Been sick with the flu for a few days (4-5). No, not the Coronavirus. But damn, that man-flu is hard to get rid of again. For women it may take a day or two but for me as a man that shit can last a week or more. Not fair I say.

I'm even too tired to play games.

Fuck!

Buy Corona beer, just so that you can say that you're sick with Corona. Don't miss this golden opportunity.

The pathetic panic buying in Australia by people that think the end of the World is here and the scabs that have joined them so that they can sell it online at massive profits. I hope everyone of them get their just rewards.

New Coronavirus cases popping up in Germany every day, and the government seems to be incompetent as usual. One reads stories that are just grotesque, about Coronavirus tests taking 3-4 days, of hospitals refusing to do tests (on people who have just returned from northern Italy!), of there not being enough face masks and other protective gear for doctors and hospital staff...imo this will turn out to be disastrous. Creepy thought, but imo it might well be that at the end of this China's authoritarian system with its draconian measures will come out looking best.

I hear tell one EU country is letting whole PLANES fly in and no one is screened from them(they are are just let in with no checks whatsoever)....."yay" for "tolerance" and globalism, I guess. :\

Yeah, Germany is doing that, they're handing out questionnaires to passengers with questions like "Did you have contact with an infected person?"...lol. But doesn't probably matter at this stage anymore anyway, the virus is already here. But there doesn't seem to be any plan for dealing proactively with this issue. A leading virologist suggested in a talkshow that there should be a sort of general vacation for two weeks (basically shutting down the country as much as possible for two weeks) to break infection chains, but not going to happen I suppose...the intention seems to be just to let the epidemic run its course.

Really?

Even with mortality rates as low as 3-4% that is going to end up killing a good number of people...but I guess lives don't matter vs. money. :|

Also this just in: Yup, they didn't break it for an important reason....just to enjoy some entertainment.....I hope if they get better the law throws the book at them for this crap.

I find it kind of ironic that the state motto of New Hampshire is "live free or die".

The economic chaos that could follow a complete shutdown nationally or globally might as well claim lives. I'm more concerned about the potentially devastating economical effects of covid-19 than the illness itself.

3-4% isn't really low, if I understand correctly it's actually higher than the Spanish flu in 1918 (though that also killed lots of young people as well).
But yes, it's stunningly irresponsible. Germany has been getting increasingly dysfunctional imo for the last few years, this is a new low.
Some economic impact is inevitable, but imo it will be much worse, if you just let it run wild and don't do anything to contain it, because it will overburden the health care system (one has to remember: there is no vaccine against it to protect health care personnel, so there's a significant risk of hospital staff getting sick as well). This will also mean lots of people will die of other diseases or at least not get proper treatment due to lack of resources, and it will also mean many people will miss work to keep themselves safe and not risk being dependent on a health care system that isn't working anymore.
This thing isn't the plague, but it's still extremely serious, unless one takes a proactive approach.

Eh, I worry about that somewhat...though I worry a bit more about how many will be around afterwards to have to deal with said financial impacts.
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By low I meant lower than supposed rates(of around 15% or so) that some had touted online.

Of course, it DOES affect that many if one takes into account all those who get seriously ill/need hospital stays due to getting it(the worst cases that don't die but need intensive care/etc).

If that ultra PC crap kills off a bunch of people I hope the ones who pushed it(who are in positions of power to do so/in how they handled corona screening/prevention) all get canned/fired/etc.

Agreed....they need to be proactive and make some major efforts to contain this, and not just let it run rampant/not give a damn.
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My own addition to the thread: This bit bothered me especially:

"As things stand, Deere has the technical ability to remotely shut down a farmer’s machine anytime—if, say, the farmer missed a lease payment or tuned a tractor’s software to goose its horsepower, a common hack widely available through gray-market providers. A Deere spokesman says many manufacturers can remotely control vehicles they sell, but Deere has never activated this capability, except in construction equipment in China, where financing terms require it to."

So they can shut your stuff down if you miss a payment(making it harder to make said payments) and even remote start/run your equipment(though they claim they'd "never do such a thing")......very unsettling. :\

This is an example of why DRM is unethical. It's also an example of why not everything needs an internet connection.

Agreed on both points.

I would argue that it's kind of ethical with DRM since the customer can take his or her business elsewhere. Can something between two (or more) consenting adults really be unethical? I do believe that DRM is a flaming pile of shit if I'm going to put it delicately, but if I purchase such products I agree to shady shit by free will.

Unethical would be to change the terms after the deal is done, DRM in itself is just shit people put up with for some reason.

Also somewhat agreed......but with some media(game/tv/movie series one likes) one often cannot "take their business elsewhere" if someone wants to legally obtain a particular piece of media & the dev/publisher in question doesn't sell DRM free at another site/in another format.

Steam does that(change terms) all the time....so do a bunch of sites like YT/facebook/etc.

And people put up with it for their favorite games/movies/tv shows/etc, as I said.....although the more "morally flexible" among us often have "ways" to make such legal purchases more their own property if need be. ;|

This kinda stuff makes me laugh and facepalm over some subreddits: