SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
True leaders lead by example
From the BBC:
Coronavirus: Outcry after Trump suggests injecting disinfectant as treatment
(article includes direct video quotation -- despite any efforts to retroactively change the transcript)
US President Donald Trump has been lambasted by the medical community after suggesting research into whether coronavirus might be treated by injecting disinfectant into the body.
He also appeared to propose irradiating patients' bodies with UV light, an idea dismissed by a doctor at the briefing.
Another of his officials had moments earlier said sunlight and disinfectant were known to kill the infection.
Disinfectants are hazardous substances and can be poisonous if ingested.
Even external exposure can be dangerous to the skin, eyes and respiratory system.
True leaders lead by example. Lead by being the first one into the battle with others following. Be the first one to demonstrate the powerful efficacy of your newfound treatment. Show those silly doctors and scientists how much of a stable genius you truly are. Demonstrate your truly dizzying intellect for all to see. It is well known that verifiable personal testimony of the effectiveness of your treatment is a powerful sales pitch. Consider how such courage will inspire your followers come election time.
True followers follow their glorious leader's example. As a heartening and inspiring example of selfless devotion I would point no further than Jonestown or your local Apple store. The VP should be the first in line to demonstrate the loyalty of a true follower. Inspire all the acolytes. (leaving Pelosi in charge, I think)
<no-sarcasm>
Listening to doctors and scientists and ignoring idiotic orange clowns, their daily three ring circus, and their cheerleading lap dogs at FauxNews, is really the best advice.
</no-sarcasm>
Update:
Lysol maker warns against internal use of disinfectants after Trump comments
I don't think there is any way to spin this that Trump did not mean what we all saw and heard him say. Everyone independently understood him to mean the same thing. Then they came out defending Trump saying he was being sarcastic -- which confirms that we correctly understood his message about disinfectants.
BreadBee: $10 Crowdfund, Smaller Than RasPi Zero
BreadBee: A tiny alternative to the Raspberry Pi Zero that supports Linux and costs just US$10
The BreadBee is an ultra-compact board for developers. Measuring in at just 32 x 30 mm, the BreadBee is considerably smaller than other SBCs like the Raspberry Pi Zero. The BreadBee is rather tall though as developer Daniel Palmer has included an Ethernet port. The RJ45 port can transmit data at up to 100 MBit/s. The BreadBee does not support Wi-Fi, but a future model may have an Ampak Wi-Fi module in place of the Ethernet port.
The BreadBee is based on an MStar MSC313E processor, which integrates an ARM Cortex-A7 core with NEON and FPU that runs at 1.0 GHz. There is also 64 MB of DDR2 RAM and 16 MP of SPI NOR flash memory.
Additionally, Palmer has included two multi-pin headers. Specifically, there is a 24-pin dual-row header with a 2.54 mm pitch on one side, which support SPI, I2C, UART and GPIO. On the reverse, Palmer has included a 21-pin header with a 1.27 mm pitch that supports SD/SDIO, USB 2.0 and GPIO.
Also at CNX Software.
BreadBee board will soon be launched on Crowd Supply, and the cost to make the board is said to be around $10 in small quantities. I think Daniel is a regular reader and commenter on CNX Software and may be able to answer any questions here.
No Discussion Here
This is the journal entry mentioned in Meta: Coronaids and Subscriptions.
Census form race/origin question
While some posters have argued that there is "no such thing" as race, we are nevertheless being asked by the government to affix ourselves with a label which seems likely to end up in a database.
Then there is this question: what is my origin? Well, I didn't originate at any other country different from the one I currently reside in. Nor did my parents. Nor did my grandparents. Out of eight great-grandparents, I have reliable information indicating that two of them did originate in a different country. The remaining ones did not, or I don't have any information one way or the other.
The census form has supplied a 16-character box in which to provide an answer, and zero instructions. For bonus points, the previous question also asks about origin, making it either redundant or contradictory.
This is why I hate paperwork in general, and surveys in particular. The creator of the question insists that I take it seriously, but this is impossible because they haven't taken it seriously themselves.
It reminds me of the fabulous test questions I would sometimes encounter in school. "True or False: Cars have four wheels." And short of being able to read the teacher's mind, there is no way to answer this. If you mark it false, they'll say "the answer was true, two in front and two in back, remember?" but if you mark it true they'll say "the answer was false, because some cars have three wheels". Or maybe they thought they would be clever and count the steering "wheel" too...
