https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109370/

trump'd better be careful about putting troops on the border.

we still have the corpse of john candy to fling, monty python style.

....although it's maybe more about all of those south park republicans.

we shouldn't have closed the border, and the people that made that decision are responsible for any consequences resulting from it and need to be held accountable for it. that was colossally stupid....

this will blow over, of course. but, you can't be treating trump like a rational actor, and you should have figured that out years ago.

let me turn the log on and see if i get anything other than the usual stream of dropped packets.

i mean, it would be kind of stupid to ddos me.

i don't have a server running. i'm not even torrenting. my router seems to be able to handle it. it's just increasing my bandwidth.

there's nothing to knock offline. somebody would be missing the point.

yeah.

what if i'm under a denial of service attack?

and, if i am, why?

so, i quickly found the cd-r i remembered getting with the modem, but it literally just has a ten page pdf on it. useless...

i do have a chrome book here, and i should be able to log into a terminal. i don't know how much access i'll have. i'm a windows user; i'm used to being admin, i'm not used to being told i can't do things. linux has this weird hierarchy that i've always found to be sort of oppressive. but, if i can get into there from here...

have i ever done this before?

the answer is no.

i worked very briefly for fortinet, but i was really a new hire. some manager from st. louis came in one day and fired me because she didn't like my hair; she called me a "worthless musician". well, she struck me as a corporate nazi, so we can agree to dislike each other, that's fine.

but, i didn't build up the kind of experience working there that i did working for vista. i was with vista for almost a year; i didn't get through training with fortinet.

so, i have a vague idea of how to terminal into this, but....

if i can find a good sight, i should be able to figure it out. and, hopefully, it can give me better logs....

it's times like this when having all these old machines around is useful, it really is.

the best machine for me to use to try to hack into this router is the 90s laptop. let me get that swapped over.

according to the isp, i downloaded over 13 gb of data yesterday, which is obviously wrong.

my modem came with a cd-r. let's see if i can load it on the chromebook.

i also just checked my electrical, and i got my new bill with the credit on it.

the credit was $56.86. yeah. so, my balance went from $67 to $10. i knew this would work out, eventually....one more, and it's a credit rather than a balance....

if i understand the billing process, and my average bill is around $18-20 with time of use pricing worked in, then i have the following variables in my new calculation:

usage: $20

fees: $30

fees: $1

rebate: 31.8%
oesp: $45

...and my new bill is:

($20 + $30 + 1)*(1-.318) - 45 = -$10

also, this:

https://globalnews.ca/news/6723418/ontario-hydro-rates-coronavirus-covid-19/

if that cuts usage down to more like $10-15, and the fees to close to $20, i could see rebates closer to $20-25 a month for a while.

that while give me the credit i need to use my gear for free.

this is of course not very fiscally responsible, but i think we've learned that putting a price on carbon doesn't work, and doesn't actually have a point. just convert the fucking grid, already.

ontario is actually pretty good, with almost all of the generation being generated carbon-free. we should close the remaining natural gas plants immediately. but, we have no coal; it's mostly hydro & nuclear.

so, i ate very slowly, trying to avoid the issue, and have finally logged into the teksavvy account.

it's not updated, yet.

what does my modem say, though, for the evening? well, it's interesting:

wan: 718810 packets ~ 1 gb

lan: 389351 packets ~ 0.57 gb

so, i'm receiving almost twice as many packets from the internet as i'm transmitting locally. that should be wrong....

i watched a little bit of youtube, so i can handle if today is in the middle of my normal usage range - 1-2 gb, total, from the start of the day. the lan option seems more accurate, if not somewhat higher than i'd guess. we'll see what the site says.

i should get a full log for today, and we'll compare.

what if i can explain the situation by pointing to this external wan traffic? can i do any diagnostics on this modem? can i find logs?

i've been pointing out for months that it seems like somebody is trying to control my machine remotely. is this some actual proof of it, if i can get into the modem and find it? 

if i turn the modem off, and the attacker has my mac address or ip address, will their attempts to log into my machine end up as traffic logged by the isp?

i've turned the pc off for the night. i'm going to work on this, instead.

again: i wish i didn't have to do this, but i clearly do.

i mused a little about the potential of immunity to the new virus as a consequence of exposure to the previous one - they were getting partial binding from the old antibodies, so maybe getting that pile on effect would have been easier than starting from scratch. white blood cells will do that, they'll hunt in packs, and take the pathogen down like lions swarming an elephant.

