Chip McDonald

Eric Feigl-Ding? It's 20% now. Doubling every two weeks. The curve has flattened out at the 10,000-12,000 daily infections mark. We have 2-3 weeks of "this" before we're in a dangerous inflection range again. Between late June and July it starts back up. A new surge in August maybe. I hope I'm wrong. It will be hidden in the data, initially: 1) fewer people left not vaccinated; 2) fewer people bothering to get tested; 3) Delta/variants have fewer "covid-like" indicators (asnosmia); A non-linear trend between deaths and a rise in the daily rate will be a harbinger for a new surge happening, but nobody will notice until it's too late (again). The question will be when the more aggressive nature of some of the variants offsets the sub-40 year old unvaccinated population's better resilience, and the halved unvaccinated group. I'm going to try to ply Feigle-Ding to make resolute a more authoritative depiction of what that will look like. Feigle-Ding has the best perspective, really the only authority to have tried to raise the alarm to what it was going to turn into from the outset. He was the only person online I could get to comment on anything back in January 2020 when it was completely off of everyone's radar, and he was the only one on the MSM shows actually warning people of what could happen (and that they needed to wear masks). Too many of the authorities in epidemiology and virology are not aware of their status in this context and are biting their tongues. OR - they're beholden to their status among the pharma industry, or they're too much a cog in the NIH bureaucracy. He's starting to reference two curves now, and I'm hoping that enters common parlance because it's reality. I've tried to get him to be more aggressive with his verbiage, because it's people like him that have the bonafides whose words hold the most weight.

Yeah, not the "original" original location, but the one I think of. Easy enough to tell students, obliquely interested people to go by it when they went to Nashville since they would no doubt be walking down Broadway. The new location is nice and probably weeds out the hassle of tourists wasting time and bumping into things I suppose. There is something to be said for the tourist mentality, though. IMO it's closer to being in an artistic state of mind than not; hopefully everyone can still be a "tourist", somewhere to something.

Rubbish. He already had peripheral neuropathy, and he laid off playing for a week and it took him 3 weeks to get his chops back. Confirmation bias being sold as medical advice.

It would sometimes be useful to know, on a 100+ degree day at an outdoor festival, if the flatbed trailer "stage" your band is playing on was hauling manure the day before.

House buyers are investing in "player" vintage guitars and putting new pickups in them, instead of buying brand new assembly line generic cookie-cutter guitars - that aren't being built right now anyhow.

"Protection" implies no consequences, and against the delta variant implies there is no difference - when there definitely is.

While rummaging through old drives a few weeks ago, uploading pictures to Google Photos before they started counting against your quota, I found a post "post deleted from Craig Anderton Forum" I deleted from this forum in 2003 I removed because I thought "this is too doom and gloom, I don't want this to happen". I thought it might be interesting one day as a "calibration check" to my neurotic thinking - and it turns out I was right, so close to what has happened it's almost prophetic. Save the part about people's reactions and ideas about how to interpret the situation. Might be amusing to post here if I can find it again, but I really had a more ironically optimistic attitude towards people back then, I wish I could get back. The variants are real, and if given the chance will run the same course SARS-COV2 alpha did. It will eventually lead to COV3 if the same non-"approach" is taken. We are facing a future where living into your 70's, 80's will be fraught with not just the though of dying of cancer, but SARS. If the variants surge it will take out what remains of the elderly population, given everyone's misguided idea that "it's over!' "I'm vaccinated, we don't need to wear masks!". Herd psychopathy.

I wish I could be as diplomatic as Craig.

VAERS is a report tool. Anyone can enter a case, it is not vetted and it is not a study. "Deaths and reactions" is distorted. There has never been a situation like this with a vaccine rollout before. There has never been follow up accounting like this, or hyperbolic press coverage. 3+ billion people given a shot; 3+ billion people in a random sampling are going to have how many random pre-existing medical problems? "Bad reaction" - my arm hurt for a few days, I was lucky - Moderna people seem to have a much worse time of it, but that beats a ventilator, or lifelong heart/lung/kidney/brain problems.

Effective against *hospitalization*. About 20% down overall. If the variants run their course as alpha did, it's still a disaster IF you're just basing the outcome on hospitalization.

Big words until you or someone you love dies of covid. You're effectively giving medical advice that you don't really know, either: "spin the wheel with covid, your life has a great chance of not being effected". I have a small business that has been impacted greatly by it. I have friends who have lost their businesses. I haven't been supported by the government, and neither were they. Meanwhile, other "lesser" nations managed to support their people with orders of magnitude greater, and somehow survived. But that's a fantasy, right? Let's set aside the fact that's cherry picking: do you, as a thinking human being, believe that making people stay awayy from each other during a pandemic prevents transmission of the virus? Yes or no; what does common sense tell you? How does the virus jump from one side of town to the other, if everyone stays away from each other? *NOT* whether *a cherry picked implementation* - that wasn't actually a lock down worked. Because it certainly does, and there are dozens of examples of it working. It obviously stopped the first surge in the States. Or do you deny that? Deny that keeping people apart means the virus can't be transmitted? That is *reality*. Frak you, my mother died of it last summer, friends, friends parents and thousands more, it surged over and over. Hospitals filled, friends in the medical community working 7 days a week overtime. What a ridiculous thing to write. I've wasted my time "discussing" this.

