Covid HEAVY USE Neon and Kubuntu

[claydoh]

I wear a cotton bandanna that I bought from Walmart years ago. Its hard breathing through it. I use it inside stores. Riding my bike or jogging, I don't use one. What I find funny, is seeing people inside their cars with the windows rolled up and are alone wearing a mask! They are 12 ways removed from the virus, but still wearing the mask. I would think the inside air of a car plus wearing a mask isn't too healthy.

I don't take mine off if I am going from place to place, say directly from work to get groceries. One part laziness and 5 parts having left it behind one too many times.

[Qqmike]

+1 to jglen Post #22.

And, btw, GreyGeek, I'm not referring to or questioning your technical analysis; in fact, I'm not even going down that road at the moment, except to say I did a very quick study of masks and learned there are many issues to look at, issues with N95, ratings, filters, valves, etc. I'll just go with jglen: start somewhere and wear the damn things. And follow the advice of experts on how THEY want us to do testing to help THEM do THEIR professional analysis -- win, lose, or draw. Start somewhere. Good damn thing this wasn't a bio-terror attack, or we'd all be up sh* creek.

[jglen490]

Masks are easy to wear, they DO provide some protection for others, and there is absolutely NO reason to avoid wearing them in public situations. Wear it, and risk to others decreases. Don't wear it and risk to others increases.

One can be hard headed and uncaring about others, but that doesn't help a bit.

[Qqmike]

Sure don't wish to enter into a political debate. But something is amiss with the once-great USA. We can't seem to get our act together, no central command, no consistency of actionable plans, hit or miss with idiots, mayors, governors. A mess of chaos. Why can S Korea, as one good example, get it right, but we flounder? Every citizen for himself/herself/it's-self, and good luck! I own approx 200 masks, KN/N95 and Walgreens 3-ply, and various homemade, etc., and not going to analyze it, maintain social distancing (6'-26'), precautions, alcohol (wipes and for drinking ;-) ) and hope for the best. This country of ours (USA, for our various international guests) needs to get a damned grip, on everything.

[verndog]

I wear a cotton bandanna that I bought from Walmart years ago. Its hard breathing through it. I use it inside stores. Riding my bike or jogging, I don't use one. What I find funny, is seeing people inside their cars with the windows rolled up and are alone wearing a mask! They are 12 ways removed from the virus, but still wearing the mask. I would think the inside air of a car plus wearing a mask isn't too healthy.

[TWPonKubuntu]

@GrayGeek, Thanks for clarifying the efficacy of wearing masks.

I only wear a mask when I need to go to a store which won't let me in without one... I hope their attorneys are satisfied...

[GreyGeek]

"conspiracy theories" "stupid" "minor and simple" "selfish" "bs"

I suspect that holding an MS in science with major hours+ in Physics, Math, Chemistry, Biology and General Science (with lifetime teaching certificates in all those areas), researching anti-cancer metabolites which led to synthesizing a broad-spectrum antibiotic active at 1 gama/ml, and teaching Anatomy&Physiology and Microbiology in college for many years just might give me a perspective on what is real and what is "bs" in regards to C19, but probably not as much as a manager of a fast food joint, it seems.

IF you've read WHO's statement on C19 you would find that they recommended re-usable 12-16 layer cotton masks! Have you tried to breathe through that many layers of a T-Shirt or a bandana? Every cotton mask I've seen, including the four sent to my wife and I by Humana, are only 2 layers, both of cotton. Some masks have cotton on top of a blown polyethylene layer in the inside, but hardly of the density of the blown polyethylene layer in an N95 mask.

WHO adds:

At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID-19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.

I could have cited MANY more RCT's showing the lack of effectiveness of wearing masks but assumed, wrongly it appears, that most would at least read the most recent RCT about SARS and face mask effectiveness. In the vain hope that some of you just might be interested in looking beyond the pulp fiction circulating in media these days as scientific evidence I offer Dr. Denis Rancourt, who is certainly more qualified that Gov Coumo or Whitiker, both of whom are responsible for murdering thousands of elderly by sending them, while ill, out of hospitals and back into nursing homes.

https://www.rcreader.com/sites/defau...st-03-2020.pdf

But, if you don't read it then that's OK. It won't make any difference to me, but wearing face masks for long periods of time day after day, as many store and fast food employees are doing, may be more dangerous than you realize. That's Mother Nature. She gives the the test first, then the lesson.

