jimmydasaint

Fantastic! Like the music as well!

I'll try again with Slash and Myles Kennedy:

Cheers StringyJunky, hope you are well mate. Have tried the BB code thing but it failed miserably. Hey there mate, I just cut and pasted the entire youtube link into the post and got this great track:

I have been off the Forum for a while, writing up my book in the summer and also now starting a full time teaching role since the start of September. As a consequence I have forgotten how to embed videos and images. Can one of the Mods or a kindly member reiterate in a step by step guide that can be followed by a simple-minded individual like myself? Cheers

Slash

Recent research seems to indicate information as follows : https://earthsky.org/earth/earth-ancient-atmosphere-carbon-dioxide-nitrogen-meteorites What puzzles me particularly is the question of how long oxygen has been in the atmosphere and its location. If the early Earth's atmosphere had carbon dioxide, where did the oxygen come from? Also, I assume that the atmosphere later on was also dominated by water vapour. Where did the oxygen come from that reacted with the water? I would appreciate any answer that enables me to learn more about this theoretical topic in an Earth very different to what we have had recently.

That was the main point I tried to posit, suing the Singapore model from the Lancet. Hope you and yours are OK iNow.

You are right that I should have taken a larger number of years for the average. I considered a short term trend in numbers of deaths. Accumulated age is a large risk factor, I agree. IMHO, fear is being created (perhaps rightly so, but I am not a social scientist) by broadcasting cumulative numbers of COVID-19 attributable deaths but we should have a news item which says something along the lines of: "The cumulative total of COVID-19 deaths in the UK has now reached 4313 tragic deaths, in relation to the total number of deaths for March 2020 which was (estimated) at 47, 413 from all causes...." IMO this would make people fearful, but careful, and not just fearful and ignorant. As far as the point about widespread testing, how can the Government talk about disease spread accurately without numbers? The Prime Minister's speech with his two medical advisers was almost all guesswork. Educated guesswork but all guesswork because there was not enough testing throughout the population to predict a rate of spread of the viral infection. Even now the percentages are based, for the most part, on patients who have reported in to hospital and have been then tested for coronavirus. The Government are publishing COVID-19 figures in relation to the total, including the virus (IIRC). You are absolutely correct with the scenario you presented. I think that hospitals are being overloaded and there is a possibility of increasing mortality from other causes. Agreed! However, all I am looking for is a month to month comparison (whilst taking in the points you made) to give me a reference point as a citizen. In January, we are in the height of winter, and if you look at the number of deaths from respiratory diseases in winter, it is quite high. However, I did not check the numbers of people who had respiratory diseases in January in previous years. I thin COVI-19 is a problem for people of a certain age group (60 and above) or for those individuals who have underlying health conditions. SARS is a nasty virus which can flatten a person with underlying health conditions. However, yes, you are correct, the National Health Service are overwhelmed and so people who have different life-threatening conditions may have less priority, than those with suspected, or actual COVID--19,. I cannot disagree with you on most points. However as far as the death statistics, and we must remember that these are human tragedies and not just numbers, The Lancet published a model which was based on flu infection and for Singapore, but had important implications for the UK. The Lancet 23 Mar 2020 I am quoting the effects of self-isolation and lockdown in their article, assuming R0 (reproductive rate of viral spread, I assume) reducing daily numbers by 93%: (the emphasis in the last sentence of the quote is my own). For a more serious scenario, wit R0=2.5, the following conclusions are reached by th emodellers:

