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If this interrupts production and supply chains, a lot of Americans might know the feeling of hunger for the first time in their lives. Then again, collectively we can all afford to lose a good amount of weight.

These guys are probably the reason for the hand sanitizer shortage. In fact, profiteers are probably to blame for the shortages of everything now. I'm seeing 16 oz bottles of rubbing alcohol going for over $20 on eBay and idiots are buying them. If, or rather when, eBay shuts all these people...

"Oh shit!" is all I have to say. Turns out this is fake news: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-19-found-in-toilet-paper/

As much as I hate to say this because I'm not a fan of Trump, the better person won the last election cycle. We had two really shitty choices, and Trump was marginally less shitty. If Hillary had won, I think it would have been a disaster on many levels. It's even entirely possible we might have...

Crises have a tendency to unite people, so maybe this pandemic has a silver lining. This country can't go on this way with both parties completely at odds with each other. First the religious right took over the GOP. And the hard left took over the Democrats this election cycle. Even if Biden...

I have some money in a taxable account. It's mostly fairly safe stuff but the important part is a lot of it pays dividends. If you put money in, do something similar. Since my dividends automatically reinvest, I'll be buying more stocks at a good time. Last year the account gave me about $3K in...

Wait....wait....wait. I don't think we've seen the bottom yet. We'll know more in a few weeks. I have some of my father's savings bonds which fully mature in November. That might be a good time to get back in the market. As for what I already have in, only thing to do at this point is hold...

Nope. I usually like to be surprised.

I'm fine with that! (y)

And make sure the forecast doesn't call for rain. If you get a lot of stuff delivered, that might make sense. Now that I'm thinking about this, regular local mail is suspect even more than international shipments. I might be a good idea for USPS to suspend bulk mail delivery for the duration...

I'm talking about the lowest cost shipping option, which is what I typically choose unless someone else, like a company I'm doing work for, is paying the shipping. I think the fastest I ever had stuff arrive from China via the low-cost option was 10 days. I just ordered a pipe camera on eBay...

Spray the box with disinfectant before you even touch it, then let it sit, perhaps in your garage, for a while.

So that means stuff coming by ship from China is a locked shipping container should be OK. Most international air shipments take over a week overall, so we should be OK there as well, provided nobody opens the packages en route (and we disinfect the packages themselves).

As it should be. This virus has a very low survival time outside of living things. With a few precautions, no reason worldwide cargo flights can't continue for the duration of this.

I know that but you have to diffuse things like this with a little humor. I'm pretty sure a disease which really turns people into zombies is medically impossible but such a thing can serve as an imaginary worst-case scenario.

I found this. AGE DEATH RATE confirmed cases DEATH RATE all cases 80+ years old 21.9% 14.8% 70-79 years old 8.0% 60-69 years old 3.6% 50-59 years old 1.3% 40-49 years old 0.4% 30-39 years old 0.2% 20-29 years old 0.2% 10-19 years old 0.2% 0-9 years...

So the vaccine will turn people into zombies instead of the disease? Interesting. Now I'll be lying awake at night worried my mother will come in and start eating me. 😱

The only way I see things calming down is if we get a vaccine for this in record time.

It's because the first people to get it and "recover" are now turning into zombies after a latent period of a month or so.

Actually, if the 3.4% mortality rate holds, and everyone gets exposed, you're looking at 10 million dead in the US alone, as many as 250 million dead worldwide. My guess though is the real mortality rate is much, much lower than 3.4%. Most of the mild cases go completely unreported. When all is...

Don't bet on it. It took about 5 years to recover from the losses in 2008. This might be worse.

The EU already voted to scrap DST by 2021. Countries would have the option of being either permanently on standard time or DST. In my opinion we should adopt standard time since it's, well, standard. If people want to start their day earlier or later, let the school or work place adjust the...

Being from an Italian family I had small amounts of wine as early as late grade school. That probably was a good thing as it killed any mystique associated with drinking. Drinking age was 18 when I was young but I never got involved in the drinking scene in college. Because most of the kids...

Probably but I figured I would ask. I meant to buy one a long time ago just as an insurance policy but never got around to it. At least I have plenty of toilet paper, paper towels, and hand sanitizer. 😀

This is one of the few times I don't mind being home bound on account of caring for my mother.

