With the Omicron CoVid variant that has hit the news comes a bit of an understanding about the Greek alphabet. The strains so far have been called after Greek letters - the biggest up until now being the Delta variant. A new strain coming out of South Africa was originally called NU... until it was decided that was confusing ... so they went to the next letter in the Greek alphabet - XI... and decided that wouldn't do because it was such a common surname in China. They went to the next letter ... Omicron. But this presents a bit of a puzzle for those who have gone to have a look at the Greek alphabet because Xu does not follow immediately after Delta... that would be Epsilon. So why didn't the folk who decide such things choose Epsilon or any of the other letters between that and Nu. It would have been clearer ... Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda or Mu would have done ... maybe.

Oops, just as well there is this thing called the internet.  Another look at the Greek alphabet naming convention shows that there are indeed CoVid variants named after the letters between (and including) Epsilon and Mu - but nothing much seems to have come of those (mentioned an article I read).

 It was reassuring that others were also noting the link between CoVid and the Greek alphabet ...

Test subjects

If you were starting human trials on a new drug ... how would you choose your subjects? There are sure to be ethical guidelines around this type of thing and probably whole areas of study but where do you tap into these fields if you aren't in them? The question came up while I was watching Venom - when "off the book" experiments are being conducted on folk who have either not come along voluntarily or have been promised a way out of their current (not so good) life predicament. So, if you were trying to get a positive result, would you pick the very best subjects you could or just who you could find?

Thoughts on a theme

Oops. I have been watching a new series Invasion, and in it a couple have a Tesla vehicle ... which the male partner cannot get going - admittedly he is a bit flustered as they are under attack and, necessarily, in a hurry - the female partner takes his mobile phone from him and then uses an app on the phone to start the car. He seems to have forgotten that step. Hmmm. So what happens if there is a problem with the app. Lots of Tesla drivers found out recently when they were locked out of their cars after an outage struck the Tesla app. Some of them posted about the outage on social media - and none other than the Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk personally responded to one saying, on Twitter, "Checking". He later tweeted "Apologies, we will take measures to ensure this doesn't happen again."

This is not the first time Tesla has been in the news lately. One has been about a staff member who sued the company and was awarded over $137 million. According to his attorneys, the case was only able to move forward because Diaz had not signed one of Tesla’s mandatory arbitration agreements which the company uses to force employees to resolve disputes without a public trial. The claims of racial abuse apparently date back to 2016 - since which time Tesla has made numerous HR changes to improve the workplace. Tesla has countered suggesting $600,000 would be a fairer compensation.

And two more instances of Tesla in the news, both emails:

• A response to a colleague who queried about using headphones on the plant floor - with one in one out - no problem;
• An email telling managerial colleagues that there were three courses of action if they received an email from Elon about doing something: provide information about why they thought it was wrong; seek further clarification; do it. If they didn't do any of these, the suggestion was that they could be asked to resign.

Yes, there is little doubt that Elon Musk is the boss.

Have you had enough?

If you are fortunate enough to score an invitation to Christmas at Queen Elizabeth II's estate chances are you will need to take part in a 120-year-old tradition. According to an article by Melanie A. Davis (on suggest.com) a habit now tradition of weighing guests when they arrive dates back to Queen Elizabeth's great-grandfather Edward VII; he wanted to "ensure his guests ate well". Attendees were "expected" to gain at least three pounds during their stay. If you want to see the practice portrayed on film, watch the new Pablo Larrain film Spencer. During the 1990's, the weighing of guests included family members including Princess Diana who was asked to weigh herself on the antique scales; she was struggling with an eating disorder at the time - something which was not unknown to the Royals. Some traditions are perhaps best not followed religiously. Also, as noted by Melanie A. Davis in the last sentence of her article: Apparently being a princess isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

Not 100 per cent

It's a hard thing to know ... when is 100 per cent not 100 per cent.  I saw on the news this morning that a dam is currently at 104%.  Does that mean its' overflowing?  It didn't sound like it was ... and if it isn't full (to overflowing) then why is it over 100% capacity?  

(Pause for research.)

The full supply level of a dam, when it is at 100 per cent capacity, is the approved water storage level of the dam for drinking or irrigation purposes.  But a dam can hold much more or much less than that.  According to a report in the ABC News in 2019, the Ross River Dam reached a capacity of 244.8 per cent. 

Who knew that dams could be gated or ungated.  The report went on to say that if a dam has a gated spillway, it can be opened to release water; for un-gated dams, operators have no control over the water that flows over the spillway once the dam's water level surpasses the full supply level.