AMD NUCs Meet "Financial Horsepower"
AMD was introducing its Ryzen-based mini PCs in late 2019 as alternatives for Intel’s NUC models, but most of these came powered with embedded solutions like the V1000 and R1000 CPUs, or at most Ryzen 2000 APUs. Only Zotac announced a few Ryzen 3 3200U models earlier this year and the company hinted that we could eventually see some mini PCs powered by the freshly launched Ryzen 4000 Renoir APUs later this year. Anandtech's respected reviewer Ian Cutress suggests that this might not be the case and it may take mini PC OEMs up to a year to introduce Renoir-based models, as Intel is actually incentivizing most prominent vendors to delay or not build any AMD-based mini PCs at all.
Some of the OEMs that already joined AMD’s “anti-NUC alliance” include OnLogic, EEPD, Simply NUC, Tranquil PC and ASRock. While the first four are smaller companies that do not have a highly-diversified portfolio, ASRock is already a well-established mini PC maker, and we would expect more powerful mini PC solutions, yet, as it stands, ASRock just began offering mini PC builds sporting the Ryzen 3000 Picasso APUs along with the older Raven Ridge and Bristol Bridge solutions, and that is exactly one year after the launch of the Picasso APUs, as pointed out by Ian Cutress. We are seeing either a 1-year delay for AMD-based small form-factor models, or absolutely no AMD-based mini PCs in the case of big brands like Dell, Asus or MSI, so Cutress may be onto something here.
AMD best-buds, TSMC, designed an 'enhanced' 5nm node for its future Ryzen chips
In a news story from Chainnews (via @chiakokhua), ostensibly about the cut in 5nm and 7nm production orders from Huawei, the piece also notes that TSMC isn't worried about this drop because Apple has taken up the slack. It's asking for a whole bunch of extra chip wafers, potentially competing with AMD for 5nm demand at the end of this year.
But the piece also goes on to say that: "TSMC is said to have developed a 5nm enhanced version of its process specifically for AMD, which has a capacity requirement of no less than 20,000 12-inch wafers per month."
Gaming laptops will never be the same, and it's all thanks to AMD
Sick call - what to expect during the corona crisis
Well, Covid sure changes a lot of stuff.
Saturday morning, I shut down the plant, like I do every week. Around 2:30 or 3:00 I started getting a hellacious headache. At 3:00 AM on a Saturday morning, you can't just call someone up, tell them "I don't feel well, I'm going home." I finished my job, then went home.
Over the weekend, I felt better, then worse, then better, then worse. Monday, felt alright most of the day. Got my sleep Monday afternoon, got up early evening, and damn if I didn't have to go worship at the porcelain throne.
Called in to work for a sick day. Now what? Drive all the way to Texarkana to the emergency room? The hell with that, that's where I'll catch the covid! So I lay around the house all night, feeling guilty for not going to work, and continuing to feel better, then worse.
Go to the clinic when it opens.
First thing, one of the ladies greets me at the entrance, and takes my temperature. That's never happened before! Strange, but yes, I understand.
Next thing, there's a little "X" marked with tape on the floor, in front of the receptionist's window. Oh-kay, I can go along with that, I remain at a long arm's distance from the receptionist, so we're not breathing on each other.
Here, I note that there are few people in the waiting room. Hope they're not all dead of corona virus! There are almost always half a dozen or more patients, often times with kids in tow. Today, it's just me, and one old lady.
Information, and initial screening done, I'm asked to sit in a specific section of the waiting room, far away from that old lady.
Ten minutes, and I'm called into a treatment room. The treatment room has changed - the computer is gone, most equipment is gone, there's just the examination bench, patient's chair, and nurse's stool. Lisa comes in, introduces herself, pulls a trolley in behind her with pressure cuff, thermometer, etc. Still no computer, instead, she writes vitals on the paper that pulls down over the examination table. Note, at no point has Lisa touched me. She manages to do it all without actually touching me with her hands, which are covered with latex gloves anyway.
