Coronavax experiences?

[Carsten Kurz]

I still remember the ICE high-speed train derailment in Germany, back in 1998

That Eschede accident is a perfect example against your back-of-the-train theory, a description of the quite complex happenings can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_derailment

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenb...#Unfallverlauf

It actually started below the FIRST carriage, and then went on towards the end of the train assembly. Some people had been very unlucky. Some very lucky - just 2 minutes before another fast-train had passed the same position in the opposite direction - it was one minute early, while the ill-fated train was one minute late - otherwise, on schedule, they would have met at that bridge - hard.

[Bobby Henderson]

Of course a lot of the confusion in all of this has stemmed from the fact that the experts are learning on the fly and putting out information as they figure it out, and then having to backtrack when they find out they mis-interpreted something. The biggest one is probably the whole "you must disinfect every single surface any time someone so much as walks past it" practice which (I would be willing to bet) has largely been scrapped in almost everywhere except maybe restaurants.

This all goes back to the conundrum I mentioned earlier, where too many people in the media and general public expected the scientists and doctors to know the entire encyclopedia on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 disease the moment it was discovered.

Scientists and medical experts have been forced to walk on eggshells in their interactions with the press. It's bad enough that they get stuck in contradictory dilemmas such as where and when mask wearing should be required and when mask wearing mandates can be dropped. The experts are constantly stuck trying (hopelessly) to cover their asses. That's all thanks to the media always looking to oversimplify and emotionally amplify every development in a news story. And if there is ever a chance to stir up controversy the media won't pass up that opportunity. When the experts learned the SARS-CoV-2 virus is more often spread through the air rather than contaminated surfaces there was hell to pay over it. "They're lying to us!!!!!!"

I'm no genius, but I understood why medical experts and scientists had their prevention strategy centered around fomite transmission in the beginning of the pandemic. It's what we're used to seeing with the common cold, influenza and various other contagious diseases. When they learned more about the virus and changed their outlook about masks it made sense to me. I'm sure much of the public felt the same way. SARS-CoV-2 is a "novel" virus after all. But some people lost their shit over the change in tune. And certain outlets on TV and the Internet capitalized on it. Some elected officials have made hay over the "controversy" to get themselves more publicity.

The next biggest may be the whole plexiglass thing, which probably cost the country billions of dollars in un-needed plexi which is now being removed at a rapid pace, at least around here anyway. Even Disney is starting to take plexi dividers off of some of their attractions.

I think there is some value in a sneeze guard. But if a group of people with no immunity to SARS-CoV-2 are in the same room together they're going to be more protected by wearing masks. They'll be far more protected by getting vaccinated.

[Leo Enticknap]

So, there we go from coronavax to train disasters.

Sorry! Veering off topic is a bit of a weankess of mine.

Eschede is fresh in my memory, because I had to do a screening support call (basically, playing projectionist for a show at a VIP private residence), from which I got home at around 3am on a Sunday morning, a couple of weeks ago. Couldn't just shower and go straight to sleep (I'd just driven 150 miles, had been guzzling coffee and Coke to keep me alert and safe to drive, and so needed a wind down hour), and so asked Amazon Slime to show me whatever it had for an hour or so downstairs. It came up with a documentary series called What Went Wrong, one of the episodes of which was about the Eschede crash. Agreed, the death toll would have been in single figures had that bridge not been in the way. I remember the disaster being covered in the British news media (where I was living at the time), but I'm not sure that they truly understood just how many were killed and badly injured. That period (late '90s to early '00s) saw a lot of rail disasters in Great Britain and Western Europe: Ladbroke Grove, Eschede, Hatfield, Selby, and I think there was one in northern Spain around that time, too. All but Eschede resulted in deaths and serious injuries in the single figures, which I suspect caused the British news media not to understand just how horrible the Eschede crash was.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Well... I'm obviously known for keeping discussions exactly on target...

I guess I've seen that same program or a very similar one back in the day during an all-nighter and I remember a very similar and almost equally deadly incident in Australia back in the late 1970s, where a train also struck a bridge pillar and which subsequently caused the collapse of the bridge.

