Complaint Thread

[Alpinemaps]

1 hour ago, Mark Twain said:

2020-2021 described in a single word--Languishing

"Languishing is the neglected middle child of mental health. It’s the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of well-being. You don’t have symptoms of mental illness, but you’re not the picture of mental health either. You’re not functioning at full capacity. Languishing dulls your motivation, disrupts your ability to focus, and triples the odds that you’ll cut back on work. It appears to be more common than major depression — and in some ways it may be a bigger risk factor for mental illness." 

In all seriousness, this sounds like my kids, especially my 9 year old as it relates to school.  We made the decision this week to apply for an Inter District Transfer, and get him out of our district, which seems to be dragging it's heels, and into a STEM-focused school up the road.

[spener90]

2 hours ago, Alpinemaps said:

In all seriousness, this sounds like my kids, especially my 9 year old as it relates to school.  We made the decision this week to apply for an Inter District Transfer, and get him out of our district, which seems to be dragging it's heels, and into a STEM-focused school up the road.

As someone finishing nursing school at the end of summer, I am unfortunately an adult who has gotten to experience the struggles of pandemic schools first hand, and I can't even imagine the struggles of a those in grade school right now. It is a very isolating experience for students and languishing is a good way of describing the online experience.

[keymomachine]

14 hours ago, keymomachine said:

Woke up to my phone, a Pixel 3, powered-off and non-responsive on my bedside table. It had 78% when I set it down to sleep. Why couldn't this have happened yesterday when my parents were visiting and could pay attention to my four year old while I troubleshoot this. I'm considering just ordering a replacement one off Woot today

Wow, turns out I'm REALLY reliant on my phone, even for a guy who sits around home most of the day. I basically spent the day trying to figure out if it could be fixed (probably not) and what to do next (upgrade to the latest or just replace it with the same thing). I finally opted to order a brand new Pixel 3 for $200 from Woot. So I guess I'll limp along with my old Pixel 1 attached to a backup battery for a few days. 

[lazuli16]

8 hours ago, keymomachine said:

Wow, turns out I'm REALLY reliant on my phone, even for a guy who sits around home most of the day. I basically spent the day trying to figure out if it could be fixed (probably not) and what to do next (upgrade to the latest or just replace it with the same thing). I finally opted to order a brand new Pixel 3 for $200 from Woot. So I guess I'll limp along with my old Pixel 1 attached to a backup battery for a few days. 

Not that it matters, but this whole time I thought you were a woman.  I read your username as key-mom-machine.  I don't know how I added the other m in the name. 

[Belac]

RIP Shock G.  Man I listened to a lot of Digital Underground. I'll have to break out the tapes again.

[$20 on joe vs dan]

DAng...India is in bad shape and its looking like it's going to get a lot worse

with  a population of 1.3B (many poor) and cases/deaths spiking; it's like an experiment on how nasty of a CV variant can be made.  Already headlines of triple mutant variant that's easier to catch, more deadly, and not stopped by vaccines (basically the worse case scenario trifecta).  I could see the world closing their borders to India indefinitely.  

Sorry for those with family there.

[REDUCE523]

17 hours ago, Belac said:

RIP Shock G.  Man I listened to a lot of Digital Underground. I'll have to break out the tapes again.

I got that 5 on it remix on repeat.

[$20 on joe vs dan]

OK, India's situation is looking very foreboding.

They are currently at similar US peak levels (which is the worse in the world) BUT:

Just doing the math, US population is 350M and India is 1.3 BILLION, that's 3.7 times the US population

US deaths were in the 200K...so simple extrapolation means 742K deaths

BUT

US, albeit slow to come around, has much better medical infrastructure..India has committed one of the lowest amount of resources to their heath care system among top nations. The best example is the lack of Oxygen there...even at the highest peak in the US, O2 was never considered universally scarce.

So my cynical self sees this whole thing getting at best twice as worse to possibly 3 to 5 times worse than US peak. Marshall law in India will occur w/ lots of protests...(incidentally what is the other country that has 1B+ population...how did they fare? hmmm); but the bigger global issues are closed borders and xenophobia of everyone that looks indian. Airlines could start locking down again and there are already travel bans...which will eventually encompass most of Southeast Asia

..and ofcourse the biggest MFer of all this is what kinds of crazy new variants will come out of a million people getting infected every 3 days 

[raindog]

50 minutes ago, $20 on joe vs dan said:

Airlines could start locking down again and there are already travel bans...which will eventually encompass most of Southeast Asia

Some countries never open up.  I've been trying to get back in to the Philippines for almost a year now.  They are still locked down pretty good there, at least in the ex-Pat communities.