A simple experiment:

[Snowhog]

The unfortunate truth is that many Americans are 'stupid'!

[claydoh]

So if everybody would wear a decent mask (it doesn't have to be N95), everyone would have good protection, and the 6 foot separation would also be much more effective.

Just wear the thing.

Why is this so difficult, and why the push back against something so simple and minor? All the lame bs excuses and bs reasons not to use a mask, but no alternatives given to help reduce the spread. Just selfish bs indignation, and mostly bs 'conspiracy' theories, and a bs lack of caring about the other guy.

[GreyGeek]

While it is true that even a cloth mask can stop *most* (but not *all*) saliva droplets carrying covid virus particles generated by a cough, the assumption that covid virus particles are ONLY in such larger droplets, or only in droplets of any size, is false.

Larger droplets that make it past the mask (through, up, down or side) generally fall to the floor/ground within 25-30 seconds. Smaller droplets can drift up to 15 meters away. While drifting the droplets are rapidly evaporating, leaving only the viral particle wafting in the air, joining those that were exhaled without being carried by a droplet, dispersed by air currents and by Brownian Motion. It is 97% of those particles that can pass through the masks of other people and infect them. People with coughs shouldn't be out and about, even with a mask. That's what isolation is for.

You are also assuming that wearing a mask for long periods, like clerks at stores and fast food places do, is not harmful to ones health. Such is not the case. It has also been noted in NIH papers published prior to January of 2020 that cloth (and N95) masks worn for long periods of time act as highly humidity petri dishes on which bacteria grow abundantly and are carried back into the lungs of the mask wearer, increasing the stress on their immune system and raising the risk of contracting other diseases, like pneumonia. Also, as I mentioned above, other routes of infection include the eyes, which few people cover with googles or face shields. I don't see many people in grocery stores wearing gloves. Shoppers and staff are continually adjusting/touching their masks and then other parts of themselves, their clothes, the items on shelves, etc. Some folks just pull the top of the mask below their nose and their exhalation is no longer passing through the mask, so the mask is not useful in their cases.

This pandemic is not my first rodeo. While I was a JR in HS, America was hit with the 1958 Flu pandemic. It killed 116,000 out of 174 million Americans. That would be, proportionally, equal to 232,000 deaths today, a figure not yet reached by covid, even with doctored death certificates. Back then we didn't kill the economy, impose mask and social distancing rules, shut down factories and businesses and put millions out of work. The sick went to the doctor or hospital and the rest went about their normal lives. There was a second wave in October but it was too small and the vaccines that had been developed by then were not deployed.

On Nov 11, 2019, my wife and I got the FluZone shot (four flu vaccines in one, using viron particles, not attenuated virons). On Dec 16th, our 57th wedding anniversary, we attended a basketball game my grandson was playing in. Behind and to the left of us, about 10 feet away, a women was coughing her head off all during the game. We felt safe. About a week or so later we came down with the worse sore throat and cough we've ever had, along with a fever, headache and the runs. It took till Feb 9th before we felt well enough to leave the house and go out. I've wondered if we actually contracted C19.

Vaccines? I hope an effective one is developed but no one can say for sure that scientists will be successful. It has been claimed that C19 has already mutated at least twice. C19 is an RNA viron. Flu is a DNA viron. We have been somewhat successful in developing vaccines against various strains of the flu, but not so much against RNA virons. SARS and MERS vaccines were not developed in time to be applied to their outbreaks. Tests on four SARS vaccines established that they damaged the lungs worse than the SARS did. What stopped the outbreaks of both virons was herd immunity. Eventually, we will get to herd immunity with C19 as well and masks will have little effect on when that day arrives. Just like we still have occasional outbreaks of H1N1 flu (of the 1918 pandemic fame) we will have outbreaks of various C19 strains in the future. In fact, just about every pathogen we've experienced in the past is still with us and pop up occasionally.

The big problem with a vaccine is the amount of lead time needed to prepare sufficient doses for mass inoculations. Scientists have to decide which viron(s) they think will be active during the next flu season and make vaccines for it. If they are wrong then the vaccine won't be of any value in fighting the strain that actually appears. That will be true for a C19 vaccine as well.

May you live long and prosper.

