The way we live now - how will covid-19 change us?

I was thinking about things that will either fall out of use or become more popular or common over the next period.

Cash - as in, paper money. When (if?) stuff comes back, this will have the effect of shifting a lot of people to accept card payments too.

Phone calls - I used to use the phone a lot, then dropped off as everyone else did, and am now back using it. Why? Less effort than a video call, good to hear other people’s voices.

Co-streaming type services - I don’t know a better way of putting this. As well as playing online with friends, we will sometimes shareplay, where one of us has a game on and we can talk while playing. It’s useful for giving people a look at games they might be interested in, you can swap over control so they can play. It’s the nearest thing I can think of to playing games with my siblings at home and probably why I like it so much. Also - various film streaming services and the like.

Hairdressers - can you even do this adequately with social distancing? Asking for me, as I deeply regret not getting my hair cut last week.

Obviously the impacts are far reaching and go way beyond these points, but I was thinking of smaller things that will either fall out of usage or become very difficult to do, whereas we might find more use for some things than we did recently.

I dont' know about these small things but I'm more interested in the large scale changes that could happen. How can the homeless shelter in place when they have no shelter? Will we see widespread deaths in those communities? The same with refugee populations in Greece, Turkey and elsewhere; I forsee the potential for catastrophic loss of life in these areas. Will this event make humanity more human? Or more selfish?

Will we see the institution of some kind of public option for health care in the US even if Trump wins re-election? Expansion of the safety net? That's being floated right now but how long will it go on?

Working in general. I think remote work is going to become more of the norm for office workers than it currently is; more people will get used to videoconferencing as a regular activity, especially. This will be great if for no other reason than the sheer amount of pollution it will eliminate.

Conservatives will not seek any meaningful expansion of the safety net for citizens.

1895-2020, birthed by capitalism + technological innovation, ended by capitalism + technological innovation. pic.twitter.com/ynnxz5vyB4

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) March 16, 2020

Working in general. I think remote work is going to become more of the norm for office workers than it currently is

it would be nice if this could go some way to evening out the ridiculous geographical variation in house prices/rents

(mostly wishful thinking, but maybe a tiny effect)

agreed about remote work

a lot of companies are gonna have people working remotely for 2-3 months and will inevitably find that it's not so disruptive or bad and is not in fact akin to a vacation day

nightlife is going to take a long time to come back.

remote work is gonna really fuck universities in the long run

maybe food is going to get a bit more geared to the essentials? less artisinal/bourgie

like, fewer people are gonna be cheerfully paying $8.50 Australian (as I do a few times a week) for a loaf soy and linseed sourdough - and all those businesses are gonna be feeling the pinch a bit as a result

and subsequently food is gonna start feeling really 1970s for a while

longer term maybe local/small scale producers are gonna make a comeback though? as part of the turn away from globalisation this will be turbocharging, and a post-covid desire to know where your food is coming from

just thinking out loud I guess

our way of life changed permanently in many ways after the Great Recession. i suspect the arts are going to get fucked in so many ways.

concert promoters are getting beat up so hard right now. theatres are shutting. bands are ass out.

ultimately I think the future will be we never leave our houses, but all houses are fitted with wheels and remote controls, so our houses are like cars we can drive around to visit each other. cars will no longer be needed.

sex is going to be really weird.

pretty much the hobbies that keep me the most invigorated are going to be scarcer and harder to participate in and that's gonna fuckin' suck

weirdly, I have an anxiety disorder, and despite me having typed all of that, I'm not scared about any of it. cos who knows what'll really happen

INFO: i need to know how sex with my spouse is going to get weirder.

I suspect partner sex will be the same, I was envisioning two people that don't live together though emerging from their house in this hermetically sealed bubble and like somehow transferring fluids between their bubbles

*spousal, not partner. oi...long day

sex for me will be about the same - non-existent!

the fluids are obviously the best part.

maybe they'll use those containers that they use in the drive-thru at the bank

I think people will wash their hands more

I mean, in general, not during sex

Or who knows, maybe also during sex

i already wash them way more

there was a substantial drop in birth rates in the great depression and there almost certainly will be another one coming up for about four obvious reasons

I feel like there will be a baby boom in 9-10 months. Now that we're both WFH, I've never spent this much daily time with my wife in our entire relationship, I imagine this will continue provided our daycare doesn't close.

In 13 years those babies will be quaranteens

lol

I will be a eunuch for the rest of my life

xpost oh jesus christ lb

Lots of people who provide almost no value to humanity are working from home, will stay comfortable and safe; many more people who are necessary, important and generally underpaid will continue to expose themselves to danger in order to get the first group their delivery of French fries/artisanal dog food - if they're lucky enough to keep working.

Maybe we'll catch on to this dichotomy.

there was a substantial drop in birth rates in the great depression and there almost certainly will be another one coming up for about four obvious reasons

come on, the Ghostbusters reboot wasn't that bad

Further rise of video conferencing / remote work will probably reduce business travel. helpful for reducing carbon emissions.

After living thru one global catastrophe, will we finally get the necessary political will to tackle climate change?

soy and linseed sourdough doesn't sound very good to me

Real talk from someone on the inside of this particular issue - local government is going to be fundamentally transformed from here on out. Mayors/alderman/councilpersons (insert your town or cities structure here) will be held accountable for dead people in their municipalities that resulted from the general lack of public policy spawned by years of “our job is development” and “but my property taxes” as priority number one.

Large cities aren’t immune to this criticism, but generally they are already operating on a higher level (cops not being bastards, rent control, etc) so economically removed policy has been considered by voters. “Small town politics” on the other hand will be changed in a fundamental way. Some of which will be good, some of which will be catastrophically bad. Get ready to see the usual lawyer/realtor/developer group lose their spots (good) but prepare to see reactionary nutjobs seep in as well.

Oh also, hi. Outside of the explosion of work at my very secondary job, my main job is leaving me a lot of spare time, so I might be around for a while again.

soy and linseed sourdough doesn't sound very good to me

it's delicious!

I was chatting to a Berlin based friend who is struggling to get by but was just about surviving by air bnb-ing part of his flat. Obv that income stream is fucked for now, but was thinking the whole concept of air bnb might not recover for a long time even after this has passed.

we were already living in a time of profound political uncertainty, already living under a political system under intense pressure and strain. crises test institutions, and our institutions didn't seem to me to be super robust even before this hit.

i gave up making long-term, specific predictions in november 2016. i don't feel like there's enough specific information about covid-19 right now for me to make any prognostications that are differentiable from wide-eyed speculation. i don't feel like contemplating the potential collapse of "civilization" is particularly helpful to me, personally.

someone on one of my discords was predicting long-term quarantine. i'm thinking about how that would play out. overnight we have a world where the opportunities for billions of people, people who maybe didn't already have super great opportunities in the first place, have dramatically narrowed. people who can't work, can't learn, can't pay their bills. is the expectation that these people will quietly starve to death?

i feel like there is also a certain amount of underestimating of the social effects of prolonged social isolation. i'm a huge introvert. i don't get out much. i'm struggling to imagine a world where almost all our interaction takes place over screens and phones that doesn't involve everybody going utterly fucking bonkers. "stay at home and never talk to anybody again" isn't practical advice. as much as we are into collectively shaming people who go outside, there are folks who have a profound need for social contact. i can't bring myself to assume that refusal to live in complete social isolation is completely a conscious act of moral failure in all cases.

Large cities aren’t immune to this criticism, but generally they are already operating on a higher level (cops not being bastards

― jjjusten

fucking lol

I guess the original premise is in part about small but significant changes in our behaviour that will arise from this period of self-containment that could continue if and when things return to something approaching normal? ie after the epidemic is brought under control or effective vaccines or treatments are discovered?

