Working From Home - Impacts of Coronavirus

[cdev]

The sunrises where I live have sometimes been really colorful, usually when the usual pollution is in the air they are just gray,

[paulca]

We are driving so little now,  that I have had to dig out the battery charger to deal with the fact that the batteries slowly run down from just sitting there!

Yea I got hit by that pretty early on.  3 year old battery that has survived many thousand starts couldn't cope and ran flat and once that happens to an old battery it will never be the same.  2 weeks later I had to replace it.  New one is holding up fine to 1 or 2 short trips a week.

[Zero999]

Lots of governments have being lifting their lockdowns over the last month, or have plans to do so in June. Obviously this will result in more cases of COVID-19. Hopefully other measures such as contact tracing and testing will be able to control the spread, without having massive lockdowns.

Over here they start mass testing from today. So those still watching the numbers will likely see a huge peak in the infection numbers for the NL in a couple of days.

I've felt quite anxious shortly after returning to work. I was off from mid-March, to late-April. At first I was happy to return to work, but then I gradually became more anxious, especially as some of my colleagues struggle with social distancing. I'm not too worried about getting it myself, although I am aware that I could get very ill and potentially die from it, but my parents are in their 70s and have underlying health conditions, making them vulnerable.

Same here. What is frustrating to me is the sense you have little control over the situation. The only thing you can do is keep yourself and other family members away.

Is anyone else finding it hard to return to work?

Normally I'd go to a customer 2 days a week. I have cut that back to 1 day. On one hand it is nice to go back to a 'normal' rythm and it is also necessary to discuss with people face to face but it still is a risk. Normally I'd use public transport to get there but due to the risk of infection in public transport and the lack of parking spaces (this customer is located at the worst place to go by car) the only real alternative is to go by bicycle. Unfortunately some people working at that customer have no alternative for public transport because compared to me they live even further away.

Yes, I feel similar, especially has I have no control over it. Cycling is good, it'll keep you fit, boosting your immune system, reducing the chance of you getting ill from anything, let along COVID-19.

[...]

...the only real alternative is to go by bicycle. Unfortunately some people working at that customer have no alternative for public transport because compared to me they live even further away.

Is it an option to throw a bike in the back of the car, and park a 'bicycleable' distance away?

Yes and no. It still means cycling 5km to 10km from a free parking zone into the business park. Likely more people will have this idea and consume the available parking space quickly. But still people will need to own a car and some don't (some can't even park a car where they live).

I normally cycle about 7km to work. Before the pandemic, I used to do a 9.5km ride at lunchtime, I found it revealed stress, but I didn't start again since returning to work, at the end of April and just go for a walk instead. More people cycling will reduce pollution and the spread of diseases.

Is anyone else here struggling with this? It turns out there's a name for this: post lockdown anxiety. I suppose this makes sense: we were told to stay in, because there's a dangerous virus circulating and now we're supposed to go out, even though the virus is still out there. I just cling on to the hope the contact tracing will work and I know the NHS will be able to cope.

Is anyone else finding it hard to return to work?

I'm planning to work from home indefinitely, especially now since there are riots going on all over, those worry me a lot more than Covid ever did and I suspect will directly result in a lot of new infections. Otherwise no, I haven't really been worried at all, the uncertainty and economic impacts are a big concern but staying home all the time just kind of feels normal to me now and I've saved a ton of money between transportation and not eating out. I haven't put gas in my car in months and I haven't eaten from a restaurant since mid March. I actually looked at my bank account last night and thought "wow, where did all this money come from?" Even being fiscally conservative in general I hadn't realized how much I was spending on lunch and commuting.

The riots are a big problem and will spread the virus, which proportionally kills more African Americans.

I didn't find staying at home too much of a big deal. It was a bit boring and I did worry a bit about my job, but knew it wouldn't last forever. My anxiety picked up shortly after returning to work. Fortunately I'm feeling a bit better now.

Yes, I've also saved money, by not going out and socialising. I hope when this is all over, many will have more disposable income they can spend and stimulate the economy.

[AndyC_772]

Normally I'd use public transport to get there but due to the risk of infection in public transport and the lack of parking spaces (this customer is located at the worst place to go by car) the only real alternative is to go by bicycle.

You're lucky that's even an option to consider.

As soon as the lockdown was announced I told myself that I'd come out of it better off in at least some way, and since going for a bike ride was one of the very few remaining permitted activities, that's what I decided to do - more exercise.

