Iran. It’s time for Johnson to give that speech he’s been preparing for his whole life. Square up with the public, lead them through it. He might not be the leader many of you wanted but he’s the one we’ve got.

I apologise to Alistair and Eadric who I mocked when they raised the alarm early. I suppose I have never wished i had been right about something as much as this and that’s the whole problem.

In a few days I shall be relocating from Singapore back home. Good luck to all and their loved ones.

Singapore have done an excellent job, isolating people and spending time tracing back the routes by which they became infected.
Hope you have a safe trip back, don’t be surprised if you get quarantined on your return to the UK though.

Singapore's about the last country you should be quarantined for arriving from. France, the USA, Italy, on the other hand....

But people from all over Asia transit there. The UK should really now be quarantining *everyone* arriving from abroad - one massive advantage of being an island is the ability to control people coming in when there’s a global virus epidemic.

Rumours around this morning that the Australian Grand Prix might be about to be called off. Two teams based in Italy might face travel restrictions to Australia. First race might end up being the fifth scheduled event, in the Netherlands on 3rd May.

alex_

Interesting question about the virus - will the British press rediscover a collective sense of responsibility or will they continue down the “sensationalist” route? Dare I say it we might be thankful for an impartial national broadcaster from where to source our news - let’s hope they at least rise to the occasion.

Dura_Ace

Casino_Royale said:

Not sure where you go to physically buy it though..

Antwerp. No questions asked.

DavidL

Really not at all sure what Harris brings to the ticket. California is not exactly in play, she proved to be a wooden speaker when out of her lawyer cross examining mode and Biden at least seems to have the black vote sewn up.

He would be much better getting someone from a mid western swing state, ideally with some governing experience. I think that Biden would really need a competent VP to act as executive, Cheney style, to remind him which rooms he is in, what day of the week it was, that sort of detail.

ydoethur

Dura_Ace said:

Casino_Royale said:

Not sure where you go to physically buy it though..

Antwerp. No questions asked.

I’m not sure I’d go there. Wouldn’t gold bought from An Twerp be fool’s gold?

DavidL

eadric said:

Second: some glum news: south Korea’s infection tally has accelerated again - tho not massively. And their mortality ratio has edged up. 0.7 now.

https://twitter.com/bnodesk/status/1234648694072496128?s=21

On 1st March there were 586 new cases so that was a fall. There is certainly no exponential growth. Obviously given the number of infected the deaths will increase for a while.

Gardenwalker

China has this under control, Singapore has this under control, now South Korea.

Italy will get there, too.

We can do this.

TGOHF666

Once Corona Virus peters out and we haven’t all died from leaving the EU - I guess the chicken lickeners will pivot back to “Climate Justice”.

Possibly the reason the Uk public aren’t that engaged in Corona virus panic - we have “doooooom” fatigue.

CarlottaVance

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1234735713578516481?s=20

OldKingCole

alex_ said:

Interesting question about the virus - will the British press rediscover a collective sense of responsibility or will they continue down the “sensationalist” route? Dare I say it we might be thankful for an impartial national broadcaster from where to source our news - let’s hope they at least rise to the occasion.

One feature of this Government appears to be a belief that there is a large pool of local labour which is readily available. First of all there was Priti Patel talking about a large number of 'under-employed' people who could take over the work of 'low-wage jobs currently done by immigrants. Now there's an army of volunteers ready to help the NHS.
NHS staff are of course, just as likely to be affected by coronavirus as anyone else.
Naive, irresponsible, or what?

Morris_Dancer

Good morning, everyone.

TGOHF666

alex_ said:

Dare I say it we might be thankful for an impartial national broadcaster from where to source our news .

It would have to be a foreign nation to get impartial news. The BBC is a bust.

IshmaelZ

TGOHF666 said:

Once Corona Virus peters out and we haven’t all died from leaving the EU - I guess the chicken lickeners will pivot back to “Climate Justice”.

Possibly the reason the Uk public aren’t that engaged in Corona virus panic - we have “doooooom” fatigue.

There are fallacies so silly that they have no name because nobody has ever thought that anyone would ever commit them. Your belief that if something has not happened yet, then it will not happen at all, is mistaken.

Casino_Royale

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Casino_Royale said:

Disappointed this thread didn't get more of an airing..