The biggest area for me is around tourism, holidays, business travel etc. On the assumption that industrialised nations will return to broad normality within a year or so then a lot of things will come absolutely roaring back if there is money available - restaurants, nightlife etc being main area, because the pent-up demand will be gigantic. But when is the opportunity to just travel somewhere coming back? The crisis has barely even begun in poorer nations and that's going to have a huge effect on which countries are easier or harder to get into.

Trying to think really small here, is there a board game boom on the way for example?

Yeah the thread is really for small things, I thought there was enough eschatology literally everywhere else. Can’t even go into some threads much because some people seem to be enjoying it.

I'm wondering what happens to pop music when people can't meet up and dance. We're going to find out soon enough but there could be a sonic step-change in the offing.

Who is enjoying this?

If you don’t know, you don’t read the threads enough, is all I’m say.

I'm wondering what happens to pop music when people can't meet up and dance. We're going to find out soon enough but there could be a sonic step-change in the offing.

I feel like cities might empty out of younger people if this goes on for long. Why pay the rent of living in an urban environment if you can’t reap any of the benefits?

Coffee shops are (especially) doomed. Nespresso adoption is going to skyrocket.

I am really hoping we get a long moratorium of politicians trolling the public/their constituents.

maybe food is going to get a bit more geared to the essentials? less artisinal/bourgie

like, fewer people are gonna be cheerfully paying $8.50 Australian (as I do a few times a week) for a loaf soy and linseed sourdough

i literally made my own linseed and emmer sourdough this morning. isolation = crafts (& crusts)

remote work is gonna really fuck universities in the long run

― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, March 17, 2020

This can't be stressed enough.

Can't see things vastly changing re: remote working.

It's partly that the infrastructure would need to improve but mainly that managers usually get off on the day-to-day control.

seeing a lot of musicians and DJs I follow on social media begin livestreaming performances from home, sometimes posting paypal or venmo links

idk whether distance learning is going to be a medium / long term proposition for most universities.

What's likely to have a more immediate financial and cultural impact is an end to international student mobility.

Managers can still “get off” on their daily control needs by holding morning sync teleconferences and regular status reports. Telework offers potentially even more ways for bosses to surveil employee behavior.

I wouldn't be surprised if a whole lot of things that should or could change, won't. I think a lot of people already long for "how things were" and will wish to return to exactly what it was like, our species being very fond of habits and regularity etc. I also think mobility (international in every way: work, students, leisure) is already so ingrained it takes more than this one virus to put a stop to that?

Card/phone payment only though, that I can see finally catching on completely. The war on cash has been going on for some time now, this might be what seals the deal. I've not had an uptick w/ phone calls tbh, and I'm pretty sure people will return to texting once the danger is averted a bit.

Is it likely that it will become more difficult/cost-prohibitive to acquire lower-demand goods the further one lives from the source of said goods? I don't think that's an altogether bad thing, if so.

I think it really comes down to a) how long we're impacted by The Cov and b) how many people are directly affected by The Cov. Memories are short and it's easy to ignore things when they aren't happening to you specifically, but I have a feeling this is an upheaval likely to induce serious change, for better or worse.

I suspect that the very wealthy will be investing in sturdier locks, more robust security systems, etc. The wiser ones, anyway.

Now that we're both WFH, I've never spent this much daily time with my wife in our entire relationship, I imagine this will continue provided our daycare doesn't close.

OTOH, I recently heard a story about Chinese couples being released from quarantine and immediately filing for divorce.

Is it likely that it will become more difficult/cost-prohibitive to acquire lower-demand goods the further one lives from the source of said goods? I don't think that's an altogether bad thing, if so.

I'm thinking the opposite, given the rise of Amazon and the likely growth of other home delivery services.

also think mobility (international in every way: work, students, leisure) is already so ingrained it takes more than this one virus to put a stop to that?

Expect anti-fom voices (left and right) to get louder

I worry that a cashless society will fuck over certain sections of society that will find it difficult to make that transition. Certainly won’t be good for homeless people

One thing that has been frustrating here (and our priorities shift around a lot but yesterday my wife was super worked up about this) was the lack of any distance learning options from our school district. We have friends with kids in private schools and they all shifted to live classes via zoom with stuff distributed via google classroom. Our school? Not a thing. they have google classroom but are forbidden from using it or assigning work because not every kid in the district has access to technology. Which ... I get that, however, the districts are going to have to find a solution for this. They were going to distribute chromebooks to some families but used the 'shelter in place' rules to not do that. Ok fine, it's early stages. But you're going to have to figure this out. I hate to be one of those people but we just voted for three more ballot measures to pump more money to our local school district and the administration there appears to be unable to solve basic problems.

Kinda feel like blind trust in bumblefuck authority, in people who play act at being in charge while demonstrating no real skills or knowledge, is gonna take a real kick in the balls over this. At long last. Which maybe doesn't mean that a more authoritarian authority won't rise up to fill the void. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

I wouldn't be surprised if a whole lot of things that should or could change, won't

this

i'm most optimistic for improvements to the social safety net in various countries, primarily statutory sick pay

Realistically, if China and others, manage to control coronavirus and the UK, US and Australia don't, there's next to no chance parents are going to send their kids here to study for quite some time. I'd guess at least eighteen months. That radically changes the financial viability of universities and i wouldn't be surprised to see quite a few close.

More broadly, it's going to have to prompt a logistical and cultural shift in the sending countries. International study is increasingly seen as a way to manage overspill in the domestic sector. If China responds by layering in additional capacity at its domestic universities, idk how easy it's going to be to tempt people back.

One thing that has been frustrating here (and our priorities shift around a lot but yesterday my wife was super worked up about this) was the lack of any distance learning options from our school district.

I hadn't heard the term "the digital divide" in a while, but it is still very much a thing.

Kinda feel like blind trust in bumblefuck authority, in people who play act at being in charge while demonstrating no real skills or knowledge, is gonna take a real kick in the balls over this.

More likely people will double down on their existing prejudices--"My [preferred] leaders rose to the challenge, but [opposition] just wouldn't let them do what ought to have been done." Agreeing with the pessimism about long-term changes that OUGHT to be made versus those that WILL be made.

I guess the original premise is in part about small but significant changes in our behaviour that will arise from this period of self-containment that could continue if and when things return to something approaching normal? ie after the epidemic is brought under control or effective vaccines or treatments are discovered?

The biggest area for me is around tourism, holidays, business travel etc. On the assumption that industrialised nations will return to broad normality within a year or so then a lot of things will come absolutely roaring back if there is money available - restaurants, nightlife etc being main area, because the pent-up demand will be gigantic. But when is the opportunity to just travel somewhere coming back? The crisis has barely even begun in poorer nations and that's going to have a huge effect on which countries are easier or harder to get into.

― Matt DC

i'm struggling to understand the idea of "small but significant changes". there are so many people in the tourism, travel, hospitality, restaurant industries, and the potential collapse of those industries doesn't seem small to me!

i will say again that, i have relatives working in education, and the assumption is that everybody will just be able to _do_ distance learning, distance work, and that won't be a problem. and it's just not true. there's a certain strand of pedagogy that's, imo, rightly critical of people going out of the way to focus on online education, because it privileges a certain sort of learner and a certain sort of learning style. this just happens to be my learning style - i'm a self-directed learner - but this sort of silicon valley/big tech approach to things just doesn't track with most people's everyday experience. in education the smarter teachers are already writing off the rest of the year; they're spending the week completely redoing their lesson plans but the idea that any kids are going to _learn anything_ for the rest of it is just not practical or sustainable. but most people i guess will not figure this out until the next round of standardized test scores come back, if even then!

I guess the unspoken thought underlying a lot of the changes I quasi-predict is that they aren't going to just happen because but rather because people will be more likely to make them happen. Like we're seeing the logical endpoint of mass shrugging in the face of entropy.

Small but significant changes in our lives I mean, obviously this is going to have a huge impact on the jobs and livelihoods of millions of people, particularly in tourism-dependent countries.

