English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:36 AM

@RegDwigнt I like it. When my bruising is gone I'll try to play along with the flute part, see how I feel then. If it's not rubbish (me being out of practice) I'll send it along, see how you think that part sounds with a real flute.

tchrist

12:56 AM

Immunity to Covid-19 could be lost in months, UK study suggests.

In other words, it may act like the coronaviruses that keep giving us the same colds again and again.

And you thought annual flu vaccinations were frequent. This might take a pair of vaccinations separated by two to four weeks, and that paired vaccination sequence itself repeated every three to six months. Poke poke poke.

Maybe it won't be as likely to kill the vaccinated, even if the titer is running low.

Robusto

@tchrist There are possibilities for a multi-drug cocktail to fight the virus itself, similar to the AIDS cocktail.

Jul 8 at 19:35, by Robusto

Reasons for hope re: Covid-19.

tchrist

Because it's so very difficult to concoct an HIV vaccine to teach the immune system to fight it off.

There will undoubtedly eventually be multiple vaccines, just as there were for things like polio.

With varying properties of efficacy, side effects, and duration.

Vaccinating the old (and the long-term sick) has always required more oomf because it's harder to train those immune systems.

Well, "always". No, that's too broad. But often. It depends entirely on the vaccine though.

Post-exposure prophylaxis of human rabies immunoglobulin in the unimmunized has saved countless lives.

Robusto

1:27 AM

@tchrist The link doesn't talk about vaccines at all, but virus-fighting drugs. Forget vaccinations, this is war.

tchrist

Vaccines are what you give to the uninfected. Once they're infected, you have to other things.

Just like HRIG alone probably won't save enough people.

Robusto

They never made a successful HIV vaccine, but they did conquer the disease.

tchrist

It greatly slows the progression of the virus, so that the co-administered vaccine has time to train your immune system before the virus kills you.

@Robusto "Conquer" is awfully strong, isn't it?

Robusto

@tchrist That's the word they were using.

If you eliminate any trace of the illness via the cocktail, that's conquering.

tchrist

For a while.

It's about managing a lifetime illness.

Robusto

1:33 AM

@tchrist A while is all we have here on earth.

tchrist

Right, the goal with managing all these is to have something else kill you instead.

Like those with the various familial lymphomas.

That they try to keep you alive for.

Being given 20-25 years to live isn't too horrible when you're the median onset age of 72.

But it's much harder to hear for a person in their 40s.

Robusto

Social distancing visualized.

tchrist

However, anything can happen in twenty years of medical science.

Robusto

Ya gotta die of something.

tchrist

> Being a cheerful hobbit, he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed.

Robusto

1:37 AM

Indeed.

Despair that can't be postponed is called depression.

tchrist

Nothing that's happening right now comes as a surprise to me.

The coast-to-coast firestorm along the southern tier of our country, modulo your own state perhaps.

The spurt in Pittsburgh.

Robusto

It is my nature to be optimistic, but these days I'm unnatural.

tchrist

I work with A LOT of Pittsburghers.

Robusto

I worked with a guy who went to Carnegie-Mellon. Does that count?

tchrist

All of this is completely predictable.

1:41 AM

All the scenes of scantily clad youths being naturally chummy.

@Robusto The Trumpier they are, the sicklier they fall.

As far as states go.

Robusto

Let us hope so. But the Trumpier they are the more ubiquitous they seem to be. For now.

tchrist

It shouldn't take millions of people dying for the moronic ~~majority~~ minority to figure out they've been had.

But, apparently, it shall.

Conway has been right about a lot of things.

Robusto

The Republicans staked their strategy on winning all the idiots. This is what Idiocracy looks like.

tchrist

It is so very, very, very much worse now than ever it was in March or April. Very much harder to control.

And it is all self-inflicted.

Robusto

1:47 AM

@tchrist As right as he has been, and as admirable a conscience as he has acquired, he was the thin edge of the wedge against Democrats when Bush fils was wreaking havoc on the country.

Never forget that.

tchrist

It was only a week ago that Fauci, trying to get people's attention, said that we might see 100,000 cases per day if we didn't take immediate corrective action. That was when it was back at 50,000 a day, and it's gone up by the square root of two in a week's time. That means he wasn't being crazy one stinking bit, because it just takes one more week at root-2 to meet his number.

