Sunday 20 September
[embed]https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1307564919617921025?s=20[/embed]
I believe the tweet above by Kara Swisher, my favourite reporter on Tech, is about Oracle being in the race to buy TikTok. A strange initiative by Donald ‘Duck’ Trump. And there partners will be Walmart? Who would have guessed that!
Monday 21 September
I’m curious about this tweet. Surely if your cat or dog scratches the loo door, it means they need some training? Worth reading the full thread if you wish?
[embed]https://twitter.com/mistywoman1/status/1308350886264086528?s=21[/embed]
Tuesday 22 September
Coronavirus: Boris Johnson sets out new restrictions to last ‘perhaps six months’
By Jessica Elgot – Guardian – First published on Tue 22 Sep 2020 12.52 BST.
PM announces 10pm closing for pubs, a ban on indoor team sports and new weddings curbs.
Boris Johnson sets out new Covid-19 restrictions at ‘perilous turning point’ for UK. The UK is at a “perilous turning point” and must act, Boris Johnson has told MPs, announcing new restrictions for England including slashing the size of wedding celebrations and bans on indoor team sports, as well as a return to home working. Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Johnson announced a ban on indoor team sports, such as five-a-side football, and said plans for a partial return of sports fans to stadiums from 1 October had been “paused”. Wedding celebrations will be limited to just 15 guests, half of the number previously permitted, though funerals will be allowed to go ahead with up to 30 mourners.
Masks will become mandatory for retail and hospitality staff, as well as for passengers in taxis – a key demand of the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who spoke to Johnson on Tuesday morning. The prime minister said the restrictions may be in place for “perhaps six months” and warned there could be no complacency. “After six months of restrictions, it would be tempting to hope the threat has faded and seek comfort in the belief that if you have avoided the virus so far then you are somehow immune,” he said.
“That sort of complacency could be our undoing. if we fail to act together now, we not only put others at risk but jeopardise our own futures with the more drastic action that we will inevitably be forced to take.” As well as a 10pm closing time for pubs, bars and restaurants in England which was announced overnight, takeaway collections will also be closed from 10pm though deliveries will be allowed to continue, and pubs will only be allowed to offer table service, which will be enforced by law. Venues will be required by law to enforce the “rule of six” and social distancing.
The rule, which comes into force on Thursday, will mean venues must shut their doors at 10pm, rather than just call for last orders. “This is by no means a return to the full lockdown in March, we are not issuing instructions to stay at home,” Johnson said, stressing that schools and businesses should remain open. “But we are once again asking office workers who can work from home to do so,” he said, though stressed that key workers should continue to attend workplaces.
Johnson said enforcement would be set up and there would be extra funding to provide a greater police presence on streets, including “the option to draw on military support where required to free up the police”. A Downing Street spokesman said the armed forces would not be involved in enforcement and would only step in to free police officers from other routine duties, such as office work or guarding sensitive sites.
Michael Gove, Cabinet Office minister, earlier confirmed what he described as “a shift in emphasis” back towards home working after weeks of news headlines where ministers exhorted workers to get back into city centre offices. Downing Street has said that MPs will be expected to continue in their current arrangements but targets for civil servants to return en masse to Whitehall will not be continued.
The new measures come after a weekend of tense debate among cabinet ministers and scientists and are softer than those mooted in advice from government scientific advisers in recent weeks, which had included a two-week full lockdown as a “circuit-breaker”. The prime minister emphasised the restrictions were likely for the long term. “We will spare no effort in developing vaccines, treatments, new forms of mass testing but unless we palpably make progress we should assume that the restrictions that I have announced will remain in place for perhaps six months,” he said.
“For the time being, this virus is a fact of our lives and I must tell the house and the country that our fight against it will continue.” Johnson said there was still cause for some optimism in the battle against the virus and promised much of normality could be restored by spring. “Science is helping us every day. Dexamethasone, trialled in this country, is now reducing the numbers of death. We have the prospect of a vaccine,” he said.
“And all the medical guidance I have is that by next spring things will be vastly, vastly improved. I’m not going to deny for a minute that things are going to be tough for our country and for our people for months to come. But we will get through it, and we will get through it well.” Khan welcomed the additional new measures but said the capital could still need extra restrictions.
“They discussed the rapidly worsening situation in London, including increasing ICU admission rates, and the need to go further now to prevent a disastrous full lockdown in future including mandatory face coverings for hospitality workers and more widespread wearing of face coverings,” a spokesman for the mayor said. “It is clear that London has unique needs and challenges and additional measures need to be examined which are suitable for the capital.”
Wednesday 23 September
Some tweets an stuff.
[embed]https://twitter.com/timmckenna5/status/1308363319477231622?s=21[/embed]
This is definitely brilliant, next time you go to the shop bring a tape measure.