Wait have dating apps not been mentioned? Or dating in general.

xp -- that plus a lot of extant online education systems are a groverhaus clusterfuck

was reminded of this series a few years back https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/05/u-s-high-schools-may-be-over-relying-on-online-credit-recovery-to-boost-their-graduation-rates.html

oh yeah i graduated from indiana's community college system, they were overenrolled and had a totally inadequate informational infrastructure for the students they were trying to support, i know a lot of people complain at the growing percentage of administrative staff versus direct teaching staff but my experience is that administrative staff are there because they are needed

I can't imagine anyone wanting to go to the dentist for the foreseeable future.

Oh yeah that reminds me, I have a hygienist appointment next week and they haven’t called to cancel

Dentists are pretty damn clean! Feel safer w/them than w/my kids' grubby hands tbh

I'm hesitant at this point to speculate about this stuff, but perhaps post-pandemic there'll be less pissing & moaning about 1st world problems. "____ is annoying, but hey at least I can shoot down the store and known they'll have toilet paper and pasta for me." "this month has kinda sucked for me, but at least I can go out for a drink with friends now" etc.

Yeah, in line with that I've been thinking we might see a long-overdue swell of appreciation for all of the generally unrecognized people who help keep our fragile systems in good working order. There were a lot of unsung heroes involved in getting that apple into your hand!

In a better world, yes, but in this world nah. People will immediately revert back to "$15 AN HOUR TO FLIP BURGERS THE ABSOLUTE NERVE"

Me, I’m hoping we get back to “first world problems” being a dumb and shitty phrase that posits problems of the developed world as being de facto luxuries as opposed to seeing conditions in the developing world as extra unacceptable

Like “1st world problems” is exactly the phrase people would use to say “you’re complaining about $15 an hour but you have running water, gtfo”

I imagine in Roman times plebeians would say shit like 'your indentured servitude is a fucking cakewalk compared to REAL slavery'.

wins otm

People in the “third world” can take the piss out of “third world problems” otherwise I think it’s more regressive than not

Uh *”first world problems”

People in the “third world” can take the piss out of “first world problems” otherwise I think it’s more regressive than not

Good rule of thumb.

If this kills air bnb I'll be happy

I can definitely see this impacting e.g. the norms of internat'l travel (in that we'll see less of it, both voluntarily and by mandate), but it's really hard for me to imagine a world without live music, mainly because such a world is too depressing to countenance.

folks, what is the consensus around getting takeaway food

we've been cooking happily for a week but i rly, rly would love a pizza or such. would i be supporting local businesses or putting myself/others at risk

10 days, not a week

I have been wondering the same, eventually I'm afraid the urge is gonna win out but I don't want it to be suicide pizza

I found this article helpful: https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/03/food-safety-and-coronavirus-a-comprehensive-guide.html

I went to the chippy yesterday. Didn't touch door handle, food all handled with tongs, contactless payment, in and out in 2 mins. takeaway is prob safer than food shopping.

judging from that article it suggests it's riskier getting groceries and cooking yourself since the person stocking the groceries may be less following less stringent sanitation guidelines than the cook

if your food has a lone virion on it, you’d have to intensely smear the food on your hands then purposely rub them in your eyes and up your nose

so the consensus is that takeaway is fine? so long as you kind of avoid the courier?

yeah I got a pizza yesterday and I made sure to keep my distance. when they insisted on getting within two inches of me, I kicked the delivery driver in the ribs and then put their car in reverse.

had to be sure

This is the thread for “how will this event permanently change the way we live” not for more endless fearful nattering about whether touching anything that comes from outside is fucking going to kill you or not

that's true, but I didn't want to ruin any of the ongoing other threads with a relatively trivial concern

to bring the thread back into form I can safely speculate that when this is all over I will be spending a lot more time in pizzaerias and eating pretty much only pizza, with and/or around other people

Word

has gyac or an other posted about the airbnb thing

the ireland air bnb rental market thing?

xp
I posted about a Berlin based pal who has lost his airbnb income stream from other half of his flat which has left him skint and going to sign on das dole!

I was thinking about changes in everyday life while out walking today. (Didn't get within 10 feet of anyone, promise.)

9/11 -- airports, increased government surveillance
Katrina -- much better preparedness
2008 financial meltdown -- evidently, not much
Various mass shootings -- nothing

I'm sure changes will be massive here. Mostly good, I hope, invariably some bad.

has gyac or an other posted about the airbnb thing

that's true, but I didn't want to ruin any of the ongoing other threads with a relatively trivial concern

I can't work out if people are going to be super tactile when this is finally over or the exact opposite.

People are going to be getting laid all over the place and there's probably going to be a big spike in extra-marital affairs and/or break-ups. The people with solid marriages are really gonna know how solid they are.

available rentals are up 64% in dublin since airbnb landlords/companies started dumping about four days ago

2 beds in good areas down from 3500 to 2250 etc etc

1200 properties all a sudden up for long term rents that were short term only before

speculation that 5k properties within dublin will be available by the end of this

this genie isnt going back into the box

Gonna be curious to see the stats on fatal auto accidents during this period vs the same period in prior years.

i actually thought of you when i saw that air bnb ireland thing! xpost

thoughts, prayers and a 30% rent reduction all welcome at this difficult time

I was thinking today about my grandfather and how obsessive he was about always having extra food around because he lived through the Depression, and realizing that we're all going to be like that from now on.

...im kinda like that about some things since a rotten childhood tbh so 🤷‍♂️ i guess

i think i inherited all my extra food having in my home from my mom (oldest of five brothers and was very poor). it's come in handy several times now.

I've been obsessive about having a well-stocked pantry and other vital supplies purchased ahead of need ever since I had enough money to stop living hand to mouth. Houses, tools, food, medicines are all tangible. Money is largely theoretical. I always take care of the tangibles first, savings second, with investments well back in third place.

when i got married and my parents came up for the small dinner she brought me, from several states over, a huge kirkland pack of toilet paper, two watermelons, a large bottle of olive oil and a plant.

A friend of mine when i was a kid, his elderly Ukrainian dad used to have stockpiles of tinned vegetables and tomatoes in the cellar, probably loads of them out of date i would speculate. he'd emigrated to the UK in the late 30's so might have known a thing or two about food shortages.

I don't do airbnb but as I work in the sector I do host a lot of international students, this way I can afford to pay the rent on a decent-sized house, obviously this particular short/medium-term plan is fucked now.

If we can get a couple of lodgers it will be ok, but there are none out there right now, of course.

living in the same space that you have an air bnb'er was initially the spirit of it at first and it was great until people turned it into a professional sort of enterprise.

I think one of the major ones is going to be mass depression, a widespread mental health crisis.

People should be encouraged to find a way to express their sadness over the loss we are presently experiencing and will be for some time, which is not easy for many people, but allowing yourself to feel your grief can help stave off depression.

yeah, I had a brief spell today where I went to sleep because I was feeling depressed. it does help to just let it out.

Feel like the tradition of the handshake has been dealt a critical blow

I certainly hope so, it always gives me the shudders when someone puts their hand out to me and it's a fucking odious hangover from the paleocene that should have never made it into the modern era imo

Well in France we kiss on the cheeks to say hi/bye so consider yourself happy !

ILX will carry on but thread police will be extra strict after spending all this time sorting out the boundaries of these 8 different CV threads

I think one of the major ones is going to be mass depression, a widespread mental health crisis.

― Deflatormouse

america was already in the throes of a mental health epidemic and most people were pretending it didn't exist

honestly? honestly i can't see that covid is making a lot of long-term changes in how people live their lives. people are just the way they were before, but moreso.

I certainly hope so, it always gives me the shudders when someone puts their hand out to me and it's a fucking odious hangover from the paleocene that should have never made it into the modern era imo

― calzino, Monday, March 23, 2020 7:40 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I will take a handshake over a goddamn hug any day of the week

I like shaking hands with someone I'm meeting, and hugging a friend. I miss physical contact with people already.