So, I discovered Strava and starting recording my daily activity. I've ridden about 10 miles most days, discovered some great cycle tracks within just a couple of miles of home, and have done some much longer days without major issues. I wouldn't call myself "fit" by any means, and certainly not in a competitive sense, but I figure I'm as capable as a middle aged nerd can reasonably be expected to be.

My last customer visit was 60 miles each way with an HP 4395A... try doing that on a bike.

[nctnico]

We are in good company. Even the queen of the Netherlands travels by bike for work related visits nowadays:



The security detail isn't visible though but they are there.

[Zero999]

Normally I'd use public transport to get there but due to the risk of infection in public transport and the lack of parking spaces (this customer is located at the worst place to go by car) the only real alternative is to go by bicycle.

You're lucky that's even an option to consider.

As soon as the lockdown was announced I told myself that I'd come out of it better off in at least some way, and since going for a bike ride was one of the very few remaining permitted activities, that's what I decided to do - more exercise.

So, I discovered Strava and starting recording my daily activity. I've ridden about 10 miles most days, discovered some great cycle tracks within just a couple of miles of home, and have done some much longer days without major issues. I wouldn't call myself "fit" by any means, and certainly not in a competitive sense, but I figure I'm as capable as a middle aged nerd can reasonably be expected to be.

My last customer visit was 60 miles each way with an HP 4395A... try doing that on a bike.

Yes, cycling is good. Over a couple of years, I lost weight, from a BMI of 28 to 23, just by cycling 14 miles per day, without adjusting my diet, in fact I've being eating more, rather than less and not all of it is healthy! I think you have to do a reasonable pace to lose weight: fast enough to work up a sweat and get out of breath.

[nctnico]

Pace doesn't matter. Just burn energy. Some say you start burning fat after 20 minutes. I lost weight too in the past half decade by being more active.

[coppice]

We are in good company. Even the queen of the Netherlands travels by bike for work related visits nowadays:

(Attachment Link)

The security detail isn't visible though but they are there.

These pictures always show cycling under ideal conditions. A dry sunny day, that's neither too hot or too cold. Few people mind cycling a reasonable distance under those conditions. However, they are a small percentage of all days for most people. This queen has no fear cycling, as the moment rain starts her security detail can put her in a car, and probably some sucker in the detail will have to take her bike and get wet.

[james_s]

These pictures always show cycling under ideal conditions. A dry sunny day, that's neither too hot or too cold. Few people mind cycling a reasonable distance under those conditions. However, they are a small percentage of all days for most people. This queen has no fear cycling, as the moment rain starts her security detail can put her in a car, and probably some sucker in the detail will have to take her bike and get wet.

That's certainly the case here. The weather is crap 80% of the year. Cycling is great on a nice day, but if it's 40F, pissing down rain and windy or if it's 95F under the blistering sun it's just plain miserable. Add to that the fact that around here there are hills everywhere, and I don't mean the little humps you see in some regions but HILLS with hundreds of feet of elevation gain and you have to be really hard core into cycling to use it as transportation. Riding on the road with cars is also absolutely terrifying, it's bad enough in another car but on a bicycle it's a death wish with everyone driving around looking down at their phone.

[bd139]

That's what's good about the UK. The weather is always sort of "okish". If it's pissing it down it's usually warm enough for it not to be too bothersome. If it's hot it's not usually hot enough for it to be bothersome. Most of the time it's just overcast. Also where I am in London it's mostly flat and littered with cycle lanes

[paulca]

That's what's good about the UK. The weather is always sort of "okish". If it's pissing it down it's usually warm enough for it not to be too bothersome. If it's hot it's not usually hot enough for it to be bothersome. Most of the time it's just overcast. Also where I am in London it's mostly flat and littered with cycle lanes

Bloody South East Englanders.  Right up their own arse.  Completely forget the rest of the UK exists.  Nothing changes.

[bd139]

We pay for your nice roads with all that tax ...

https://www.roads.org.uk/road-schemes?title=&route=All&status%5B0%5D=0&status%5B1%5D=1&status%5B2%5D=2&type=All&class=All&region=All&order=field_region&sort=asc

[GavinHemmings]

I work from home, but our company is losing money and making cuts. I think I'm going to lose my job soon and I don't know what I'm going to do next.

[EEVblog]

Gyms reopen here in two weeks. All kids back at school full time country-wide. AirBnB (non-interstate travel) have gone nuts as people want a weekend away. Kids soccer training started again. Football has started again (without crowds).
We haven't had a new community transmitted case in many days in NSW now, our handful of cases have all come from travelers coming in.
All but big gatherings are back open, like concerts and public football matches.
Basically it's starting to feel like no one gives a frig any more, get back to it.