A big find

 We were going for a drive this afternoon before meeting back at Monty's (microbrewery) and ended up at the Highfields Pioneer Village. In all the years we have been going to Toowoomba, we had no idea it was there. And certainly none of the others really had any idea about the rather large cow that has moved in. We will go there another day to "visit" but today it was just about finding out about the site and what they had (besides the ginormous cow). The volunteers on duty referred us to their website (www.highfieldspioneervillage.com.au) and told us that it would have details of upcoming events and special days - and if/what additional activites would be available eg blacksmith demonstrations, music, tea and damper and Model T bus rides around the village. The rest of the time, there is loads to see with each of the buildings on site housing a museum to "something" ranging from an old school building to the fire service and Southern Cross windmills. There is also a Heritage Chapel on site which is available for weddings and christenings. It's just a shame that lack of patronage during CoVid-19 last year has meant the folk who ran the cafe on site had to take up other jobs, so the on-site cafe is no longer running.

But at least we know where to look for it now - the signage to the site is not good and the volunteers were telling us that it is difficult and expensive to have the signage upgraded or moved - I think they mentioned the not-insignificant figure of $15,000 per sign. It's just a shame the Big Cow (one of Australia's many "big things") is not visible from the road.

Freedom ... ?

The suspense is palpable for those of us who have been wearing face masks as required throughout SE Queensland. We have been told that as soon as Queensland reaches 80% first-dose vaccinations the masks can come off. We had just 0.2% to go at 10:30 on Wednesday (or so I was assured by the wait-person where I picked up a coffee). Of course, you can still wear them if you wish, and I think we may still in some situations. There are heaps of people who seem to have given up wearing masks some time ago ... part of that at least I think is the unclear messages about masks, and mask-wearing, and restrictions.
An example: when we go to Trivia on a Monday night. We don't have to wear a mask until we are at the front door and signing in... and once we have signed in, we take the masks off... and don't wear them again for the two or so hours we are there, until we put them back on to walk the three steps through the foyer and out the front door. I can see why people think there is no reason to wear masks.
What puzzles me is how businesses are supposed to police this. Lots have a sign saying no face mask: no entry, but that doesn't stop people from entering bare-faced. What legal right or responsibility does a business have to prevent non-masked folk from entering - and how would they stop them? Similarly, come the point where 80 per cent of Queensland's (eligible) population is double-dosed and only those who are fully-vaccinated will be able to attend cafes, restaurants, clubs, sporting venues etc, who will be monitoring that? If it's so important, surely there needs to be a system in place to encourage compliance.

Hard sell ...

What the ...? I rang to cancel my subscription to the Gold Coast Bulletin and the Australian's Mind Games this morning and when I finally made it through to the operator, he asked me for a reason for the cancellation. I said I'd rather not say, but I just wanted to cancel. Then started a rather intensive session of him trying to extract a reason: he needed to put something down, he'd get in trouble if he didn't, it would affect him, you had a reason for joining - you must have a reason for cancelling. I suggested he just tick the box that said the customer declined to say: you're assuming there is something like that he replied, and again "it will affect me if you don't give me a reason". Well, I said, you read out the reasons you have and I'll see which of them I like. I don't want you to make up a fake reason he said, well, I told him, just put down that the customer declined to say. And I think there was one more round "You're a person, I'm a person and it will affect me if you don't say" before he would start processing my request.
Now, I don't know if it was just me, but the rest of the call did seem to take a while as he located my subscriptions and then cancelled them. Hmmm .. and why was it that the short survey at the end of the call I had been promised as I was on hold waiting to speak with an operator wasn't offered? I really wanted to help them improve their service! I must say though, that I'm used to getting a hard sell when folk are looking to sell me something ... not when I'm cancelling something ... although, to be fair, I know it's that he was looking for a way to have me continue the subscription/s so I guess he was on for the "sell".

Pandemics ...

Where did they find the resources to deal with the casualties? The Covid-19 pandemic this week reached a global death toll of 5 million ... although there are some suggestions that this figure is grossly under-reported. Given the media reports over the last (almost) two years since CoVid-19 first hit the global media, that is entirely possible. The question is whether the vaccination programs and measures being put in place will be able to counter the spread and contain it. But even at the conservative figure of 5 million deaths, CoVid-19 seems to not be the worst pandemic the world has seen. The actual figures may not be exact - because how would they keep an accurate track of the casualties over a number of years and locales. The reported totals - highest death toll first:
1347 - 1351   The Black Death         75-200 million
1520 - 1980   Small Pox                    56 million
1918 - 1919   Spanish Flu                 50 million
1981 -             Aids                              35 million
  541 - 750     Plague of Justinian    25-30 million.