A number of so-called zero-day vulnerabilities for Wordpress plugins have been announced recently so presumably the people advertising Russian medical schools are using one of them. See for instance
https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-are-actively-exploiting-zero-days-in-several-wordpress-plugins/

Hope editors and mods are aware.

Casino_Royale

CarlottaVance said:

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1234735713578516481?s=20

Wouldn’t surprise me if Radio 4 ruined it and went on about 80%+ of the time during the interview about how outrageous it was ministers didn’t appear on their programme.

Foxy

DavidL said:

eadric said:

Second: some glum news: south Korea’s infection tally has accelerated again - tho not massively. And their mortality ratio has edged up. 0.7 now.

https://twitter.com/bnodesk/status/1234648694072496128?s=21

On 1st March there were 586 new cases so that was a fall. There is certainly no exponential growth. Obviously given the number of infected the deaths will increase for a while.

Yes, it seems to be plateauing a bit, due to tight control methods, and that is the pattern to expect in an outbreak. Italy will probably continue rising for a bit longer.

CarlottaVance

Sandpit said:

CarlottaVance said:

Sandpit said:

moonshine said:

Sandpit said:

Happy Super Tuesday PB!

Good news for the Asian markets, they’re heading back up this morning.

I apologise to Alistair and Eadric who I mocked when they raised the alarm early. I suppose I have never wished i had been right about something as much as this and that’s the whole problem.

In a few days I shall be relocating from Singapore back home. Good luck to all and their loved ones.

Singapore have done an excellent job, isolating people and spending time tracing back the routes by which they became infected.
Hope you have a safe trip back, don’t be surprised if you get quarantined on your return to the UK though.

Singapore's about the last country you should be quarantined for arriving from. France, the USA, Italy, on the other hand....

But people from all over Asia transit there. The UK should really now be quarantining *everyone* arriving from abroad - one massive advantage of being an island is the ability to control people coming in when there’s a global virus epidemic.

Not from mainland China. Frankly the ME hubs pose a much greater risk, next to Iran, with flights from DOH, and DXB. I'm going through DOH a fortnight tonight!

Meanwhile Qatar is quarantining arrivals

All passengers (including Qatari nationals and those holding a Qatar Residency Permit) travelling from China, Iran, South Korea and Italy whose final destination is Doha will be asked to stay in a quarantine facility for 14 days as per the World Health Organization’s measures.

All passengers arriving from Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore will be screened and those displaying disease symptoms will be taken for further testing. Passengers returning positive test results will be admitted to treatment centres as per the measures of the Ministry of Public Health.

https://qatarairways.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006229097-COVID-19-Coronavirus-Update

Sandpit

CarlottaVance said:

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1234735713578516481?s=20

So, media people are complaining simultaneously that ministers do and don’t appear on the media.

Yet they still wonder why government doesn’t want to jump to the media’s agenda, rather than their own.

Casino_Royale

Foxy said:

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

It’s so weird. I don’t even though what “mining” is or why it’s necessary.

I do know it’s completely contrived.

Gallowgate

Off topic and lighthearted to ignore the doom momentarily:

Stormzy appears to have written a song about wor @AlastairMeeks the chorus is as so:

Ayy, in my city I'm the top boy
And I didn't even have to be in Top Boy
If you're asking what I done then it's a lot, boy
You rap meeks make me wanna be a pop boy
Ayy, in my city I'm the top boy
Mummy always told me give 'em what you got, boy
On a mission so they wishing that I flop, boy
But I'll never stop popping, I'm the pop boy

Enjoy.

Pulpstar

edmundintokyo said:

Big Biden bump in VA, even before the coveted KLOBUCHAR endorsement

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1234693241292967942?s=19

That's it. That's the poll that sends Bloomberg out the race tonight.

TGOHF666

IshmaelZ said:

TGOHF666 said:

Once Corona Virus peters out and we haven’t all died from leaving the EU - I guess the chicken lickeners will pivot back to “Climate Justice”.

Possibly the reason the Uk public aren’t that engaged in Corona virus panic - we have “doooooom” fatigue.

There are fallacies so silly that they have no name because nobody has ever thought that anyone would ever commit them. Your belief that if something has not happened yet, then it will not happen at all, is mistaken.