I hate to admit I'd love the cliche of visiting Abbey Road, to actually be in that space, to hear the room tone first hand. Or Sunset Sound. I would have liked to have seen Allan Holdsworth at the Baked Potato. The original Gruhn's Guitars was a cool thing at one point, going upstairs when I was young and not so jaded - doing the same at the latest location was still pretty cool, though. The 48th st. music store scene in NY was probably pretty cool. I'm glad I just barely was able to witness the last of the "Mom and Pop" era of music stores in the south east; a major, fundamental aspect of being a musician changed in that while you can still visit lone "vintage" shops and not really know what to expect inside, there was a time when that was the case with *every* music store. It was never clear what lines a store carried, what they would have in stock, what they'd have that was used; *the experience of browsing Reverb is a virtual analogy to that*. Too much mystery has been removed from the experience of being a musician. Seeing McBride's mic locker at Blackbird would probably knock the jaded-ness out of me, or at least reset it. I remember seeing Cafe Wha in front of me; when a place is visceral in front of you, that you know is a (at least from my POV) "historic" landmark, it invokes... something that maybe there is a French or Swedish expression for, "positive ennui" or some such, that is mind expansive. I suppose my Meccas don't exist, save maybe Abbey Road, Sunset Sound, Electric Lady, Muscle Shoals, Sound City, Ardent. Eddie's 5150, Frank's Utility Muffin Research Facility. The visceral walk-in-the-location of Your Historical Figures, hearing the room tone. Venues I'm not so interested in, unless I'm going to be playing there!

They have limited immunity, as studies have shown. And no immunity against *the variants they didn't have*, that are now dominant. "Resistance of SARS-CoV-2 variants to neutralization by monoclonal and serum-derived polyclonal antibodies" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01294-w "SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2 escapes neutralization by South African COVID-19 donor plasma" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01285-x "Sensitivity of infectious SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants to neutralizing antibodies" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01318-5 The variants are now dominant, and vaccine resistant, and people are behaving like "it's over" when it's not. From this perspective it's literally just starting over with a different variant. There will be no herd immunity. We had a window that closed about a month and a half ago, thanks to anti-science jerks pushing against masks and lock downs. There is no way out of this loop now, except by a long, long lockdown. If the variants catch on at the same rate as before we'll see the numbers start to rise by the end of July, except it could be worse because people think they're immunized, or have natural immunity, and won't get tested or wear masks. This could be worse by the end of the year than it was last year. It's an absolute mistake to tell people not to wear masks and to be less vigilant right now.

10 Delta variant cases connected to outbreak at Calgary hospital were fully immunized I know at least 2 people that have been reinfected after having it. I hope so, but I wouldn't count on that. If the variants catch on - and there is no reason they won't - we'll be back to a surge by August. But of course, we don't have to have lockdowns - we can just continue to be idiots and let it spread and kill more people.... No, but the virus doesn't care. And because Orange Jesus didn't handle it like Jacinda Adern did, here we are on the precipice again. That didn't happen in the States, but it should have. Or are you in the "mah freedumbs are more important than people" category? The infection rates have been tracking completely linearly with "reopening" events. WTF are you talking about? Since it started or since States have started reopening, less than a month ago?

It's not going away in the U.S.. We were close. It could have gone away. If we'd gotten people vaccinated a little faster, and if we hadn't lifted removed mask restrictions. It's not going away, it's doing exactly what I predicted: we missed the window with the variants. It bottomed out on the 7th, and now it's ticking back up. Except what's ticking up is SARS-COV2 beta-delta, which is vaccine resistant. If YOU want something to worry about you should ask why your own government is pretending it had nothing to do with it, when the NIH was funding coronavirus gain of function experiments via EcoHealth / Peter Daszak *in the same Wuhan lab*. China is just being China, there is nothing surprising there. Having the bureaucracy of the NIH/NIAAD pretend EcoHealth wasn't tinkering with isolating "zoonotic SARS-like coronaviruses from bats that attach to ACE2" since before 2013 there is a complete cabal of epic proportions. Nope, because the agencies that were suppose to do that failed and avoided educating people from the start. Complete rubbish, non-existent response and corrupt leadership on all sides. What will get us through the present pandemic, and unfortunately the next, will be PEOPLE ACTING LIKE THERE IS A PANDEMIC and taking action. I got the J&J specifically because it was the only one that was trialed in Africa, after the mutation had started. But the corporate propaganda wrecked their efforts with the rubbish blood clotting "story". What IS on the internet and is true is RESEARCH PAPERS you can read for yourself, but it's a pain in the butt to stay on top of and requires technical understanding of the jargon and processes involved. "Natural immunity" after infection is shown to not be as effective as the vaccines, AND possibly less effective against the variants. I know a number of people that have had COVID and in turn should have "natural immunity" but got it again months later. No "natural immunity". The only thing that would have stopped it is the same action Jacinda Ardern took in New Zealand. Lockdowns, strict mask protocols. As long as idiots are going to be around other people in crowds it will continue to keep going, and the hardier variants will survive and continue to mutate. It's only by STOPPING transmission will it go away, and in the U.S. we have NOT seriously made any effort to truly lock down.

