The virus isn't what concerns me, it's the amount of control over personal lives, businesses, what we can and cannot do that we just ceeded to the governments over personal responsibility.

We can claim it's the right thing, and how unsurprised we are at things that have been closed, the the fact is we'll never really know if those things did any good.

In the end if the numbers fall, it worked, and the restrictions were the reason, right or wrong, we'll never really know.

And for the future, this will be the method of control, regardless of what it does to the economy, families, or health.

And that is the part that is scary.

The human race has survivied much worse health scares, it will survive this..

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by PowerSurge:

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Some of y'all are panicking as badly about the economic impact as others are about the virus, itself.

Next up: People panicking over people panicking.

The economic damage from this panic will be far worse than the virus.

Mark my words. No panic, just facts.

And as a consequence, is anyone even talking about the likelihood of a spike in suicide rates? And after we finally started to see a real drop in those rates after the terrible Obama years.

I used self check out at the grocery store with about $400 worth of food. I almost slit my wrists because of that darn self checkout thing. Does that almost count?

With all the people being sent home to work we'll see a spike in pregancies and divorces over the next several weeks/months

Probably alcohol consumption too!

Some motorcyclists lives were just saved. The Isle of Man TT has been canceled. The TT is the most dangerous Motorsport event on this planet and is an event that kills a rider almost every year. This event is so insane that it has a staggering list of spectator deaths.

Link to article

This is going to have a severe impact on their economy. I imagine the TT was a major source of income for that island. I wasn’t going to go this year but some day I’ll make the pilgrimage.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
With all the people being sent home to work we'll see a spike in pregancies and divorces over the next several weeks/months

Probably alcohol consumption too!

If you require a VPN to get into your company network, and you just told 40,000 people to work from home, uhhhh, ooops. Not enough VPN connections. So I'm on Sigforum instead of working - sorry for you guys!

quote:

Originally posted by Jimineer:

If you require a VPN to get into your company network, and you just told 40,000 people to work from home, uhhhh, ooops. Not enough VPN connections. So I'm on Sigforum instead of working - sorry for you guys!

What idiot didn't think of that? This stuff is pretty fundamental to IT.

Mic... Friggin... Drop!

Boom!

Trump's Google Mic Drop

Ohio Gov Dewine just suspended in person voting.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:

quote:

Originally posted by Jimineer:

If you require a VPN to get into your company network, and you just told 40,000 people to work from home, uhhhh, ooops. Not enough VPN connections. So I'm on Sigforum instead of working - sorry for you guys!

What idiot didn't think of that? This stuff is pretty fundamental to IT.

We had a call earlier today and this topic came up. I think they said our limit was 45,000 people on the VPN. I am pretty sure they need 60,000 people based on current thinking. They have 5,000 RSA tokens currently on hand, with 6,000 more hitting the loading docks today, but I don't think its going to be enough.

France is now shutting down its borders.

They are also now basically telling everyone to stay home. If you're out and about buying food whatnot, you have to maintain at least a meter between each other or you could actually be fined.

We just watched the French president give his address on France24.

My wife is concerned about her parents who may now not being able to visit her grandfather who is on his deathbed. Terrible situation there. My wife knows the chances of getting back to France when he finally passes is near zero now. There has to be an untold number of people in the same situation.

There's nothing to do now but just wait out this insanity. Bitching about it will do no good. We're all in the same boat. We should all do our best to weather the storm, having little other choice in the matter. Let's boltster our fellow forum members and make the best of this mess.

If there's anything good to take away from this, it's that every single person in every single industrialized nation, who is responsible for their own survival, has a bit of a different perspective on the integrity of their place in society.
Once all of this is over, sensible people will stock up on food and water if they an afford it.
I was on youtube earlier today and it showed interesting trends in viewing- showing as trending were things like 'how to can pickles', 'how to bake bread' and 'starting a vegetable garden'.

It's a wakeup call for many people. I think that once the feeling of danger has passed and once the markets begin to recover, we will remember the lessons learned and we as individuals and we as a society shall be the better for it.

It's reminiscent of a war- things change during a war and some of them never change back to what they were before the war. Things are learned during a war, poor systems and rules are exposed and changed.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:

quote:

Originally posted by Jimineer:

If you require a VPN to get into your company network, and you just told 40,000 people to work from home, uhhhh, ooops. Not enough VPN connections. So I'm on Sigforum instead of working - sorry for you guys!

What idiot didn't think of that? This stuff is pretty fundamental to IT.

I don't think ANY company big or small was ever thinking they'd have to send their ENTIRE workforce home like this.

My one BIL works in sales for a large company that does corporate software licensing and also hardware and he's getting hammered with calls from company IT types DESPERATE for laptops right now.