True - but the boy that cried wolf parable has resonance down the ages because the danger comes from “project fear “ fatigue.

alex_

Here’s a theoretical question. Under the Presidential rule of succession how many people would the virus have to take out before we could have confidence in the leadership.

Also, don’t the rules of succession change dependent on whether the country is at war? (Something about defence secretary being boosted?).

Dura_Ace

This week's tory defence cuts: E-3D fleet reduced from 6 to 3 and out of service date brought forward from 2035 to 2022. This will leave the UK with a "capability holiday" until E-7 arrives during which period the UK AWACS will be provided by NATO and France.

Morris_Dancer

F1: Vietnam in doubt due to quarantine:
https://twitter.com/robwattsf1/status/1234629521816588288

I'm sure we can all take some comfort, as the number of infected people rises globally, that my disease-based F1 tip on Hamilton getting under 21 points finishes this season is looking promising.

Edited extra bit: the Ladbrokes market now only has an 'over' option, not an 'under' one.

Casino_Royale

Foxy said:

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

It’s so weird. I don’t even know what “mining” is or how it works.

I do know it’s completely contrived by clever code though.

Gallowgate

Casino_Royale said:

Foxy said:

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

It’s so weird. I don’t even know what “mining” is or how it works.

I do know it’s completely contrived by clever code though.

Bitcoin mining is just using computing power to verify transactions right? The reward for doing so, is the occasional bitcoin?

That’s my understanding anyway.

Casino_Royale

Pulpstar said:

edmundintokyo said:

Big Biden bump in VA, even before the coveted KLOBUCHAR endorsement

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1234693241292967942?s=19

That's it. That's the poll that sends Bloomberg out the race tonight.

#fuckoffbloomberg

Sandpit

CarlottaVance said:

Sandpit said:

CarlottaVance said:

Sandpit said:

moonshine said:

Sandpit said:

Happy Super Tuesday PB!

Good news for the Asian markets, they’re heading back up this morning.

I apologise to Alistair and Eadric who I mocked when they raised the alarm early. I suppose I have never wished i had been right about something as much as this and that’s the whole problem.

In a few days I shall be relocating from Singapore back home. Good luck to all and their loved ones.

Singapore have done an excellent job, isolating people and spending time tracing back the routes by which they became infected.
Hope you have a safe trip back, don’t be surprised if you get quarantined on your return to the UK though.

Singapore's about the last country you should be quarantined for arriving from. France, the USA, Italy, on the other hand....

But people from all over Asia transit there. The UK should really now be quarantining *everyone* arriving from abroad - one massive advantage of being an island is the ability to control people coming in when there’s a global virus epidemic.

Not from mainland China. Frankly the ME hubs pose a much greater risk, next to Iran, with flights from DOH, and DXB. I'm going through DOH a fortnight tonight!

Meanwhile Qatar is quarantining arrivals

All passengers (including Qatari nationals and those holding a Qatar Residency Permit) travelling from China, Iran, South Korea and Italy whose final destination is Doha will be asked to stay in a quarantine facility for 14 days as per the World Health Organization’s measures.

All passengers arriving from Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore will be screened and those displaying disease symptoms will be taken for further testing. Passengers returning positive test results will be admitted to treatment centres as per the measures of the Ministry of Public Health.

https://qatarairways.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006229097-COVID-19-Coronavirus-Update

Wow, just seen that. Yes, the Gulf states are seriously panicking about Iran. It’s thought that sick people are travelling abroad from Iran to be treated, as the Iranian heath system is completely broken.

Casino_Royale

Alastair Meeks play of laying both Sanders and Bloomberg last week now looks like a smart one.

I just laid Bloomberg.

logical_song

TGOHF666 said:

Once Corona Virus peters out and we haven’t all died from leaving the EU - I guess the chicken lickeners will pivot back to “Climate Justice”.

Possibly the reason the Uk public aren’t that engaged in Corona virus panic - we have “doooooom” fatigue.

In my view CoronaVirus, Leaving the EU and the Climate Emergency are all to be regretted.

ydoethur

alex_ said:

Here’s a theoretical question. Under the Presidential rule of succession how many people would the virus have to take out before we could have confidence in the leadership.

Also, don’t the rules of succession change dependent on whether the country is at war? (Something about defence secretary being boosted?).