Me too

People who can still afford it are going to be out all the fucking time when this is over. I intend to go to the pub three or four times a week and as many restaurants as possible.

To be honest though going more than a 15min walk from my front door would feel like a wild and dangerous adventure right now.

I really hope all the heathens who wear shoes in their homes finally stop.

Chris Ware strip:

https://scontent.fman2-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/s960x960/90760460_10156859421891176_2600980156633841664_o.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_sid=8024bb&_nc_ohc=kTLAFbUa-hAAX_zUvsC&_nc_ht=scontent.fman2-2.fna&_nc_tp=7&oh=7760efd7579f051639b3df5476e3fb29&oe=5E9EC54E

i gave up making long-term, specific predictions in november 2016. i don't feel like there's enough specific information about covid-19 right now for me to make any prognostications that are differentiable from wide-eyed speculation.

Haha, I should probably clarify that I reached the conclusion I posted about mass depression after consulting the Yijing:
六三：萃如，嗟如，无攸利，往无咎，小吝。
上六：齎咨涕洟，无咎。
That may be an overly literal take on it, but it does suggest to me a certian seriousness over frivolity.

I do worry what will become of public swimming pools and halloween.

I wonder if this might actually kill the direct market in comics - I've given notice to my local shop to cancel my pull order timed with an upcoming move (which, fuck knows if that's going to happen now), so I'll try and get them to mail them out to me until then, but after they stop I might go digital and just pick up collections.

Handshakes may be on their way out, but waving to strangers might make a big comeback. I wave to almost everyone I pass now (not close...) when I'm out walking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rzZ2F18MwI&feature=youtu.be

ugh maybe this will work (toronto symphony playing from their individual homes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rzZ2F18MwI

I hear you, death to conductors.

That may be an overly literal take on it, but it does suggest to me a certian seriousness over frivolity.

I do worry what will become of public swimming pools and halloween.

― Deflatormouse

idk if it's overly literal or not! there are so many variant translations of that verse that i can't actually tell what you were referencing - "in the beginning good fortune, at the end chaos"?

halloween has already changed so much since i was a child. all this fear of strangers, everybody worried about being poisoned and all that. look i know this is "a child used to kick a ball in the street" territory but when we lived in apartments, nobody would come by our house at all... now that we own a home sporadically large gangs of chaperoned children will come by and we have to individually hand out pieces of candy to them because if we let them just pick their own half of them will just plunge their hand into the bowl and take half the damn candy, and the chaperoning parent won't say boo about it. i don't blame the kids.

anyway that's not my point, my point is that from what i see trick-or-treating is already in transition, kids wandering from door to door in the dark was already well on its way to becoming a thing of the past.

public swimming pools i didn't go near even before transitioning. "here let me show off this body i fucking hate", you know? i'm glad the notion of bathing suits that don't show off every square inch of skin are starting to not automatically trigger the assumption that one is some hyper-conservative prude.

i do wonder about the hyper-social people, what will change, how their behaviours will adapt, because all of the precautions on personal space being suggested now are perfectly amenable to me.

at least where I live my old neighborhood last Halloween was wall to wall kids and parents sidewalks were so crowded

and all I'll say is everyone in this thread is vastly underestimates human beings' ability to forget

I am trying to keep hyper-social people (which I am not) in my thoughts and prayers during these trying times. Imagining a different crisis which required me to be around gaggles of people 24/7 makes me want to tear my own face off.

to individually hand out pieces of candy to them because if we let them just pick their own half of them will just plunge their hand into the bowl and take half the damn candy, and the chaperoning parent won't say boo about it.

This has become a worse problem over the years but there is definitely some complicity with some people who give out treats "Oh, go ahead. Take a few." What I'm doing next Halloween (if, as mentioned above, there is trick or treating this year) is to make small goody bags with 3-4 items (candy, toy, pencil, etc) and each kid gets one bag, which contains multiple items.

I think I m/l properly estimate human beings' ability to forget but I think the likely factors of longevity and personal impact in this instance will make it a little more difficult to just paper over.

Also there will be habits and behaviours that people develop over the next couple of months that they actually like, and those will endure.

xp to old lunch:

Yeah, at work yesterday we had a Zoom meeting to discuss the personal challenges that we're all facing with these lifestyle changes. God bless my boss for that. But one of my colleagues was like "I'm an extrovert and this is driving me crazy!" Which I hadn't really thought about.

Also there will be habits and behaviours that people develop over the next couple of months that they actually like, and those will endure.

I definitely think "not commuting" and "day drinking around the house" are going to end up on this list.

There was a craze for adult ball pits last year. Think that is probably over.

and all I'll say is everyone in this thread is vastly underestimates human beings' ability to forget

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

i talked to my older relatives who went through the depression, when they were still alive. maybe there were some people who went through the depression and forgot? but not the people i knew.

I think most things will go back to normal, in a sense. I don't think people will stop going to the gym or to pools. I think the recession is likely to have more of an overall impact on, like, the way society functions than the pandemic itself. But I do think this will leave its imprint on our psyches and we'll have even more depression, anxiety, isolation, obsession with cleanliness and health, etc. than we had before.

Talking to an organizer friend yesterday, she said NYPD have already started to stop ppl on the street and ask where they're going--while teens, many of them non-white because it's NYC, are still getting together in public because they're teens, they live in tiny apartments, and this is going to lead to police harassment & murder. So Black organizers are working on doing online Know Yr Rights trainings targeted at young people and some kind of public education campaign. The lord's work.

She also observed that wealthy/financially protected people and unemployed people are staying home right now (can work from home, have non-essential jobs, etc), and Black and brown people and those with blue-collar and service jobs are in the streets. What does it mean for the privileged to occupy the interior spaces and make lower status people go out into exposure? There's so much to unpack and be prepared for because this can go a lot of ways, most of them really bad.

Also that she sees a future in which ppl with means decide against an urban future and NYC trends back toward the NYC of the '70s--that it goes back to being a city of the working class + poor.

/shrugmoji

I see a big spike in leg humping

Expect there will be a slowdown in supply of illegal drugs given that most routes into UK are closed. Downstream effect of increasing price on street with subsequent increase in crime to get funds to support it.

in orbit, a lot of the same thing going on in DC (the largely white "creative class" is indoors, the black and brown blue collar folks are out and about) but we don't have DCPD stopping people on the street and asking for hall passes or whatever. I don't think full-on white flight is going to happen again, people really like living in the city (when it's functioning); but also see above where I worried about young folks abandoning their high rent studios if the promise of fun urban living is suspended for too long.

one of my colleagues was like "I'm an extrovert and this is driving me crazy!" Which I hadn't really thought about.

Saw somebody on fb saying "You know who this is really affecting? School bullies."

i talked to my older relatives who went through the depression, when they were still alive.

That is usually the best time to talk to people, imo.

I have seen wisdom itt from LBI, Matt DC, rushomancy.

What I imagine will happen (whether in a month, six months, or a year) is a great "sproing" back to how people were living last month.

Many businesses - restaurants, bars, etc. - will have had to go out of business. Life for their workers will suck even more than it did before. I have no wish to diminish those hardships!

But the demand that created those businesses in the first place is still there and will reemerge, even stronger. Which could lead to another wave of failures - when it's safe to go out again, some businesses will pop up during that surge in demand, with ideas that might not be sustainable long-term.

I dunno. Very sad for the people hit hardest now and in the future.

Tomboto, you raise an interesting notion - if the point of spending a gazillion dollars on rent is to be near nightlife, shopping, and cultural activities... then what's the point if there isn't any nightlife, shopping, or cultural activities?

I just ordered a load of beer online for the first time ever. That's probably going to continue for a while.

did you go through a particular provider, MDC, or just a supermarket?

