Scrutable

Posted: **Fri Mar 27, 2020 6:59 pm**

Iron Magpie wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 3:26 pm

Woodchopper wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 5:35 am

EllyCat wrote: ↑
Thu Mar 26, 2020 1:16 pm
Just received a spam from my mum’s friend (as you do) about all the things you can do to combat COVID, like drinking hot drinks (but not cold ones) and sunbathing.

My dilemma is whether I reply politely saying “I very much doubt that came from a hospital” or do I debunk point-by-point the utter bollocks contained therein...with the bonus that I probably won’t receive any more of these emails!
Yes, it’s difficult to know what to do if the advice is bonkers but appears to be harmless. I wonder who makes it all up in the first place.
The (possibly) most ridiculous thing I've read is that this virus cannot survive temps of more than 27C....When I asked how any human ever got infected with a normal body temp of 37C I just got tumbleweed....I don't know who makes up this sh.t. probably someone that is trying to work out just how ludicrous something has to be before people won't fall for it.

That factoid features in this message! Apparently that’s why you should drink tea to kill it off. But the person who sent it to me got as far as “this was sent out by a hospital, please pass it on to your family and friends” and hit forward. I wondered whether perhaps there was an original email that did come from an official source which listed the symptoms to look out for or similar, and then every so often an idiot forwarding it added their own particular branding, creating a chinese whispers type compilation of stupidity. If I’m right and I get sent another copy again a few weeks from now I expect there’ll be a plug for colloidal silver...

Posted: **Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:03 pm**

Tweeted by Kevin Fong today

: misinformation.jpg (97.56 KiB) Viewed 3728 times

Posted: **Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:11 pm**

FlammableFlower wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:30 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:19 pm
Are places like B&Q allowed to open
I have finally cleared all the damn brambles but need something like Brushwood Killer to stop it coming back
I think B&Q has closed it's doors.

The local B&Q, is closed to customers, you order on line and collect in the carpark. I think it is the situation for all B&Q stores based on e-mail from the MD, which I only skimmed through. You can only order essentials, I need a strip light tube, had a play round you can not order paint.

Posted: **Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:30 pm**

Sounds good.

In all the storms last month one of our back garden fence posts snapped and also damaged two panels to the point need replacing. However, now I'm home, I can't get them delivered.

Posted: **Sat Mar 28, 2020 7:40 am**

FlammableFlower wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:30 pm
Sounds good.

In all the storms last month one of our back garden fence posts snapped and also damaged two panels to the point need replacing. However, now I'm home, I can't get them delivered.

I managed to get a new fence and two posts delivered along with some fence paint. However it's clear to me now that I need more paint. My dilemma is now do I paint only my side first?

Thankfully the neighbour's side is a house that is being gutted out and no one is living there. They too are having supply problems.

Posted: **Sat Mar 28, 2020 6:40 pm**

EllyCat wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 6:59 pm

Iron Magpie wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 3:26 pm

Woodchopper wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 5:35 am

Yes, it’s difficult to know what to do if the advice is bonkers but appears to be harmless. I wonder who makes it all up in the first place.
The (possibly) most ridiculous thing I've read is that this virus cannot survive temps of more than 27C....When I asked how any human ever got infected with a normal body temp of 37C I just got tumbleweed....I don't know who makes up this sh.t. probably someone that is trying to work out just how ludicrous something has to be before people won't fall for it.
That factoid features in this message! Apparently that’s why you should drink tea to kill it off. But the person who sent it to me got as far as “this was sent out by a hospital, please pass it on to your family and friends” and hit forward. I wondered whether perhaps there was an original email that did come from an official source which listed the symptoms to look out for or similar, and then every so often an idiot forwarding it added their own particular branding, creating a chinese whispers type compilation of stupidity. If I’m right and I get sent another copy again a few weeks from now I expect there’ll be a plug for colloidal silver...

There are not enough facepalms in creation for these circumstances...