Lisa leaves, and in comes a nurse, completely dressed out in a medical hazard suit. "My name is Beth, and I'm going to take swabs, to test you for the flu, and for strep throat." Sorry, I laughed. Told her, "I know it's not funny, but it's kinda nice to see someone else dressed out for a change!" I had to explain about electrical hazard suits, which are much bulkier, and almost assuredly more uncomfortable than the med suit. Not to mention much hotter, because I don't wear that thing in air conditioned spaces.
So, Beth sticks a swab down my throat until I gag. Another swab up each nostril until I'm about to scream. She leaves, and about 1/4 hour comes back to inform me that yes, I have both the flu, and strep throat. Beth asks me to drop my trousers, and pokes me with two needles. She is undeterred by my reminder that I'm allergic to needles. Some women are just mean, I guess.
Beth leaves, and Doc Martin comes in. Doc isn't dressed out, but like Lisa, she never touches me. She gives me two prescriptions, and I ask about the headache. She adds a script for cough syrup with codeine in it. From experience, codeine sounds like the right thing - moderately effective, which is better than most over-the-counter pain pills. Doc asks me to look up at the ceiling, close my eyes, and she sprays me down with some disinfectant, and we each leave the examination room.
Return to the receptionist, who tells me that I owe $25 copay. I inform her that I think I owe $30 already, she checks, and informs me that I only owe $15 from a previous visit, so the total is $40 and some change.
Out the door I go, and to the pharmacy. I could have walked up to the counter while still inside, but there's a note on the counter that the drive-thru is preferred, so that patients don't share breathing space with the druggists.
"This will take ten to fifteen minutes, Mr. Runaway, can you come back in a little while?"
Go sit in the sun for awhile, come back in fifteen, and sure enough, it's ready.
Oh, I'm off work for a week, quarantined to the house, AND, the company is paying me just like I'm at work. I have an email conversation in which HR repeatedly assures me that I will be paid, and they do NOT want me to return to work before I'm cured.
Hope none of you gets a contagious illness, but if you do, maybe you know what to expect now. Nothing shocking, it's all common sense, really. But things are different now!
Oh, I forgot one thing. Beth assured me that if she needed to do a swab for covid, it would be much worse than her swab for the flu. I've heard that they dig around with that swab really deep, trying to get a bit of your brain on the swab. Uggh.
Stay safe everyone, and try to avoid the doctor's office!!
Scooby-Doo and the Case of the Missing Landlords
Today I was introduce to Existential Comics via Scooby-Doo and the Case of the Missing Landlords.
The inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world, indeed.
One of the large motivations for Adam Smith writing The Wealth of Nations was to convince people to try to move capital away from the unproductive landlords (who at that time were mostly comprised of very wealthy landed English gentry) into the hands of entrepreneurs and workers. He noticed two things about landlords, first, as he puts it "The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for the natural produce of the earth."
There you have it from the horse's mouth: Adam Smith was a pinko commie, an undemocratic Marxist and would probably be a Remoaner had he been alive today.
Virus-Panicked Liberal Gun Buyers Are Getting Angry When
Virus-Panicked Liberal Gun Buyers Are Getting Angry When They Discover Their Own Gun Control Laws
Posted at 1:15 pm on April 10, 2020 by Kira Davis
I was chatting with a friend of mine recently and the topic of gun sales came up. My friend’s father owns a gun range near me and she said he’s seen a huge amount of liberals coming in to purchase weapons in recent weeks.
How does he know they’re liberals?
“They’re shocked to discover they can’t just walk out of the store with a gun.”
We’ve all heard about gun sales skyrocketing recently, but I hadn’t considered some of the tangential effects of the phenomenon until I spoke to my friend. Not only are many liberals suddenly learning to love their Second Amendment rights, many of them are finding out that the gun control narrative in this country — as repeated loudly and often by Hollywood and the mainstream media — is a complete lie.
So, I contacted my friend’s father to ask about what he is seeing personally at his own range these days. Gregg Bouslog runs On-Target Indoor Shooting Range in Laguna Niguel, CA. It’s where I taught my son to shoot and where I’ll teach my daughter once the chaos lifts. He says that while others are stuck at home while the economy grinds to a halt, he’s been working nonstop at the range as the applications for background checks and permits are stacking up daily. Bouslog claims he hasn’t done business like this since the days of Obama.
As the owner of an indoor shooting range and gun store here in California these past 14 years we have never experienced such a huge demand for firearms and ammunition – even higher than the famous Obama rush of 2012/2013.