There is a good Vice article about this xpost https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xgqpyq/most-brown-and-black-americans-are-exposing-themselves-to-coronavirus-for-a-paycheck

Young ppl abandoning their hi-rent studios would actually relieve some/all? of the pressures of gentrification as experienced by lower income folks. If freewheeling "urban" gap-20s stop being so appealing, we might get liveable communities back.

I observed that the same thing was said after 9.11 and businesses didn't really take their corporate centers elsewhere en masse and the appeal of NYC didn't noticeably diminish, but this event could be different in lots of ways.

xp Oh thank you I'll read that now.

I went through a nearby bottle shop that does delivery. My guess is that most people's best bet will be to order directly from a brewery, they will have an absolute shit-ton of unsold stock right now.

Lol at the idea of being able to get anything delivered from a supermarket right now. (xposts)

Here in the US, the governing org that oversees Alcohol sales has relaxed laws allowing breweries that were unable to ship previously to do so, as well as bars to expand their retail to "takeout" (within reason).

I imagine there will be a spike in suicides towards the end of this twelve-week period, if that's how long it will be, and a higher number if it goes on longer. People who live alone, in particular.

I just ordered a load of beer online for the first time ever. That's probably going to continue for a while.

the largely white "creative class" is indoors

tbf, many of them will be facing eviction in 1-2 months

Not sure about that. They're "working" from home and getting paid their normal salaries. Their employers may cry wolf about THA ECONOMY but have plenty of cash reserves.

Also we're talking about DC, which has a famously recession-proof industry in it.

one thing that's a positive and I hope I remember the lessons, but I'm doing a much better job of really making the most of the food that I've bought. I've been much more mindful of trying to use things up and use things that are going to go bad first. Also, just frozen food in general I used to avoid and it's great, I could have saved myself so much money. And, just cooking at home in general.

anyway, a good life lesson.

hard agree! i have a tiny freezer so i don't get very much stuff already frozen but i push it to its limits in storing leftovers, stock, meat etc

yeah!!! i get annoying about using all the food in the house before it goes bad and rotating first in/first out (which is why I end up eating disgusting combinations sometimes) so this is great.

cosign, better fridge management here

Yeah, we were looking to say goodbye to our small fridge freezer (has to fit beneath the boiler), but I guess not.

So Black organizers are working on doing online Know Yr Rights trainings targeted at young people and some kind of public education campaign.

My immediate thought is, do they have some way to contact all these kids again when their rights change?

Like, every time I have to leave my apt for a long trip, I will end up juicing everything that is able to be juiced (it's disgusting) and like freezing 3 eggs because I can not bear to toss it.

You can freeze eggs?!

I looked it up and apparently you can crack them into an ice cube tray and freeze them that way. I've never tried it.

yeah, you can totally freeze eggs. I just ate some that had been frozen for two months.

I am lazy so just scramble them all in one container and later defrost when I know I will be eating them in the next couple of days.

and then you eat them cold!

I do like most of my food cold.

I've been thinking about getting a couple of chickens

if you do, you must post pics.

yes ppl who are able to work from home are insulated from the crisis but what if comcast xfinity goes down

It will be a weird world but I will finally be justified in having hoarded books.

Locally, Air B&Bs made housing for locals scarce and drove up rents to twice the levels a few miles away. Now, with no cash flow on those mortgages, a lot of absentee landlords are returning their properties to the rental market. Granted, not the best time in a tourism driven local economy.

It will be a weird world but I will finally be justified in having hoarded books.

― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit),

Somebody pointed out the other day that everyone who Marie Kondo-ed their lives last year is probably regretting it now.

There was a craze for adult ball pits last year. Think that is probably over.

I spent most of today, from 10 a.m. until dinner time, in an adult ball pit. There were nine other adults in there with me. We will never surrender

what language are you speaking

xp ha was that you

it got too hot and I had to leave

Somebody pointed out the other day that everyone who Marie Kondo-ed their lives last year is probably regretting it now.

I have clutter/hoarding tendencies (mostly physical media related but with a side order of musical gadgets and hi-fi gear) and to be honest the prospect of being homebound for a long time has made me wish I had less stuff and more space

it's not a great or practical time to sell excess stuff so I've been reorganising everything to hide away all the things that won't be used during lockdown

so I guess I can thank the plague for helping me sort out my priorities re material goods

(def. glad to have a bunch of unread books in the house though)

Somebody pointed out the other day that everyone who Marie Kondo-ed their lives last year is probably regretting it now.

I agree, fwiw. Can't really get my head around wishing I had more stuff around me, at all. Not that I Marie Kondo-ed, her method was not for me, to put it mildly, but I do like to get rid.

i have downsized a lot of stuff lately and i do not regret it a bit.

I don't regret the books I still want to read/reread, or the music.

I regret the purchases that represented some other course my life didn't take. The 5-string bass guitar. The small PA and DJ lights. The ill fitting scuba gear. The coffee-table erotica. The roadside geology guides. It's all been waiting to be sorted and sold in my spare room (It could fit into a walk in closet) but it's all weighed on me for the better part of a decade.

I'm a bit angry that Amazon has taken down third party selling, as the used quotes were to be my guide for whether the piles of books I don't want were worth posting there or ebay or taking to the Goodwill.

idk if it's overly literal or not! there are so many variant translations of that verse that i can't actually tell what you were referencing - "in the beginning good fortune, at the end chaos"?

Oh, the name of that passage is 萃: gathering, assembling, basically 'en masse' and then the lines i quoted had "gathering, moaning" and "boo-hoo, sniffle, snot" with some stock divinatory jargon.

anyway that's not my point, my point is that from what i see trick-or-treating is already in transition, kids wandering from door to door in the dark was already well on its way to becoming a thing of the past.

You're probably right that it's trended this way, but not everywhere equally, and hopefully not imminently enough that there's possibility the trend will reverse before door to door trick or treating is killed off for good...

public swimming pools i didn't go near even before transitioning. "here let me show off this body i fucking hate", you know?

Yeah, definitely. I absolutely dreaded swimming in school on the rare occasions it was scheduled for that reason, even though I love actual swimming. I dreaded changing for gym in middle school, and it felt like it was just me who hated it but in hindsight that seems extremely unlikely.

i do wonder about the hyper-social people, what will change, how their behaviours will adapt, because all of the precautions on personal space being suggested now are perfectly amenable to me.

I'm pretty much in the same boat, I mean, I live in Manhattan where personal space is an impossibility, or maybe a fiction at best. But it's totally amenable to me in theory lol. The other day I went to the park to get away from my neighbors... and I'm not sure I've ever seen it so crowded, honestly. Tbf it was 75 degrees in March, but you would never know there's a pandemic going on.

I've worried more about the environmental impact than the social one tbh. It's not at all hard for me to imagine, for instance, mass extermintion of animal species who could potentially spread diseases to humans. The interim measures taken by China thus far have been to restrict wildlife trade and consumption, so I hope I'm wrong. I'd welcome limitations on "discretionary" travel going forward but I really don't think it's gonna happen.

I have clutter/hoarding tendencies (mostly physical media related but with a side order of musical gadgets and hi-fi gear) and to be honest the prospect of being homebound for a long time has made me wish I had less stuff and more space

this is me too! being constantly surrounded by piles of too-much-stuff is even more wearing now it's basically 24/7, plus there is extra awareness of keeping surfaces clean and having separate areas for things which have been outside, etc, and that's not so easy to do when you have 0 clear surfaces

(or, tbf, when you really hate cleaning and tidying and can't be bothered even though you know you probably need to more than ever)

I've been meaning to sell a bunch of records because I never listen to vinyl any more and it's just a big box of stuff I bang my toe on sometimes (plus some more boxes hidden in cupboards) but yeah, as you say it's not really the time now

Where did you order from?

Hop Burns & Black in East Dulwich/Peckham kind of way, although they have a Deptford shop as well. No sign of a delivery time though.