That Eschede accident is a perfect example against your back-of-the-train theory, a description of the quite complex happenings can be found here:

Yeah, I specifically mentioned as an example of most of those dramatic events not being simple rear or front-end collisions, but rather quite complex strings of events. In this case, if you were lucky enough to be in one of the front cars, you'd escaped without any physical harm. Like Randy indicated, the chances are probably more random, if compared across all accidents in let's say, the last 50 or-so years. I don't think anything before that is representative anymore of the current risks, as safety systems and procedures have steadily been improved over the years.

Still, even in this case, if you were in the back of the train, your chances were probably better than somewhere in the middle, as the whole thing acordeoned (if that's a word) with high-speed into the collapsing bridge. The part that hit the bridge first got "pancaked" from both sides with extreme force, both from the impact into the bridge and the rest of the train slamming into it. Considering how the wreckage looked, it's remarkable anybody made it out of there alive.

[Randy Stankey]

Like Randy indicated, the chances are probably more random, if compared across all accidents in let's say, the last 50 or-so years.

Think of something like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
We don't know exactly where all the constituent particles that make up an atom are located but we have a good idea of where they ought to be located and we can deduce their locations with pretty good accuracy but, when it comes down to the bottom of things, we can never really know for sure.

Same thing with train accidents or any other kind of accident, really... We can make some pretty good educated guesses about what will happen in a crash but we can never really know for sure. For all we know, something outlandish could happen like in the "Final Destination" movies.

Here's an observation/question...

I used to ride the commuter rail from downtown Boston to visit friends who lived in the burbs. On the windows beside certain seats were Emergency Exit Instructions that said to use a little, metal lever in the corner of the window to pry up the rubber gasket around the glass, peel it away and push out the glass. Above each emergency exit was a glass (Plexiglass?) covered box with red letters, "In Case of Emergency" painted on. Inside that box was a fire extinguisher, a crowbar and a hand saw.

The peel-away emergency exit seemed knida' neat. A fire extinguisher makes sense. But a crowbar and a hand saw?

WTF?? Does somebody expect me to cut and pry my way through the wreckage inside of a crumpled train car, putting out fires as I go, until I come to an emergency exit, at which time I will peel away about twenty feet of rubber gasket, two inches thick until I can push out the glass and escape to a hopefully safe place?

I got a really weird vibe from that sight, the first time I saw.

Does anybody know whether stuff like this is common on C-Rail in other places?

I never saw anything like that on any Amtrak trains although I have seen little closets/lockers in certain places that said "Emergency Use Only."
Maybe that's where they hide the crowbars and saws? I know I have seen fire extinguishers. You would expect those to be in accessible locations.

I like Amtrak's idea better... Keeping things like that out of the public eye where squirrely people like me won't get freaked out when they see them.

Maybe I WAS in a "Final Destination" movie!?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Think of something like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
We don't know exactly where all the constituent particles that make up an atom are located but we have a good idea of where they ought to be located and we can deduce their locations with pretty good accuracy but, when it comes down to the bottom of things, we can never really know for sure.

Same thing with train accidents or any other kind of accident, really... We can make some pretty good educated guesses about what will happen in a crash but we can never really know for sure. For all we know, something outlandish could happen like in the "Final Destination" movies.

Here's an observation/question...

I used to ride the commuter rail from downtown Boston to visit friends who lived in the burbs. On the windows beside certain seats were Emergency Exit Instructions that said to use a little, metal lever in the corner of the window to pry up the rubber gasket around the glass, peel it away and push out the glass. Above each emergency exit was a glass (Plexiglass?) covered box with red letters, "In Case of Emergency" painted on. Inside that box was a fire extinguisher, a crowbar and a hand saw.

The peel-away emergency exit seemed knida' neat. A fire extinguisher makes sense. But a crowbar and a hand saw?