Depends on whether you have confidence in Nancy Pelosi, who is third in line. If you don’t, they’re pretty well all superannuated muppets.

I‘ve never heard of any clause to change the line of succession in time of war.

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

DavidL

Foxy said:

DavidL said:

eadric said:

Second: some glum news: south Korea’s infection tally has accelerated again - tho not massively. And their mortality ratio has edged up. 0.7 now.

https://twitter.com/bnodesk/status/1234648694072496128?s=21

On 1st March there were 586 new cases so that was a fall. There is certainly no exponential growth. Obviously given the number of infected the deaths will increase for a while.

Yes, it seems to be plateauing a bit, due to tight control methods, and that is the pattern to expect in an outbreak. Italy will probably continue rising for a bit longer.

We might see a temporary boost in SK because they have taken on another 600 testers on 1st March to clear the backlog. One of the things I have found interesting about this is the difference between the medical modelling of infection and the results which are distorted in both directions by accelerated or lack of testing. Italy are also playing catch up really intensively now and should plateau shortly. Their figures are already much more in line with expected fatalities etc.

The problems are Iran who are infecting much of the ME and, quite bizarrely, the US who haven't even got to the starting gates yet.

Casino_Royale

Gallowgate said:

Casino_Royale said:

Foxy said:

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

It’s so weird. I don’t even know what “mining” is or how it works.

I do know it’s completely contrived by clever code though.

Bitcoin mining is just using computing power to verify transactions right? The reward for doing so, is the occasional bitcoin?

That’s my understanding anyway.

Maybe I’m dense as hell but I’m not sure I understand it even when it’s explained to me.

I don’t invest in things I don’t understand.

ydoethur

Casino_Royale said:

Alastair Meeks play of laying both Sanders and Bloomberg last week now looks like a smart one.

I just laid Bloomberg.

TMI...

Sandpit

Casino_Royale said:

Foxy said:

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

It’s so weird. I don’t even know what “mining” is or how it works.

I do know it’s completely contrived by clever code though.

Edmund and Robert are the real experts here, but basically mining is using computing power to ‘solve’ ever more difficult maths equations in order to generate one of a finite number of credits. Credits, “bitcoins”, are also given for maintaining a ledger of transactions, known as the blockchain.

For quite a while now, it’s been uneconomical for anyone to mine bitcoin that is paying for their own electricity at standard commercial rates, hence computer virii that run bitcoin miners.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Mining

Jonathan

TGOHF666 said:

Once Corona Virus peters out and we haven’t all died from leaving the EU - I guess the chicken lickeners will pivot back to “Climate Justice”.

Possibly the reason the Uk public aren’t that engaged in Corona virus panic - we have “doooooom” fatigue.

The right wing doomsayers will probably continue to bang on about their usual targets: the EU, foreigners, immigrants, socialists, public service broadcasters, the young, the poor and demand their country back.

Foxy

Casino_Royale said:

Foxy said:

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

It’s so weird. I don’t even know what “mining” is or how it works.

I do know it’s completely contrived by clever code though.

Bitcoin mining uses as much energy as Switzerland, or seven nuclear reactors.

In a world struggling with climate change, this seems stupid.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48853230

TGOHF666

logical_song said:

TGOHF666 said:

Once Corona Virus peters out and we haven’t all died from leaving the EU - I guess the chicken lickeners will pivot back to “Climate Justice”.

Possibly the reason the Uk public aren’t that engaged in Corona virus panic - we have “doooooom” fatigue.

In my view CoronaVirus, Leaving the EU and the Climate Emergency are all to be regretted.

Are they all equally worthy of widespread panic ?

CarlottaVance

Sandpit said:

CarlottaVance said:

Sandpit said:

CarlottaVance said:

Sandpit said:

moonshine said:

Sandpit said:

Happy Super Tuesday PB!

Good news for the Asian markets, they’re heading back up this morning.

I apologise to Alistair and Eadric who I mocked when they raised the alarm early. I suppose I have never wished i had been right about something as much as this and that’s the whole problem.

In a few days I shall be relocating from Singapore back home. Good luck to all and their loved ones.

Singapore have done an excellent job, isolating people and spending time tracing back the routes by which they became infected.
Hope you have a safe trip back, don’t be surprised if you get quarantined on your return to the UK though.