(technically, they're cooperating in neutralizing open electrons. so, if the first antibody gets 10 out of 15 electrons, maybe the second antibody snags the rest. remember - this is a geometry problem first. it's a physics problem second, and a chemistry problem third. then it's a biology problem.)

so, in the end, maybe that was a factor in the slower ramp up.

but, i need to be absolutely clear when i state this: the immediate suppression, followed by the steep onset of disease, is exactly what the literature would have predicted would happen in these east asian countries, and exactly what actual experts would have warned was imminent. if you look, you can even find a few msm articles - even if they didn't get shared on social media.

so, you shouldn't be surprised or disappointed. it was both predictable and obvious; this is actually well understood.

this is why i got off facebook. it's an algorithm for the spread of ignorance. you're not immune to that because you're an enlightened liberal, or something - your shit stinks just as bad. really.

these ideas like "flattening the curve" and "singapore beat covid-19 by embracing fascism" are just the anti-vaxxer movement of the present. and, i hope you like that comparison - i hope it sinks in, and i hope it leads you to do some independent research next time, instead of just singing with the choir.

now, we need to look at what the scientists are actually saying, which is that we need to adapt.

why were cases so low in east asia (excluding that spike in south korea) to start?

because the people that live in these countries are so fearful of their governments that they evaded care until it was too late.

that's the truth.

deal with it.

the reality is that people flouting the "east asian model" are really just spouting ignorance spread by social media, and have absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

guys.

listen.

the transmission of disease is a well studied topic. this is not a new field. and, the reality is that the experiments have already been done and that it's very well understood that this "east asian model" doesn't work, except maybe to slow statistics about the onset of the disease (perception, rather than reality), at the expense of a steeper curve in the end.

we could look at empirical studies, and i'll leave it up to you to look it up. i'm a logician, remember. i'm happy to present an argument. why doesn't this work?

because you just end up fucking scaring people. the context that these policies are generally employed within are authoritarian states, where if you end up in a cell, you're probably never getting out. if you think the cops in north america are scary, imagine getting arrested in a country like iran....

so, when you set up these checkpoints with armed guards with thermometers, people go out of their way to avoid them, thereby making it more difficult to control the spread of the virus.

the initial numbers look promising. "look", observers will say "we have found and isolated the cases and neutralized the problem". but, it only appears that way because the actual carriers are avoiding the checkpoints like the plague.

what the literature actually states will happen if you employ this model is that you'll get a steep curve in the end, once the effects of evasion have made themselves known. and, that is what we are seeing right now in countries like singapore and taiwan - as well, increasingly, in south korea.

i know that there were some media reports early that pointed to these countries as models, and that these reports were spread widely on social media. this spread of information over social media has consequently constructed a narrative about an east asian model, and the need to surrender individual civil rights for the benefit of collective security.

but, these reports were written in ways that are starkly ignorant of the literature on the topic, and everything that we know about how diseases transmit.

we want to be able to track disease, that is true. that means that we want people to come to the checkpoints, rather than avoid them. and that means we want to avoid scaring them, by doing things like publishing their credit card history on social media, or putting them under forced lockdown for days or weeks.

it's your governor or premier that threw you out of work.

is your governor or premier compensating you for it?

what do i think about the stimulus package in the united states?

i don't tend to oppose things like emergency loans, or research & development. but, it would appear that the package is indeed a little skimpy on help for workers.

it's not that i don't believe in class war - i do. there's a class war, and the capitalists are constantly fighting it, and workers always need to act as though they are directly in conflict with capital, even considering malatesta's critique of syndicalism.

but, my position on something like this is that the package is unbalanced - i thing the state should be funding everybody, right now.

the canadian government is in a minority parliament, but the opposition is a lame duck, and they are deciding to collaborate, instead. the balance is maybe a little better, but it's the same basic concern.

there is a big difference here, though - our health care system may actually end up mostly prepared. they're spending a lot of money on ventilators, for example. 

i'm more interested in getting this thing done with asap than i am in arguing for bigger and bigger welfare checks. and, i'm more likely to criticize local governments for overreacting than i am in criticizing the federal government for undercompensating.

cancelling church services is actually the kind of targeted action i'm calling for to protect the elderly and.....psychologically vulnerable. 

but, if donald trump is a religious demagogue, he'd be a suicide cult leader wouldn't he?

so, maybe you should go to mass, and drink the koolaid.

