BOUT a month ago I redid the site SciFitness to better align with the present. The site was over 12 years old and thus in dire need of updates. The content was very out of date (I was in my 20s when I wrote it) and my wife currently sells quite a lot of fitness products, so it was changed accordingly. The use of iframes is far from desirable, but eBay is funny like this and it’s also hostile towards being embedded within another page. Perhaps this is all just an interim “solution”.

If you wish to support my work online, one excellent way to do so is buy something from the store. At least this way you get something for the money.

HAVE just checked this morning’s ONS numbers, which were released only minutes ago.

In Week 45 of this year there were 11,489 registered deaths in England and Wales:

Before COVID-19 it was an average of 10,142 for that week, so we’re still looking at almost 15% increase, i.e. same as last week.

John spoke about excess deaths around the world yesterday (less than 24 hours ago).

Description and citations below in case Google intercepts his video/s again (for merely reporting facts).

Iceland halts Moderna jabs over heart-inflammation fears

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-iceland-halts-moderna-jabs-heart-inflammation.html

Iceland suspended Moderna anti-COVID vaccine

Chief Epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason

https://www.icelandreview.com/news/moderna-use-on-pause-in-iceland/

Iceland will halt the use of Moderna vaccine

Decision was made after reviewing new data from the Nordic countries,

which shows an increased incidence of myocarditis,

as well as pericarditis

Decision was announced on website of the Directorate of health

https://island.is/um-embaettid/frettir/frett/item47717/Notkun-COVID-19-boluefnis-Moderna-a-Islandi

"the increased incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis after vaccination with the Moderna vaccine, as well as with vaccination using Pfizer/BioNTech,"

Sweden

Currently restricts Moderna to people individuals born after 1991.

Norway and Denmark

Recommend against Moderna for children aged 12 – 17.

https://island.is/en

https://island.is/um-embaettid/frettir/frett/item47717/Notkun-COVID-19-boluefnis-Moderna-a-Islandi

https://www.covid.is/covid-19-vaccine

Finland halts Moderna vaccinations for young men

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-finland-halts-moderna-vaccinations-young.html

Mika Salminen, director of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare

Finnish health authorities, stop giving Moderna to young men,

over fears of heart inflammation side effects.

Moderna "should not be given to men and boys under 30 years of age for the time being."

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/overview-COVID-19-vaccines.html

Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines

billions of vaccines administered globally, demonstrates that they are safe and effective.

Side Effects

Side effects throughout the body (such as fever, chills, tiredness, and headache) are more common after the second dose of a Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Novavax COVID-19 vaccine.

Adverse Events

Severe allergic reactions to vaccines are rare but can happen.

There is a rare risk of myocarditis and pericarditis associated with mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, mostly among males ages 12–39 years.

Stay Up to Date with COVID-19 Vaccines

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html

recently wrote about security crises associated with Windows deployments. “On the topic of Windows,” a friend told me (citing this one article): “The writers there (and elsewhere) conflate spending with results. Security is part of the design and not an aftermarket add-on. The latter is a pointless and futile waste of time and money, but one which keeps Microsoft market share from bottoming out. [...] the Microsoft way of thinking permeates their design *and* implementation *and* especially their deployment.”

I still firmly believe that removing most Windows installations out there (ultimately all of them) would considerably improve computer security worldwide. Microsoft designs things not for security but the very opposite (remote access by the state). ?

‘ve just published another post about why Microsoft needs to be eradicated as a matter of national security. If Finland still uses anything from Microsoft, as I generally argue that it sadly does, then it remains widely open to any Russian cracker all the time.

“Only the physical border is being limited,” a friend told me. “The digital border has been cracked wide open and the visit by Microsoft’s Brad Smith and the subsequent failure of authorities to detail and charge him indicate that the crack is widening.”

“Lots of Windows TCO announcements are likely during the long weekend, especially from the assholes at shit organizations and companies which have decided to sponsor more malware via payment to ransomware operators. First and foremost Microsoft is to blame. Second, however, are those who have chosen to intentionally underwrite more breaches by paying the ransom, instead of having had proper data hygiene and backup practices.”

“Dissent” at databreaches, i.e. the main author of a site that tracks major security incidents (cracks/compromise), had an interesting message for Thanksgiving and then covered many new incidents about this topic over the weekend (which has only just started). Are companies revealing severe failings while journalists are away on holiday?

Citing this new article, the friend said they’re “underwriting further attacks against inherently vulnerable Windows useds” [sic].

The world won’t be without breaches after Microsoft is gone, but there will be vastly fewer such breaches. Also, the Microsoft way of teaching “security” is part of the problem..

wrote about the misuse of technology to worsen customer service just less than a day ago and thought I’d expand in my personal blog, based on a personal story.

Just over a day ago I went to the local bank and then visited 2 more banks. I could not help but notice that the people facing public at the bank are young and inexperienced, maybe by intention. This makes them not only cheap to employ but also rather useless as advisors or whatever else you might need. It’s like talking to an intern, not even a clerk, or a person herding people into “apps”/self-checkout (the latter is a good analogy for what bank “apps” actually are).

I spoke to a friend about it and he told me it is the same at the one remaining bank office where he lives. He said “they probably get minimum wage, if that…”

Maybe part-time temporary hanging by a thread, obeying every request from just about anyone else in the branch.

Just for the record, Nationwide had a young and borderline rude ‘clerk’, who wasn’t even a clerk and was totally not helpful, probably even lying to prevent me talking to the supervisor (lying is bad, no matter what). At NatWest, however, they had like a 50-year old, who not only escorted me for advice at the cushy office but also phoned the number for me and let me have the room for myself (to talk to “Richard” over the telephone). I thanked her at the end. That was good service. In the past I ranted a lot about NatWest, but on that occasion the service was better. Having said that, they too try to send people to “apps” and “Web sites”…

I am neither young or old, so I can probably not be accused of ageism when I say older workers tend to be nicer, at least at banks; or as a friend put it, “probably the youngest are not just rude but full of rage and lash out or more commonly just plain mean…”

I said that when you are 20-25 and have no prospect of long-term career in the discipline, the desire to learn in depth the job – and its context – may diminish because there is something to be said about giving assurances to professionals and consistent specialities.

But this leads me to the main subject/purpose of this post, which is to rant about banks expecting people to carry around a mobile “phone” and then install (and in turn learn) proprietary “apps” instead of doing things over the counter. According to media in Zimbabwe, as per a report from the other day, banks there got rid of about 75% of their workers. Not only is this bad for employment; it also means that many services previously done by skilled people are no longer offered. The banks go through a process of “enshittification” for the purpose of “cost-savings” and we all – collectively – pay the price. Resist and don’t let them get away with it. Demand that they have staff you can speak to, not some “app” you can download if you carry around a spying device (you ought not).

‘ve just noticed that the mortality figures published by ONS a few minutes ago (I kept refreshing the page as these data releases only come once a week, usually at 9:30AM) reaffirm my suspicion.

Pre-COVID-19:

Latest week on record (new):

An increase of more than 1,200 people, per week.