WTF?? Does somebody expect me to cut and pry my way through the wreckage inside of a crumpled train car, putting out fires as I go, until I come to an emergency exit, at which time I will peel away about twenty feet of rubber gasket, two inches thick until I can push out the glass and escape to a hopefully safe place?

I got a really weird vibe from that sight, the first time I saw.

Does anybody know whether stuff like this is common on C-Rail in other places?

I never saw anything like that on any Amtrak trains although I have seen little closets/lockers in certain places that said "Emergency Use Only."
Maybe that's where they hide the crowbars and saws? I know I have seen fire extinguishers. You would expect those to be in accessible locations.

I like Amtrak's idea better... Keeping things like that out of the public eye where squirrely people like me won't get freaked out when they see them.

Maybe I WAS in a "Final Destination" movie!?

All those safety things you mention were incorporated by Budd into their 1960's and after rail cars. And inm a really bad high speed accident the cars are more likely to partially shred apart, telescope than accordion. Also keep in mind that pre-1960's cars had a lot of wood in them.

[Randy Stankey]

Yes, that is one thought I had... Why a hand saw when most of the train car is made of metal. Likely stainless steel.
Unless the saw is specially made for metal. But I wasn't about to go fiddling around with safety equipment just to satisfy my own curiosity.
Likewise, I thought it would seem weird if I asked a conductor about it.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Well, with the AstraZeneca vaccine out of the running, there is no date in sight yet for our first shot, even my parents, who both are in an extended risk group, haven't been vaccinated yet. So yeah, it's quite a mess over here and I hope they get it under conrol and manage to ramp up the numbers significantly, otherwise a new wave of COVID-19 infections will probably be unavoidable...

Yea... I don't get that either. There are two other viable vaccines that could be made available.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I'm now hoping to get on the list for the J&J vax, as it's a single shot and you're good to go after two weeks. Let's hope some other single shot vaccines make it to the market too, especially those that don't need cryogenic cooling and can be distributed via the normal channels.

Think of something like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
We don't know exactly where all the constituent particles that make up an atom are located but we have a good idea of where they ought to be located and we can deduce their locations with pretty good accuracy but, when it comes down to the bottom of things, we can never really know for sure.

Same thing with train accidents or any other kind of accident, really... We can make some pretty good educated guesses about what will happen in a crash but we can never really know for sure. For all we know, something outlandish could happen like in the "Final Destination" movies.

The Bell Curve applies to a lot of stuff we observe in nature, given a sufficient large sample size. It also applies to probabilities in the quantum domain, as in the wave function of certain particles and as such the chances of finding a certain particle at that location when you're "interacting" with it. Yet I somehow fail to see the direct connection between quantum mechanics and survival of train accidents. While there may be certain quantum-related phenomenons at play, most if not all the relevant stuff that happens in your average train experiment can be described with "classic physics", unless it was one of Schoedinger's cats that caused the accident.

We have a solid base of statistics regarding train accidents, what caused them and probably also what part of the train was the most affected. Those statistics, all things being equal, should also give a good indication about the future, unless something fundamental changes.

My updated armchair-theory is something like this: Since common accidents with trains are increasingly rare and most grave accidents are freak accidents which nobody can predict, it's also almost impossible to predict which part of the train will be hit and with what force. Therefore there really is no "safest part" in any train. If you happen to live in a part of town where cats seem to randomly phase in and out of reality, you should probably best just stay home and reduce the intake of whatever you've been using lately, especially if it comes in the form of a red or a blue pill. :P

Here's an observation/question...

I used to ride the commuter rail from downtown Boston to visit friends who lived in the burbs. On the windows beside certain seats were Emergency Exit Instructions that said to use a little, metal lever in the corner of the window to pry up the rubber gasket around the glass, peel it away and push out the glass. Above each emergency exit was a glass (Plexiglass?) covered box with red letters, "In Case of Emergency" painted on. Inside that box was a fire extinguisher, a crowbar and a hand saw.

The peel-away emergency exit seemed knida' neat. A fire extinguisher makes sense. But a crowbar and a hand saw?