Singapore's about the last country you should be quarantined for arriving from. France, the USA, Italy, on the other hand....

But people from all over Asia transit there. The UK should really now be quarantining *everyone* arriving from abroad - one massive advantage of being an island is the ability to control people coming in when there’s a global virus epidemic.

Not from mainland China. Frankly the ME hubs pose a much greater risk, next to Iran, with flights from DOH, and DXB. I'm going through DOH a fortnight tonight!

Meanwhile Qatar is quarantining arrivals

All passengers (including Qatari nationals and those holding a Qatar Residency Permit) travelling from China, Iran, South Korea and Italy whose final destination is Doha will be asked to stay in a quarantine facility for 14 days as per the World Health Organization’s measures.

All passengers arriving from Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore will be screened and those displaying disease symptoms will be taken for further testing. Passengers returning positive test results will be admitted to treatment centres as per the measures of the Ministry of Public Health.

https://qatarairways.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006229097-COVID-19-Coronavirus-Update

Wow, just seen that. Yes, the Gulf states are seriously panicking about Iran. It’s thought that sick people are travelling abroad from Iran to be treated, as the Iranian heath system is completely broken.

Qatar have suspended all flights to Iran except Tehran - but as Iran is their friend against Saudi bullying they're probably reluctant to cut that.

Meanwhile BA usually run two flights a day to Singapore - a 380 and a 777 (which continues to Sydney). They are dropping the 380 every other day through March. SQ have already cancelled LHR flights.

Casino_Royale

Jonathan said:

TGOHF666 said:

Once Corona Virus peters out and we haven’t all died from leaving the EU - I guess the chicken lickeners will pivot back to “Climate Justice”.

Possibly the reason the Uk public aren’t that engaged in Corona virus panic - we have “doooooom” fatigue.

The right wing doomsayers will probably continue to bang on about their usual targets: the EU, foreigners, immigrants, socialists, public service broadcasters, the young, the poor and demand their country back.

Morning Jonathan.

Foxy

alex_ said:

Here’s a theoretical question. Under the Presidential rule of succession how many people would the virus have to take out before we could have confidence in the leadership.

Also, don’t the rules of succession change dependent on whether the country is at war? (Something about defence secretary being boosted?).

Nancy Pelosi is third in line, though that would require both Trump and Pence to die before a further VP could be appointed.

Philip_Thompson

CarlottaVance said:

https://twitter.com/mikegalsworthy/status/1234478527677898759?s=20

First time for everything, I agree with Galsworthy.

CarlottaVance

That'll help....

https://twitter.com/BBCNormanS/status/1234745119967936518?s=20

Sandpit

Foxy said:

alex_ said:

Here’s a theoretical question. Under the Presidential rule of succession how many people would the virus have to take out before we could have confidence in the leadership.

Also, don’t the rules of succession change dependent on whether the country is at war? (Something about defence secretary being boosted?).

Nancy Pelosi is third in line, though that would require both Trump and Pence to die before a further VP could be appointed.

Which is why Trump and Pence never travel on the same plane or in the same car, and don’t appear together anywhere that isn’t a locked down government building.

Jonathan

Sandpit said:

Foxy said:

alex_ said:

Here’s a theoretical question. Under the Presidential rule of succession how many people would the virus have to take out before we could have confidence in the leadership.

Also, don’t the rules of succession change dependent on whether the country is at war? (Something about defence secretary being boosted?).

Nancy Pelosi is third in line, though that would require both Trump and Pence to die before a further VP could be appointed.

Which is why Trump and Pence never travel on the same plane or in the same car, and don’t appear together anywhere that isn’t a locked down government building.

Pence is cleverer than we think.

Casino_Royale

Sandpit said:

Casino_Royale said:

Foxy said:

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

It’s so weird. I don’t even know what “mining” is or how it works.

I do know it’s completely contrived by clever code though.

Edmund and Robert are the real experts here, but basically mining is using computing power to ‘solve’ ever more difficult maths equations in order to generate one of a finite number of credits. Credits, “bitcoins”, are also given for maintaining a ledger of transactions, known as the blockchain.