[jglen490]

That is correct. Masks do little to protect the wearer. They do MUCH more to protect those around the wearer. If the wearer were to cough or sneeze, there is enough water/liquid with the exhalant that most of it is trapped by the mask before it has a chance to separate. Yes some goes out the side, at a much lower speed, but what would go straight out without a mask is caught by the mask. Again masks do not protect you, they protect everyone else. It's not about stifling individual freedom, it is about social responsibility.

So if everybody would wear a decent mask (it doesn't have to be N95), everyone would have good protection, and the 6 foot separation would also be much more effective.

Just wear the thing.

[GreyGeek]

Hi Woody!
Masks ... ugh!


The National Institute of Health (NIH) is a US government agency that collects articles from academic and professional journals around the world.

The paper linked below was published April 22, 2015, following the first MERS and SARS pandemic. Unlike studies published since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, this is an example of a paper which was not tainted by political bias, or oscillating "expert" opinion. In a March "60 OverTime" program Dr Fauci was asked by Dr Jon LaPook if people should wear masks. He repeated what the CDC has stated two weeks earlier. He said "No", and explained why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI

His explanation was good then and it is good now. However, political and media influence, plus financial considerations, has put tremendous pressure on doctors and hospitals to deny the science and support the political position of wearing masks and social distancing of six feet. When I was a JR in HS in 1958 the country was hit by a flu pandemic which killed 116,000 out of 174 million Americans. That would be equivalent to 232,000 today. Back then we didn't wear masks, do social distancing, isolate at home, stop factories and layoff millions of workers, like we have done this year, killing our economy, IMO most likely for political reasons. The 1958 pandemic did have a second wave but herd immunity made it a trivial one. Claims of a second wave of C19, or that we will have C19 with us forever, are true but so what? So are hundreds of other pathogens but we don't worry about them. The claim that immunity achieved after recovering from a C19 infection "wears off in 3 months" is totally false. Every influenza outbreak we've ever experienced is still "with us" and viruses are always mutating. These two latter fears are designed to introduce folks to the idea that because the C19 will be with us always, will always mutate, and protection wears off every three months, everyone will have to take C19 anti-viral shots every three months for the rest of their lives. At least that is what Bill Gates is betting on with his huge investments in companies making antiviral vaccines.

Now, on to controlled study on the subject of masks and how they protect us from viruses:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...__ffn_sectitle

Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%

You are reading that right. A Randomized Clinical Trial experimentally determined that cloth masks allow 97% of viral particles to be inhaled by the wearer. N95 masks are hardly much better, allowing 44% of virons to be inhaled. Surgical masks are between the N95 and cloth masks in efficacy.
To state it plainly: MASKS DO NOT WORK to prevent the inhalation of viral particles.

Other studies dating back to 2010 and before have arrived at the same conclusion, but this study was the first RTC to definitively answer the question of the viability of various kinds of masks. I can site other studies but this one is sufficient. One thousand experiments cannot prove an hypothesis is true, but only one experiment can prove it false.

The N95 and Surgical masks can only be obtained by medical personnel. Americans have been forced to use the Chinese knockoff of the N95, sold as KN95, OR, make or purchase cloth masks made of a wide variety of material, but mostly cotton. The KN95 is of dubious value because China manufacturing is notorious for failing to abide by standards. The NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational and Safety Health) has approved the N95 mask but not the KN95. However, the FDA has given "temporary" approval of the KN95 mask because of the scarcity of NIOSH approved N95 masks.

The problem is, however, that masks as a means of protecting against a viral infection DO NOT WORK. Cloth masks allow 97% of pathogens through and the N95 mask allows 44% of virons through. That is, essentially, NO protection at all.

The N95 mask has a PM2.5 label. The "N" means "Non-oily environment use". The "95" means 95%. The PM2.5 means Particulate Matter 2.5 microns. So, an N95 mask was DESIGNED to trap only 95% of all particles 2.5 microns or larger from entering the lungs of the wearer. It will let though about 5% of 2.5 micron particle through. Why 2.5 microns? That happens to be the size of the most dangerous, health wise, particles of SMOG. You also read that right. The N95 was designed to stop smog particles. The C19 virus is 0.1 microns in diameter, 25 times smaller than the smog particle. As the size of particles decrease the efficiency of filtration decreases as well. Hence the 44% value. Charts of the efficiency of N95 masks used to show that. The graph would drop to 95% at 2.5 microns and then decrease to 50% at 1 micron and 0% below 1 micron. Now, miraculously, the graphs show the impossible. The graph starts at 95% for 2.5 microns (they can't very well change that and not arouse suspicion) and then rises toward 100% filtration as the size goes to zero microns. IF that were true then the N95 mask would be capable of filtering molecules of Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbon Dioxide as well, and that would make it impossible for the wearer to breathe.