WTF?? Does somebody expect me to cut and pry my way through the wreckage inside of a crumpled train car, putting out fires as I go, until I come to an emergency exit, at which time I will peel away about twenty feet of rubber gasket, two inches thick until I can push out the glass and escape to a hopefully safe place?

You know what I'm thinking? Why isn't there a Youtube channel full of ASMR peel-away-emergency-exit videos!

I never saw anything like that on any Amtrak trains although I have seen little closets/lockers in certain places that said "Emergency Use Only."
Maybe that's where they hide the crowbars and saws? I know I have seen fire extinguishers. You would expect those to be in accessible locations.

I like Amtrak's idea better... Keeping things like that out of the public eye where squirrely people like me won't get freaked out when they see them.

You know what they should put into those lockers? A paperclip and a VHS tape with instructions of how to use it, featuring Richard Dean Anderson as MacGyver.

Maybe I WAS in a "Final Destination" movie!?

So, you WERE in a Final Destination movie, but you survived? When is your sequel due?

Likewise, I thought it would seem weird if I asked a conductor about it.

Imagine he would answer you and say that it's actually a bone saw? I guess you'd feel better then.

[Randy Stankey]

Imagine [the conductor] would answer you and say that it's actually a bone saw? I guess you'd feel better then.

Don't laugh! That is one of the things I thought of and it's part of the reason I didn't ask the conductor but asked the question, here, in the first place. Truth!

...unless it was one of Schoedinger's cats that caused the accident.

I read, somewhere, that Schrodinger proposed that thought experiment as a way to show the apparent absurdity of quantum mechanics but Pop-Sci geeks turned it around, backward, and made it look like Schrodinger was saying the opposite of what he really meant.

I think that "Bell Curve" might describe what I was thinking of, better. Heisenberg makes sense to me but I think differently.

So... Heisenberg and Schrodinger were riding in the back of a limousine, driving down the highway when a cat ran into the road. The driver swerved to avoid it.
Schrodinger asked, "Is the cat alive?" Heisenberg replied, "I can't be certain."

So, you WERE in a Final Destination movie, but you survived? When is your sequel due?

Can I be? Please? I SOooo want all this bullshit to be over!

You know what they should put into those lockers? A paperclip and a VHS tape with instructions of how to use it, featuring Richard Dean Anderson as MacGyver.

I used to love that show for the sheer absurdity of things!
Why would anybody saw up a perfectly good bicycle frame to make a pipe bomb when he could have used the bike to escape?

You know what I'm thinking? Why isn't there a Youtube channel full of ASMR peel-away-emergency-exit videos!

Sh-h-h! Don't! If anybody reads that, they'll start making videos like that!

Aw, shit! Too late! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZM3bB7vPFo

Y'know, there was this Russian girl who did ASMR vids on YT and I used to listen to her in order to fall asleep when I had insomnia.
I don't really dig ASMR. It was more about a female whispering in a language I don't understand which acted like white noise while listening on noise-cancelling headphones.
I don't remember the name of her channel or whether she's still around but... what the hell? It helped me get shuteye when I needed it!

[Marcel Birgelen]

Don't laugh! That is one of the things I thought of and it's part of the reason I didn't ask the conductor but asked the question, here, in the first place. Truth!

Yeah, this is the prime source for all your emergency escape regulations.
I guess if you go down the rabbit hole you end up at some regulation dating back to 1878 that dictated that every railroad carriage has to be equipped with at least a crowbar and a hand saw. Back in the day those were largely built from wood, it even made some sense.

I read, somewhere, that Schrodinger proposed that thought experiment as a way to show the apparent absurdity of quantum mechanics but Pop-Sci geeks turned it around, backward, and made it look like Schrodinger was saying the opposite of what he really meant.

Yeah, both Einstein and Schrodinger seemed to have their fair share of issues with the implications of quantum mechanics. Imagine, Einstein just trashed a few centuries of "normal physics" while he was at it, but this did even go too far for him.

So... Heisenberg and Schrodinger were riding in the back of a limousine, driving down the highway when a cat ran into the road. The driver swerved to avoid it.
Schrodinger asked, "Is the cat alive?" Heisenberg replied, "I can't be certain."