Cloudwater is completely out of all its IPAs. It's truly the hipsterpocalypse. (They do have plenty of guest beers to ship, however)

if IPAs the world over are cancelled this will be a glorious day

They price they sell Cloudwater at they'll have bankrupted the country before we all die.

Yes - though much more reasonable from their site than from wind-up merchants like Mother Kelly's who routinely sell tall-boy cans for £8

I got a few of these: https://shop.cloudwaterbrew.co/collections/guest-beers/products/mobberley-brewhouse-spring-ipa

capitalism will get v basic

Cuba can send all of its doctors to the ends of the Earth. But they'll never match the ingenuity of the market. pic.twitter.com/yiSpGEYtKn

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) March 24, 2020

Beer nerds insist that cloudwater prices fairly reflect the cost of all the hi-tech microbiology/alchemy they practice, my scientific opinion is maybe so but fuck off im going to Lidl

Every cloudwater beer I've had I've been like "this is the most delicious beer eve-this beer has outstayed its welcome", but then had to finish it because it cost like 6

I have no memory of any Cloudwater I've had, and I've surely had a few

I'm a bit angry that Amazon has taken down third party selling

has this occurred? This is the first I'm hearing of it

I've been meaning to sell a bunch of records because I never listen to vinyl any more and it's just a big box of stuff I bang my toe on sometimes (plus some more boxes hidden in cupboards) but yeah, as you say it's not really the time now

fwiw I relisted a bunch of previously unsold eBay shit right before this pandemic really escalated and half of the items have bids on them at the moment, so you may wanna try anyway. I mean, you have the time!

Only two mentions of Cloudwater here: UK beer in the new era

One is aldo mysteriously describing them as 'the stars of the scene' and the other is Albert R Broccoli sampling an international delivery with mild approval

Now I'm remembering harder, I now think they might be one of those perennial offenders in the 'bland slightly buzzy sours' department. Where the first sip is 'wow yes that is a sour' and the rest is, as Biscuits says, a slightly tedious chore

I think their beers are quite nice! Just insanely expensive

Yeah I would never deny the tastiness of fancy beers but they are for wealthy people who don't like getting drunk

Aldi had a load of "craft beers" for £1 each, I got 5 types - 2 were undrinkable, 2 were fairly standard, 1 was actually quite nice, so have been back for that one since then, forgotten the name but it's sort of a dark orange with three gurning gargoyle thingies on the side.

I wouldn’t call myself wealthy so much as profligate and irresponsible tbf, destroying my liver with the tasty stuff is my avocado toast 😃

yeah well I guess to some people all alcohol is a luxury rmde

It's going to be a really bad time for the people self-isolating with alcoholics, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 10:32 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

ive been waiting for my time to shine, up til now my childhood was a handicap

Thornbridge and Fourpure are both doing very fine sours available cheaply at Tesco atm, especially the former's Florida Weisse

Everything is horrific and upsetting enough without introducing sour beers into the equation.

I was about to say, this thread naturally includes "how will covid-19 not change us?" but a reminder that people will still feel free to start talking about shite beers in any thread seems particularly hurtful.

(my definition of shite beers includes all beer, but we can probably get a consensus together that we can live with)

Though I was amused to see that untapped says that someone in the last few hours has been drinking a CloudWater beer on draft - in South Korea.

I've been meaning to sell a bunch of records because I never listen to vinyl any more and it's just a big box of stuff I bang my toe on sometimes (plus some more boxes hidden in cupboards) but yeah, as you say it's not really the time now

― a passing spacecadet, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 11:55 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

fwiw I relisted a bunch of previously unsold eBay shit right before this pandemic really escalated and half of the items have bids on them at the moment, so you may wanna try anyway. I mean, you have the time!

― Paul Ponzi, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 13:22 (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

up till now when i've considered this (as a sometime music writer with a lot of unplayed vinyl, some of it in not-terrible condition lol) i've assumed it meant taking parcels to the post office (as i do with books and ABE)

not sure this is now possible under UK lockdown conditions? are there alternatives? (i do indeed have time to start listing things tho)

(not really the thread for the conversation maybe but since the discussion was started)

I see that off-licences are now allowed to open as "essential". now, I like a good booze and wouldn't have argued if they hadn't shut in the first place, but opening them especially does seem a bit odd

(I guess it's not good for their survival if people get even more used to going to the supermarkets for booze instead, but then that's true for other kinds of shop currently closed)

anyway I hope the wine shop near here will still go ahead with the home delivery scheme they just announced, as I was mentally drawing up a list & don't fancy my chances of making it half a mile down the main road without passing anyone. there's also a microbrewery nearby doing home deliveries, but their beers are 90% sour beers that mr spacecadet doesn't like - so, hello, fellow sour-beer-dislikers. (me, I don't even like beer...)

My final batch of CDs for the time being finished on Monday night, and I still have some packages to take. If you have a lot it's better to use the Drop & Go facility where you just stick it behind the counter and they do it all for you, but maybe not the most practical time to be signing up to that? But post offices will remain open I guess, otherwise how will OAPs send letters of complaint to their local newspaper about all this lockdown nonsense?

Also, auctions are doing very well right now as everyone's stuck at home, just saying.

xpost

they're keeping the govt-run wine&liquor stores open in Quebec so people don't ram the grocery stores just trying to buy alcohol

my brother in Georgia also just told me that gun stores have been deemed "essential services" there

Yes, how else are you going to fight off the brown people coming for your canned goods

post offices are still open as an "essential service" under lockdown, but it might not be the time to do regular journeys with armfuls of things requiring individual attention, it's true

I think there's some service where you can weigh parcels yourself and buy prepaid postage labels online to print at home? or where you can start an account online and just drop them off to be weighed and posted without waiting and get billed online? (xps, I think the latter is "Drop & Go" as Matt #2 says, not sure if the former still exists as I can't find it on their site)

there's a thread for discogs sellers/buyers - discogs marketplace? - where people would probably know more, or maybe everyone's reading these threads more keenly than their usual threads anyway

Yes some offies are delivery hubs. Ours (booze and expensive snacks shop) has started selling loo roll etc and is delivering essentials to people.

i took the parcels query to the discogs thread

It seems obvious that the ability to travel is going to change massively? Like we already knew how bad it was for carbon emissions but we've also glorified it so much for so long, and tbh it's hugely enjoyable if you can do in the way that seems best to you. But it's not a "right" and it's not good for places that are more tourist attractions than places for people to live (Venice, Dubrovnik, et al?). Maybe it will be un-normalized and we'll all stay home/local more, and go back to driving to Natl Parks for recreation instead of flying to Cabo.

it's kind of weird because i've never, like, flown to cabo?

we were planning to fly to georgia to visit my wife's sister. that seems to me like a more prevalent flight use case than cabo. so, i don't know, my wife never seeing her sister again? too soon to think about.

heh, yeah. i haven't taken a "real" vacation in a few years, since my honeymoon - by "real vacation" i mean an instagram vacation where your pictures astonish your friends. a lot of my friends make it a priority, though, visiting lovely beaches around the world several times a year somehow.

by "a lot of my friends" i mean people i once who knew but who i still follow on instagram

(xposts) I had a split-second of panic coming out of the post office yesterday (I've got a PO box and drop in every couple of days); it was empty when I went in, but exiting there were people on either side of me about 2-3 feet away. What a way to live.

I live 800 miles from my parents so I'm not un-affected. I do, though, think about what it meant to move away from yr fam before the internet, or before telephone service was common, or when you got in a wagon and drove away and maybe never saw your parents again. I have also read a lot of frontier novels and diaries and personal histories, tbf.

Had a moment of genuine panic thinking about what would happen if the expected winter epidemic happened around Christmas time.

xp Paul Ponzi: I buy nearly all physical media used. On my Amazon "wishlists", third party seller offers haven't been listed, only new prices from Amazon.

less fucking in cars?