Guess what? No more laptops right now, they've all been snapped up and the supply is from...you guessed it...CHINA.

When this all is over and done with and we return to whatever we will consider "normal" in the future, I predict there will be a huge boom in the disaster preparedness/continuity of operations business. We saw a big uptick in it after 9/11, then as time went on it started to become a lost art again.

And the other thing that is going to be a cluster now with everyone at home streaming and surfing with nothing else to do; how are Comcast and Verizon and other internet providers going to handle this? I think it's all going to slow waaaaaaaaaay down if not crash altogether.

Have you ever been to a music festival and your phone is useless because every single person there is trying to use theirs? We are going to be looking at that all over.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:

quote:

She also said she was having a hard time finding bread anywhere and I said "Did you forget you married an ex-baker and pasty chef?"

I had her get flour and yeast and oil on her last run which luckily hasn't been stripped bare yet and told her we will make our own bread if it comes down to that. Hell, I might be planting a big vegetable garden in the back yard this year at the current rate! My COVID-19 Victory Garden!

My wife baked bread for the first time in 10 years this past week (we've been on low-carb diet for past 10 years--her whole-wheat bread made with freshly-ground wheat berries is so irresistible when it comes hot from the oven!. Ordered 50 lbs. of harder winter wheat berries from Amazon.

She's also talking about planting tomatoes in the back yard, so we may have a Virus Victory Garden too.

I've been milling my own flour for a little over a year now just to have healthier bread. Hard white wheat berries make some of the best tasting bread I ever had, world's better than the crap in the store. I use a recipe from King Arthur Flour (lot's of recipes on their website)

Idiot PA Governor just issued a decree....close all "non-essential" business for two weeks:

https://www.wfmz.com/news/area...45-3ff4194e7698.html

So....who defines "non-essential"?

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
With all the people being sent home to work we'll see a spike in pregancies and divorces over the next several weeks/months

Probably alcohol consumption too!

Not if other states do like my daughter just texted me. "PA is shutting down all alcohol sales"

quote:

Originally posted by rburg:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
I mean seriously, how much toilet paper can one fit in his garage?

To answer that, we'd need to know if its a one, two, or three car garage. And if you moved the cars outside, you could fill them with TP, too.

African or European?

What's your favorite color?

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
There's nothing to do now but just wait out this insanity. Bitching about it will do no good. We're all in the same boat. We should all do our best to weather the storm, having little other choice in the matter. Let's boltster our fellow forum members and make the best of this mess.

If there's anything goood to take away from this, it's that every single person in every single industrialized nation, who is responsible for their own survival, has a bit of a different perspective on the integtity of their place in society.
Once all of this is over, sensible people will stock up on food and water if they an afford it.
I was on youtube earlier today and it showed interesting trends in viewing- showing as trending were things like 'how to can pickles', 'how to bake bread' and 'starting a vegetable garden'.

It's a wakeup call for many people. I think that once the feeling of danger has passed and once the markets begin to recover, we will remember the lessons learned and we as individuals and we as a society shall be the better for it.

It's reminiscent of a war- things change during a war and some of them never change back to what they were before the war. Things are learned during a war, poor systems and rules are exposed and changed.

I wish there was a like button.

quote:

Originally posted by sgalczyn:
Idiot PA Governor just issued a decree....close all "non-essential" business for two weeks:

https://www.wfmz.com/news/area...45-3ff4194e7698.html

So....who defines "non-essential"?

Below is a comment from the comment section of that article:

"This isn't as complicated as everyone is making it....gas stations, grocery, medical, pharmacy. If a business doesn't fall within any of these categories they should close. Statewide."

This is what most people don't understand. They act like there isn't a whole plethora of companies who support those industries.

For example my company. We are a large mechanical contractor. We do both commercial and industrial work. Refineries and hospitals are two industries we serve.

So is my business "essential?" If a hospital loses an air handler and we're home on our couch, now what? If refineries can't make gasoline, everything is ok? One of our best customers is also a huge manufacture of hand sanitizer (we have several large chemical customers). If they have a pump go down and we are at home they're dead in the water.

This is all vertically linked. It's not so simple as saying just those three or four types of businesses stay open. I'm not sure the politicians get this either. All those medical supplies are made by someone and there are a host of companies who those manufacturers rely on to stay in production. It's a long list of companies we can't shut down.

Also, my payroll is 7 figures a month. Everyone think they're getting their normal paycheck if we shutdown?

quote:

Originally posted by SIG228:

I wish there was a like button.

Quite right.

We did our usual Hurricane prep early this year plus some extra, and will maintain it from here on out. We already grow a lot of our own produce and are going to start growing potatoes as well. Water storage is next.

We need to feed the world a Snickers.

For real this time.