@Robusto I am NOT a fan of Conway. I just said that he has often been right -- in matters of his wife's boss.

I also wasn't a fan of McCain, nor am I of Romney. But sometimes they're right.

More often, it seems, then the formerly Republican party.

Robusto

Yeah. It's like picking the smartest one in Remedial Reading.

tchrist

That.

Pupper demands a walk.

Robusto

Alan Dershowitz Argues for Trump Cold Open - SNL

►

Robusto

2:04 AM

@tchrist I thought you owned cats, not dogs.

tchrist

@Robusto I do.

Robusto

Then whence "pupper"?

tchrist

Except this is Boulder, so one does not "own" other sentient beings.

She's singular.

I'm her guardian, not her owner. At least for the nonce.

Robusto

We have two cats, but I would be loath to call them "sentient."

tchrist

2:19 AM

Cerberus

> Some rise in case numbers is inevitable when lockdown orders are lifted and cities enter less restrictive stages of the pandemic response

We have not had this happen yet.

But mass tourism has returned to the city.

Probably restricted to EU citizens, but still.

Not good.

tchrist

@Cerberus Quoth who?

Cerberus

nytimes.com/2020/07/12/us/…

Quoth they.

tchrist

Ah that's where it was.

Cerberus

Spain seems to be seeing some new outbreaks, though no huge ones yet?

tchrist

2:24 AM

I just don't think it's reasonable to think any good can come of the natural chumminess of youth under alcohol and summer.

Cerberus

But Germany and Holland are seeing only very, very restricted ones.

@tchrist Yeah.

tchrist

^^^ That bodes nothing good.

Cerberus

Yeah, but that is nothing compared to what I saw here.

tchrist

Sure, it's outside and on the water and all. But still.

Cerberus

Yeah.

tchrist

2:26 AM

The beach-towns of California, Texas, South Carolina, and Georgia are all hotbeds of infections.

Cerberus

tchrist

And Florida first amongst them all.

Cerberus

Now imagine several narrow streets filled with tourists like this.

tchrist

You know my guidelines. Stay more than ten feet away from anyone, masked or otherwise.

And stay outside.

Cerberus

The only good news is that I have heard people complain about how empty cafés remain, because apparently the rules are kept there.

@tchrist Yeah, it's pretty bad.

images0.persgroep.net/rcs/gexiaEJ4wODIDlNLyz7k9bDq0JU/…

Also today.

tchrist

2:30 AM

Like a wildfire on a cool night is said to have lain down to rest before resurging when the heat returns, so too albeit in an inverse fashion do respiratory viruses always lie low during the height of summer. So this is the low point for such things.

@Cerberus Madness. I shudder to imagine Las Ramblas in Barcelona now.

Cerberus

Yeah.

@tchrist Admittedly, photographs like that one distort one's view.

It's probably a lot better than it looks in that picture.

tchrist

Oh hm less bad: elperiodico.com/es/barcelona/20200711/…

Cerberus

But in many streets it was really far, far too crowded yesterday.

The city said they would act on crowds. But why haven't they done anything yet?

tchrist

That's just yesterday, a plaza quasi-desierta.

Cerberus

We were all praying for a un verano sin turistas.

Let those horrible tourist shops all go bankrupts. They are parasites.

tchrist

2:34 AM

@Cerberus A question that demands an answer.

Cerberus

Except that many of those shops are really cover-ups for criminal money.

@tchrist Yeah.

Policemen in a car driving very, very slowly in one of those streets were interviewed.

They said they didn't have the capacity to fine all the tourists, as they had only then people available.

tchrist

"tiembla" is trembles, like what a temblor does. :)

Cerberus

The city says it is monitoring certain streets, including the one I posted a self-made picture of, and that they will close them off if needed. But they didn't.

@tchrist I figured.

My own street, too, was too crowded this weekend.

At least it is in the newspapers. I really, really hope the city will act before next weekend.

On the other hand...

tchrist

@Cerberus The problem is that mass enforcement is tantamount to impossible. The enforcers cannot always be everywhere. Only community coöperation works. You need them to buy into the plan.

Cerberus

Some of us would secretly not be too unhappy if an outbreak among tourists occurred...

