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Journal by mcgrew
The other day I was at a friend's bar, whose clientele had dwindled greatly, and asked where everybody was lately? He said that a lot of them had died, which was certainly true. Most were elderly. I saw one guy about my age there a few months ago who hadn't left his house for over a year, because he was a chimera. Delta probably has him locked up at home again.
Then today I log on to S/N and there aren't many comments in any story. I feel like Dr. Crusher in that Star Trek episode.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
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The person who marries for money usually earns every penny of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @02:13PM (3 children)
I remember the episode, and I remember you.
don't die yet, I'm yet to write the follow up to my book.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday September 17 2021, @04:25PM (2 children)
I'm not dying any time soon, unless I get hit by a bus. I'm far younger than my years.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @08:13PM
Maybe. But just like your mother told you when you were a youngster... wear a mask whenever you go out in public.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20 2021, @05:11PM
And now he's moved on to the next forum, to drum up some sales. Riding the circuit, he'll be back here in a couple of months.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 16 2021, @03:36PM (33 children)
That was a favorite episode.
The world has gone crazy. So have the AC's.
Everywhere is like a ghost town. Businesses closed that had been open for a long time and are fondly remembered. 1 in 500 Americans dead and rising. We can't fix the pandemic because people value freedom over their own life and the lives of those around them.
Mod bombing gone crazy.
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @04:42PM (3 children)
I've been going to hospitals and rehabs for the last couple of months... it's like a morgue around there, too. You'd think they would have virus patients stacked like an old George C. Scott / Diana Rigg movie, but one rehab I know is having trouble filling beds (of course their staff is terrible, but that never stopped them before).
Most people are, by actual count, angry, and tired of being lied to. Withdrawal... sorry, don't want to play, wake me when we are allowed to have a life again.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:25PM
Idaho declares statewide hospital resource crisis amid Covid surge [nbcnews.com]
West Tennessee hospitals to start triaging care [www.wvlt.tv]
Ah sweet, death panels!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:16PM (1 child)
Putting all the highly contagious air spreaders right next to the heavily breathing rehabbers is definitely something hospitals do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @08:39PM
Rehabs are often called "hospitals" because they have some sort of accredited professional doctor-person on staff, but hospitals are not some place where you go to get extended therapy or run out the clock. Hospitals have surgery and X-rays and bed rails; rehabs have exercycles and washing machines where they lose your clothes. Except for the rehabs where addictive personalities go to dry out.
A few weeks ago, I saw a doctor-like person at a rehab misdiagnose death. Real hospitals have equipment to check for that sort of thing.
Neither one has breathing cooties as a specialty. Unless the state governor forces them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @05:44PM (8 children)
I wasn't a fan of the episode, perhaps because Wesley is just so annoying and I could have done without the Traveler returning. It might have worked better, too, if they had waited longer to reveal why everyone was actually disappearing. I definitely understand the reference, though.
I disagree with how this is worded. Freedom is being able to resume our lives without fear of hospitals being overwhelmed, losing loved ones to the virus, or that we're going to get the virus and end up with serious long-term effects. We achieve this with vaccines and, when needed, masks. When mask mandates began, we were correctly told that masks are one of the best tools we have to resume a somewhat normal way of life. These things are useful tools to get our freedom back.
Right now, the extreme obsession a small segment of our society has with anything that might reduce their individual liberties slightly is why we can't get our freedom back. Our freedom is being held hostage by anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers.
Freedom isn't the enemy here. Freedom is what we all want. The problem is individuals who believe their liberties give them the right to selfishly and recklessly endanger others.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:02PM (6 children)
That is how you and I define freedom.
Others define it differently. If you can't kill people with a gun, at least use the virus to do it.
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:24PM (5 children)
They certainly love their double-speak.
My favorite is how Freedom of Speech means they get to force Facebook to publish more pro-Trump posts.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Thursday September 16 2021, @09:01PM (1 child)
That is an interesting take. The way I see it, Facebook can keep their Section 230 immunity (protecting them from liability of their users' comments) only if they don't moderate them. As soon as they are moderating, then they are acting as an editor and are liable for what their users say. The way the law is written, staff can't censure comments and keep section 230 immunity. That is precisely why they want government regulation. Well, one of two reasons I can think of. With government regulations on what is protected speech, they and censure, ban, and shadow ban while keeping their platform status. Additionally, it creates some regulatory capture that keeps upstarts from displacing them as the new defacto social media platform.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 16 2021, @09:38PM
230 EXPLICITLY grants them the right to remove whatever posts they consider objectionable. [cornell.edu]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @09:01PM (2 children)
While on the other side, "Freedom of Speech" means censor more pro-Trump posts.