[bd139]

Time will tell if that is a good idea or not.

We've just been told we're working from home until September earliest. Possibly not even going back until new year. Turned out the office just cost a lot of money and we don't really need it

[paulca]

Time will tell if that is a good idea or not.

We've just been told we're working from home until September earliest. Possibly not even going back until new year. Turned out the office just cost a lot of money and we don't really need it

We are getting similar, but possibly start of July.  Even the CEO and exec teams say they don't want to return to working in the office 5 days a week.  This presents a problem though.  Obviously we don't need as many desks and it would be very wasteful to assign people a desk.  So all desks become "hot desks" and you would have to book a desk on the days you want to come in.  That gets complex if teams want to have days when all team members are in.... if a lot of teams want to be in on Monday it would require more desks that would sit unused the rest of the week.

They were suggesting using the parking booking app to book desks LOL

[coppice]

That's what's good about the UK. The weather is always sort of "okish". If it's pissing it down it's usually warm enough for it not to be too bothersome. If it's hot it's not usually hot enough for it to be bothersome. Most of the time it's just overcast. Also where I am in London it's mostly flat and littered with cycle lanes

This must be a different London from the one where I grew up. Cycling to school was a miserable experience for most of the year. The problems with staying dry on a bike in the rain meant I gave up the bike and walked to school. It a lot easier to walk in the kind of clothes that will keep you dry, and you can use an umbrella on the days where the wind is not too strong. Cycling in London even makes London Transport look attractive... if London Transport actually operates in the direction you need to go.

[james_s]

Gyms reopen here in two weeks. All kids back at school full time country-wide. AirBnB (non-interstate travel) have gone nuts as people want a weekend away. Kids soccer training started again. Football has started again (without crowds).
We haven't had a new community transmitted case in many days in NSW now, our handful of cases have all come from travelers coming in.
All but big gatherings are back open, like concerts and public football matches.
Basically it's starting to feel like no one gives a frig any more, get back to it.

Here's hoping it all works out and things don't flare up again. It would be great to see things start getting back to normal and we have to open things back up at some point but I also think it's important to remain on guard and keep expanding testing. A huge resurgence in infections would be disastrous from both a public health and economic standpoint.

Things were really starting to look optimistic here in the Seattle area very recently, but then all these protests and riots broke out so I would not be surprised if we see a massive resurgence. If I were trying to think of a way to spread Covid to as many people as possible, a massive protest with thousands of people in close proximity screaming and yelling and marching all over a major city sounds like an absolutely ideal way to do it. Perhaps I should clarify, I'm not suggesting some kind of conspiracy or intent here, only that what is going on is close to the absolute worst case behavior people could be engaging in when there's still a virus going around killing people. Especially when the hardest hit communities with the highest Covid death rates are precisely those that the protests and riots are advocating for. It's just a bad situation any way you look at it.

[maginnovision]

https://retractionwatch.com/2020/06/01/top-journal-retracts-study-claiming-masks-ineffective-in-preventing-covid-19-spread/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/health/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine.html

NY times is sort of behind a paywall.

Some quotes from the article.

Data from Africa indicate that nearly 25 percent of all Covid-19 cases and 40 percent of all deaths in the continent occurred in Surgisphere-associated hospitals which had sophisticated electronic patient data recording,” the scientists wrote. “Both the numbers of cases and deaths, and the detailed data collection, seem unlikely.

Another of the critics’ concerns was that the data about Covid-19 cases in Australia was incompatible with government reports and included “more in-hospital deaths than had occurred in the entire country during the study period.”

Scientists who wrote and signed the letter criticizing the study included clinicians, researchers, statisticians and ethicists from academic medical centers, including Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University and Duke University.

Dr. Sapan S. Desai, the owner and founder of Surgisphere and one of the paper’s authors, vigorously defended the findings and the authenticity and validity of the company’s database. He said official counts of coronavirus cases and deaths often lagged behind actual cases, which might explain some discrepancies.

The other paper is about a retraction of a paper about the effectiveness of masks.

The paper only involved four participants. Apparently, the authors thought a correction — adding more patients — would be enough

From retraction watch:

The article joins our ever-growing list of retracted COVID-19 studies. It is a reminder that for all of the alarm over publicity of preprints, because they are not peer-reviewed, “Peer-Reviewed Studies Also Require Caution.”

Perhaps the real problem is speed, not peer-review status. If only someone had warned us.

That last quote has quite a lot of links to interesting stuff.

[paulca]

Figured it was relevant to put this here.