For quite a while now, it’s been uneconomical for anyone to mine bitcoin that is paying for their own electricity at standard commercial rates, hence computer virii that run bitcoin miners.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Mining

That’s a good attempt, thank you, but you still kind of lost me after the first sentence.

This is why gold is good. It’s rare, it’s precious, it’s a great conductor, it’s very shiny and pretty and virtually every society in human history has dug it (sorry) so we know it will stand the test of time. It’s malleable and portable too.

Since I have no idea how to go about buying it (although I know my house is roughly worth one gold bullion bar) I may just go down to the high street jewellers and have a look at what they’ve got.

Casino_Royale

Foxy said:

alex_ said:

Here’s a theoretical question. Under the Presidential rule of succession how many people would the virus have to take out before we could have confidence in the leadership.

Also, don’t the rules of succession change dependent on whether the country is at war? (Something about defence secretary being boosted?).

Nancy Pelosi is third in line, though that would require both Trump and Pence to die before a further VP could be appointed.

I did put £2 on Pelosi at 1000/1.

Probably a waste of money, but hey.

CarlottaVance

SQ now cancelling flights to end May and has suspended service to mainland China to end month.

Nigelb

US clusterfcck, contd.

https://twitter.com/MichelleKalehz1/status/1234358947366096897

CarlottaVance

How The CDC Botched Its Initial Coronavirus Response With Faulty Tests

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/03/02/how-the-cdc-botched-its-initial-coronavirus-response-with-faulty-tests/

Philip_Thompson

Sandpit said:

Casino_Royale said:

Foxy said:

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

It’s so weird. I don’t even know what “mining” is or how it works.

I do know it’s completely contrived by clever code though.

Edmund and Robert are the real experts here, but basically mining is using computing power to ‘solve’ ever more difficult maths equations in order to generate one of a finite number of credits. Credits, “bitcoins”, are also given for maintaining a ledger of transactions, known as the blockchain.

For quite a while now, it’s been uneconomical for anyone to mine bitcoin that is paying for their own electricity at standard commercial rates, hence computer virii that run bitcoin miners.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Mining

It's the worlds most elaborate and successful pyramid scheme to date. I wouldn't touch with a barge pole.

Sandpit

CarlottaVance said:

Sandpit said:

CarlottaVance said:

Sandpit said:

CarlottaVance said:

Sandpit said:

moonshine said:

Sandpit said:

Happy Super Tuesday PB!

Good news for the Asian markets, they’re heading back up this morning.

Singapore have done an excellent job, isolating people and spending time tracing back the routes by which they became infected.
Hope you have a safe trip back, don’t be surprised if you get quarantined on your return to the UK though.

Singapore's about the last country you should be quarantined for arriving from. France, the USA, Italy, on the other hand....

But people from all over Asia transit there. The UK should really now be quarantining *everyone* arriving from abroad - one massive advantage of being an island is the ability to control people coming in when there’s a global virus epidemic.

Not from mainland China. Frankly the ME hubs pose a much greater risk, next to Iran, with flights from DOH, and DXB. I'm going through DOH a fortnight tonight!

Meanwhile Qatar is quarantining arrivals

All passengers (including Qatari nationals and those holding a Qatar Residency Permit) travelling from China, Iran, South Korea and Italy whose final destination is Doha will be asked to stay in a quarantine facility for 14 days as per the World Health Organization’s measures.

All passengers arriving from Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore will be screened and those displaying disease symptoms will be taken for further testing. Passengers returning positive test results will be admitted to treatment centres as per the measures of the Ministry of Public Health.

https://qatarairways.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006229097-COVID-19-Coronavirus-Update

Wow, just seen that. Yes, the Gulf states are seriously panicking about Iran. It’s thought that sick people are travelling abroad from Iran to be treated, as the Iranian heath system is completely broken.

Qatar have suspended all flights to Iran except Tehran - but as Iran is their friend against Saudi bullying they're probably reluctant to cut that.

Meanwhile BA usually run two flights a day to Singapore - a 380 and a 777 (which continues to Sydney). They are dropping the 380 every other day through March. SQ have already cancelled LHR flights.

So people from Singapore trying to get to London are going to end up on EK or QR, flying through the Middle East with a bunch of Iranians!

northernpowerhouse2

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

Stock markets are reflecting the psychology of its participants. Normalcy bias, as highlighted by Eadric. Inability to acknowledge truly terrible events. Smart room fallacy (assuming someone somewhere has shit under control).