[embed]https://twitter.com/rachelparris/status/1308380355959939077?s=21[/embed]
I have one of these tape measures, must bring it with me in the car, you never know when you need to tell someone to stay away from you!
[embed]https://twitter.com/nik1p/status/1308390652498116610?s=21[/embed]
[embed]https://twitter.com/gwynnemp/status/1308383388240351232?s=21[/embed]
We will never forget what this guy did for this country. He will also carry this moment to his grave. Just one man who was responsible for the 2nd wave because everyone decided that if it’s okay for him, then it’s okay for me to not follow the rules. 🥴
Well the analysts are having a field day with Covid19. Now there’s another ‘massive’ study suggesting that the virus mutates and is evolving, just like a proper enemy, an invisible enemy that needs to be destroyed.
[embed]https://apple.news/AIjJDzmPwRhKq_spnIcNWxQ[/embed]
Thursday 24 September
And here’s a thoughtful moment by yours truly!
[embed]https://twitter.com/stayingaliveuk/status/1308812911503171584?s=21[/embed]
UK police intercept huge drug haul hidden in fruit
LONDON (Reuters) — British police said on Wednesday they had discovered a tonne of cocaine hidden in a consignment of fruit which was being smuggled into the country from South America.
Detectives said the “huge” haul, which they valued at 100 million pounds ($128 million), was found at the port of Dover in southeast England in pallets unloaded from a boat.
Two men, aged 40 and 64, were arrested on suspicion of importing class A drugs. The seizure was part of an operation launched after police infiltrated an encrypted communications service used by criminals.
“This operation has prevented a large amount of cocaine from making it on to our streets, we estimate that once adulterated and sold it could have had a street value of up to £100 million,” said Nikki Holland, the National Crime Agency’s Director of Investigations.
Reporting by Michael Holden, Editing by Paul Sandle.
Did an asteroid give us a warning from the heavens?
[embed]https://twitter.com/asteroidwatch/status/1308744726208602112?s=21[/embed]
Scientists at the U.S. space agency NASA say a small asteroid — roughly the size of a bus — passed close to Earth on Thursday, flying just 22,000 kilometers above the surface, within the orbit of geostationary satellites that ring the planet.
While the proximity to Earth might raise alarm, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California said even if the asteroid had entered the earth’s atmosphere, it almost certainly would have broken up and become a bright meteor.
The asteroid, known as 2020 SW, is about five to ten meters wide and was first discovered on September 18 by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona.
NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) — part of the JPL — then did follow-up observations and confirmed its orbital trajectory, ruling out any chance of impact.
CNEOS director Paul Chodas says an object this size, this close to earth, is not uncommon. He says, “In fact, asteroids of this size impact our atmosphere at an average rate of about once every year or two.”
After passing the Earth, the asteroid will continue its journey around the Sun, not returning to Earth’s vicinity until 2041, when NASA says it will make a much more distant flyby.
The space agency says they believe there are over 100 million small asteroids like 2020 SW, but they are hard to discover unless they get very close to Earth.
Friday 25 September
The moment when Trump hides behind pillars because the crowd is booing him, oh my god, this is the dictator called Trump!
[embed]https://twitter.com/kevinliptakcnn/status/1309131222589865984?s=21[/embed]
Saturday 26 September
I admire all investigative journalists and one I admire the most is Carole Cadwalladr. She with other journalists managed the dirty tricks campaign by Cambridge Analytica and now she and others are putting together their own Facebook oversight board. You can read the report via the link below.
[embed]https://apple.news/AIjJDzmPwRhKq_spnIcNWxQ[/embed]
Some of Facebook’s most vocal critics are tired of waiting for its independent oversight board — so they’re starting their own.
A group of about 25 experts from academia, civil rights, politics and journalism announced Friday that they have formed a group to analyze and critique Facebook’s content moderation decisions, policies and other platform issues in the run-up to the presidential election and beyond.
The group, which calls itself the Real Facebook Oversight Board, plans to hold its first meeting via Facebook Live on Oct. 1. It will be hosted by Recode founder Kara Swisher, a New York Times contributing opinion writer.
Facebook is still working on creating its own oversight board, first described in April 2018 by CEO Mark Zuckerberg as an independent “Supreme Court” for content moderation decisions. Facebook’s board won’t launch in time to make any decisions during the presidential race. Its panel of 20 experts is scheduled to start reviewing cases in October, but it will have up to 90 days to make decisions.
[embed]https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1309484767872782340?s=21[/embed]
The crook called Mark Zuckerberg.
[embed]https://twitter.com/fboversight/status/1309476123064107010?s=21[/embed]
Michael out