I'm looking for a biohazard suit with a respirator. Can anyone here point me in the right direction?

My guess for these stats is either people have mild or no symptoms, and don't go to a doctor (hence the case isn't even counted in the official statistics), or they wait until they're at death's door before seeking treatment (accounting for the rather high mortality rate versus the number of...

https://nypost.com/2020/03/05/airlines-could-lose-113b-in-revenue-to-coronavirus-epidemic/

Similar prices for cheap wines in the US. Keep in mind I'm going strictly by total alcohol content here. By that standard, even cheap wines don't give much bang for the buck. Beer is probably one of the harder things to make, at least to make something drinkable. Most of the people who do this...

Nobody is going to drink 190 proof liquor. The idea is you dilute it with something else. The 1.75 liter bottle of Everclear might be equivalent to 2 bottles of cheap <$20 booze.

It's a lot cheaper if all you're after is getting crocked, and not taste. For example, the cheapest I've seen a 1.75 liter bottle of Everclear 190 go for is about $38. That contains about 1.67 liters of pure ethanol, so the cost is roughly $23 per liter. When it was available, you could get two...

I'm actually doing that. Just started it as a new hobby. I got a distiller on eBay, although you don't need one if you're making wine, beer, or anything else with a low alcohol content. I made two batches so far. Sugar, tomato paste, and yeast. Let ferment about two weeks, then distill out the...

You have to be careful and look at the ingredients. Drinking it straight out of the container probably isn't a good idea regardless. You should salt it first to precipitate out the solids, then run it through a coffee filter. You'll still have a lot junk in at that point, especially fragrance...

Bleach can't double as cheap booze. 😵

Basically, if you want to buy almost anything at all, buy it now. If the supply line gets disrupted severely, it may be months or more before it's available again at the same price.

It might be. People are afraid the virus will eventually disrupt supply chains, so they might be stocking up on essentials like toilet paper. Right now I have about a 3 month supply on hand since I stock up on whenever there's a sale but there were times I had a year's worth. Wiping your behind...

Our tax system is progressive (i.e. based on ability to pay). If someone doesn't have much money, they pay little or nothing. Asking people to pay for quarantine basically hits them with a huge bill most will be unable to be. I'm sure it's easily $10K or more per day, so these people the...

If the government's requiring you to do something, they should pay for it regardless of political philosophy.

If we're going to start asking people to pay for their quarantine that virtually guarantees the virus will spread. If we really want to have a hope of containing this, the government should not only pay for quarantine, but pay for any uncovered sick days, as well as force the employer to...

I never thought of that but you might be right.

Nope but I saw one of the Resident Evil movies. Pretty much the same thing. I have nightmares of this virus turning people into zombies hell bent on having me for a snack.

I'm thinking of potentially bigger problem. What if the virus mutates and turns people into zombies instead of killing them? There will be no stopping it at that point.

So am I. So far, it looks like the bulk of cases by far are confined to China.

Most likely postponed, not cancelled. If they end up having them in the fall, or even next spring or summer, it's not the end of the world.

Personally I think we should shut down the markets for the duration of this to prevent panic selling. And we probably should suspend international air travel as well.

Exactly. Communist governments aren't exactly known for caring much about the lives of their citizens. If they think it might help stop the virus by killing infected people, they won't hesitate to do so. Actually, four deaths outside China so far. One each in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan...

My theory is that the Chinese government has been killing people who contracted the virus in an effort to stop its spread, instead of treating them. The rationale would be even if the sick people are in a hospital for treatment they could still spread the virus to medical personnel. If they're...

Anyone have ideas on why all but 2 of the deaths have occurred in China? I have a theory but I'm curious what others think. If you exclude China, the mortality rate is well under 0.5%. Also, for a few days it looked like the rate of increase in the number of cases was starting to level off. It...

How many bytes of EEPROM does the card have, and how many are needed to store the balance? I ran into a similar problem on a bike computer I'm currently working on. It's conceivable if I stored the ride data in the same locations I might eventually run into the EEPROM's write limit. However, the...

It may be a possibility, but I think it's highly unlikely for two reasons. One, anything with a very high mortality rate will likely kill its host before the host has a chance to spread it. You would need something with a long asymptomatic incubation period where the person could still transmit...