[Darth_Raichu]

Too many s**t to keep up with.  My "reads" have been wrong lately.  Too many mistakes.  Need to clean up my game..

Maybe time to quit?

 

Nah....

maybe...

Can't decide...

[$20 on joe vs dan]

Covid Effect: Waiting in line...to wait in another line

 

Anyway, drove across the SF Bay Bridge this am (haven't crossed in awhile) and I saw that there was a queue of container ships waiting to get unloaded at the Oakland Port...like as far as the eye can see kind of thing..WHOAH. Do you remember the images of truck lines during the big storm this past winter...imagine something like that but w/ mega barges clogging the bay.

For anyone that knows anything about how ports work...each container =$, so efficiency on regular days is 24/7...so basically I am saying they will NEVER catch up and if anything...they are probably skipping planned maintenance down time to attempt at catching up which puts a high risk on equipment failure leading to an even bigger delay. Also there's a huge shortage of truck drivers in the US...like down 30-40% overall (many retired due to CV) so even if the container gets unloaded...it waits in another line to get hauled.

There are 4 major ports that serve the Western US: Long Beach, Oakland, Portland, and Seattle...you can imagine the backlog.

[oneknightr]

14 minutes ago, $20 on joe vs dan said:

Covid Effect: Waiting in line...to wait in another line

 

Anyway, drove across the SF Bay Bridge this am (haven't crossed in awhile) and I saw that there was a queue of container ships waiting to get unloaded at the Oakland Port...like as far as the eye can see kind of thing..WHOAH. Do you remember the images of truck lines during the big storm this past winter...imagine something like that but w/ mega barges clogging the bay.

For anyone that knows anything about how ports work...each container =$, so efficiency on regular days is 24/7...so basically I am saying they will NEVER catch up and if anything...they are probably skipping planned maintenance down time to attempt at catching up which puts a high risk on equipment failure leading to an even bigger delay. Also there's a huge shortage of truck drivers in the US...like down 30-40% overall (many retired due to CV) so even if the container gets unloaded...it waits in another line to get hauled.

There are 4 major ports that serve the Western US: Long Beach, Oakland, Portland, and Seattle...you can imagine the backlog.

We noticed the higher number of container ships in the Bay a few days ago from my living room window and wondered why. We realized it was the Suez Canal being unblocked that caused this fleet of container ships to arrive. 

[exracer327]

5 minutes ago, oneknightr said:

We noticed the higher number of container ships in the Bay a few days ago from my living room window and wondered why. We realized it was the Suez Canal being unblocked that caused this fleet of container ships to arrive. 

 

I saw a news report back in February about Long Beach having two month's worth of backlog ships sitting off shore like this.  If you guys are just now seeing it maybe they decided to reroute ships north to lessen the load on Long Beach.

[$20 on joe vs dan]

5 minutes ago, exracer327 said:

I saw a news report back in February about Long Beach having two month's worth of backlog ships sitting off shore like this.  If you guys are just now seeing it maybe they decided to reroute ships north to lessen the load on Long Beach.

the take home message for BPers?

set yourself up for Christmas time...because it's possible the shortages may be WORSE than last Christmas

[$20 on joe vs dan]

https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/A-Decade-Ago-He-Went-to-Prison-for-Bullying-16144272.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-Editors-Picks

So if you threaten your buyers w/ violence and post their personal info credit card #, phone number , and address on 3rd part review sites...Google rewards you by putting your company on top 10 searches.  

I found it interesting this guy basically buys his stock on ebay and drop ships them to his customers who he cyber-bullies to get them to complain which apparently google rewards.

makes over $3m/yr ...

