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[Overdriven]

Balls deep in 12 hour days, project managing a new CRM system with a boss that I have spoken to properly twice since Xmas, because he is a melt and his 97-year-old mum died in November, and now he doesn't feel like working.

Salesforce, Dynamics 365, or something else?

If D365 I'll charge you £650 P/D (FH rates, normally £800 P/D for fixing broken shitty implementations)

 

[Raven]

Salesforce, Dynamics 365, or something else?

If D365 I'll charge you £650 P/D (FH rates, normally £800 P/D for fixing broken shitty implementations)

Nah, it's as bespoke system, moving from AX2009 (!) Going live on 1st July, mental atm.

 

[Embattle]

Car Porn:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfufcIYYiw

 

[DaGaffer]

Refugees seriously injured on razor-wire fence UK helped build to keep asylum seekers out of EU

Government accused of backing ‘inhumane’ policies as 16 people are badly hurt by barrier blocking entry via Poland from Belarus

www.theguardian.com

Oh noes, they've built a border too well! Oh the humanity! I can't believe that even a Guardian journo could write this with a straight face.

 

[Scouse]

Refugees seriously injured on razor-wire fence UK helped build to keep asylum seekers out of EU

Government accused of backing ‘inhumane’ policies as 16 people are badly hurt by barrier blocking entry via Poland from Belarus

www.theguardian.com

Oh noes, they've built a border too well! Oh the humanity! I can't believe that even a Guardian journo could write this with a straight face.

Makes the narrative around Trump's "build a wall" stuff a little less clear cut doesn't it.

 

[Scouse]

@Tom - you got any recommendations for folding bikes that aren't Bromptons, or are they the only way to go?

For a mate's commute. Cost over quality I guess is the priority, but options would be nice.

 

[Tom]

Decathlon do some great bikes, their folding ones get good reviews.

B’Twin Tilt 900 folding bike

Very competent and comfortable folding bike that won't leave riders disappointed, especially at this price

road.cc

Bear in mind that £500 isn't a lot to spend on a bicycle. In fact I'd say it's about the least you should spend. If they're commuting then I would strongly recommend a pannier rack and bags.

Also, Bromptons are desirable. So if your mate gets one, don't lock it to a rack. Keep it with them.

 

[Scouse]

Merci @Tom

Aand now:

Covid: Top Chinese scientist says don’t rule out lab leak

The man who led China's pandemic response says inquiries into its origins should consider everything.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Zarjazz]

Aand now:

Covid: Top Chinese scientist says don’t rule out lab leak

The man who led China's pandemic response says inquiries into its origins should consider everything.

www.bbc.co.uk

And what? Reads like a complete none story to me: "scientist does his job and will consider all possibilities". But hey, it makes for a great click-bait headline.

 

[Scouse]

And what? Reads like a complete none story to me: "scientist does his job and will consider all possibilities". But hey, it makes for a great click-bait headline.

It's always been a totally plausible explanation but played down. I don't particularly care if it was, or it wasn't - but biosecurity is a risk at *all* our centres that do this sort of work and scientists have been shouting about that for quite some time.

If Covid was the result of a lab leak, that should really put biosecurity right up the list of global risks as it's an issue, not just a risk. (Apparently it's been an issue for ages - there's a number of low-impacting leaks from facilities across the globe that didn't hurt us only because the fact that the shit that we lost control of wasn't a massive killer.

However, if people, even scientists, start talking about lab biosecurity being a very serious risk to mankind, they're jumped on as if they're conspiracy theorists.

What we should be doing is taking this risk very seriously. And asking "should we be doing this sort of research if we cannot guarantee our safety".

 

[Wij]

It's always been a totally plausible explanation but played down. I don't particularly care if it was, or it wasn't - but biosecurity is a risk at *all* our centres that do this sort of work and scientists have been shouting about that for quite some time.

If Covid was the result of a lab leak, that should really put biosecurity right up the list of global risks as it's an issue, not just a risk. (Apparently it's been an issue for ages - there's a number of low-impacting leaks from facilities across the globe that didn't hurt us only because the fact that the shit that we lost control of wasn't a massive killer.

However, if people, even scientists, start talking about lab biosecurity being a very serious risk to mankind, they're jumped on as if they're conspiracy theorists.

What we should be doing is taking this risk very seriously. And asking "should we be doing this sort of research if we cannot guarantee our safety".

Lab-leak covers an awful lot of possibilities, from the mundane to the fanciful:

• It was already in the wild, found and brought to a lab, leaked and spread from there. But it could have spread from the wild anyway.
• It was totally engineered by Ukrainian-CIA in Chinese labs to make people stay in their houses and get Bill Gates chips to bring in the new world order.

People tend to take innocent-ish 'it could have been a lab-leak I suppose, can't totally rule it out' headlines and quickly escalate what it means to their conspiracy theory of choice.