Posted: **Sat Mar 28, 2020 6:45 pm**

Gfamily wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:03 pm
Tweeted by Kevin Fong today

misinformation.jpg

That first bit is the bit I have difficulty with. If say on farcecrook a post comes up with such nonsense on it I have a choice...to leave it alone and report it hoping that the powers that be decide yes, it should be removed knowing in the meantime it has reached the brains of the easily fooled or I can challenge such crap there and then in the hope that aforementioned easily fooled personpeople also read my refutation....and report it anyway. So I tend to go with the latter. I can't actually help myself. Why else am I a member here and on the old BS if it isn't to challenge this kind of thing. I bet I'm not the only one...

Posted: **Sun Mar 29, 2020 4:24 am**

Gfamily wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:03 pm
Tweeted by Kevin Fong today

misinformation.jpg

This is about as wrong an you can get. Here is my advice:

1. Engage - when you see something being said which you think is incorrect, depending on what it is, either refute it straight away or ask for a further explanation. Do not always assume you are right - even you can be wrong sometimes. Consider the other person's position carefully - they may merely be clumsily expressing something - wrong in the exact detail, but with some underlying truth, so be casreful not to overstate your position.

2. Do not block them. If they're wrong, you're letting them have an easier time spreading the wrong information, while if they're right you are depriving yourself of an opportunity to learn. The world has lots of uncomforable truths - some showing that other people hold wrong views and some showing that you hold wrong views. Science works so well because it tries to face those truths rather than hide from them.

3. Keep it public. And keep it civil. If you send a private message, nobody else sees your opposition. It also means you're taking no risk of a third party spotting an error in your position and trying to correct it, so your point is less forceful and you lose a chance to learn from any mistakes you have made.

4. Do not report. Truth is not helped by censorship. It's lies that are helped by censorship. If you think that there are many people who cannot be trusted to evaluate the arguments for themselves, you are part of the problem.

5. Ok. You can pass on official advice. But do so cautiously. An argument from authority is weak, and may merely provoke a response which appeals to a different authority. Official advice is often very simplified, so don't just present it as the complete and perfect truth - it almost certainly isn't.

And overall, think of it like this: if you were trying to get people to believe something which was actually false, what would you be doing differently? If the answer is nothing then you're not really interested in truth, you're just following the crowd.

Posted: **Sun Mar 29, 2020 11:02 am**

Millennie Al wrote: ↑
Sun Mar 29, 2020 4:24 am

Gfamily wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:03 pm
Tweeted by Kevin Fong today

misinformation.jpg
This is about as wrong an you can get. Here is my advice:

1. Engage - when you see something being said which you think is incorrect, depending on what it is, either refute it straight away or ask for a further explanation. Do not always assume you are right - even you can be wrong sometimes. Consider the other person's position carefully - they may merely be clumsily expressing something - wrong in the exact detail, but with some underlying truth, so be casreful not to overstate your position.

2. Do not block them. If they're wrong, you're letting them have an easier time spreading the wrong information, while if they're right you are depriving yourself of an opportunity to learn. The world has lots of uncomforable truths - some showing that other people hold wrong views and some showing that you hold wrong views. Science works so well because it tries to face those truths rather than hide from them.

3. Keep it public. And keep it civil. If you send a private message, nobody else sees your opposition. It also means you're taking no risk of a third party spotting an error in your position and trying to correct it, so your point is less forceful and you lose a chance to learn from any mistakes you have made.

4. Do not report. Truth is not helped by censorship. It's lies that are helped by censorship. If you think that there are many people who cannot be trusted to evaluate the arguments for themselves, you are part of the problem.

5. Ok. You can pass on official advice. But do so cautiously. An argument from authority is weak, and may merely provoke a response which appeals to a different authority. Official advice is often very simplified, so don't just present it as the complete and perfect truth - it almost certainly isn't.

And overall, think of it like this: if you were trying to get people to believe something which was actually false, what would you be doing differently? If the answer is nothing then you're not really interested in truth, you're just following the crowd.

Agree with 1-3. Especially when something has been shared in good faith, a civil questioning can get it amended.

Disagree with 4 depending on circumstances. Often the origin is far away and trying to just make money from engagements. Getting the original and its shares taken down is probably helpful.

Agree with 5.

