Oh I wanted to kill some people the other day! I live a few hundred yards from the local hospital. I was stood looking out over my balcony the other day whilst the TV announced the death of a 36 year old, otherwise healthy nurse in that hospital. I was looking over to the flats opposite and could see an ambulance parked up. Could be anything of course but guessing it was Covid. Between these flats and the hospital, by the canal locks, were 7 or 8 18-ish year olds just hanging about.

Yeah tell me about it...every time I go outside I see like 5-6 alcoholics hanging around a supermarket/laundry place around the corner. They occasionally ask for money and otherwise don't really bother anyone but they shouldn't even be there to begin with. I understand that some of them may not have an actual home but this is France - there is a place for these people to go. But they are usually suffering from mental illness so they won't go there willingly. That's where the police should step in.

Went to the shop for my weekly trip a few days ago and finally ran into some police checking what people were up to. The drunks had magically disappeared (hah) and they stopped a group of like 7 young men who were happily strolling along in the sun. Fucking idiots. Was chuffed they were writing them up. Only regret is that they didn't ask me for my own authorization form - so that it has a purpose for once. Been filling out those things for weeks and never ran into the police so was a bit of a futile exercise.

Everyone still ok otherwise? I'm still in my stocked up bunker (apartment) and only go outside once a week so still ok for now. Parents are also finally taking it seriously and staying put it seems. Fingers crossed we all make it through this without losing anyone! I'm getting a lot of reading and gaming done in the meantime and have been organizing boozy get-togethers with friends over zoom. It's not perfect but it does the trick!

Aye we're still good here! Over a week since Niall went shopping, managing to stretch it to 2 weeks roughly. Parents are doing fine, Mum is baking a lot so Dad's happy! Then again she's also making him do a lot of garden work. Wood splitting, clearing out brambles and young trees so he needs the energy. Glad to hear your parents are finally paying attention.

Shiny and I are good. I haven't gone to work for like a month, but of course I'm still working 10-12 hrs a day. Typical shit, but I guess I should be happy I have a job. Shiny says hi.

Good to hear it guys. Well, not so much about Satis' work days, but at least it's better than being hospitalized. :-/

They extended the current lockdown to around mid May here in France, when the schools will (gradually) reopen. It's also expected that mouth masks will become mandatory in public spaces and the government is now working with several companies to make sure they can meet the demand for masks from the population by that time. Let's see if they manage. Not really looking forward to mask wearing but if that's what it takes...it's a relatively small sacrifice I guess.

Oh and the government finally came out with an app to generate the 'authorisations' you need to show police when you're outside. Took them only a month. It's literally just a form you fill out and then generate a pdf file from with all the relevant info and a scannable QR code for the police to check without touching. I could have taught myself how to develop such an app AND design it in my spare time, all by my self. Crazy that it took them so long to come up with this. But government gonna government I guess...but pretty happy, now I no longer have to spend my time copying these forms myself.

The good news is that the numbers are trending downwards here. Fingers crossed!

Yea, Europe's numbers are looking decent for the most part. The US is a a few weeks behind, at best. 800,000 infections and counting. *sigh* Dallas county has extended the lock down to mid May, so unlikely I'll go back to work prior to that. Good thing... I don't expect things to be better in the near future. Still... Shiny and I are employed and not sick, so it's all good. So long as that continues, whatever... I'm not expecting a total societal collapse any time soon.

Good to hear you haven't been ransacked by Covid zombies yet.

US continues to be hit pretty hard but there are signs of a slowdown at least..so good news. Most European countries seem to be working towards loosening the quarantine rules as their infection rates continue to drop. Here in France the schools will reopen in a week or two, and the government will give more specific information on Tuesday. Non-essential industries will probably go back to work and some stores will reopen, and face masks will become nigh-mandatory. In stores, in public buildings, on public transport, etc. That's my hunch anyway. We'll see.

Let's see how many people will die in the US now because they heard Trump speculate about the possibility of injecting bleach and other disinfectants to get rid of the virus What an absolute buffoon. It's insane that the last person in the world you should take advice from on this crisis is in charge of the most powerful country in the world...

Lol Peltz. I think the only thing that is definitely ok is to stay inside and play video games, luckily we are all pretty good at that.

Things are stabilizing further in most European countries and even the worst hit ones are slowly coming out of the lockdown...still very much restricted and provisional though, because numbers might go up again at any point.

A little mentioned fact is that the UK is now cruising towards the top spot in terms of deaths (after the US of course) and seems to be paying the price for its slow reaction and exceptionalism. Not unlike the US I suppose. Let's hope the numbers will start slowing down significantly there as well soon.

Everyone still alive and healthy? So far, so good on my side.

Yeah i'm still in my personal bubble here. Once a week i go out for grocery shopping, other than that i'm just staying inside. With schools being closed i actually have a lot of extra work now, we're "preteaching" students now. So i'm making powerpoint presentations as if i've never done anything else in my life before (well not really, but i'm getting better) and i record it when i play the presentation. So i have a youtube channel now filled with physics and chemistry lessons.
I'm trying to spend more time gaming, but it's not easy.

In 2 weeks last year students will return to school, so normally speaking i'll have to do some teaching in front of the class as well. We'll see how that goes, not sure yet if i'll have to be wearing a mouth mask while teaching, if i do that won't be easy.

My wife is teleworking at least till the end of May, probably even August. So that's convenient, since kids won't be returning to school anytime soon, she can keep an eye on them if i have to go to school. Nobody in my close environement (close collegues, family, neighbours ...) has had Covid afaik, let's hope it stays that way. Or that the symptoms will be mild.

Just make it mandatory to wear bubble wrap helmet&suits to your class. As far as i can tell, i don't even know anyone who is/got infected. But that probably changes the moment air travel is opened up, *say hello to my lil second wave friend*

Glad to hear everyone is still safe! Been a few weeks, keep forgetting to check in. Ox, I've had an email part-drafted to you for ages haha.

J, is there some way you can use physics in games to teach your lessons? More gaming AND you still get your job done! I wonder if you can end up with it accidentally hitting the YouTube algorithms and they pay you as well as your school?

Hi Shiny!

As Ox says, UK is cruising up the death figures. I think today we hit about 28,700 and Italy was second before that was announced on around 28,000 so we might have taken over now, particularly as they always say the figures will jump more on a Tues/Wed because the weekend deaths take a few days to get counted. Miles behind USA of course. Although the issue with the stats is that of course USA is going to have more, they've got a way bigger population (and a way bigger moron in charge, which is saying something... Boris isn't exactly a shining example of how to do things). We're not too bad where I am, I'm near Birmingham which was second worst behind London (again not surprising, it's the second biggest city in the UK) but our death rates have been going down for ages and each time I check the BBC's "How many cases where you are?" page I think it's around the 1,500 mark which isn't too terrible. Niall is still doing a shop fortnightly, just did one today so we're locked down again for 2 more weeks now.

Parents are still doing fine in France. Apparently France is now colour coded on severity, so e.g. most of the North East is red because of a lot of cases, unsurprisingly with Paris up there. Where my parents are is green so I assume that means they'll have more lockdown restrictions lifted more quickly. I guess they'll find out next week.

I think the UK is due to find out if we're having anything lifted on Wednesday this week.

That would be ideal, but don't think it will be doable. I could use some ingame stuff as examples, but i don't think i can record one hour of gaming for instance and just show it to them. Like "here is your lesson for today, have fun".

Also: my movies are private, so don't think i'll be getting many hits and many €€

Yes I suppose there's only so much educational content you can get out of placing your portals so the ball gathers speed going through them!