Thought I would just share this, me and the missus have just watched Nightwish live gig...online. It’s very unusual, nightwish were in a virtual world streamed live online (tickets are still up for tomorrow!), and I watched it at home and the missus on face time (she had a ticket also but the system locked out for her before anyone asks! and yes she is stuck abroad due to work for 1yr now!). Is this the way things are going to be from now on do you think. Nightwish were good as you would expect, but it didn’t feel like a gig, there is something to be said for the stale smell of sweat, the stream of cheap beer (at extortionate prices).
I know, BoJo likes to bandy vaccines as the way out, but is still locking down cities, other nations quarantining visitors etc. Let’s face it measles, rabies, malaria etc. have been with us for hundreds of years, will we still be quarantining, testing, banning travel (unless someone is making some money) into 2121?

Anyways, it was a nice break from the day to day grind to see something live.

For me, "live" means: I'm there, in person.
A live streaming event looks the same to me as any other recorded concert (Youtube, Live DVD, etc.)
Also, there's a DRM smell to it.

If I can't go to real-life concerts anymore - I'll just play the albums (or recordings). I don't think so - many performing artist like the presence of a "physical audience". Maybe 'playbacking' dance DJs that just do a lot of hand-waving?

It's good you got to enjoy something, although in a different manner than usual. I haven't listened to Nightwish in a while, I used to love Tarja Turunen's voice.
Eh, difficult times we live in, but it definitely could be worse than this. Elsewhere in the world folk had to leave their homes due to a volcanic eruption, children got separated from their families and so on.
Wish this whole covid madness would just stop, but I'm skeptical.

Tarja has a solo career now. Obviously Nightwish have not been the same since, the new singer is pretty good though.

I giant straw man, I mean meteor could hit the earth, launching us into a new ice age. Aren't we glad that there's just COVID?

We are quite capable of bricking earth right quick ourselves, thank you.

My bet is on nuclear weapons. Oldie but goodie.

Indeed. You are from Belgium, ever been to the biebop?
https://www.biebob.be/
Saw haggard there some years back, great band. And a few others. I prefer the, humans will continue overpopulating until they are neck deep in their own sht.

Did you think that my lack of listing other global disasters was a case of writer's block? ;-)

Or a great garbage ball. I mean...

I've been there (I don't remember what for)...
Metal's not really my thing. Although I'd love to time travel to see e.g. Black Sabbath or Alice Cooper in the 60s/70s. Actually, I saw Alice Cooper live 12 years ago, and he was still kicking ass. ;-)

tbh my life wouldn't be all that different even without the pandemic.
I know it's mean, but sometimes I even feel a bit of schadenfreude about all the normies who have been prevented from socializing and dating by the lockdowns :-)
Sucks though that restaurants are all closed down, I kind of miss that, and it's of course disastrous for their owners, must cause many bankruptcies.

Yeah, they probably are :-)

Things will be getting back to normal, but if humanity wants to mitigate these pandemic frequencies, we should be discussing how to deal with the root causes of these diseases.

Outbreaks will occur more frequently because of increased intensive animal agriculture to feed the growing global middle class. This article does a decent job listing all the major zoonotic diseases as a result from the past century, though there are more to add to the list involving the hunting and preparation of bushmeat and/or intermediate animal species hosting bushmeat-originated viruses.

Banning animal consumption is pretty much impossible for humans, so I'm very excited about lab-grown meat's potential to replace meat demand as production costs decrease and become more accessible for everyone.

Or we could just have less people?