 

[Scouse]

• It was already in the wild, found and brought to a lab, leaked and spread from there. But it could have spread from the wild anyway.
• It was totally engineered by Ukrainian-CIA in Chinese labs to make people stay in their houses and get Bill Gates chips to bring in the new world order.

How about the utterly mundane:

• It was engineered in the lab, leaked by accident, unfortunately took out a fuckload of people

?

This is an entirely plausible non-conspiracy situation and many leaks that fit this have happened before, albeit with lower human consequence to covid - but clearly not consequence-free.

We don't do biosecurity very well, even at our highest level of biosecurity measures. We should be having a conversation about a moratorium on certain kinds of virus research globally until we're 100% confident that we can do such research with zero leaks.


I'm not even slightly talking about conspiracy theories here @Wij. Don't care for them one bit. I'm interested in the cold hard fact that we don't do biosecurity well.


Edit: Even if it was your first one, it would still involve a leak from a lab. Which shouldn't happen.

 

[Bodhi]

How about the utterly mundane:

• It was engineered in the lab, leaked by accident, unfortunately took out a fuckload of people

?

This is an entirely plausible non-conspiracy situation and many leaks that fit this have happened before, albeit with lower human consequence to covid - but clearly not consequence-free.

We don't do biosecurity very well, even at our highest level of biosecurity measures. We should be having a conversation about a moratorium on certain kinds of virus research globally until we're 100% confident that we can do such research with zero leaks.


I'm not even slightly talking about conspiracy theories here @Wij. Don't care for them one bit. I'm interested in the cold hard fact that we don't do biosecurity well.


Edit: Even if it was your first one, it would still involve a leak from a lab. Which shouldn't happen.

I still reckon that's the most likely story for how it all started tbh, they were researching a coronavirus found in bats - possibly doing some slightly dodgy Gain of Function stuff Fauci has been interested in before - and they had an "oh cock" moment and it got out. No conspiracy, just good old incompetence.

It did always make me laugh that people dismissed the lab leak theory as "racist" - and suggesting the Chinese spread it through eating pangolin soup wasn't?

In other news, just back from two weeks in Vietnam and I have to say - what a bloody lovely country with lovely people. It was like Thailand but cheaper and less scammy taxi drivers.

Shame it's such a PITA to get to (we had to transfer through Singapore which is fucking miles in the wrong direction).

 

[Wij]

How about the utterly mundane:

• It was engineered in the lab, leaked by accident, unfortunately took out a fuckload of people

It's not mundane if it was engineered in a lab. The DNA sequencing showed that's unlikely and we just don't have the ability to do it.

 

[Scouse]

"unlikely"

The history of lab leaks suggests it's a possibility, but frankly, I don't give a shit about coronavirus or how it happened really.

The topic I'm interested in is the porosity of our labs. I don't say it's incompetence either - I think biosecurity is an intrinsically difficult thing to do and we should be pulling the plug on this sort of research until we know how to make it secure.

The risk is clear and easy to state - if there's even a 1% chance that this was lab work that got out, then that's clearly too big of a problem to hush under the carpet. But it's not about rona, it's about everything we do in supposedly biosecure labs.

 

[Scouse]

In other news, just back from two weeks in Vietnam and I have to say - what a bloody lovely country with lovely people.

Yep. Loved Vietnam. Wish I had longer there.

 

[Wij]

The history of lab leaks suggests it's a possibility, but frankly, I don't give a shit about coronavirus or how it happened really.

The topic I'm interested in is the porosity of our labs. I don't say it's incompetence either - I think biosecurity is an intrinsically difficult thing to do and we should be pulling the plug on this sort of research until we know how to make it secure.

The risk is clear and easy to state - if there's even a 1% chance that this was lab work that got out, then that's clearly too big of a problem to hush under the carpet. But it's not about rona, it's about everything we do in supposedly biosecure labs.

Which one of those viruses / bacteria in your list was actually engineered? A quick glance shows that they were working with existing infections and then leaked them. Bad obviously, but a world away from an engineered virus.

 

[Scouse]

Which one of those viruses / bacteria in your list was actually engineered? A quick glance shows that they were working with existing infections and then leaked them. Bad obviously, but a world away from an engineered virus.

Which scientist can you point out that says "discount this"?

We work on virii all the time. Biological weapons research? You do know that's a thing don't you?

And regardless - who cares if it was engineered - it's the possibility that we've got fucking leaky labs that's the big deal here.

How can you look through that list and go "mmkay, we're not engineering any of these" rather than "fucking hell, there's shitloads of leaks from labs, and that's happening more and more often - maybe we should fucking do something about that?"

 

[Zarjazz]

Lab-leak covers an awful lot of possibilities, from the mundane to the fanciful:

• It was already in the wild, found and brought to a lab, leaked and spread from there. But it could have spread from the wild anyway.
• It was totally engineered by Ukrainian-CIA in Chinese labs to make people stay in their houses and get Bill Gates chips to bring in the new world order.