Malgré les mesures de confinement, un couple de trentenaires s'est retrouvé dans un véhicule pour partager du bon temps sur une base de loisirs située à Muret, au sud de Toulouse. Ils pensaient être à l'abri des regards...

Ils n’ont pas résisté à l’appel de la chair. Mais ça va leur coûter cher. Ce lundi après-midi, lors d’une opération de contrôles d’attestation déployée à Muret, les gendarmes de Haute-Garonne ont repéré un véhicule suspect stationné sur l’aire de loisirs du lac des Bonnets. Même pas vraiment à l’écart.

En s’approchant de l’habitacle de la Mini, les militaires n’ont pu que constater l’évidence. Âgées d’une trentaine d’années, ces deux personnes à moitié dénudées passaient manifestement du bon temps. Écourté par les forces de l’ordre. Vite, on se rhabille.

Mais plutôt que de faire profil bas, l’homme a quelque peu invectivé les gendarmes de Muret. « Pays de merde ! », a-t-il notamment lancé. Lui, comme sa douce, ont été verbalisés : 135 € d’amende. L’histoire ne dit pas quelle case ils avaient cochée sur l’attestation de sortie...

xxp tbh the latest news - that the virus isn’t mutating much - means that if spread is high enough over the next few months, enough of the country should be immune to prevent this. The minor mutations mean the vaccine, when it comes, will be more akin to vaccinating for measles than the flu.

Yeah there is middle ground between "never seeing again" and "every year"

Yeah but iirc there are environmental guidelines that suggest ppl limit flying to 1x per year, and in theory if we moved closer to that norm, if you use your flight to visit your family then all your vacations are gonna be not European/not tropical/not lovely beaches around the world like Karl said. I'd be happy if train travel got a big boost actually.

I was thinking today about my grandfather and how obsessive he was about always having extra food around because he lived through the Depression, and realizing that we're all going to be like that from now on.

too early to tell. Depression lasted over a decade!

It seems obvious that the ability to travel is going to change massively? Like we already knew how bad it was for carbon emissions but we've also glorified it so much for so long, and tbh it's hugely enjoyable if you can do in the way that seems best to you. But it's not a "right" and it's not good for places that are more tourist attractions than places for people to live (Venice, Dubrovnik, et al?). Maybe it will be un-normalized and we'll all stay home/local more, and go back to driving to Natl Parks for recreation instead of flying to Cabo.

― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit), Wednesday, March 25, 2020 10:55 AM (six hours ago)bookmarkflaglink

It's not just carbon emissions.

Even before the cause of white-nose syndrome was identified, Al Hicks and his colleagues suspected an introduced species. Whatever was killing the bats was presumably something they’d never encountered before, since the mortality rate was so high. Meanwhile, the syndrome was spreading from upstate New York in a classic bull’s-eye pattern. This seemed to indicate that the killer had touched down near Albany. Suggestively, when the die-off began to make national news, a spelunker sent Hicks some photographs he’d shot about forty miles west of the city.
The photos dated from 2006, a full year before Hicks’s coworkers had called him to say “Holy shit,” and they showed bats with clear signs of white-nose. The spelunker had taken his pictures in a cave connected to Howe Caverns, a popular tourist destination which offers, among other attractions, flashlight tours and underground boat trips.

“It’s kind of interesting that the first record we have of this is photographs from a commercial cave in New York that gets about two hundred thousand visits a year,” Hicks told me.

Re: driving to National Parks, flying to Cabo and "rights" http://fvjzk13ui2.pdfcloud.org/dl2.php?id=60737078&h=ee3b9d54b996c8087973382fda02d72a&u=cache&ext=pdf&n=The%20sixth%20extinction%20an%20unnatural%20history%20by%20elizabeth%20kolbert#page189"> see Chapter X - The New Pangea

Out of choice, I haven't flown anywhere since 2002 so if this all results in fewer people flying, then good cos I will feel like less of a freak.

On my Amazon "wishlists", third party seller offers haven't been listed, only new prices from Amazon.

― Sanpaku, Wednesday, March 25, 2020 3:46 PM

If you go into the item pages, the used sellers are still listed. Amazon has done this before and I hate it because I regularly browse to see what's getting scarce or changing significantly in price and my wishlists are colossal, so I hope they change it back. Seems a bit shady.

A friend, a father of three (grade 6 girl, a couple of younger boys), wondered today, "I get depressed in particular thinking about ______ (and to some extent, ______)--what kind of 'developmental' time is this? How many kids are going to grow up completely screwed up by all this? Socially, at least." I didn't have an answer.

Two things will definitely change in my own life. One I posted about in the economic thread--a fund I invested in that I will extricate myself from pronto, if it ever gets back to par.

The other is so basic I'm almost embarrassed to say so: if it's not too cold out (probably not often in the winter as a whole), I will leave the car in the driveway and make short trips to the grocery store or for coffee on foot. Understand that I've had a life-long love affair with driving, very much tied in with the experience of listening to music in a car--really, it's the only place I ever listen to music anymore. But I've come to love the twilight-turning-dark walks around town I've gone on every night for the past two-plus weeks, in spite of (I hope not because of) how desolate it is out there.

This is a how-will-COVID-19-not-change-the-world post, but there (thankfully) isn't a thread for that, so I'll put it here: people will still argue about Dylan's-back pronouncements.

I mean, there's a chance this will stop that!

As someone who lives about 10 minutes (by car or train) from a major airport, I gotta say it's kind of nice to hear almost no planes and to hear lots and lots of birds.

the air has gotten better here and I hope it is a significant next step toward banning cars

I mentioned on Facebook how quiet it is when I go out walking after 8:00 at night. I've never experienced anything like it. On the rare occasion a car passes, it's like a train going through.

i feel sad for anybody who grows up completely screwed up but given that i grew up completely screwed up myself, and so did a fairly sizeable chunk of the people i know and love, i feel like this is more of a quantitative change than a qualitative change?

I also, perhaps chimerically and naively, believe that some of those kids will come out of this with a better appreciation of things they took for granted (hey, if it's happening with me, maybe it'll happen with some of them). Two middle-school kids, out for a walk in 2024: "Remember that bizarre time when we couldn't leave the house for six months, and we were stuck playing the same dumb video games and looking at the same dumb Instagram pages over and over and over?"

(Preemptive flash of self-awareness: not a knock on ILX! I'm glad it's here.)

Loved those recent posts clemenza and kate. Lots chiming with my own thoughts about how this will play out socially and emotionally.

Appreciate that. Walking is very conducive to writing in your head before you get home.

I think my kids will remember these as glory days. “Remember when we didn’t have to go to school and got to play video games every day?”

Getting paid to do nothing for 3 months is gonna be hard to come back from I think. God knows I hate working for a living.

I mean I find returning to work after paid 2 weeks vacation depressing enough as it is.

Getting paid to do nothing for 3 months is gonna be hard to come back from I think. God knows I hate working for a living.

I'm actually working (if managing the social media accounts for a medical school counts) but I'm curious how many people who have office jobs that are now doing those jobs via video-conferencing and email, and seeing no drop in productivity other than that attributable to COVID-19 generally, are gonna want to stay on WFH status permanently? I know I vastly prefer it, but I've been doing it for close to five years already.

I’m definitely switching to 3 days a week telework. I need to be in the office for certain things, though, and my wife already WFH’s nearly every day of the week.

Getting paid to do nothing for 3 months is gonna be hard to come back from I think. God knows I hate working for a living.

Haha so true. I have all the natural human responses to global peril, but at the same time whenever I hear "We're closer to a vaccine!" or "Deaths are down!" part of me shivers at the thought of returning to the office.

will all the de-lurking ilxors still post once this is over?

count me as the opposite -- I need some measure of externally imposed routine in my life

Wearing shoes all day every day again is going to feel really weird.

