Geekly Update - 14 January 2021

Popular Mechanics is known to be owned by a far left group. All you need to know.

I would not get the vaccine anyway as many people have died or had very adverse reactions. No one knows what this will do your body in the future.
Your best way to ovoid covid is to keep healthy and take Vitamin D3.

Ummm, no. Popular Mechanics is owned by Hearst Communications, definitely not a left-leaning organization.

Many people have not died from the vaccine. The reports have been false. I am a nurse and wouldn’t lie to you.

I just looked up "Adverse reactions to covid 19 vaccine" and there were 21 cases of anaphylaxis reactions from Dec, 14th - 23th from the Pfizer vaccine out of 1,893,360 vaccines given. That breaks down to 11.1 serious reactions per 1m doses given. 71% of these reactions occurred within 15 minutes of the Vaccination. 17 of the 21 had reported a history of allergies and most received Epi to treat their symptoms 4 were sent to the hospital for further treatment and no one died from the vaccine. Other reactions were, pruritis, rash, itchy and scratchy sensations in the throat, and mild respiratoy symptoms. You can read the whole report on cdc.gov.

EDITOR'S NOTE: In fairness, there is a report that 23 people have died in Norway after taking the vaccine. "Norwegian officials said 23 people had died in the country a short time after receiving their first dose of the vaccine. Of those deaths, 13 have been autopsied, with the results suggesting that common side effects may have contributed to severe reactions in frail, elderly people" (See https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-15/norway-warns-of-vaccination-risks-for-sick-patients-over-80) There's also a report of a Florida doctor who died. (See https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/01/06/death-florida-doctor-following-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-under-investigation-gregory-michael/6574414002/) I'm not passing judgement, just passing along some facts.

I wondered where the wackos would go after Parler was shut down.....now I know, to the comments section of Bob Rankin's excellent tech email newsletters.

I don't have any dogs. I will never pass their "Smell Test." [insert cry laughing emoji]

Uze guyz just sent a warning salvo to askBob and maybe he will be more careful to NOT throw himself into the middle of the socio-political smack-downs that have taken the web hostage...

One cannot insert an electronic microchip onto a vaccine for many obvious reasons, one of them being the difference in size: a microchip is at least a 1000 times (maybe much, much more!) bigger than a vaccine, which is a piece of DNA or RNA (it is difficult to be smaller).

Thanks Bob. Informative and amusing as ever. It beggars belief how many people uncritically swallow the conspiracy theories and fake news about COVID, and everything else for that matter.

There are at least 5 doses in each vaccine ampule so there would have to be a few extra chips in each ampule to be sure each person got at least one chip. Some people could end up with 2 or more chips. That’s value for money.

Microchips in a vaccine? Just how gullible do these people think we are?
The only 'injectable' microchip is the ID chip in your pet - which is installed with a much larger needle than the vaccine and is basically a 'this is me' device, using similar technology to your contactless debit card. (Oh, I forgot - the USA doesn't have tech as advanced as Europe...) As for the chip circuit, I'm not an electronics expert, and even I can recognise an amplifier and waveform modifier - it's a wah-wah (or similar name) circuit, for Heaven's sake.
I honestly think the little green men must have already infiltrated the brains of these theorists and implanted an idiot gene!

EDITOR'S NOTE: Of course I think the vaccine/chip story is silly. But ten years ago, a nine nanometer microchip was announced. For reference, that's about 100,000 times smaller than a grain of salt. (See https://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1966110/scientists_create_worlds_smallest_microchip/)

And speaking of salt, there's this: IBM Unveils the World's Smallest Computer That Is Tinier Than a Salt Grain (See https://interestingengineering.com/ibm-unveils-the-worlds-smallest-computer-that-is-tinier-than-a-salt-grain)

Interesting times! Sometimes its hard to tell whether people are mocking or promoting idiotic conspiracy theories. I have long thought that most people have far more mental capacity than they ever utilise, and many people, for emotional reasons, deliberately cripple their minds with unwarranted certainty.

Windows 10X: I heard about this recently, and I truly hope MS releases this. I have a low powered Acer netbook with only a 32GB SSD (non-replacable, non-upgradable). I struggle with every single Win 10 upgrade because there's no space on the drive, and that's with virtually NOTHING installed.
I'm hoping this will be the solution. It's a simple laptop, I don't need full windows on it.

Galaxy S21: Why did Samsung's Galaxy S model numbers jump by 10 last year? It went from S10, to S20, and now S21. Did they just want to distance themselves from the iPhone numbers?

@Margaret: reported on 15-Jan-2021, 23 people DIED in Norway after receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Officially. Unable to find an overall death number for this or any other COVID vaccine. Either the numbers aren't there (unlikely), or they're being "hidden" (very likely). Oops, just saw Bob's EDITOR NOTE in a reply above.

Let us suppose that 23 people have died. Out of several millions of doses of vaccine. That still makes it the safest, most effective substance to protect not only the individuals, but most other people too. Many more people will die horrible deaths from Covid-19.
In addition, if we were all out of lockdown, around 38,000 people would die due to road "accidents", mostly preventable actions by people ignoring speed limits, driving drunk, being distracted. ASA or aspirin sends more people to hospital than any vaccine. Get a grip of reality folks! We have forgotten TB, measles, polio, because.......vaccines worked!