Revisiting an old rendition of SimCity Classic while stuck at home…
Downloadable from the Windows Store as RetroCity. Beware, Windows Store pop up nags.
Retro City
Month: March 2020
Mass Clinical Trial of potential treatments against CoVid-19
Clinical trials of potential candidates for CoVid-19 treatments are now currently underway to see if any of the below mentioned drug combinations offer any efficacy in slowing down or reducing the effect of CoVid-19 on patients.
Science Mag: WHO launches global mega trial of the four most promising treatments
Potential treatment candidates include…
- Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine
- Remdesivir
- Ritonavir/lopinavir
- Ritonavir/lopinavir + interferon beta
I’d expect there will be other potential treatments in the pipeline coming online to be ready for clinical trials.
In my own non-professional opinion, if any of these clinical trials are actually successful, the earliest we could perhaps see these treatments becoming mainstream is may be 5-9 months. I would currently pick in reality this could be over a year, but again I reiterate this is a stab in the dark prediction.
CoVid19 is indeed a very serious series of viruses and firm + swift proactive steps need to be taken, particularly with protecting the most vulnerable in our community (e.g The elderly, those who are immunocompromised and those with serious pre-existing medical conditions). At the same time, I still assert that I see a totally needless, unhelpful and counter-productive level of group think, panic and herd mentality that is being perpetuated in an epic unprecedented feedback loop across social media channels and the majority of the Mainstream media / Mass media outlets globally.
Stream of Consciousness Week 9th March 2020
Stream of conciousness and other personal thoughts garnered throughout the week. These thoughts are unrefined, unquantified, unverified, and raw. Any of these may get spawned out into its own separate post or removed entirely…
- Phone Cameras are improving quite substantially. I am often asked by others what Camera I have used to take the photos I have posted to NUI.NZ and express surprised that the majority of them have been taken on a phone.
- One area that phone cameras have not caught up yet is with Telephoto. A lot of hybrid zoom technology still produces very rough images. Recommended you still carry a dedicated travel zoom for these situations.
- 1/2.3 inch sensors in dedicated cameras are like the 1366×768 screen resolutions in laptops. Plentiful in the market but for me are a bit of a turn off.
- A (possible) start of a sideways secular market was detected around the middle of 2019 and was judged to have started around the beginning of 2018
- The markets are now approximately 20-25% off of their peak. Probably expect further falls in the coming week (Written 10th March 2020 NZDT)
- An issue of trying to mix cyclists and cars on Auckland’s road network is that the presence of cyclists tend to disrupt traffic flow due to the roads not being made to accommodate cycling activities. On a more extreme case. Cyclists tend to use the pedestrian/cyclist crossing on Highbrook Drive. While they are absolutely within their right to do so, it does cause vehicles to have to brake (brake wear and tear) and additional fuel use (due to needing to accelerate back up to speed)
.NZ Domain Yearly registration prices are to rise.
The .nz Domain prices are to rise after InternetNZ announces wholesale price increases. Claim is that registrations are falling. Monthly Registration statistics can be found here… https://docs.internetnz.nz/reports/
I believe a lot of the more recent new domain registrations were speculative after the release of the direct second level registrations under .nz and feel that may be it’s just a gradual decline back to the mean.
Increasing prices in my view will no doubt accelerate the so-called decline. I plan to have a look into their financials when I get a chance. (I don’t expect to find any irregularities – though worth checking for my own edification)
Drowning does NOT look like drowning
An interactive website I found that provides information on recognising signs of drowning in a child along with the opportunity to practice recognising these signs.
URL: http://spotthedrowningchild.com/
The key take away here is that… Drowning does NOT look like drowning
Quoted from the site… “Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.”
The Youtube videos utilized on the site are from the Lifeguard Rescue (Channel)
Recommend Abolishing the National Lottery
I have to admit, the oft used slogans in Lotto NZ’s marketing… “Got to be in to win” and “Imagine…” troubles me quite intensely, in so much that I feel it traps the more vulnerable people into a dopamine driven false sense of hope and psychological impression that the odds of winning the big one is magnitudes larger than either logic or statistics could ever justify.
It is also I feel serves as another function to distract quite a few people away from their meagre lives and contributing to drawing public attention away from the issues that really need attention and debate. (e.g The Value of Working, Provision of pathways and opportunities to progress and contribute meaningfully to the community, Ending the over-commoditization and downright pitiful rampant speculation on housing, etc)
People argue that Lottery organizations are charities and they give back to the community by way of grants as merely an excuse to keep these schemes around, however I firmly feel the impact (Addictions, distractions) outweighs any community good. Like the Pokie machines (“One arm bandits” I call them), the poor and the ones who can least afford to engage in such pursuits, seem to be the biggest patrons of them.
There I’ve said it… I strongly felt that I needed to at least get this off of my chest.