I know a lot of people are using Teams, Zoom and other video conference/chat platforms for work these days.

I had a small epiphany last night, did a bit of googling and you can indeed use OBS to produce a virtual camera image which both Teams and Zoom will pick up as a webcam.  It's just a standard Windows video input so I imagine anything that uses a camera will work with it.

I'll post an article link below, but the TLDR is ... 

1. Install OBS (http://obsproject.com/)
2. Install the Virtual camera plugin (https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/obs-virtualcam.539/ )
3. Enable the virtual camera output in OBS (Tools->Virtual Camera)
4. Now add some sources, move, resize, change stacking order etc.
5.  Open Teams/Zoom and select the OBS Camera as your video input device.

Now spend all day playing with different sources.  I recommend "Window Capture" rather than "Display capture" for business use as this will lock to the window contents and not display any popups or appearances such as facebook notifications that appear.  It will even display the window contents if you move another window over it.

Each source can be scaled, if you select Default scaling it will automatically scale the source to fit your OBS screen, even if you change the size of the source window "live" it will rescale the output.  You can also crop/pad sources, which is handy to remove, for example your browsers address/bookmark bars etc.

You can switch sources in and out "live".  You can also define "Scenes" and switch between those with tranisitons etc.

You can of course use your existing camera as a source and put your self in the corner of your presentation.  If you are such inclined it supports color keying, so if you put a green or blue sheet behind you, you can make your background transparent and have your presentation appear around you seemlessly to the point you can point at things with your hands or appear in exotic locations.

Beyond that, just have fun.  Be careful with your personal desktop it is very easy to share something you didn't intend to.  For example if you want to share your browser and enable it in your scene, but forget it's on your facebook tab... then your meeting members will see you facebook!  So be careful!  Also why I don't recommend using "Display capture" or capturing an area of your desktop.

https://collab365.community/using-obs-studio-with-microsoft-teams/

[cdev]

Obviously shifting to distance education is a big change.

A hot new thing there is virtual labs/simulated labs.

For example, here its described in a Nature article.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06831-1

It seems to me as if despite electronics getting a huge head start with tons of EDA software already being available, that it would be hard to take any discipline and adequately simulate it because certain things just have to be learned by experiencing them.

But what do I know? Maybe I am just being old fashioned.

I like tinkering, thats the big draw of electronics for me.

[coppice]

Obviously shifting to distance education is a big change.

Most evidence to date says distance education just won't work. Really smart people do great with distance learning. Most people struggle - i.e. all those people who would typically get some assistance from the really smart people in the group when they learn together. MOOCs were flavour of the month for a while, but despite trying various strategies they are struggling to stay relevant.

[cdev]

Big parts of the US, rural areas, dont even have broadband in any form yet! The providers just dont see it as profitable. That also may mean no phone coverage too.

It seems like putting in a national brodband network might have been a really good idea in Australia.

Obviously shifting to distance education is a big change.

Most evidence to date says distance education just won't work. Really smart people do great with distance learning. Most people struggle - i.e. all those people who would typically get some assistance from the really smart people in the group when they learn together. MOOCs were flavour of the month for a while, but despite trying various strategies they are struggling to stay relevant.

[edavid]

Things were really starting to look optimistic here in the Seattle area very recently, but then all these protests and riots broke out so I would not be surprised if we see a massive resurgence. If I were trying to think of a way to spread Covid to as many people as possible, a massive protest with thousands of people in close proximity screaming and yelling and marching all over a major city sounds like an absolutely ideal way to do it.

The outdoor transmission rate is very, very low.  There's so much more air to dilute the droplets.

(Around here, the protesters are very conscientious about wearing masks, but it probably doesn't matter.)

[james_s]

The outdoor transmission rate is very, very low.  There's so much more air to dilute the droplets.

(Around here, the protesters are very conscientious about wearing masks, but it probably doesn't matter.)

I hope so, but I'm not exceedingly confident. If Covid does start spreading like wildfire again we'll be right back where we started and I don't know that we could go through another round of months of lockdowns without suffering a total economic collapse.

On the other hand, if the protests don't result in a large spike in infections then we can be a lot more confident in opening things back up, at least outdoor things. Even under the best of circumstances we're going to be feeling the effects of the pandemic for a decade or more. Once things reopen there will be a huge rebound of pent up demand for things but eventually reality of the enormous debt accrued will catch up to us. Even as things stand, all the people who have fallen behind on their rent and mortgages are going to have to pay the piper. The eviction moratoriums will expire eventually and most people who are months behind will never be able to catch up.