@tchrist Yes, but the main problem here is the tourists, and they crowd around a limited number of streets.

It can be enforced.

One advantage we have that no Amsterdammer would ever go to any of those places.

tchrist

2:39 AM

@Cerberus "Said the Progressives of the Trumpocrats."

Cerberus

I do pity those who live in said streets and have to reach their houses through the crowds.

@tchrist Hmm?

tchrist

It used to be that the coronavirus was afflicting mainly "blue states" -- Democratically controlled progressive ones -- and the formerly Republican Party refused "them" any more handouts. Some were more rabid than that, even. And so some progressive columnists voiced their own inner horror at realizing that they nearly wished the tea-party know-nothings in the red states would come down with this so they understood.

They're now coming down with it, and in spades. But I don't know that understanding has dawned yet.

nytimes.com/2020/07/11/us/coronavirus-texas-corpus-christi.html

Q: What happened?!
A: Tourists happened.

> A 30-year-old man who believed the coronavirus was a hoax and attended a “Covid party” died after being infected with the virus, according to a Texas hospital.

The man had attended a gathering with an infected person to test whether the coronavirus was real, said Dr. Jane Appleby, chief medical officer at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, where the man died.

> Dr. Appleby said the man had told his nurse that he attended a Covid party. Just before he died, she said the patient told his nurse: “I think I made a mistake. I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not.”

Stupidity has always been a capital crime.

Those quotes are from today: nytimes.com/2020/07/12/us/30-year-old-covid-party-death.html

It's really sad.

Anybody can get sick from this. Anybody can incur permanent injury from this. Anybody can die from this. Many have already done so, but a great many more are yet to do so, but nonetheless soon enough shall.

My taxes are now finally done. I hope Ben Franklin doesn't come knocking.

I'd hate to die without any unpaid taxes.

Cerberus

3:00 AM

@tchrist That is extraordinary.

I do think you should be fairly safe if you can avoid those crowds.

tchrist

It's what Fox News has done, what the current regime has done.

It's hoodwinked the gullible into their own demise.

@Cerberus Yeah.

Cerberus

> Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden leads President Trump in Texas by 5 points, according to a new poll.

If Trump should lose Texas, would he still stand a chance?

> A Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t won Texas since former President Carter in 1976.

tchrist

But Ann Richards was governess there during the early nineties.

Ann Richards

Dorothy Ann Willis Richards (September 1, 1933 – September 13, 2006) was an American politician and 45th Governor of Texas (1991–95). A Democrat, she first came to national attention as the Texas State Treasurer, when she delivered the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Richards was the second female governor of Texas (the first being Miriam A. Ferguson) and was frequently noted in the media for her outspoken feminism and her one-liners.Born in McLennan County, Texas, Ann Richards became a schoolteacher after graduating from Baylor University. She won election to the Travis...

Still, that Biden leads the Know Nothings by 5 points is astounding.

@Cerberus If Texas is in play, anything is possible.

And no.

But if Texas is lost, then far more than merely the presidency is in play.

Cerberus

@tchrist Hmm that is something.

@tchrist Such as?

It is only a matter of time before Texas will be lost, or so I have heard.

tchrist

The Senate, for one.

Cerberus

3:07 AM

Because of the large number of Hispanics.

Sure, they'll lose the Senate as well.

tchrist

And all the state chambers, which is in some ways more important still.

Cerberus

The Republic Party as it is now doesn't have a future beyond, say, ten years hence?

Because of demographic developments.

tchrist

Because he who controls the state chambers controls the census-triggered gerrymandering for a generation.

Cerberus

"Displacement", they would call it.

tchrist

And thus the future US House for that generation.

Cerberus

3:09 AM

@tchrist Ah, and census could not be organised more frequently?

tchrist

@Cerberus It's in the Constitution. So not without an amendment.

Which is tantamount to impossible.

These days we see ever fewer "split tickets".

The top of the ticket dominates far more completely now than ever before.

So if they vote Biden, they'll just check off all the D's on the way down.

Cerberus

OK.

I see.

> Another Democratic landslide could hand them control of a number of key legislative chambers, the most important being the Texas State House. Republicans in Austin hold an 83-to-67 advantage, but they lost 12 seats in 2018, and Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke won nine districts currently represented by Republicans.
If Democrats were to win control, it would eliminate Republican control over redistricting in a state that is expected to send 39 members to the House after the post-census reapportionment.

tchrist

Hundreds of thousands dead, perhaps several million over the first three years of this. What is the cost of that perfidy, what is the price?