Posted: **Mon Mar 30, 2020 9:46 am**

We have a teaser coming up. The person dealing with the accounts in the school my wife works has retired and moved to Dorset (from Hillingdon, west London), and she was supposed to have a good length of handover time to transfer her knowledge to the replacement. However, due first to the difficulty in recruiting for a junior school in London (hardly any applicants at the salary they can pay) and then to the current coronavirus situation the outgoing financial controller is socially isolating in Dorset but her replacement is in place now but is not familiar with the processes. Now, the school isn't properly closed because of having to care for the children of some key workers (although the staff are on a rota so my wife is only going in one day per week) and there is certain work which needs to be done.

So, my wife has a solution, she can set up a laptop to have access too the school's systems over the internet, no prob. But she has to then get it to the person in Dorset. And both she and the Head are extremely nervous about the idea of putting it into the hands of the post or other delivery service. Mostly because of past experience of having laptops damaged en route to be fair, but also because anyone could use it to get into the school system with all the privacy and security problems that would entail.

My wife is happy to do a two hour drive down to Dorset to hand it over (and two hours back), but that raises the question of breaking the guidelines on staying at home. We would both go, to share the driving, and take food/drink so we don't have any reason to leave the car (I am after all doing bugger all else at the moment) and normally wouldn't think twice about such a trip. Nice drive out to the real countryside, picnic somewhere, potter home.

But is plod watching for that kind of thing? Would we be stopped and questioned about WTF we are doing? I'm really not sure I could communicate the above story into the mind of a cop on the side of the road.

Posted: **Mon Mar 30, 2020 9:49 am**

Would a remote desktop connection work between Dorset and the laptop?

Posted: **Mon Mar 30, 2020 10:15 am**

A friend has a similar issue where he needs to pick up a lot of laptops from the supplier in Auckland and take them back to Hamilton so that his work can work from home - not an arduous journey, but outside New Zealand's isolation rules. He got a lawyer to write a letter explaining what he was doing and is going to show that to any police roadblocks he comes across.

I'm not sure a lawyer might be required, but if you wife had a letter from the head on school-headed paper (so it looks official) she could show that to any police who try to stop her.

Posted: **Mon Mar 30, 2020 12:12 pm**

Just send the laptop by courier, box it up well and put a high value on it. It will be fine.

Posted: **Mon Mar 30, 2020 12:34 pm**

Presumably the laptop will at least be password protected.

My work laptop is fully encrypted, as it 'appens, though it's not a subject I know anything about so I don't know how convoluted a process that is.

Posted: **Mon Mar 30, 2020 12:59 pm**

individualmember wrote: ↑
Mon Mar 30, 2020 9:46 am
So, my wife has a solution, she can set up a laptop to have access too the school's systems over the internet, no prob. But she has to then get it to the person in Dorset. And both she and the Head are extremely nervous about the idea of putting it into the hands of the post or other delivery service. Mostly because of past experience of having laptops damaged en route to be fair, but also because anyone could use it to get into the school system with all the privacy and security problems that would entail.

Courier is obviously the easiest solution. Is it not possible to set a secure password on the laptop, and communicate it to the recipient separately to the package?

Posted: **Mon Mar 30, 2020 1:36 pm**

Does the Dorset person have a suitable computer of her own? If so, how about uploading the necessary installation files to a secure cloud area, and getting her to install things (perhaps with you assisting via Team Viewer or similar)?

Posted: **Mon Mar 30, 2020 1:43 pm**

Brightonian wrote: ↑
Mon Mar 30, 2020 1:36 pm
Does the Dorset person have a suitable computer of her own? If so, how about uploading the necessary installation files to a secure cloud area, and getting her to install things (perhaps with you assisting via Team Viewer or similar)?

We don’t know, is the short answer. Will look into that.

An update to the situation is that I got a letter in the post today from my local hospital. It’s telling me that I have been identified as being one who is at high risk and advising me strongly not to leave the house for the next twelve weeks. So the option of driving is basically out now.

Posted: **Sat Apr 04, 2020 8:46 am**

So it's been 13 days since I last used my car. 2018 Polo, recently serviced. Do I need to drive it around for a bit to make sure the battery keeps charged?

Posted: **Sat Apr 04, 2020 8:56 am**

Not unless your battery needs replacing. In fact "not starting after a bit of a lay-off" is generally when I find that out.