So how did these people over the ages have the resources to deal with the casualties? And to record the numbers?

All a bit trivial ...

All the Trivia we do has to pay off sometime. In today's quiz in the Sydney Morning Herald, we came across two questions we definitely knew - which came first, the fruit or the colour orange ... and what was Colonel Sanders given name.*

I was also happy at Trivia on Thursday night when the question was "how many points is the Green worth in snooker?". The mnemonic I had endeavoured to remember had stuck - in part at least. 3 is/was the answer! Really, you go (red, yellow, green: 1,2,3) ... and there is more but I can't remember it now. It was just as well the question was about the green ball because I have no idea about any of the others with scores above three! I may have to have another look at that.  We have been listening to an Audible book "3,666 Facts" and some of the facts are interesting and I think it's those that we comment on and talk about that have a chance of making it into memory. One of those facts was that a "tower" is the collective noun for a group of giraffes. It was good we remembered it because that was one of the questions at tonight's Trivia.

I think we are starting to play much better as a team - we were seven tonight and it certainly didn't feel like the incredibly hard work it has been. We tried a new seating arrangement and I think that helped a little ... but it could just be that we knew more answers this time. We managed equal 2nd, together with about three other teams. The winning team had one more point, so we were fairly encouraged by that.

* Fruit; Harland

VIPs ...

Big Brother VIP - who are these people? I think I am definitely out of the loop as far as VIPs go. The VIP being interviewed on a morning show (not sure if it was The Morning Show) was someone called Jessika Power - and I am probably the only one in the world not to have heard of her. She was beaming in from Manchester England (England, across the Atlantic Sea) and she was obviously a very happy person because she seemed to be smiling all the time, although that may have had something to do with what may have been previous substance injections into her lips. What is it about people helping nature give them fuller lips ... and eyelash extensions?

Mistaken identity ...

Following the recent abduction and return of Cleo Smith in WA, one of the media outlets published the name and photograph of the suspect before he was formally charged. I'm not sure what the legal ramifications are in these instances especially as the person identified was someone else completely and not the person who was charged.  The wrongly-identified person will reportedly sue.  As well as civil proceedings, does this warrant investigation and/or action by the judicial system not because of the false accusation but because of possible interference with the abduction case? 

Trolls

Are some people just argumentative by nature?  Down at the Broadwater on Sunday morning, the Ian Dipple Lagoon had been closed off to the public - as folk from SeaWorld and the Council looked to see if the sea snake sighted the previous day was still in the Lagoon.  As it turned out they weren't looking to see if it was there, they were looking to make sure it wasn't there.  Fun fact:  sea snakes are usually underwater but come up for air every half hour to an hour to breathe ... and then they look like a rope floating on top of the water.  Another not so fun fact - sea snakes are incredibly venomous but - and this is more fun - they have an incredibly small bite so they can really only get purchase on smaller areas, like the webbing area between people's fingers. 

I put a photograph of the lagoon, without any swimmers or children playing in it, onto Facebook and mentioned the search for the sea snakes.  There were then some comments about sea snakes - and then one from someone suggesting that there were NO SEA SNAKES.  It was obviously someone who hadn't been there or hadn't talked to one of the folk around the lagoon. In the great scheme of things it wasn't that much ... but still I was pleased when a couple of the other members of the group pointed out his "error". 

I can't imagine what it must be like to have serious trolls following you online.  They can be quite nasty. ... and persistent... like those badgering Cleo Smith's family after her abduction last month.  It would be interesting to see if the trolling has stopped since Cleo has been found and returned to her family. 

Who's listening?

We sometimes joke - and certainly it is the stuff of memes - that our electronic devices are listening to us - or watching us.  Sooz was telling me the other day that she had been watching videos on families with Tourettes Syndrome.  I'm not sure where she found them but she doesn't have any trouble finding them now because they keep coming up on her Facebook page.  I'm still getting videos and ads about MDC Caravans - I had looked at some of the videos from their site and now they're just not going away.  Most folk have a story about how Siri or Alexa or Cortana "eavesdrop" on their Google searches and they start getting related content soon after.  I can understand that ... what I don't understand is how they can pick up cues from conversations you've had with someone when you're not actually searching on the internet.