When I'm out walking now, and I see anybody do anything that's even remotely out of the ordinary--stop in the middle of the street and stare at something for a few seconds, signal for a right-hand turn and then change their mind...okay, if I see anybody do anything except walk forward in a straight line--I grumble "What the fuck are you doing?" Hopefully that will pass.

private health insurance won't survive this. millions are being thrown off their healthcare at the time they need ti most.

finally getting out of my pyjamas will feel odd

haha I was properly dressed bar wearing pyjamas today, but I haven’t worn shoes in two weeks

What's a shoe?

*pyjamas bottoms

I was watching Top Chef and people were touching their faces while preparing food!

I can see a star in the Paris night sky : things have changed

i keep waiting for the sky/air to clear a lot here but I think it's unlikely since we are in a valley.

I would like to think that ppl might be less inclined to be cunts about the whole concept of prison

Like they’ll be about to moan about how “lenient” it is to lock a human being away for five years of their life in the shittiest conditions and then suddenly they’ll remember that time they lost their fucking mind after two weeks of having to mostly stay in their house with only Netflix and Disney plus and Ocado and deliveroo and Spotify and FaceTime and amazon prime and audible and six concubines for company

bloody concubine hoarders, some of us have to get by with only three

this may be a "men are from mars, women are from Venus" thing but I'm actually ok with rapists having a shitty time

Can certainly see how my post comes across as strongly pro-rapist but that isn’t how I intended it fwiw

I’m thinking of the daily mail reader arguments that judges are all too soft and it’s practically a holiday to lock people (including non-violent offenders and disproportionately non-whites) away for “only” a year or five or ten. We should at least be honest and start with the admission that this is a heinous punishment and argue why it’s good from there

The thought processes of Daily Mail readers are probably past saving tbh. There will always be some reason why XYZ doesn't apply to any other group.

Anyone else getting a ton of magazine ebook suggestions on amazon? The magazines usually bought in newsagents and supermarkets.

I just went outside to take out the trash and see if the bodega had any paper towels and it was terrifying. The dull gray sky and light drizzle didn't help matters much. Also paper towels were $3.50 a roll at the bodega where I wound up buying them (another had opened a Costco pack of Bounty and affixed a $3.99 price tag to each individual roll)

I timed my beer run perfectly today and picked up an 8 pack of giant paper towel rolls from the rapidly dwindling delivery that our local Safeway must have gotten just this morning. Also fresh strawberries and popsicles (people been hoarding the good popsicles too).

xp: our local kmart was reportedly selling individual rolls of toilet paper for $2.69.

I have been feeling really bad lately for people who are having to go through this alone, or worse, stuck with someone they would prefer not to be around constantly. I grew up starved of loving touch, and I know how that affected me. I already felt like I was living in a world where physical touch was stigmatized because of uncontrolled abusers and creeps without a proper understanding of consent or relational power dynamics. How many people are having, possibly for the first time, to live a life completely bereft of touch? How long will this go on, and what is happening to all those people?

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/sns-nyt-coronavirus-department-stores-neiman-marcus-20200425-lisnd7bztncthoc32uulww4odi-story.html

The sales of clothing and accessories fell by more than half in March, a trend that is expected to only get worse in April. The entire executive team at Lord & Taylor was let go this month. Nordstrom has canceled orders and put off paying its vendors. The Neiman Marcus Group, the most glittering of the American department store chains, is expected to declare bankruptcy in the coming days, the first major retailer felled during the current crisis.

all stores will be online, 3% of the world will have jobs, we will be hooked up to machines that feed us Nerds that act as our sustenance.

all music will be made by Toby Keith

I’m cool with all of that except the last sentence.

The changes in logistics are not especially interesting or meaningful to me. If anything basic changes about 'how we live' as a result of this pandemic, I think it is likely to be that a much larger percentage of the privileged classes will come to realize that wealth and privilege cannot totally insulate them from unpredictable pain and suffering. I wonder if this will allow them to develop a greater empathy with the less privileged, but I'm not counting on it.

how did 3 weeks pass between the last post and the revive

groundhog day, holy shit

The story on the impending collapse of department stores suggests to me that gift cards will be much less desirable. In an age of massive economic uncertainty, purchasing credit as a gift will be far too risky. Tangibles rule.

we will be hooked up to machines that feed us Nerds that act as our sustenance.

so there's an upside, you're saying

to the optimism thread!

i demand nerd ropes for the common man!

I don't think I've bought something from a department store this century

I bought some stuff from Century 21 the winter before last, does that count?

It's interesting looking back at previous pandemics just how quickly all the lessons that were learnt were utterly forgotten. cf these incredibly contemporary Japanese posters from the Spanish flu: http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2020/04/25/japan-spanish-flu-pandemic-manual/

The changes that will endure, I think, are those that have been held back for too long by reactionary resistance. A lot of "we can't possibly let you WFH because X" management positioning has been put to the test and proven nonsense.

The ultimate knock-ons of that sort of thing are hard to predict. eg: it hasn't gone unnoticed by the people I work with that when we Zoom one another, the 20-somethings in Manchester and Glasgow are living in the sorts of pads that in London only the top execs get to live in. A decent number of them are mainly only in London because it's where the work is – so if we enter WFH for a year plus, do they stay in their tiny London flatshares? I think the appeal of cosmpolitan-with-property-available towns is going to call to them. That's a huge reconfiguration, if it plays out on a large scale.

There's also a rare chance right now to banish fucking cars while the gettings good. Milan is trying that; I'd love to see other places do the same. London is blissful without the damn things.

oh man, if it was possible to banish cars in the US, similar to Milan or London, I would be over the moon. I like road trips, but I hate driving, I feel like I have a 20% chance of death on the roads of FL, and I love cities with public transportation.

but even if we had the ability to nationalize public transportation and eradicate the need for them, people would say "YOU CAN'T TELL ME I CAN'T DRIVE" and would purposefully die in car wrecks to prove a point.

both stet posts otm and can def see some major traction across a number of fronts to push for the death of commuting and work-to-location

London is blissful without the damn things.

― stet, Sunday, April 26, 2020 7:26 PM

Every time I've been to London I've been terrified of fast cars there. Some people drive like maniacs there (usually in expensive cars).

that bit has got worse recently, sry

https://jalopnik.com/hertzs-late-night-bankruptcy-filing-sends-ripples-throu-1843628287

Car rental business drying up has significant effects on lots of other markets. If air travel stays depressed for a long time, the knock ons to car manufacturers and the used car market could be big.

That's gonna kill the market for shitty model cars that no one else wants

On Monday, Hertz dumped a bunch of bumble bee-colored Corvette z06s on to the used car market for a heck of a good deal. More used car deals were rolling in Saturday morning on Hertz’s website after the filing announcement. Here’s a 2020 BMW 740i for $52,949 and only 8,595 miles on the odometer, a full $5,000-$8,000 less than similar cars with similar milage in the same area, for instance.

There are plenty of less flashy cars for decent deals as well, especially if you’re in the market for one of the old rental car standbys, like a Toyota Corolla or a Chevy Tahoe. If a company that has been around since 1918 has to die, consumers might as well pick the bones clean.

damn, there are actually some pretty great deals on the site right now. It's tempting because we are expecting to need a second car at some point in the next couple years. At the same time, we are fine without one for now, and there's no greater savings than not buying something at all.

A 10-20% discount for a rental car would not be enough to get me to overlook the manner in which people drive rentals.

yeah, that's true. And tbh I'm seeing prices on Carvana that are not that far off from the Hertz prices, used car market in general seems pretty buyer-friendly.

of course this happens right after I pay off my current vehicle.

I was walking down a busy street the other day and someone yelled my name from across the street and waved. They were wearing a hat, bandana and sunglasses and completely unassuming clothing (I was wearing the same but no sunglasses). I just waved and yelled "take care", still have no idea who it was.

Ornaldo Bloomps

LMAO!

maybe it was NAthaniel, looking for Jaime Spears email?