Mark Carroll's Journal

At the weekend, I happened to be further up the Clyde at the right time to see the bow of a new Naval frigate being transported up the river to the shipyard where the warships are assembled. I didn't know what kind of ship it was for at first, I learned that later online.

Glasgow has a great city center, rather walkable and with the subway for longer hops. Next to Central Station is a fancy building some decades older than the converted Victorian mill that I live in. At least, there was, until a vape store somehow caught fire. Now there are cordoned-off streets, the smell of smoke, and a considerable number of sad, shocked people and even more rather inconvenienced ones.

I have no love for vape stores in the first place, I tend to avoid patronizing establishments that expand their range to vapes. Given vapes' propensity to catch fire in waste processing centers, etc., goodness knows who thought it a good idea to allow a vape shop to locate next to a critical transit hub in a historic landmark whose construction substantially predates fire safety codes. Perhaps we shall find out, with luck when I am not feeling grumpy and vengeful.

My commute may be quite unaffected: when I pass close to the area of the fire, I'm in a subway tunnel on my way to Queen Street, the other main railway station; I hope that tomorrow's train to Edinburgh isn't overly crowded by passengers displaced from Central which won't be open yet.

I refueled our car this evening, I figured that gas prices aren't dropping anytime soon. In probably 2003 I tried holding off filling the car with gas, back when I drove an old Ford Crown Victoria (with around a seventy litre fuel tank), but eventually I had to give in and pay the higher prices. At least, with mostly just driving around the city in our hybrid in the near term, today's gas should last us for a good while.

Update: My morning train's quite full but I arrive comfortably early enough to have snagged a seat easily. A pox on the selfish passengers who use their coat and bag to occupy two seats while others are still boarding.

I always seem to be living outside the US at times when being present could perhaps allow me to do the most good as a white English-speaking not-MAGA US citizen. It has been tremendously encouraging to learn what good people are doing there and disappointing how little coverage it gets in the news here. The history generator's settings keep tending alarmingly toward interesting times as the administration finds new ways to harm people.

Here's hoping that the Democrats retain something of a spine over reforming ICE. It was interesting to read some suggestion that, even before all this, the Federal law enforcement community had often seen ICE more as cosplayers than competent.

It was rather cloudy here for today's partial solar eclipse but, fortunately, the relevant important moon-finding fellow in the Middle East apparently sighted the crescent in time so the new month starts and we get to celebrate Eid al-Fitr tomorrow, also I don't need to call the school on Monday to explain an absence. As summer time (daylight savings) starts this weekend, we were looking at breaking our fast at 7pm tonight but 8pm tomorrow. Now, tomorrow we get to eat instead.

Today was a very windy day. Schools and stores closed. Fortunately, we didn't have to go out, except for taking L. the dog outside every so often. A lorry blew over on the nearby busy bridge. I wondered if the wind would bring power lines down but we still have electricity.

In work, I wrestled with Node.js and TypeScript and finally saw some success that enables better progress henceforth. Neither is my forte but with luck I learned enough to be faster next time.

Update: The following morning, we had hail then sleet.

This morning, I wondered if the UK Conservative leadership are deceptive or^* ignorant; I concluded that, despite Hanlon's Razor, they probably share the current US Republicans' tendency toward the former. Having often felt somewhat to the right of many of my friends, I surprise myself in also feeling even somewhat left of Labour these days. My father opined that people move rightward as they grow older. If they do, the parties seem to be outpacing me.

Decades ago, I had the sense that, politicians may get it wrong but at least they were often at least trying to find their way to good policy. Recent decades have made it increasingly difficult to extend such benefit of the doubt. Well, I'll credit much of the US Democratic Party with that I believe they genuinely want impoverished minorities not to suffer then die, but that feels a low bar.

Maybe I just need a bit more sleep, I awoke somewhat prematurely this morning. Things may seem rosier then …

^*One may suspect and.

I happened to have news on television and caught a bit of an interview with a bewigged barrister. I had imagined that they would be well-educated masters at expressing themselves but, without paying much attention, I noticed them speaking of less barristers and that something should move as fastly. They also wanted to practice crime, presumably against the English language. Perhaps I awoke on the mean side of the bed this morning but I wonder how much else I would have noticed had I paid more attention. I might have charitably allowed them being flustered by the television camera had they not qualified in a career that rather entails being put on unpleasant spots sometimes. It serves their clients poorly if how they say things distracts from the intended content.

Admittedly, the news is much about their dreadful pay so perhaps we should be glad of any bothering to remain a barrister at all.

New to me is campaign season here in the Philippines. I had already seen video of outdoor exercise classes and such that were somehow tied to political campaigns. Now I get more time to explore for myself, two aspects strike me, especially in more rural areas. One is the vapidness of the many posters: they feature some candidate, or group thereof, smiling or looking enthused or patriotic or whatever, with a name, a slogan, often some color retouching, and little else. The other is the music: songs play in public that are somehow associated with campaigns, even played from vehicles that drive along the road. I suppose that there is also rather more contentful engagement from or among candidates, admittedly I have made little effort to seek such in local cable news. For day-to-day life, what I do see from the campaigns, I do not learn much from.

From next week, those in my workplace will no longer be required to mask and, indeed, I suspect that many won't. The workforce is largely vaccinated, maybe half received a booster. ( I fear long-term effects from contracting SARS-CoV-2. )

While we were all masking, my approach was to remain comfortable in eating with people outdoors ( and I suspect that the risks, now higher, largely arise indoors. )

Perhaps it can suffice for me to wear an FFP2 during meetings and to try to sit far from others, off at the side or back of the room rather than around the table, or similar. ( Air purifiers may help. )

The gym's another concern, people may become more contagious in working out hard. I should like to continue using it, perhaps I shall escalate to both FFP2 and safety goggles, I haven't worn the latter at work before.

In short, I do not know what to do, nor do I have good numbers, perhaps nobody does. I wonder what tradeoffs make sense.

NPR recently told a disappointing story about how a fourth mRNA vaccine shot brings quickly diminishing returns, a pundit suggesting that it is not plausible for us to receive shots with sufficient frequency and targeting to have much certainty in evading the SARS-CoV-2 du jour. Accepting that, perhaps one may as well enjoy throwing caution to the wind while the protection from one's booster is at its height, rather than making sacrifices that one would not consent to sustain over the long term.

However, the work on ferritin nanoparticle vaccines gives me hope for better protection against a wide range of variants, I am not ready to give up. Over the years, I have heard of many promising technologies that seemed to come to naught but perhaps I can hope for a return to the Before Times if I accept our new reality for but a year or two yet, I just wish I knew the odds. I am patient but not infinitely so, I should like to dine casually in a restaurant once again. It seems ever more difficult to see what is coming around the corner.

I heard a local college student mentioning how they were glad of semester ending because they were obligated to attend class to earn credit but the classes do not require masking or distancing. It made me realize better how lucky I am to even be wrestling with the question of having to stay more isolated and protected for even longer, that my circumstances allow me the luxury of choosing. With the delta then the omicron variants each lengthening our dark tunnel, at least I am afforded the opportunity to remain relatively sheltered from the pestilence.