People tend to take innocent-ish 'it could have been a lab-leak I suppose, can't totally rule it out' headlines and quickly escalate what it means to their conspiracy theory of choice.

The virus being man-made has been pretty much debunked by everyone credible. But yeah, the lab leak theory *could* be a scenario, hence this guy considering it, but there is a reason that lab is in that location of the world. It's one of the two biggest hotspots for new viruses globally.

 

[Bodhi]

Depends what you mean by engineered imo. Made from scratch then that's highly unlikely. Existing viruses made more potent, well there's plenty of smoke around Fauci and EcoHealth Alliance around that - it doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility in the slightest that they were tinkering with stuff they probably shouldn't have been given the issues with lab security.

There's certainly more evidence in that direction than there is of any "intermediate host".....

 

[Zarjazz]

Depends what you mean by engineered imo. Made from scratch then that's highly unlikely. Existing viruses made more potent, well there's plenty of smoke around Fauci and EcoHealth Alliance around that - it doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility in the slightest that they were tinkering with stuff they probably shouldn't have been given the issues with lab security.

There's certainly more evidence in that direction than there is of any "intermediate host".....

This is a fairly good summation of all the reasons why that is extremely unlikely:
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did_not_come_from_the_wuhan_institute_of/

 

[Bodhi]

This is a fairly good summation of all the reasons why that is extremely unlikely:
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did_not_come_from_the_wuhan_institute_of/

I'll believe the NIH over a random post on Reddit ta.

In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan

A spokesman for Dr. Fauci says he has been “entirely truthful,” but a new letter belatedly acknowledging the National Institutes of Health’s support for virus-enhancing research adds more heat to the ongoing debate over whether a lab leak could have sparked the pandemic.

www.vanityfair.com

 

[Wij]

I'll believe the NIH over a random post on Reddit ta.

In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan

A spokesman for Dr. Fauci says he has been “entirely truthful,” but a new letter belatedly acknowledging the National Institutes of Health’s support for virus-enhancing research adds more heat to the ongoing debate over whether a lab leak could have sparked the pandemic.

www.vanityfair.com

It doesn’t go anywhere to proving Covid 19 was engineered in a lab though. Some research was funded on a different coronavirus. The post above still shows quite clearly that Covid 19 shows none of the signs it would have if we had fucked with it in a lab.

 

[Lamp]

Nice to see FH back on line. Thought it was gone for good.

 

[Scouse]

It doesn’t go anywhere to proving Covid 19 was engineered in a lab though. Some research was funded on a different coronavirus. The post above still shows quite clearly that Covid 19 shows none of the signs it would have if we had fucked with it in a lab.

And frankly, all this shit is a distraction from the actual problem: that we cannot keep our labs biosecure.

If, as America has admitted, we're doing research into "virus-enhancing research" then there's huge potential for whatever enhanced virus there is to leak, through our porous biosecurity, and kill millions.

That's the conversation we should be having, but aren't.

 

[Scouse]

Nice to see FH back on line. Thought it was gone for good.

Yay @Lamp!

How you doing m8. What you been up to?

 

[Wij]

And frankly, all this shit is a distraction from the actual problem: that we cannot keep our labs biosecure.

If, as America has admitted, we're doing research into "virus-enhancing research" then there's huge potential for whatever enhanced virus there is to leak, through our porous biosecurity, and kill millions.

That's the conversation we should be having, but aren't.

It hasn’t been much of a problem though has it. Confirmed death from lab leaks vs lives saved from virus research leading to treatment and vaccines is what now?

Yes, things can be done better but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[Lamp]

Yay @Lamp!

How you doing m8. What you been up to?

Sorting out Dad's estate, working, watching too much Family Guy, and eating like a pig

"Need" a new phone. Trying to decide what to get. May wait a while. Most of the phones coming out have Gorilla Victus glass, which is fairly robust but picks up scratches and micro-abrasions just looking at it. Never had a screen protector. Not gonna start getting one. Don't like them.

All good with you and yours ?

 

[Jupitus]

Sorting out Dad's estate, working, watching too much Family Guy, and eating like a pig

"Need" a new phone. Trying to decide what to get. May wait a while. Most of the phones coming out have Gorilla Victus glass, which is fairly robust but picks up scratches and micro-abrasions just looking at it. Never had a screen protector. Not gonna start getting one. Don't like them.

All good with you and yours ?

About time for that beer, AmIRight?

 

[Scouse]

All good with you and yours ?

Yeah. Work getting in the way of life, but all good.

Went rapidly from 5 to 14 geese in the last few weeks, which is an accomodation challenge but a nice one to have. All I need now is farmers and builders to start responding and in a couple of months I'll be able to arrange the correct amount of freezer space