What is the penalty for mass murder?

On a scale almost never seen outside of war, nor often inside one either.

A complete rout is the least we can hope for.

I for one hope for far more and expect far less, but in that shall I this time my own counsel keep.

I have friends in Texas who are directly touched by this. They are going nuts.

Cerberus

You will keep your counsel on what far more you hope for?

tchrist

@Cerberus Indeed.

Cerberus

3:17 AM

Alas.

Whatever happens now, the Republican party will change or collapse eventually.

The situation for their hardliners will perhaps never again be as good as it was before they lost control of the lower house.

> Meanwhile, the president is apparently being served up much more favorable numbers. The Post reported late Thursday that aides “have sought to boost Trump’s mood by presenting him internal polling that shows him in a better position than public surveys.” Trump was apparently thumbing through those polls when interviewed Wednesday by Post columnist Marc A. Thiessen.

Funny.

washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/10/…

tchrist

Nuremberg would be a good place to start.

A Constitutional Amendment that effected something of a damnatio memoriae to remove this interregnum from the accounting of regimes.

Cerberus

Hmm but then how could one learn not repeat it?

tchrist

I understand, without agreeing with their actions, the people who have risen up against their own rulers whose deliberately evil decisions consigned so thousands or millions of them to the grave and put those same rulers to the sword for these acts of unspeakable infamy.

When millions die in China of famine and plague and a peasant rebellion crushes the decadent house who made all that happen, that dynasty is ended. Forcefully. Finally.

Cerberus

Except that the next dynasty did the same thing again...

At least this will probably not happen again in China in the foreseeable future.

Food security seems strong.

tchrist

@Cerberus Fortune rota volvitur.

Cerberus

3:32 AM

Fortunae?

tchrist

You'd think.

Cerberus

Mediaeval?

Abbreviated, with an e caudata?

tchrist

Yes.

Cerberus

> In de stad New York zijn het afgelopen etmaal voor het eerst in maanden tijd geen coronadoden gemeld.

tchrist

> O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem,
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem.

Sors immanis
et inanis,
rota tu volubilis,
status malus,
vana salus
semper dissolubilis,
obumbrata
et velata
michi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.

Sors salutis
et virtutis
michi nunc contraria,
est affectus
et defectus
semper in angaria.
Hac in hora
sine mora
corde pulsum tangite;
quod per sortem

Was the poem.

Orff did something weird with it somewhere.

O Fortuna

"O Fortuna" is a medieval Latin Goliardic poem written early in the 13th century, part of the collection known as the Carmina Burana. It is a complaint about Fortuna, the inexorable fate that rules both gods and mortals in Roman and Greek mythology. In 1935–36, "O Fortuna" was set to music by German composer Carl Orff as a part of "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi", the opening and closing movement of his cantata Carmina Burana. It was first staged by the Frankfurt Opera on 8 June 1937. It opens at a slow pace with thumping drums and choir that drops quickly into a whisper, building slowly in a steady...

Cerberus

3:36 AM

Hmm.

tchrist

I can't figure out why it's Fortune.

> Fortune rota volvitur:
descendo minoratus;
alter in altum tollitur;
nimis exaltatus
rex sedet in vertice
caveat ruinam!

Should be -ae like you said for genitive.

Maybe they squished it.

Cerberus

Do you see other e's that should be ae's anywhere?

tchrist

Not immediately, but rota fortunae is a "fixed phrase".

Rota Fortunae

In medieval and ancient philosophy the Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae, is a symbol of the capricious nature of Fate. The wheel belongs to the goddess Fortuna (Greek equivalent Tyche) who spins it at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel: some suffer great misfortune, others gain windfalls. The metaphor was already a cliche in ancient times, complained about by Tacitus, but was greatly popularized for the Middle Ages by its extended treatment in the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius from around 520. It became a common image in manuscripts of the book, and then other media...

CowperKettle

A temperature of +37°C is expected on Thursday. Wow. This will be an all-time record for Yekaterinburg.

tchrist

@CowperKettle Yerburninburg?

