Karen Stollznow and Matt Baxter are two excellent skeptics, doing a great job of informing the public about subjects related to skepticism. Unfortunately they have fallen on hard times, and could use some support so if you have any money to spare, please consider helping them out.
Marcus Ranum is offline due to a health issue – he has written about it on his blog. I wish him a speedy recovery.
Even though the hospital visit seems to have futile, I am glad that Marcus Ranum didn’t ignore the symptoms, but instead got medical attention.
This hits rather close to home, as one of my close friends is currently in hospital due to a blood clot in his brain. He fortunately recognized the symptoms, and called an ambulance, which took him to the hospital straight away. Now, he is recovering, but he will have to relearn some motor skills. If he hadn’t recognized the symptoms and called the ambulance, the outcome would have been completely different.
I have gotten my first jab of the Pfizer vaccine this morning, and while I don’t really feel any side effects, I am a bit exhausted, which might as well be due to a busy schedule than anything else. Anyway, I am working on some posts about Danish politics, but until I get around to finishing them, I thought I’d do a quick link round-up.
I case you are curious about the kind of work I do on a daily basis, you can get a glimpse into it, through an article I have written on being a Product Owner in a DevOps environment for Scrum Alliance.
I might have recommended this before, but I highly recommend the “Woking up” series of episodes of Elynah’s Polite Conversations podcast, where she discusses Sam Harris and why she left his fandom. The podcast can be found on all places where you can get podcasts. Otherwise, the first full episode can be found on Soundcloud here. Be aware that Elynah first releases a shorter preview episode. Currently there are six full episodes out.
A new fascinating, if somewhat frustrating podcast is The Turning: The Sisters Who Left, about women who joined the Missionaries of Charity under Mother Theresa, and since left the order. It is fascinating, as it shows how cult-like the order was. It is frustrating, because it still buys too much into the myths around Mother Theresa . Though there is an episode entirely dedicated to the criticism from Hitchens etc., it is clear that the former sisters are still somewhat reverent of Mother Theresa, and while they occasionally talk about the problems with the order (e.g. how proper medicine isn’t used), they don’t seem to blame her for it.
Like everywhere there has been some bumps during the upstart, but the vaccinations has started in Denmark, and there is now a plan for how the vaccine roll-out is going to happen.
The plan is obviously in Danish, but it runs through June, and most people will probably be in group 12 (over 16 or 18 years). The name of the category shows that it hasn’t been decided the age cut-off for vaccination is 16 or 18 years. I am guessing that it is likely that children will get vaccinated after all the adults are (high-risk children are already vaccinated in this plan).
Currently just over 100,000 people have received their first dose, which is approximately 1.75% of the population. This number includes everyone living in nursing homes.
I will almost certainly be in the general group of vaccinations, so it might take up to half a year before I get my vaccine. I obviously hope to be get it already in April, but fully understand why those of us not at risk, have to wait until it is our turn.
The plan is going to be updated regularly so it reflects the actual progress and the delivery rate of vaccinations, but even if it subject to change, the mere fact that there is a plan that one can look at/follow along, is somewhat of a relief.
I am sorry that I have been quiet, but I have somewhat overburdened with work. Denmark has gone into lock-down again, which means that there are a lot of companies that are entitled to compensation, as soon as the politicians hammer out the details (often while going through an approval process in the EU, ensuring that no countries sneak in illegal subsidies disguised as Corona relief. The involvement of politicians and the EU makes developing and supporting the compensation systems a bit of a moving target.
But enough about my work.
Or rather, instead of talking about my work, let me make clear how privileged I have been, having had work through both the lock-down starting in March, and now this current lock-down. What’s more, due to the extreme time pressure and ever-changing nature of the demands, I have had to go to work every day, meeting up with a core group of people, working on clearing the path for the developers of the systems (most of developers work from home).
This is probably what has kept me stable.
I am an extrovert, probably even an extreme extrovert. Social contact means a lot to me. If I hadn’t had regular contact with other people, I would almost certainly have sunk into something akin to depression, or at least have gotten stressed.
Going to work, instead of working from home, means that I have to be more careful about social contact outside work, than I would have been if I worked from home. Now, I am not only risking my health, but also the health of everyone working together with me.
As not only an extrovert, but quite a social person, it obviously pains me to not be able to see my friends. This is however a price I have to pay, and one that I think everyone in a position similar to mine (working with other people, living with at-risk people etc) should be willing to pay. The stop of the spread of Corona starts “at home”, and we all have to do our part.
This also means getting tested if we have been at risk at being exposed. In Denmark there is a track-and-trace app based on Bluetooth, which tells you if you have been close to someone who afterwards reported that they had gotten infected. This app is quite sensitive, and since Bluetooth can’t control for all the other factors for whether you have been at risk for exposure. Nevertheless, I have taken any warning I have gotten from it quite seriously, and Friday I went and had my 9th COVID-19 test, after having been told by the app that I had been exposed to a risk of infection. I am still waiting for the results, but given that I have no symptoms and I haven’t heard that anyone, that I have actually spent time, is infected, I am expecting the test to be negative as were all the tests before it.
In usual times, I spend a fairly large part of my spare time socializing and traveling, both things which I can’t really do at the moment. I have been to short trips to Vienna, Austria and Rome, Italy this year, but this is nothing like what I had planned, or what I normally travel in a year.
The lack of socializing and traveling makes me restless, and makes me miss the social aspects of the internet 20 years ago, where I used to hang out on chat boards, discussion forums, and blog comment sections. These communities don’t seem to exist the same ways as they used to. Now, there are Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Discord, and while there is nothing inherently wrong with these things, I am not part of any communities there, like I used to be in e.g, the Mercedes Lackey Mailing List, Salon’s Table Talk, The Doonesbury Town Halls, Readerville, the comments at the blogs over at ScienceBlogs etc. Even places I used for social purposes a decade ago, e.g. Twitter, has become much less so now, as the medium has grown, and becomes such a hose of information.
I know this sounds like an old man complaining about change, but I quite understand that a lot of things are pretty similar to back then, I am just the one who hasn’t followed along. Until earlier this year, I hadn’t even looked at Discord, even though it is a major networking/community tool for a lot of people. I just miss the comfort of the past, obviously ignoring all the bad parts from back then.
Even after apparently becoming a bit of a Luddite on the internet, I have still managed to keep some contact with friends and family around the world, even making some new friends along the way.
This is part of what makes it possible to keep my restlessness in bay. Knowing that it is still possible to socialize and make friends around the world. It also gives me something to look forward to: being able to meet my friends (new and old) when we can travel again.
Because we will be able to traveling again. And socialize.
We just have to be patient for a little longer – the vaccines are here, but they need to be produced and distributed in large enough numbers. As someone said, it is not the vaccines that stop the pandemic, but the vaccinations. And that’s the stage where we are now. Vaccinations have begun, with the most vulnerable and exposed people getting them first, as is entirely proper.
Later the rest of us will get the chance. When enough have, we can normalize things. Things will probably not go entirely back to normal – I can easily see a situation where proof of vaccination/negative test is required for traveling and for participating in sporting events, festivals and other places where a lot of people are gathered.
When it is possible to socialize again, I will be throwing a party, inviting all my friends, and then start planning my travels.
Until this happens, I will stay restless, getting tested occasionally, and spending all too much time on work.