I am putting this topic here as it does not fit anywhere else. I have been puzzled over the few weeks, as a concerned citizen, why the number of deaths by COVID were not given as a proportion of total deaths. I went to the Official Government website Gov.UK and downloaded figures to compare the number of deaths attributed to coronavirus in relation to normal deaths for this period. This is not something, in the UK, that is mentioned by news outlets very often. Sky News can be renamed as Coronavirus Updates now because they have gone into the reporting of this awful viral infection 24/7. I wanted to check out relative figures of coronavirus infection in relation to total numbers of deaths from all causes at this time of year. After downloading the Excel files from the Government website, I got the following figures: Total number of deaths from all causes in 2018 in England and Wales Jan-18 Feb-18 Mar-18 Apr-18 May-18 Jun-18 Jul-18 Aug-18 Sep-18 Oct-18 Nov-18 Dec-18 64,020 49,087 51,131 46,383 42,685 39,679 40,621 40,071 37,013 44,311 43,834 41,430 Total number of deaths from all causes in 2019 in England and Wales Jan-19 Feb-19 Mar-19 Apr-19 May-19 Jun-19 Jul-19 Aug-19 Sep-19 Oct-19 Nov-19 Dec-19 53,772 45,696 43,815 44,003 44,290 38,511 42,183 38,719 39,915 46,133 45,111 47,384 Total number of deaths from all causes in 2020 in England and Wales Jan-20 Feb-20 First 3 weeks of Mar-20 62770 43,587 32559 Deaths from respiratory diseases in 2020 in England and Wales included in figures for total deaths Jan-20 Feb-20 First 3 weeks of Mar-20 10446 6,300 4533 Deaths from COVID-19 mentioned on death certificates in England and Wales Jan-20 Feb-20 First 3 weeks of Mar-20 0 0 108 Because the figures are not complete for March 2020, when I accessed the website on 4 April 2020, I will take an average of all deaths from all caused in March 2018 and March 2019 as a representative figure for March 2020. I calculate this to be 47,413 If we take the current figures for COVID-19 deaths to be 4313 (as at 7.36 a.m. 5 April 2020), the percentage of deaths attributed to COVID-20 as an approximate percentage of all deaths is 9.097%. This is a fairly high estimate. but, in the interests of accurate reporting: 1. I would wish our news agencies to drop the absolute numbers and give us the number of COVID-19 deaths as a percentage of deaths by all causes in the UK. 2. The Government should be duty bound to report the deaths by COVID-19 as a percentage of those (large pool of) people randomly tested and positive for COVID-19 infection. 3. We should continue social distancing and self-isolation in order to reduce viral transmission rates. 4. We should acknowledge, as scientists, that our world has changed profoundly, socially and economically, and that we are unlikely to go back to the "normality" of 2018 and 2019. Number of deaths 2018-2020.xls

The article you cited also mentioned that fullerenes had also generated interference patterns in 1999. I do not understand how this experiment will lead to a new era in quantum biology. Could you please give us your perspective on their findings.

This seems to refer to a 2D model of blood flow to the brain of a patient using relatively cheap equipment and laser pulses instead of electrodes to the skull and that is all. No mind reading.

I don't know. Of course I see the advantages, but how far do we go? Do we then get to the point where people can pay extra to have their babies engineered to have superb muscles or desirable features or to have super-learning abilities. How far before economic decisions affect the children we have. Will Western people then start a savings account for college and another for genetically engineering their children? I am in two minds here.

As long as the dragon has provided scriptural exegesis in the form of three or more books revealed by the messengers of the dragon to three or four unusual individuals and which serves to give peace to one quarter of the world's population and offers a story to why humans are on Earth and provides them with a purpose and moral parameters - yes. If the dragon also states that love of others, mercy and forgiveness are the order of the day and that the dragon's personal qualities of mercy and generosity are to be reflected by its creations-yes. If the dragon offers a way to true peace on Earth with a promise of the essence of a soul reaching an eternal reward- yes. You cannot just posit an invisible dragon and then assign no personal qualities to it. The acceptance of the dragon is contingent on its absolute, and not relative qualities.

Agreed, IMO, he thought that belief had an infinite reward whilst the opposite had a negative effect.

It probably had more importance in Pascal's times about 350 years ago. You can live a perfectly moral life for the sake of it as I said earlier but in Pascal's time, there were only two choices to the gamble.

I agree, you could lead a superb life for the sake of it and it would be rewarding as well. However, and I am hoping I do not misquote Pascal here, you would need faith in God, real or not, to get to Heaven. But I suspect that you are going to answer that a version of Heaven and peace can be attained in this existence and I would respect your belief, if this is the case.

There are some real scumbags on my estate. One of these stole my Carrera bike from my back door. Initially, I wanted to throw a brick through the suspect's window but I rationalised that if I did not take the higher moral and rational ground, I would have become a scumbag as well. And I could not have that on my conscience.

I will have to refer to the OP, before we go off on to a tangent: If God does not exist and we follow a moral code, which, in the West, is based on the old Christian moral code, we then live a moral existence before the end of our existence. We, as moral characters of action have had a positive effect on society.

Well, if you go along with the wager idea, and it has been criticised of course, then the Abrahamic religions would consider Heaven to be eternal, eating grapes, playing the lyre etc...

It is a bet a wager, but the two sides of the coin land on eternity in Hell or eternity in Heaven.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Pascals-wager.html So you may or may not believe in God. However, rationality or reason cannot take us all the way to pure belief. Disbelief may not be 100% either. does Pascal give us a reasonable way to live, with eternity in the afterlife to follow?

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