> Fortune Plango Vulnera

@CowperKettle Mom said they had 104F/40C back home just the other day. That never happens that far north.

Well, not truly never-never but still.

Cerberus

3:46 AM

We had our first 40+ degrees last year in known history.

tchrist

I presume vulnera is accusative neuter plural there, and that fortune SHOULD be a genitive singular.

But somehow that plangent line doesn't scan for me.

But I never learned "mediaeval declensions", so I have no idea.

Cerberus

@tchrist This happens in Mediaeval Latin.

@tchrist Yes.

I would scan it as _ _ _ _ _ _ \/ \/

No idea whether it is even supposed to be a metre, though.

tchrist

By the middles they were accentuated I imagine, not long/short.

It's poetry, so I would think it will have had a meter.

> Fortune plango vulnera
Stillantibus ocellis
Quod sua mihi munera
Subtrahit rebellis
Verum est, quod legitur
Fronte capillata
Sed plerumque sequitur
Occasio calvata

In Fortune solio
Sederam elatus
Prosperitatis vario
Flore coronatus;
Quisquid enim florui
Felix et beatus
Nunc a summo corrui
Gloria privatus

Fortune rota volvitur:
Descendo minoratus;
Alter in altum tollitur;
Nimis exaltatus
Rex sedet in vertice
Caveat ruinam!
Nam sub axe legimus
Hecubam reginam

Cerberus

@tchrist Quite possibly.

Now it is time for bed.

Ciao!

tchrist

Night!

tchrist

4:09 AM

> In Phoenix, Arizona, records are predicted to reach 116F (46.6C) – which would break the previous record of 115F set in 2009. In California, Palm Springs is expected to reach 119F , nearing a record set in 1985 of 120F. In Texas, temperatures are expected to exceed 100F in San Antonio and Dallas.

We've barely three weeks past the solstice.

tchrist

7:26 AM

@Robusto vox.com/platform/amp/2020/7/12/21321653/…

Matt E. Эллен

8:24 AM

is nonchalance a feeling @Mitch? Could you "feel too nonchalant to go skydiving"?

Captain Bohemian

do you feel too hot?

Matt E. Эллен

I feel approximately adequately warm

Captain Bohemian

8:41 AM

I feel dominant heat.

Matt E. Эллен

sounds oppressive

Captain Bohemian

why does polytropic mean affecting more than one type of cell, said of viruses, or affecting more than one type of tissue, said of certain poisons based on the etymology of tropic?

@MattE.Эллен It's really hot with temperature in this room indicated as 33 degrees Celsius.

Matt E. Эллен

> -tropic, comb. form — Physiology. Forming adjectives designating hormones and other agents that act upon a specific organ or tissue, as neurotropic adj., sympathicotropic adj., etc.

@CaptainBohemian that sounds unpleasant. I would not want to work in those conditions

Jasper

9:10 AM

It is supposed to be hotter here now because of the season, but it is actually colder because of the winds.

Captain Bohemian

@MattE.Эллен is sympathetic nervous system responsible for feeling sympathy?

Matt E. Эллен

9:26 AM

@CaptainBohemian ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Captain Bohemian

@MattE.Эллен I seem to have seen the word sympathicotropic recently and before but don't know what it means

Matt E. Эллен

apparently it relates to things affecting the sympathetic nervous system

Captain Bohemian

9:54 AM

the problem is I don't know what is the sympathetic nervous system.

CowperKettle

Is this real?

Gigili

10:57 AM

More unpleasant than the muddy water is the tall building built at the bank of the river.

CowperKettle

What is Mus dunni? From the context, must be just the common mouse, yet Google brings up few results.

Maybe dunni is some Latin abbreviation? From domesticus?

CowperKettle

11:28 AM

@Gigili I agree. There must never be buildings close to water, they promote contamination.

There always must be a clean zone on the shore.

M.A.R.

12:11 PM

@CowperKettle They promote getting flooded, first and foremost

More often than not, it's poor souls who couldn't afford anything less illegal.

Cerberus

1:06 PM

@CowperKettle Most probably not.