While it’s nice to see some businesses flourishing in these scary times, Bouslog says that safety has been a huge issue at the range, as many first-time buyers seem to have gotten all of their notions about guns and gun safety from television.
We tried to look at just who the new firearm purchasers were and we believe that more than 60% of these individuals were first time buyers. I can’t describe the amount of fear in my staff as we had the buyers show proof of safe handling as part of the purchase process as required by law. You have never seen so many barrels pointed at sales staff and other customers. It was truly frightening. We had to keep stopping the process to give quick safety lessons. We are adding many more basic classes in the coming weeks and encouraged these buyers to please attend. We hope they do.
This isn’t hard to believe. As a gun-owner who formerly abhorred the Second Amendment, I can personally testify to the fact that most people who believe they are anti-gun are actually just anti-stupid. They just don’t realize they’re projecting their own stupidity onto law-abiding gun owners. They imagine that we gun owners are just a bunch of yahoos out here combing our mullets, waving our guns around to look sexy while we look for anything or anyone to shoot at any time. They have no respect for the power of a weapon and treat them accordingly, which is what Bouslog is witnessing firsthand at his range. We gun owners, of course, take safety, care and precautions quite seriously. These are ingrained in the culture of gun ownership.
While the safety of the employees at the range is a very serious matter, the most amusing and annoying part for the staff has been watching these first-time buyers discover just how stringent gun laws in California really are, including one of our newest laws requiring background checks before buying ammunition. Bouslog says it’s a bridge too far for the people who have been told their whole lives that it’s easier to get a gun than an abortion.
More than a dozen of these buyers (men and women) actually thought that since they filled out and signed everything, they could just walk out and go home with the firearm. Several actually said they saw how easy it was to buy a gun on TV and why did they have to fill out all these forms.
The majority of these first timers lost their minds when we went through the Ammo Law requirements. Most used language not normally heard, even in a gun range. We pointed out that since no one working here voted for these laws, then maybe they might know someone who did. And, maybe they should go back and talk to those people and tell them to re-think their position on firearms – we were trying to be nice.
Most were VERY vocal about why it takes 10 days minimum (sometimes longer if the DOJ is backed up) to take their property home with them. They ask why do I need to wait 10 days if I need the protection today or tomorrow? We pointed out again that no one working here voted in support of that law.
They really went crazy when we told them that for each firearm they had to do the same amount of paperwork and they could only purchase ONE handgun every 30 days. Again, we didn’t [vote] for that law.
We had people cuss at us and stomp out when we explained that secondary identification had to be part of the paperwork, as they felt insulted that what they had wasn’t good enough. We have a number of Yelp reviews calling us names and other things about how bad we are because of this whole new buyer rush
Again, I truly hope for the safety of those range employees in the face of so many uninformed and incurious first-time buyers. That being said, I find this whole situation fascinating. So many things in our economy and way of life are shifting monumentally these days. Could the gun control battle be one of them?
I discovered the idiocy of my anti-gun beliefs once I decided to learn about them firsthand. The Hollywood mystique immediately fell away and I was imbued with a new respect for weaponry and the people who dedicate their lives to weapons safety and serving and protecting the Second Amendment. You can’t know how bonkers our gun control laws are until you go try to buy one yourself.
There are a lot of people like me out there right now — first-timers and Second Amendment haters who feel like a hypocrite for wanting a gun for protection. Like I did, now they are navigating our convoluted gun laws for themselves and discovering that it is just not possible to walk into a store, buy a gun and leave with it in your pocket.
As these revelations begin to spread among our liberal brethren in the state of California, will we see a shift in gun laws and support for anti-Second Amendment legislators? Only time will tell, but it will surely be an interesting question to ponder in the coming months and years.
*Special thanks to Gregg Bouslog of On-Target Indoor Shooting Range in Laguna Niguel, CA for sharing his experience with us.
Indoor Rocketry for Children
There is an illustrated version of this on my web site. The illustrations may be necessary.
First, this is for the benefit of children but adult supervision is absolutely necessary! These are real rockets that really fly and like SpaceX or NASA rockets, there is real fire.
Before we build a real rocket we need to understand how real rockets work. A rocket has some sort of propellant, a place to put the propellant, like a propellant tank in a liquid-fueled rocket, and a nozzle. These matchstick rockets need only one more thing, but large space rockets need a lot more.
