see, to me this brings up concerns about the virus mutating here in canada, because this hasn't happened elsewhere, and draws attention to the lack of meaningful surveillance here in ontario, due to an apparent attempt to smudge it out through delayed reporting of the data. what we don't know is the depth of it.

if we were more rigorous about collecting and analyzing samples, then we might have a better understanding of what is happening and how to stop it. as it is, it's going to be exceedingly difficult to stop an influenza-like virus from spreading amongst children, if it's been established as already having started. that was one of the major differences in the early stages of the pandemic - this didn't visibly affect children much.

if that fact has changed, then children should be added to the list of vulnerable populations, and action should of course be immediately taken to do so. we don't need this to hit daycares the way it hit the old folks homes.

listen, following the science means adjusting to the evidence. the evidence initially said it didn't hit or spread amongst kids. it's perfectly plausible that some mutation spread amongst adults quite a while before it started to spread amongst children. so, suggesting children should have been separated would be the wrong deduction, as the failure in policy came in respects to the adult population. but, now, apparently that has changed, and the policy should change along with it.

we really don't want this to hit daycares the same way it hit the longterm care facilities. let's learn something quickly. k?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/increase-new-covid-19-cases-under-20s-ontario-toronto-peel-1.5612526

this is what the region needs, and the government should be aggressively pushing for it.

imagine it...

you could manufacture the machines in abandoned factories, then deploy them to all night warehouses. you'd generate good jobs creating, upgrading and maintaining the machines, which would produce produce essentially at cost. and, given that ontario's grid is able to produce so much clean energy for almost no cost, we could potentially become a major export market for things we don't already export.

but, the market won't do it on it's own, it needs help from government to do it.

get these ones out into the niagara region.

this one does tomatoes, which is key regionally.

perfect.

let's see some major government grants for this kind of shit, to turn the industry over, and pronto.

with the proper move to indoor growing, we can have year-round produce without having to import slaves to do it - and at lower overheads, and therefore cheaper prices.

on top of that, if we can get the industry building the robots in ontario, on top of the dwindled manufacturing capacity, we can restart some meaningful industry, and create a slew of spinoff jobs with multiplier effects in the mean time.

i'm sick of nineteenth century thinking. let's get beyond this. let's move forwards...

good.

cancel this, forever - it's irreformable. it's legalized slavery, and we're actually worse than the americans in how we do it.

if we're going to bring people in on temporary work visas, we should be ensuring that they get the same wages, rights and benefits as native-born workers, and we should enforce the law by inspecting the areas frequently - and sending employers that break the rules repeatedly to jail.

but, we're not going to do that. and, if we did, we would defeat the point - we bring them in so we don't have to pay them the same wages or give them the same rights and benefits of native-born workers, because it's so much more profitable to hire a slave.

do i think that canadians should do this work instead? we're often told that canadians don't want to do this, which i think is a misrepresentation of the facts - canadians may not want to work at below minimum wage in an industry with no collective bargaining, but what's the actual problem here, insofar as that's true?

but, this is the wrong question to ask at this stage in history.

the right question to ask is if we can automate this, thereby emancipating the labour involved. and, the answer is surely that we're pretty close to it.

let's hope this is the push required to finally mechanize this, and end this barbarity once and for all.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/mexico-pauses-tfw-to-canada-covid-1.5613518

click here: 1:13:40 to watch leonard susskind use abstract theoretical physics to demonstrate conservation of momentum, under the assumption that the earth is flat.

listen....

it'd be fine if this was an introduction to newtonian mechanics in a grade 12 class. but, he just spent three hours building up an extremely abstract meta theory,  to throw it all away in a bunch of backwards assumptions that should not be made in the context of doing this in such an abstract way.

the earth is not flat, and dU/dx is consequently not zero.

yes, this is a course in classical mechanics. and, yes, that's a simplifying assumption that is just fine in the context of classical mechanics. but, wasn't the point of building up the theory he just built up to work through those assumptions more rigorously? why bother if you're just going to make naive newtonian errors?

there should be a limiting process, there - and, yes, you're going to end up with zero in the limit in the end. but i came here to see that done.

for now, i'm just going to ignore this catastrophe and otherwise let him finish.

if you're keeping track, though, we've learned watching these lectures that susskind is both a conspiracy theorist and a flat-earther.

so, that's two of the last three summers that have been wasted, now.

i didn't move down here to waste my life away.

this sucks :(

this government is a nightmare.

i'm almost willing to vote conservative to get rid of them. which is saying a lot...

first things first, that means i need to figure out where i'm getting my estrogen from this month.

i was hoping i could buy it in detroit.

i'm going to have to call around. i might have to find a way to get to leamington, or something.

i mean, what do you think i'm going to do?

go drink in somebody's back yard and talk about nothing?

go have sex?

that's boring...

the upside is that if i'm not doing anything then i should be able to save $200-300/month for later.

so, when they do re-open the border, i should have a nice sum put aside to spend.

even if they re-open here in windsor, there's nothing to do in this boring city, so expect me to sit inside on the computer all summer and complaint about the air conditioner upstairs making me tired and my disgusting neighbours smoking drugs.

worst summer ever :(.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/border-covid-extension-july-1.5613854

so, why don't i go out on the streets, then?

because i can't support a movement based on identity, under any scenario. in a real sense, this frightens me. and, i'm sure i'm going to just end up in a debate with liberals or centrists on the ground.

i'll stay out of their way and let them finish, but i'm just simply not interested in participating in anything that's not explicitly rooted in class politics.

and, i realize i have to let them make that choice without cooption or coercion - or it won't work.

windsor has somewhat of a vibrant bro-rock scene, but i'm not remotely interested in it. that's one of the more disappointing things about moving down here; the house shows lean firmly on the side of metal, which is a genre that i simply don't like.

as a small, half-rural area, it also has folk & country scenes, but i don't care about those.

there's just nothing here that's of any interest to me. i moved to detroit, not to windsor....

if this is permanent, i'm going to end up moving to toronto.

so, i've got the travel side done for 2014.

https://jessicamurraytravelblog.blogspot.com/2014/

i think i overposted to the dtk side, and am going to go through carefully and double check. but, it should be done within a few hours, as well.

so, i'd like to call on the leaders of the united states and canada to put aside their petty, childish egotistical squabbling over stupid bullshit that nobody cares about and open the border, already.

this isn't about stopping the spread of a virus. there's no science, whatsoever, to back up the efficacy of border closures in stopping pandemics - it's just base fallacy. what it is is trumpian logic. and, no - our collective governments haven't lost their minds, and caved into the stupidity.

this might have initially been political in nature, but it's not anymore. now, it's about bruised egos.

and, it's stupid. it needs to stop.

there are cities on both sides of the border with large tourism sectors that are going to suffer dramatically over this, and that is not fair. small businesses in windsor should not be forced to suffer because the prime minister feels that the president insulted him. nor should small businesses in the united states be forced to suffer to uphold the president's ego.

as a border citizen, let me be clear: i don't fucking care about any of that bullshit. ok? what i care about is the fact that detroit is on the verge of reopening, and the fact that my summer is going to be ruined if i'm stuck here in boringtown shitsville, instead.

open the border, already....