Not saying I know the answer to these questions but as far as the stock market goes:

So non-normalcy-biased investors would sell their stocks and put the money into what?

https://gfycat.com/weightywelldocumentedfunnelweaverspider

IshmaelZ

Casino_Royale said:

Sandpit said:

Casino_Royale said:

Foxy said:

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

It’s so weird. I don’t even know what “mining” is or how it works.

I do know it’s completely contrived by clever code though.

Edmund and Robert are the real experts here, but basically mining is using computing power to ‘solve’ ever more difficult maths equations in order to generate one of a finite number of credits. Credits, “bitcoins”, are also given for maintaining a ledger of transactions, known as the blockchain.

For quite a while now, it’s been uneconomical for anyone to mine bitcoin that is paying for their own electricity at standard commercial rates, hence computer virii that run bitcoin miners.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Mining

That’s a good attempt, thank you, but you still kind of lost me after the first sentence.

This is why gold is good. It’s rare, it’s precious, it’s a great conductor, it’s very shiny and pretty and virtually every society in human history has dug it (sorry) so we know it will stand the test of time. It’s malleable and portable too.

Since I have no idea how to go about buying it (although I know my house is roughly worth one gold bullion bar) I may just go down to the high street jewellers and have a look at what they’ve got.

I assume you are joking, high street jewellers have the biggest mark up on anything ever. Google bullion and you'll find lots of people wanting to sell it to you. The Royal Mint are probably fairly trustworthy.

edmundintokyo

Casino_Royale said:

It’s so weird. I don’t even though what “mining” is or why it’s necessary.

I do know it’s completely contrived.

So say we want to vote on Poster Of The Year, and we do it by posting comments. Let's also say this is serious enough that it's worth trying to cheat it, for example because Shadsy has offered a large cash prize to the winner.

The problem is that this is the internet and you can sign up for as many accounts as you like. So someone can just make a thousand sock puppets then vote for themselves a thousand times. Then that person will control the result.

So to solve this, we want something that you can't just easily create for free. We know that everybody has a computer, and nobody has 1000 computers. So we say that to vote, you have to solve a computing problem that shows that you had a computer and devoted some of its time to working on the problem. Once you've solved it, you post it to the forum with your vote. It's not completely fair because some people have several computers, and other people have better computers than others, but it avoids one person being able to make huge numbers of votes for free.

The cool thing about this is that once we've chosen a winner, if even if Vanilla disappears with all the comments so we no longer have an official record for - say - 2018 - if even one person kept a record of the solutions to the problem, they'll be able to show you this stack of votes, so everybody will be able to check what the result was for 2018, even if there's no source of information that they trust. If somebody wanted to fake a previous vote, they'd have to buy computers and solve problems equivalent to all the solutions everybody else posted. What's more, when we post the 2019 votes, we include a record of the 2018 result, so as time goes on, it becomes more and more expensive to fake results for previous years.

That's the idea, anyway. In practice it turns out that solving computer problems has huge economies of scale, so the whole thing is dominated by 3 friendly Chinese guys, which largely defeats the object. However by the time this happened a bunch of people were invested in the idea that the system worked, so everybody's pretending it hasn't failed and hoping the price will go up.

IanB2

Casino_Royale said:

FPT - I see we've gone from bed-wetting to pant-shitting.

For Christ's sake: pull yourselves together people.

Sean will look like such a tit when the true path of this virus maps out.

alex_

Sandpit said:

Foxy said:

alex_ said:

Here’s a theoretical question. Under the Presidential rule of succession how many people would the virus have to take out before we could have confidence in the leadership.

Also, don’t the rules of succession change dependent on whether the country is at war? (Something about defence secretary being boosted?).

Nancy Pelosi is third in line, though that would require both Trump and Pence to die before a further VP could be appointed.

Which is why Trump and Pence never travel on the same plane or in the same car, and don’t appear together anywhere that isn’t a locked down government building.

Is Pelosi that scary?

DecrepiterJohnL

IshmaelZ said:

Casino_Royale said:

Sandpit said:

Casino_Royale said:

Foxy said:

edmundintokyo said:

rcs1000 said:

So... Bitcoin it is.