Posted: **Sat Apr 04, 2020 9:00 am**

4piE-7 wrote: ↑
Sat Apr 04, 2020 8:46 am
So it's been 13 days since I last used my car. 2018 Polo, recently serviced. Do I need to drive it around for a bit to make sure the battery keeps charged?

If you can't see yourself using the car in the near future, if the battery is in good condition, and you feel you are competent, disconnect the earth lead of the battery lead. Under normal circs I would say go for a charging run ~7miles out, 7miles back - first; whether to do this now is acceptable I leave to you.
Mine is on charge with a lead out of my window.

ETA to clarify.
If it is in good condition it will probably be still OK; no need for a charging run; but be aware that modern cars have things switched on when the ignition is off.
If the battery is getting on a bit, then that charging run may be a good idea.
Mains battery chargers are cheap and very useful; have one delivered as insurance.

Posted: **Sat Apr 04, 2020 3:14 pm**

Should I be buying stuff using mail order during the pandemic? I can see arguments for and against.

No - You will put warehouse and delivery people at risk
Yes - You will be supporting the otherwise flatlined economy

Any opinions? There are a few things that I would like to buy and I am not sure if I should.

Posted: **Sat Apr 04, 2020 3:49 pm**

tenchboy wrote: ↑
Sat Apr 04, 2020 9:00 am

4piE-7 wrote: ↑
Sat Apr 04, 2020 8:46 am
So it's been 13 days since I last used my car. 2018 Polo, recently serviced. Do I need to drive it around for a bit to make sure the battery keeps charged?
If you can't see yourself using the car in the near future, if the battery is in good condition, and you feel you are competent, disconnect the earth lead of the battery lead. Under normal circs I would say go for a charging run ~7miles out, 7miles back - first; whether to do this now is acceptable I leave to you.
Mine is on charge with a lead out of my window.

ETA to clarify.
If it is in good condition it will probably be still OK; no need for a charging run; but be aware that modern cars have things switched on when the ignition is off.
If the battery is getting on a bit, then that charging run may be a good idea.
Mains battery chargers are cheap and very useful; have one delivered as insurance.

If the car's going to be laid up for a while you can just unhook the battery negative terminal and it'll stay charged though the downside is that the radio will usually forget all its settings and might be a type which requires a security code to be entered when repowered.

Alternatively, if you can run a mains lead to the car, a modern battery conditioner is small, inexpensive, is designed to be left connected long term and will keep the battery topped up. They don't just constantly trickle charge like old dumb chargers, they cycle through a regime of charging, testing and occasionally desulphating over the course of a few days. Aldi and Lidl sometimes have them very cheap, otherwise Optimate and Ctek are good brands.

(Our little Fiat Panda doesn't like to be left for a week unused; if the battery is a bit low the electric power steering sometimes pings off a couple of minutes after setting off as it's very fussy about voltage. Conditioner fixes that.)

Posted: **Sat Apr 04, 2020 4:00 pm**

stańczyk wrote: ↑
Sat Apr 04, 2020 3:14 pm
Should I be buying stuff using mail order during the pandemic? I can see arguments for and against.

No - You will put warehouse and delivery people at risk
Yes - You will be supporting the otherwise flatlined economy

Any opinions? There are a few things that I would like to buy and I am not sure if I should.

I know what you mean, and I'm kind of compromising by deciding that whatever money I spend on "unnecessary" things I will match in donations to local health and civil protection charities.

Posted: **Sat Apr 04, 2020 4:11 pm**

"Unnecessary" needs to be clearly defined. I have a few music things currently making their way across Europe that, to me, are clearly "necessary". Otherwise I'm going to be a burden on MH services somewhere.
Thank you, Thomann. Correos.es less so.

Posted: **Sat Apr 04, 2020 4:29 pm**

Opti wrote: ↑
Sat Apr 04, 2020 4:11 pm
"Unnecessary" needs to be clearly defined. I have a few music things currently making their way across Europe that, to me, are clearly "necessary". Otherwise I'm going to be a burden on MH services somewhere.
Thank you, Thomann. Correos.es less so.

That's exactly why I didn't want to clearly define it

Scrutable

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