(Score: 1, Troll) by DannyB on Friday September 17 2021, @02:04PM (1 child)
You mean lying misinformation posts unsupported by facts, evidence or even mere common sense.
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:50AM
7 Signs Your Friend Or Family Member Has Fallen Victim To The Woke Mind Virus [zerohedge.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @10:10AM
Ahhh! You mean freedumbs.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by VLM on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:05PM (2 children)
Normally, American lifespan is 500 years? I know we eat a lot of preservatives, but holy cow...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @07:51PM (1 child)
You've truly gone off the deep end.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @03:31AM
> You've truly gone off the deep end.
VLM went off the deep end a long time ago.
ftfy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @08:12PM (6 children)
Funny, that seems to happen when the Government decrees which businesses and workers are "essential", and which ones aren't.
Cite.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @08:27PM
- CDC Numbers Reveal Nearly One in 500 Americans Dead from Chinese Coronavirus [breitbart.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Thursday September 16 2021, @08:52PM (4 children)
Hear are some siights, uh, sites:
1 in every 500 US residents have died of Covid-19 [cnn.com]
The pandemic marks another grim milestone: 1 in 500 Americans have died of covid-19 [washingtonpost.com]
0.2% of Americans have died from COVID-19, data shows [10tv.com]
Just try googling for: 1 in 500 Americans dead
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @01:02AM (3 children)
If we let this go on for a hundred years, then one in five US residents will be dead!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday September 17 2021, @01:33PM (2 children)
Please ignore all demographic data, including birth rate, who is actually dying from COVID, and other useful metrics.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 17 2021, @02:08PM (1 child)
The idiot AC could also try:
1. googling for US population
2. googling for number of people in US dead from covid-19
3. using a sophisticated mathematical operation (known as division) determine that 1 in 500 Americans are dead.
But Nooooooo! Real facts and information would be too inconvenient! It would shatter their crazythink.
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 1, Troll) by FatPhil on Saturday October 09 2021, @08:02AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @06:56AM (2 children)
I'm pretty sure most of the dead are not rising. In fact, quite the contrary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @10:13AM (1 child)
So the CDC planning for the zombiepocalypse was wasted effort?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @12:11PM
I did say "most". How many risen dead are required for a zombiepocalypse?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Friday September 17 2021, @04:28PM (6 children)
It's wild that there are more comments in this journal than in any of the FP articles when I posted this journal! Maybe Wesley or that alien fixed things...
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday September 17 2021, @04:38PM (1 child)
I have noticed that sometimes the journals have more interesting things to talk about that are 'not proper' on the front page.
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @07:53PM
It used to be that the topics sucked, and the locals would ignore or destroy the tourists. I have plenty about Clive Sinclair and early computing, but no thanks. I don't want to help 'em grow an Alt-Meta-Cokebottle site.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 19 2021, @11:55PM (2 children)
On the other hand, as you get older, more of the people you know die. So you're going to be more aware of people dying. If you live to 100 pretty much everyone you grew up with will be dead. Including any siblings. It's just the way things work out.
Which brings up an interesting question - do you really want to live too long?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 20 2021, @05:48AM
The obvious rebuttal is how long is too long, especially if all your friends are living that much longer too?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20 2021, @04:23PM
I'm old enough (I just wrote a big rant, down this page, about throwing time at writing projects), and besides that, I have experience with the very elderly. The luck of the draw helps you get that far, but intellect and a passion for life itself will sustain it. As quality of life decreases, so does interest. A centenarian vegetable is not happy. There's no long-term joy in using Fentanyl to dull life's pains.
Everyone else has seen a snippet of old age since this first CCP virus experiment began field testing... your life gets smaller, and you adapt, or you become a drunk. Liquor sales is big in retirement communities.
It's like assuming the elderly are tech-illiterate, without realizing that they are the ones who started this whole thing.
This thread shows the problem I have with fiction: it's all two-dimensional, assuming society is sheep or lemmings, with only the enlightened to break away. It's like old movies where the bad guys stand in line for you to shoot them... you'd think they might have some thoughts on the issue.
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Saturday October 09 2021, @08:03AM
-- FP
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 16 2021, @04:11PM (14 children)
It's been a slow news week.