That's even worse. It's a negative sum game where the amount you expect to get out is the amount you put in minus the amount spent on mining, which is currently like 25 million dollars per day or something. And it's all based on the assumption that if you buy it now, some generous person will want to hold your bag in the future. But if everything's going to hell, who's the rich chump who's going to volunteer to take over your Dunning-Krugerrands off your hands when you want to trade them in for beans?

Isn't the amount of energy spent mining Bitcoin absurdly high and therefore very un-green?

I don't see this as a crisis longer than this year. It is the nature of pandemics to burn themselves out over that timescale.

Certainly it will get worse before it gets better in the UK and US, and a number of businesses are going to go under this year as a result, but stocks will be on their way to recovery in 12 months.

It’s so weird. I don’t even know what “mining” is or how it works.

I do know it’s completely contrived by clever code though.

Edmund and Robert are the real experts here, but basically mining is using computing power to ‘solve’ ever more difficult maths equations in order to generate one of a finite number of credits. Credits, “bitcoins”, are also given for maintaining a ledger of transactions, known as the blockchain.

For quite a while now, it’s been uneconomical for anyone to mine bitcoin that is paying for their own electricity at standard commercial rates, hence computer virii that run bitcoin miners.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Mining

That’s a good attempt, thank you, but you still kind of lost me after the first sentence.

This is why gold is good. It’s rare, it’s precious, it’s a great conductor, it’s very shiny and pretty and virtually every society in human history has dug it (sorry) so we know it will stand the test of time. It’s malleable and portable too.

Since I have no idea how to go about buying it (although I know my house is roughly worth one gold bullion bar) I may just go down to the high street jewellers and have a look at what they’ve got.

I assume you are joking, high street jewellers have the biggest mark up on anything ever. Google bullion and you'll find lots of people wanting to sell it to you. The Royal Mint are probably fairly trustworthy.

Isn't the Royal Mint famed for its markups? Bullion = £x. Sticking a picture of Boris on a coin and calling it "collectable" = £xxx.

alex_

Downside of CV-19 for people going to work. It appears anecdotally that people are deserting public transport for... their cars.

Sandpit

Jonathan said:

Sandpit said:

Foxy said:

alex_ said:

Here’s a theoretical question. Under the Presidential rule of succession how many people would the virus have to take out before we could have confidence in the leadership.

Also, don’t the rules of succession change dependent on whether the country is at war? (Something about defence secretary being boosted?).

Nancy Pelosi is third in line, though that would require both Trump and Pence to die before a further VP could be appointed.

Which is why Trump and Pence never travel on the same plane or in the same car, and don’t appear together anywhere that isn’t a locked down government building.

Pence is cleverer than we think.

I think you give Pence too much credit. It’s been Secret Service SOP since at least 1963!

There’s an insane amount of planning that goes into the schedules and movements of both men, I’m pretty sure they’ve only ever met in the White House or Congress since 20th Jan 2017.

northernpowerhouse2

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

FPT - I see we've gone from bed-wetting to pant-shitting.

For Christ's sake: pull yourselves together people.

Sean will look like such a tit when the true path of this virus maps out.

Hasn’t it already outpaced his initial fears?

brokenwheel

We're at the "endorse Biden so that people remember you exist" stage.

https://www.twitter.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1234639585734467585

Morris_Dancer

On gold (and silver), I heard recently that preppers quite liked pre-1964 (think I got the year right) dimes or nickels because they had a 90% silver content. That's classed as so-called junk silver, but small quantities mean it's more useful than a block of gold for buying ordinary items in a post-collapse society.

I'm not expecting that, of course, I just thought it quite interesting.

DecrepiterJohnL

Jonathan said:

Sandpit said:

Foxy said:

alex_ said:

Here’s a theoretical question. Under the Presidential rule of succession how many people would the virus have to take out before we could have confidence in the leadership.

Also, don’t the rules of succession change dependent on whether the country is at war? (Something about defence secretary being boosted?).

Nancy Pelosi is third in line, though that would require both Trump and Pence to die before a further VP could be appointed.

Which is why Trump and Pence never travel on the same plane or in the same car, and don’t appear together anywhere that isn’t a locked down government building.

Pence is cleverer than we think.

That is a very low bar.