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/25/headlines/defying_medical_advice_trump_calls_for_return_to_normal_and_packed_churches_on_easter_sunday

no, the swedes are smart. good for them. let's hope they don't cave - and let's hope their population follows the logic.

this isn't ragnarok. you just need to follow the data...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/swedish-pm-warned-russian-roulette-covid-19-strategy-herd-immunity

we will need to see on the order of 20 million cases in canada before this starts to slow down. 

and, we will need to see on the order of 200 million in the united states.

why do i continue to cite these low statistics - 0.5% mortality rate of those infected - when the official numbers are higher than that? won't msnbc be angry with me?

because i'm statistically literate. i know better.

i think it's widely understood now that there's a lot of people evading medical attention, which was initially a point of contention, and is why it's impossible to actually stop. it's also why travel restrictions are more about the government finding a scapegoat than they are about actually reducing the spread of anything. a proper empirical analysis would be that we should stop trying to prevent this thing from spreading and spend more time adjusting to the new reality: this is here to stay, and at-risk people are going to have to change their lifestyles as a result of it. you can blame vacationers or foreigners all you want, but it's not a science-backed policy position. this thing is everywhere, and it's going to be everywhere forever.

so, you want to look at the cases that come in as a representative sample, and then build a model from that representative sample, not just take the data at face value. unfortunately, self-selection produces kind of a shitty bias.

i've suggested doing random sampling to get a real understanding of this...

most of the places where there are a lot of cases are dealing with overburdened health care systems, which means the weak cases aren't getting tested, which is producing these high morality rates. the highest rates are in italy, spain and iran, right now - over 7%. china has reduced this number quite a bit, but the fact that it still has a mortality rate much higher than 4% indicates that there are a lot of unaccounted for cases.

there are some countries that have seen very low mortality rates, as a consequence of extremely aggessive testing.

in germany, the mortality rate is 0.6% - still, even after almost 40,000 cases. austria, which directly borders the affected area in italy, has many fewer cases, but the same 0.6%.mortality rate. norway is at 0.5%, after 3000 cases, as are the australians after 2400. after less cases, but still more than 1000, the czechs are at 0.4%, luxembourg is at 0.6%, ireland is at 0.5%, chile is at 0.3% and pakistan is at 0.8%.

and the jews, who have border security that works, are outsmarting everybody at 0.2%, after 2369 cases.

these are the best health care systems in the world, clearly. but they're also the countries doing something right. but, careful - they might also be doing things that are wrong or ineffective. causality is not the same thing as correlation.

nobody else has 1000 cases yet, which seems arbitrary, but you could work this out using the central limit theorem - there is an n that is enough. i'm guesstimating 1000. other countries are nearing an n>1000, and many of them have mortality rates <0.5%, too.

but, i'm chery-picking, surely! no...

if x (i can't use fancy greek letters here. sorry.) is the true mortality rate, an example of the actual term statistic, then you'd have to estimate it being less than anything observed due to the nature of the study. if you do two hundred real-world hospital studies, x would have to be some kind of limit of the minimal values, because even in the best real-world hospital studies you're going to miss patients. if you did studies in places like dorm rooms or fitness centres, you'd overshoot the other way. so, i'm pointing out a sampling bias, here, i'm not cherry-picking the best results. if you're lucky, you'll get pretty close - but it's essentially impossible to overshoot it.

so, that would mean that the actual mortality rate is less than the 0.2% in israel, unless you think that the jews are the master race, or something. no, really, that's your argument.

so, generating a bound for x, x<0.002, means that these other countries that have mortality rates higher than that, and especially higher than 0.01, are missing a very larger number of cases, and this is likely to get worse as the cases spread. they don't know know where they are....

there's an upside to that, though.

if there are 7500 deaths in italy, and the true mortality rate is 0.1%, that would indicate that there are over 7.5 million cases in italy, right now - not the 75,000 they know about. most of these will be in the lombardy area.

the population of lombardy is 10 million people.

they may be nearing herd immunity, and that's when this slows down and stops - not in spite of their failure at containment, but because of it. 

it would also indicate that there's only 35,000 cases in canada, and we have a very long way to go before this burns itself out.