> Mus terricolor (also known as Mus dunni; indigenous to northwestern India)

Domesticated plants and animals of Austronesia

One of the major human migration events was the maritime settlement of the islands of the Indo-Pacific by the Austronesian peoples, believed to have started from at least 5,500 to 4,000 BP (3500 to 2000 BC). These migrations were accompanied by a set of domesticated, semi-domesticated, and commensal plants and animals transported via outrigger ships and catamarans that enabled early Austronesians to thrive in the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia, Near Oceania (Melanesia), and Remote Oceania (Micronesia and Polynesia), Madagascar, and the Comoros Islands.They include crops and animals believed...

@Robusto Are you at home yet?

Feeling somewhat better?

Robusto

1:26 PM

@Cerberus Yes, thanks. Got home yesterday afternoon. Many abrasions, though, and I'm pretty stiff and sore.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен I would expect to be pushed with great chalance on my part out of a plane, with or without parachute.

CowperKettle

@Cerberus Thank you!

Cerberus

@Robusto How does your head feel?

CowperKettle

Russian vaccine against COVID to be approved for use in the second half of August

Cerberus

@CowperKettle You're welcome!

@CowperKettle Oh, good!

That is very fast; I hope it has been properly tested.

Robusto

1:33 PM

@Cerberus Meh. I kind of ache all over. Worst part is my limbs.

CowperKettle

@Cerberus I am sure it has not been properly tested. The timing is ridiculously fast.

Cerberus

You didn't break any limbs?

Robusto

@CowperKettle Can you believe the source?

@Cerberus Nope.

CowperKettle

@Robusto It's an official Russian media, state-controlled agency created over 100 years ago

Cerberus

Any damage to your hands?

CowperKettle

1:34 PM

TASS

Russian News Agency TASS (Russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, romanized: Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii TASS), abbreviated TASS (ТАСС), is a major news agency in Russia founded in 1904. TASS is the largest Russian news agency and one of the largest news agencies worldwide, along with Reuters, the Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse (AFP).TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterprise, owned by the Government of Russia. Headquartered in Moscow, TASS has 70 offices in Russia and in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), as well as 68 bureaus around the...

Robusto

@CowperKettle Нет правды в новостях, нет новостей в правде

I know it from the Cold War days, Tass and Pravda.

@Cerberus Just the backsides of them.

But I won't be sitting up playing the piano anytime soon.

Cerberus

OK.

Skin will heal eventually...

Robusto

Yes. They put this new (?) stuff called DuoDerm on it, which is supposed to heal it up in 5 days.

Cerberus

How did it happen?

That would be fast!

Robusto

It happened when I was in a fast paceline on Saturday. We were doing ~35 kph on a flat, comfortable road, switching the lead every 1.6 km. On one switch I was third in line, and the former leader was adjacent to me on his way back. A car passed us and the former leader moved in closer to the pace line, I tried to move over to give him room, but the new leader had slowed a bit for some reason, and my front tire touched his rear tire and BOOM! That was that.

I don't remember falling, just being on the ground.

Cerberus

1:44 PM

Oh, dear.

Such a small move, such a big disaster.

Robusto

That's how it happens.

Johan Larsson

no fun

Robusto

You look back on it and you think one more centimeter of clearance and everything would have been fine.

Cerberus

We you the only one who fell?

Yeah.

Johan Larsson

are you a biker too cerberus?

Cerberus

1:46 PM

Only as a means of transportation.

I never go fast.

Johan Larsson

@Robusto what does the helmet look like today?

Robusto

@JohanLarsson It's in pieces.

Did its job, though.

Johan Larsson

good

Robusto

My next helmet is going to be better, best I can find.

This one wasn't bad, but there are new technologies. Look up MIPS helmet.

Johan Larsson

Do bicycle helmets have a use before date?

Riding helmets do, at least in sweden

Robusto

1:55 PM

evo.com/guides/mips-helmet-technology

@JohanLarsson Yeah. Usually you get a new one if you even drop the helmet on the ground.

Mine was a couple years old.

> MIPS is an acronym for Multi-Directional Impact Protection System. The technology was created in 2001 by members of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

So you should be aware of that, @Johan.

Johan Larsson

never heard of

Gigili

2:31 PM

@Robusto Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that and wish you a speedy recovery.

@Robusto protective and pricey!

I don't own a bike, I rented one for around 6 months but only rode it for couple days. The weather is always windy here and makes bike riding unpleasant.