When the most controversial story of the week is TSA Pre-Check for FaceBook posts there's not gonna be many comments!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @04:55PM (8 children)
> It's been a slow news week.
Then you're doing it wrong.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:04PM (7 children)
You mean by not doing something that makes news headlines?
News could just be going back to pre-Trump levels where the president isn't causing a crisis every single day, but is only causing one a few times per month.
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:13PM (1 child)
You're still doing it wrong. There's an endless stream of... I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader.
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Friday September 17 2021, @12:15AM
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:19PM (4 children)
Obviously, some people aren't tired of being lied to. It's more about what they don't tell you, than what they do.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday September 16 2021, @09:11PM (3 children)
Yeah. My lying news sources fail to tell me about how the earth is really flat, and how covid-19 is a myth, no worse than the flu. My news sources don't tell me about the secret pedophile sex trafficking ring run by Hillary in the basement of a Washington DC pizza parlor which has no basement. My news sources fail to tell me about the secret Jewish space lasers causing the California wild fires. Nor do they tell me about the massive evidence of a fantastical grand conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from Trump, and we'll see the evidence just any day now . . . yes, really . . . you'll see!
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Farmer Tim on Friday September 17 2021, @02:42AM (1 child)
“We have the internet. We are smart.”
Came for the news, stayed for the soap opera.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 17 2021, @01:57PM
The "we look for things" episode.
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @03:17PM
The truth is modded-down, while bad fantasy reigns. No wonder this place is a morgue. Nobody'll confuse dead and alive, around here.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 16 2021, @05:36PM (4 children)
You're not keeping up [bbc.com]!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 16 2021, @05:44PM (1 child)
Tucker Carlson gargling some balls is hardly newsworthy!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 16 2021, @05:50PM
The advertisers will have to get back to you on that
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday October 09 2021, @08:07AM (1 child)
I initially read that as:
Nicki Minaj swallowed testicles claim 'wasted' Trinidad health officials' time
However, it could be both condensed and simultaniously expanded in scope to:
Nicki Minaj wasted everybody's time with everything she's done
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday October 09 2021, @04:56PM
Eh, people were paid, stimulates the economy. It's the audience that wasted their time.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16 2021, @04:49PM
Can you see through walls yet?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:24PM (3 children)
McGrew, I have not forgotten you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Friday September 17 2021, @05:57AM (2 children)
And while we're not forgetting people, I'll take a moment to remember Michael David Crawford. If you're looking down (or up) (or cross-dimensionally) on us, you're probably noticing that things are crazy even without you around.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday September 17 2021, @04:31PM (1 child)
Did he pass away, too? He was on K5 back when K5 mattered.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Friday September 17 2021, @09:49PM
Yeah, a little while back [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday September 16 2021, @06:24PM (7 children)
Or can they?
Leaked Documents Reveal the Special Rules Facebook Uses for 5.8M VIPs [soylentnews.org]
Would be interesting to see, if it's a trend for Thursdays in general. People are just wanting the week to be over! I seem to notice a fairly high uptick in Journal postings on Fridays, too.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday September 17 2021, @04:33PM (6 children)
Facebook is a sewer. I'm only there to try to get people to read my books, but most there don't read anything but Facebook.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @07:39PM (5 children)
So, just exactly like you find it here.
There's some work I'm just plain sitting on, because the market has dried up. Put it out there, and they pass it around and go "what else you got?" Assuming you can find anyone with some attention span and a nanopenny. This disposable cycle is disheartening.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20 2021, @12:30AM (4 children)
The quality of all those new writers who are looking for an alternate revenue stream during the pandemic is shit, and that includes stuff featured on mainstream sites. Why? Because everyone and their dog wants to "break in." So they do it for nothing, on spec (speculation, not to specificationns in a contract), and it's all so formulaic.
There's the bullshitters telling people how to cope with pandemic stress, the bullshitters writing about the ClX things you have to do to start a new side hussle, the personal "revelations" that they think nobody else has experienced before, the minority experience (race, sexual orientation) that always ends up saying the same old same old, what ever. It's like NOBODY is having anything approaching a normal life nowadays.
Except that most of the "ordinary people", even in minority groups, not that much has changed except that now you have to wear a mask and keep some distance indoors. Work still gets done (albeit higher workloads because more people are using covid as an excuse to retire early and others want more pay or fuck you boss).
The mail still gets delivered, the phone and intertand tv and radio still work, the streets still get cleaned, the lawns are still mowed, people are still walking their dogs, shopping, etc.