That's not as hyperbolic as you would think.

(Craig, I know you want this thread to go away, but .....) Just wanted to put this here for posterity, "there are 2 curves: one for SARS-COV2 alpha, and another for beta-delta". We're at March 23 2020 numbers for the variants - which don't really care if you're vaccinated or not, and now that nobody is wearing masks anymore effectively speaking we've reset the situation back to last year. It won't show up in the data as well, because people will ignore getting sick; and the variants don't make the anosmia symptomes as obvious as a tell-tale. People won't get tested out of fear as they did last year. In turn, if I'm wrong, the curve will continue to go down until if hits pre-March 2020 numbers: <1,200 daily infections, nil hospitalizations and deaths. If it tapers, or if it flattens - but hospitalizations and deaths are not linear, I think that will be a sign we're in my scenario: 2020 reset with the variants. It's too early to be telling people to take off masks, that "it's over". It's not, and the CDC's numbers indicate it's not. CDC numbers show a trend that should bottom out by the beginning of July; if it tapers or just flattens - that will be a bad sign IMO. I hope I'm wrong. But I was rummaging around on an old hard drive a few weeks ago, backing up pictures to Google Photos before the limit kicked in, and stumbled upon a "curious" text file titled "scary unposted from Craig Anderton forum" from 2003 that was... prophetically scary, although what seemed like unwarranted silliness back then turned out to be reality. I left it around back then as "calibration" for "some future time" - which is now, and as it turns out I feel my "calibration" has been spot on. I hope I'm wrong, but I've got a few epidemiologists that have at least "liked" the premise. We should still be as vigilant as ever right now in the States, only half vaccinated and the (vaccine resistant, 2.5x more contagious, stealthier) variants comprising the bulk of the new infections. Ignoring that won't make it go away. I don't see why this isn't obvious to everyone; but none of this was, apparently. Yeah, I know Fauci and Walensky says you can take off the masks. With reduced vaccine efficacy against the variants, this is EXACTLY the same as saying "you don't need to wear masks" back in March 2020. Which was wrong then, and wrong now. We shouldn't have reopened, people should be wearing masks and be as vigilant now as they were months ago. I know everybody has gigs lined up, but... it's too early. It makes no sense to let up until the *VARIANT* rate hits zero; how many had it in Seattle when COVID started...? I know nobody cares now, WAR IS OVER and all that, and I'm wrong. $.10 ]

Interesting stuff, thanks!

Was he always as gruff and "hard" as it seems he was in the press "public" depiction?

Grocery store speaker = target configuration playback system for the era.... Soft drums, sparse harmonic arrangement, and I'm guessing on low power tube driven systems back then the vocal coming over the top got some bonus harmonics a quasi-"mix bus compression". There's something to be said for a basic band-limited harmonically-effluent "Kroger Auratone" system. I remember when Autotune first took off, it was soooo obvious over grocery store speakers - while at the same time many esteemed and Established engineers *insisted* "you can't tell it's being used". I also think certain vocal registers coincide with that, like an "electrical tessitura" that really sells the vocal phrasing of certain songs.

My joke has long been that I'm going to get a phone call from a couple wanting their embryo to learn guitar. I'm not one that should be speaking about height-ism, but .... really, one should be taller than the scale length of a guitar in order to play it. The way people view learning an instrument today, in the year 2021: IN TEMPORAL ORDER: 1) Birth 2) Look at parents 3) Waddle-walk 4) Speak a few words 5) Play bar chords on an uncle's ragged out rusty heavy gauge string acoustic 6) Potty train

...it's strange, I haven't heard them, so far.

Ironic, I just got an email from someone wanting guitar lessons for their..... 2 year old. "Sorry, no...". Those North Korean kids are sad. I don't want to think about what went into *training* them to do that. What's happening now are talented kids seeing from their parents that play, or from YouTube, what it takes to have to practice to get better. The ones that really love music see what they need to do. The ones that don't keep looking for the next YouTube video that will magically show them "the trick". The thing that's interesting is the "Asian female drummer" phenomenon. There must be something that's making that happen? A student of mine had his girlfriend in his band, they did fairly well/record contract/world tour, but that is so much an anomaly. I had another student who sort of had a band with her sister playing drums - but they grew up in Japan?

Does the keyboard have a master eq section on it? I also think you can modify the tone of each note individually on that keyboard. And Roland may have baked-in a curve to "make sure it cuts through the mix" on the lower registers.

... there had to be a sampler bank named "MILES VOCALIZATIONS/GRUNTS"....?