The mask makes no provision for stopping a viral particle from landing on the eye and following the tear duct to the back of the throat and on to the lungs. During the last six months I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I've seen wearing a face shield or goggles to prevent c19 virons from entering through the eye. I also see very few people wearing gloves and no one wearing a gown or other PPE. It doesn't really matter. Just wearing the mask people are always adjusting the mask by handling the very surface that would be trapping the virons. Now the virons are on their hands. They handle objects on shelves, passing virons to them for others to pick up and be infected. Face mask or not, it is essentially impossible to prevent the transmission of a viron to or from the environment except in a P4 facility using positive pressure suits inflated by air that has been heated to 1,600F and then cooled back down. And we aren't living in that.

Besides, IF even cotton masks worked as well as some claim, why impose social distancing or crowd size limits (except for "peaceful" protesting)?
**stepping off soap box**

[mr_raider]

How do you update zoom automatically? There is no repo that I'm aware of.

Sent from my HD1905 using Tapatalk

[woodsmoke]

Hi
Well, Kubuntu and Neon continue to do a workmanlike job!
The college has COMPLETELY opened with the REQUIREMENT that all people will be masked at all times, that is administration, staff, faculty, students.
Period, end of story.

This has come after a MASSIVE investment of money in a total redesign of many of the interior spaces of the college campii which includes my "high tech' campus and training of all personnell in the use of ZOOM. both as a person initiating recurring meetings and a respondent to a ZOOM meeting.

The Zoom Ubuntu .deb download "updates" almost daily.

I have learned to actually "pre - go" to any meetings by maybe fifteen minutes because the Zoom side says that the app needs to be updated and offers to use Discover which does the job in maybe...dunno... four minutes, what with entering passwords and etc.

And, as a note about just how serious all of this is...my first day, I received e-mails from two students in one section ( they have to use CANVAS e-mail and thus could not do the e-mail until the first day of class) that they were quarantined because of their parents being quarantined.

As of this date the college itself has two actual cases, none of which were spread "in house".

KONTACT...
Kontact has really stepped up to the plate. It works all the time, just about, there was one hour long..."down" ? time yesterday but that is the only glitch so far.

And the calendar works! it imports both .csv and .ical and syncs with the external calendars for both gmail and the college Outlook on the cloud.

the NOTIFICATIONS app that is in the bottom right panel has been a real...best way to put it, is a..."godsend"...the college has gone to 'two step authentcation" to get ANYTHING done in terms of getting into Canvas, the college e-mail, etc.

When one tries to log in a notice appears that a verification code has been sent to my phone, ...there IS an option for the verfication e-mail to be sent to another e-mail client, which i can only think of as being a MASSIVE inconvenience...but anyway, it appears on the phone within a second and also appears in the notifications app on the bottom right panel. Being THERE eliminates having to have the phone nearby... the verification code appears in white text on a black panel.

So...kudos to the developers of the Zoom client and to Kontact and the "desktop applets"... KUDOS !!!

woodsmoke

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

As for Zoom. It depends on where it is homed.

Now THERE is a very new term for me. If I might ask what does "homed" mean? Does that refer to the email client?

There is a whole tutorial at ZOOM where it shows how to put the app into Canvas. It is supposed to have be that the college(entity) "enables" it somewhere in the Canvas configuration and then one can "drag" it up into the options in the left menu bar but I could not find it.

I contacted the IT people and got a very nice response that the college has "never" actually enabled ZOOM in the Canvas app itself and that one is to go to the ZOOM web portal and FROM WITHIN the gollege's general site, there is a link, and enter my e-mail addrress and it is kind of automagically set up.

Again, it does not put it as an option in Canvas after that one must always go through the link at the college's general website.

I can send an invitation using the 'request link" at the "site in ZOOM itself" and the person is able to just click it and is there, one sees the person, hears the sound etc.

So...is what I described similar to what you posted when you wrote: "where it is homed"?

thanks for the info!
woody