The last thing we need to launch our rocket, once it’s been built, is a launch pad/gantry combination.
Rocket engines work by the physical principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The rocket is pushed forward by expelling its exhaust in the opposite direction at high speed, and can therefore work in the vacuum of space. In fact, rockets work more efficiently in space than in an atmosphere, because the air holds it back; it is a resistance to the push.
Rockets date back to at least 13th century China. Significant scientific, interplanetary and industrial use did not occur until the 20th century, when rocketry was the enabling technology for the Space Age, including setting foot on the Earth’s moon. Rockets are now used for fireworks, weaponry, ejection seats, launch vehicles for artificial satellites, human spaceflight, and space exploration.
Chemical rockets are the most common type of high power rocket, typically creating a high speed exhaust by the combustion of fuel with an oxidizer. Our oxidizer is combined with the fuel, and only needs heat to start the reaction.
Here is a simplified diagram of a solid-fuel rocket.
1. A solid fuel-oxidizer mixture (propellant) is packed into the rocket, with a cylindrical hole in the middle.
2. An igniter combusts the surface of the propellant. Our igniter will be simply another match, lit.
3. The cylindrical hole in the propellant acts as a combustion chamber.
4. The hot exhaust is choked at the throat.
5. Exhaust exits the rocket.
What you will need to build rockets are paper matches for the rocket body and propellant, as well as an igniter, and a small piece of aluminum foil about an inch and a half square for the housing and nozzle. Too big and it won’t fly, too small and it will explode, just like a big NASA rocket. Luckily, tiny rockets have tiny explosions.
A sewing needle or pin is needed to use as a tool to construct the rocket’s combustion chamber and nozzle.
And a small paper clip to build a gantry with. We will need a gantry before we build the rocket. To build the gantry, pull the outside out, and the inside up, as in the illustration.
Now to build our rocket. It will consist of a paper matchstick and about an inch square piece of foil. You will have to experiment, as different brands of foil have different thicknesses. Unless you have extra heavy duty foil (which may not even work) you will probably have to double the foil to keep it from exploding. Like I said before, the explosion is tiny.
First, cut or tear the foil to the right shape and size. Take a matchstick and lay the needle on it as in the illustration. The needle’s point should be resting on the match head, which is of course our propellant.
Now tightly wrap the foil around the head end of the match and pin. If it isn’t tight, the housing will fly off, just like a big NASA rocket.
Then gently slide the needle out, leaving your combustion chamber/nozzle for the hot gas to shoot out and propel your rocket across the room. Place it on your gantry, with the nozzle that you made with the pin on the bottom.
Now, to launch your rocket, light a match and heat the top of the rocket, the aluminum with the match head underneath. It may take a few failures and destroyed rockets before your rockets fly, just like NASA and the Russians. You’ll probably learn a few things along the way, and your children certainly will, both from the failures and successes.
Just like with Space-X, Boeing, or NASA, your failures may be spectacular, like when you have a miniature explosion. I’ve made a lot of these tiny rockets, and have never seen them cause any sort of damage, although if one hit you in the eye you would probably need medical attention. And of course make sure the children can’t get the matches!
Good old nVidia
Many years ago, when I didn't have much money, I bought an entry-level nVidia graphics card (I think made by ASUS). It was a 9400GT. The reason I bought it was that I wanted something that could run CUDA code and it was the very lowest spec. that would, and it has crunched many a SETI@Home work unit.
Today I upgraded one of my old Frankenstein machines to Slackware-current. It's an intel Core-2 Quad with 6GB of RAM and that old nVidia graphics card in it. I thought it was time that Turgid jr. installed an OS, so I got today's Slackware-current (64-bit) and burned it to DVD and guided him through the installation. It worked first time.
Now we are on Linux 5.4.31 and gcc 9.3.0. I've already had it find some bugs in some old code I had lying aroung. I must say that gcc becomes better and better at doing what a static analysis tool would have done in the past.
Anyway, to my point: I went to compile the nVidia proprietary driver for the old graphics card. It seems that gcc-9.3.0 finds too many problems with it. Never mind, because nVidia have a very new driver (December 2019) for my very old and cheap GeForce 9400GT which compiles and runs flawlessly.
Thanks, nVidia. I've been buying your cards since the first beta Linux driver in 1999 and they've always worked.