Matt E. Эллен

@Robusto glad to hear it's nothing worse

Robusto

@Gigili Thanks.

@Gigili After Satuday I'm not going to be parsimonious about head protection. The very best, in this one area, is the minimum standard for me.

@MattE.Эллен Thanks.

I hate having this as a rebuttal to @Cerb's disdain for helmetry, but there it is.

Gigili

@Robusto Yeah, smart people learn from experience.

Cerberus

3:09 PM

@Robusto No disdain.

I would certainly wear a helmet if I went bike-racing.

Robusto

3:26 PM

@Cerberus I would like to see that.

The worst part about this whole thing is not the pain, but the fact that I'm forbidden to ride for two weeks, due to the slight brain bleed. I am going to go stir crazy.

8 Worst Cycling Fan Moments Of 2018

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Cerberus

3:46 PM

@Robusto Haha, well, actually, I have never done it.

@Robusto Hmm at least the damage seems minor?

Robusto

@Cerberus Yeah. Like beauty, it's only skin-deep.

Cerberus

The brain bleed?

Robusto

Not that.

It was minor and, thankfully, didn't progress. But I need to not fall for a while, or that may change.

Cerberus

So you were lucky!

I'm sure the helmet softened the blow.

Did anyone else fall as well?

Robusto

@Cerberus That's one way to look at it. Luckier would have been not to have clipped that tire. But I'll take it.

Cerberus

3:56 PM

Yeah.

Robusto

@Cerberus The guy behind me rode over me.

Cerberus

Ouch.

But he didn't fall?

Robusto

I think he may have ridden over my rear wheel like a ramp.

But I wasn't aware of that.

Cerberus

OK so you were the only one who fell. You're the unfortunate one.

Robusto

Yep.

I think I'm not going to paceline with all these young bucks anymore. No ten-man groups where I don't know everyone and have ridden with them before. There's too much pace competition and testosterone-fueled lack of caution.

Which brings the average speed up, the tolerances tighter, and all that.

1 hour ago, by Gigili

@Robusto Yeah, smart people learn from experience.

Words to live by.

Cerberus

4:02 PM

@Robusto That would make sense.

M.A.R.

5:01 PM

@Robusto If it's just aches it's OK

CowperKettle

6:05 PM

A woman from my house fell ill with COVID. Her husband said she has once lost her consciousness. He is also coughing. They called an ambulance but due to overload it will arrive "within 24 hours".

From the neighboring entrance, a family of 5 was transported to the hospital today, with COVID.

Cerberus

6:42 PM

Yikes.

CowperKettle

6:57 PM

Do you call the vertically-accessible sections of large multistorey houses "entrances" or "porches"?

"From the neighboring porch".

Each entrance gives access to 10 stories of flats.

But only vertically. Each landing has access to about 3 or 4 flats.

To reach a neighbor's flat, you sometimes have to go to the next porch and ride the elevator there.

Xanne

7:32 PM

@CowperKettle Entryway, perhaps. 24 hours is scarey.

Mitch

@CowperKettle The context would have to be very peculiar to get 'from the neighboring porch'.

There is nothing about 'porch' that necessarily implies anything entrance-like.

I don't associate a porch with a large building.

Yeah, Xanne's 'entryway' is good (or entrance).

M.A.R.

7:47 PM

@CowperKettle dude. Take care!

I think you're also a more susceptible patient, like me

Xanne

@Robusto My sympathies. Take care.

Mitch

8:17 PM

@Robusto Wait... what happens when two tires like that touch? Do they really grip each other enough? What happens to the bike in back and what to the one in front?

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, no whitespace in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer, repeating characters in answer (263): forbid her anything and it became her desire by Edwin Villanueva on english.SE

M.A.R.

@Mitch since they're always touching with some small angle at least, my brain visualizes that the front wheel of the bike in the back jerks in the opposite direction

Not much happens to the one in front, I think. The rear wheel supports the biker's weight and does not change direction, so unless a force moves the entire bike, nothing much would happen to it

Robusto

8:50 PM

@Mitch In a contest between a front tire and a rear tire the front tire always loses. The rear tire is stable because not steerable, while the front tire just needs to go out of line the tiniest little bit to make you lose your balance. Especially at speed.

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