Apparently, Schrodinger's daughter was once quoted as: "I think my father just didn't like cats.", so he probably asked "I hope he hit that damn beast?" :P

Can I be? Please? I SOooo want all this bullshit to be over!

They're actually working on a new sequel. I used to hate the first one and probably even the first sequel, but once the third one came around and they totally stopped taking themselves serious and just focused on killing off everybody in the most idiosyncratic way possible without even trying to pretend there is some higher kind of logic or moral too it all, I actually started to like it... I'm not sure what that says about my personality.

I used to love that show for the sheer absurdity of things!
Why would anybody saw up a perfectly good bicycle frame to make a pipe bomb when he could have used the bike to escape?

Imagine someone fixing all those movies (and series) where the plot ejected all logic into outer-space, just because the movie needed the plot to happen. Many movies could better just roll the credits before the auditorium lights have dimmed.

Sh-h-h! Don't! If anybody reads that, they'll start making videos like that!

Aw, shit! Too late! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZM3bB7vPFo

Y'know, there was this Russian girl who did ASMR vids on YT and I used to listen to her in order to fall asleep when I had insomnia.
I don't really dig ASMR. It was more about a female whispering in a language I don't understand which acted like white noise while listening on noise-cancelling headphones.
I don't remember the name of her channel or whether she's still around but... what the hell? It helped me get shuteye when I needed it!

Well, I don't know about the whispering Russian female, but while watching the video you posted I was constantly wondering if the stuff in process of being peeled off was actually supposed to be peeled off.

[Frank Cox]

I was advised today that my wife and I are in for our second dose on either Thursday or Friday of next week, depending on when the stuff arrives. I have Peter Rabbit scheduled starting on Friday of that week so hopefully we'll be in shape over the weekend to do the movies. The first dose didn't do anything bad to us, so I'll express confidence that will continue.

[Marcel Birgelen]

A colleague of mine opted for a "priority shot" of AstraZeneca, got his first shot at the end of last week and was seriously sick over the weekend. In March last year he also was seriously ill for about a week and a half, but he couldn't get tested for COVID19 back then. About a month or two later, he tested positive for having antibodies in his blood.

I don't know if you can derive anything from such a single case, but i found both factors to be pretty striking. Maybe he has a very active immune system, which causes his body to over-react to both the real virus and the fake one in the vaccine?

[Jay Glaus]

Moderna man here. I got my first shot 4/5 and second shot 5/5.

My first shot hit me hard. The morning after I noticed a storm brewing down south, and without getting too descriptive, let me say that if I went anywhere you better believe I took an extra pair of boxers. I also had a fever, which made me feel like crap. But the weird thing was, when I’d get up in the morning I’d feel better and either barely have a fever or have no fever, and by the end of the day I could be up to 104, have chills, muscle and body aches, and just want to lay down. This happened for about a week. Maybe this was just a coincidence and I happened to catch something who knows.

My second shot only got me for like 2 days. Morning after I had a fever, not quite as high as last shot. Also had body aches didn’t want to move, but after like 2 days I was back to normal.

But the weird thing I didn’t understand was with each shot, people I was around when I was feeling symptoms felt sick for a day a couple days after they were around me.

I welcomed the symptoms though because even though they’ve proven that you don’t have to experience symptoms to be protected, in my mind I’m like “ok, here we go, immune response I’m good.”

I will say this, I’m thankful for the shots. I have some kind of problem where I have a really tough time keeping the wart virus at bay. I can have 50 warts on my hands at one time. The only removal process that works for me is having them physically cut from me. And as fast as they’d take them off more would form. But the Covid shot made all but like 4 or 5 of them completely vanish permanently. I had one huge one that if they took off I’d have lost my entire thumbnail, and it’s now gone. So whatever the Covid shot made my immune system do, it fought them off. I was actually in the process of trying to get on Dr. Pimple popper before my shots.

[David Huffman]

I just red your post it's Excellent topic.