Edited May 3, 2021 by $20 on joe vs dan

[Darth_Raichu]

1. My worthless reads
2. USPS so called Priority International that took 7 weeks to mail 1 pound package from US to EU

[redghostx]

1. My worthless reads
2. USPS so called Priority International that took 7 weeks to mail 1 pound package from US to EU

International shipping is rough right now. My priority package from Canada to UK also took 7 weeks instead of the usual 5-7 business days. It's as if it sat at a warehouse for weeks before hopping on a plane, because it didn't get a royal mail scan until the day before it went to the local delivery area

Yay LEGO!

[Darth_Raichu]

@$20 on joe vs dan Curious what your take on this video related to India. It also touches on mask wearing + vaccine

 

[$20 on joe vs dan]

15 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

@$20 on joe vs dan Curious what your take on this video related to India and mask wearing

 

Couldn't watch more than first few minutes...may watch watch more later.

India is in bad shape no doubt and there are multiple dynamic factors involved.  It's interesting that when it comes to India, so much is under-reported...specifically like this youtube points out...the poor in the slums WERE hit hard back in 2020 but barely mentioned...but clearly weathering the current storm.  I read another article which cites the current numbers for India which maybe more like 10x under-reported. WOWzers.

I spoke w/ an Indian friend yesterday and he said trying to convey the scale of what's going on is even hard to do in the US.  He said basically everyone he knows back in India knows someone within their circles that died from CV within the last 2 weeks.  Imagine saying something like that here? His parent's neighbors just died a week ago...he said he knew them and has been over their home growing up.

Masking wearing...is there still a debate on this?

[Darth_Raichu]

31 minutes ago, $20 on joe vs dan said:

Couldn't watch more than first few minutes...may watch watch more later.

India is in bad shape no doubt and there are multiple dynamic factors involved.  It's interesting that when it comes to India, so much is under-reported...specifically like this youtube points out...the poor in the slums WERE hit hard back in 2020 but barely mentioned...but clearly weathering the current storm.  I read another article which cites the current numbers for India which maybe more like 10x under-reported. WOWzers.

I spoke w/ an Indian friend yesterday and he said trying to convey the scale of what's going on is even hard to do in the US.  He said basically everyone he knows back in India knows someone within their circles that died from CV within the last 2 weeks.  Imagine saying something like that here? His parent's neighbors just died a week ago...he said he knew them and has been over their home growing up.

Masking wearing...is there still a debate on this?

Watch it and let me know what you think.  If you are not familiar with them, the guy is an MD and the woman is Prof of Medicine at UCSF.  Basically candid discussion between 2 scientists regarding the subject.  These 2 people also have personal stakes on what is happening in India.  They are also discussing solutions to the problem.  

As for mask, watch the video

[Alpinemaps]

I heard today that while India is one of the biggest producers of the vaccine, it kept little to none for itself, and instead exported almost the entire production run.  Something that could have potentially helped India was to have forced more of the vaccine to stay in country vs being exported out.

[redghostx]

I heard today that while India is one of the biggest producers of the vaccine, it kept little to none for itself, and instead exported almost the entire production run.  Something that could have potentially helped India was to have forced more of the vaccine to stay in country vs being exported out.

It's like airplane safety.
When the plane depressurizes, put your own mask on first, then save those around you.

Media says that you need to vaccinate the poorest countries, because they get hit hard, but the alternative seems to be awfully bad, plus this can't be good for SII's production capabilities.

There are ways to vaccinate lots of your country and help everyone else too.

Yay LEGO!

[$20 on joe vs dan]

25 minutes ago, Alpinemaps said:

I heard today that while India is one of the biggest producers of the vaccine, it kept little to none for itself, and instead exported almost the entire production run.  Something that could have potentially helped India was to have forced more of the vaccine to stay in country vs being exported out.

clearly India's leaders bungled this in a major way.

the underlying reasons is over-confidence in how "well" their country did in 2020..."well" is relative since almost 60% of the poor in mumbai got CV back in teh 1st wave, but apparently "they don't count".  Also the super-spreader events that the government promoted...were not the 100s at wedding or convention...it was Millions at rallies and religious ceremonies.  

[zaphoid]

people who write in instructions books, specifically using a marker to note what pieces are missing on the inventory page.

[oneknightr]

16 minutes ago, zaphoid said:

people who write in instructions books, specifically using a marker to note what pieces are missing on the inventory page.

I feel you on that one! I bought a loose 10236 Ewok Village and the mom did just that as well as markings on the pages where the missing pieces were used.