Friends and family are still just a phone call away, the sun still rises in the morning, the seasons still change, and if you open your eyes to it, there's beauty in the world.
There's potential for change here, because there's no going back to the way things were before.
Back in the '60s it was "turn on, tune in, drop out." Today dropping out to do your own thing is as simple as deleting your social media accounts. I haven't logged into anything in a year, completely boycotted google, youtube, etc., and the world is now a nicer place. Except for all those new writer wannabes who think "one of the only" is proper English. Fuck you Guardian - get some real writiers instead of shitposting grammar-challenged wankers. The former colonies can do better with "the Queen's English."
Now that many of us are facing the prospect of living into our 90s in good health as long as we don't screw ourselves up with self-inflicted diseases such as obesity and addiction, maybe we should be looking more seriously at post-retirement as more than just rusting away, and demand more. Like free university tuition for over-65s. Keep the brain cells exercised. Save money compared to stockpiling people into old age mausoleums for the semi -living.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20 2021, @04:00PM (2 children)
I'm not of this generation, about which I'm sad for the passage of time, but relieved about not being intimately involved with the destruction of popular culture and our heritage. Since the Internet, this free-stuff generation has made making personal things with huge investments a losing proposition. I'm of a generation where you could make good things, find a publisher, and stay solvent. Remember then?
You spend a few thousand hours developing something, and leave out copy protection for the good of society, and you sell a handful but you're a great hit. To try to break even, you put in minimal copy protection, and some guy is a hero for publishing a crack. So you do proper protection, and you can begin to get something for it, but with a lingering bad taste in your gut. Then you do a major thing, and discover M$ screwed up the underpinnings so you can never get a return without throwing a few thousand more hours at it. The clock is always ticking.
As much as above, I've lost faith in humanity. I did something pretty good, shared a copy with somebody you would know, who shared it with somebody else, and then a Hollywoodie you probably think is a comedy genius, stole the whole thing and ripped off every line in TV scripts. Just search for producer who steals jokes, and I'm sure he'll rise to the top. It's not a common name.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20 2021, @09:53PM (1 child)
> Seth is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "appointed, placed". Seth is the 434 ranked male name by popularity. The name was adopted in England in the late Middle ages, then popularized by the Puritans after the Protestant Reformation.
Seth: Name Meaning, Popularity, and Similar Names [nameberry.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @08:00PM
> MacFarlane History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms. In the mountains of Scotland's west coast and on the Hebrides islands, the ancestors of the MacFarlane family were born. Their name comes from the personal name Parlan, which is the Gaelic equivalent of Bartholomew. The Gaelic form of the name is Mac Pharlain.
MacFarlane Name Meaning [houseofnames.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20 2021, @10:45PM
What do you think this is? Ever think about what "You can't go home again" means?
And your name, and your bank account, and your friends, and your... favorite variety of Starbucks.
Most people don't make it to 90 without something going wrong. Every decade or so, "good health" has a different definition. Obamacare is designed for people over 75 to be ushered out the hospital door with a smile and a lifetime prescription for Fentanyl.
A Star Trek retirement requires great prosperity, productivity, dedication...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @02:55PM (1 child)
warplife.com is now empty, but I did find the following:
https://michaelcrawford.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/spokane-wa/michael-crawford-8232299 [dignitymemorial.com]
(and of course our own https://soylentnews.org/meta/article.pl?sid=19/03/26/0356205 [soylentnews.org] )
our memories are imperfect and mutable, temporary configurations of mater that retain a measure of coherence over some time.
more or less the same as any reasonable definition of "soul".
and yet *I* remember something that the internet forgot. it looks like even the internet archive forgot about MDC's warplife.
maybe one day all of you will be dead, and soylentnews.org will be lost, and the youtube copy of the CNN interview will be lost, and the dignitymemorial thing will run out of money because of assholes like me with addblock, and I will speak of MDC, and nobody will believe me.
it is nice how they turned a distinctly "old human sentimental about loss" scenario into a sci-fi plot, and perfectly consistent with the "your thoughts determine your reality" message that the traveler had.
and it's frustrating, illuminating, frightening and obviously surprising how the older you are, the more meaning you can get out of good stories.
sorry if this depressed anyone.
it's just that I remember.
maybe someone will remember me after I'm gone, because I made a sad comment on a website one day.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @03:36PM
I, for one, will lay a wreath at the tomb of the anonymous coward.