Zombie Squad

In news of the counterintuitive hospitals are struggling and some are losing money hand over fist. It is a near perfect storm of lack of customers, increasing costs, being preyed upon by Chinese suppliers of medical supplies and equipment (as well as government backed fraudsters). The latest round ...

Sadly, we hit a milestone today: USA now has the highest total number of documented Covid-19 cases. I'm betting that has a lot to do with better documentation. But I could be wrong. We've been flying blind for a while now, and I am still hearing numerous local instances of people showing classical ...

I don't know if there are any simple ways to multiply an active dry yeast, and then dry it out again for long-term storage...but if any of you know, I'd be interested in hearing! I haven't done it myself, but I've heard since years back (first from a website, then from a few different people I'm no...

You might look into old battery packs out of hybrid cars to use for your solar project. You can check around on the web to find info about doing that, but it's a reasonably inexpensive way to put together a sizeable battery. They won't have as much storage capacity as when they were newer, but it's...

There was no yeast at all, just an empty cardboard box that used to hold the packets. A stocking clerk said none had come in since the craziness started last Thursday. This worried me as we don't normally keep that large of a supply of yeast and none cane be found locally or even on Amazon. But a q...

Area hospitals are now begging supplies so that they can provide patient care. The hoarders have completely screwed over themselves by buying out the stocks that hospitals need of gloves, masks and sanitizer etc. There will be a lot of irony when people die from their own foibles of trying to prote...

I started with a pattern from https://freesewing.org/blog/facemask-frenzy/ , but the prototype mask leaked around the bridge of the nose, because it could not follow the contour there - commercial N95s have a metal strip for this purpose. I've modified the pattern to include a pocket in the bridge ...

The Alabama Department of Public Health is reminding people to only call 911 for emergencies. Do not call 911 for information on coronavirus, if you need ride to the doctor’s office or have mild symptoms or want to get tested for COVID-19. :roll: Area hospitals are now begging supplies so that they...

With perfect foresight, someone would have gone to 100% cash mid-February, and then bought back in at "the bottom" (date yet to be determined). Since none of us have that kind of omniscience (I assume - if you do have that gift: what are you doing on here?), we'll have to deal with lots of unknowns ...

I heard about this last night as well. When I lived in SLC, I was aware of the possibility for the "big one" along the Wasatch front, where a majority of Utah's population lives within a few miles of one of the highest severity faults in the US. It was among my preparation scenarios, but thankfully ...

I also wanted to post the link to another helpful visualization resource on Information Is Beautiful: https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid-19-coronavirus-infographic-datapack/?fbclid=IwAR1zVV2D9XYRypZKw2c88x3NvngmidghPHQDxUQrQcr1jY-QD1uxPv9DN0o This is not being updated every day ...

The WHO is now considering backing evidence to avoid using ibuprofen as an antipyretic (fever reducer) for COVID-19. This is based on a study published in The Lancet , attempting to explain a mechanism for why people with cardiovascular disease/hypertension and diabetes have a relatively higher risk...

While we talk about which health groups are at greatest risk from COVID-19 (elderly, cancer, COPD, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc.), and that healthy people seem to be pretty well-off so far, we should remember that the US is one of the worst in the developed world for adult, no...

I'd argue that it is probably time that this thread should drop the "Wuhan" portion of the title. :cry: Not just that it has reached a global scale, but while "what was the catalyst for this outbreak" will undoubtedly be a question for the history books to analyze, we should still avoid stigmatizing...

My earlier posts in this thread had focused on not blowing COVID-19 out of proportion, and I would maintain that stance on this issue (or any other, for that matter). However, as it is always good practice to keep an eye on developing situations and re-evaluate often: things have continued to change...

Good evening, Tencent is not $.50 little brother but a Chinese news website. An article from Taiwan, in English, was circulating through the open source analysts at work. It claims that the Tencent website accidentally posted accurate coronavirus numbers before taking them down. They also point out...

It has been a few days of below-peak daily infection rates (at least based on official numbers), which roughly correlates with 14 days (the claimed upper-bound of the incubation period) past the mass quarantines in China, and the subsequent public awareness/behavior changes everywhere. It looks like...

I also made a set of lockpicks out of the spines of used hacksaw blades before. A grinder (or file if you have real patience) and some good quality thin steel stock will make a functional set anytime.

There is really no way to prevent people from panic buying PPE because of a vanishing* chance of coming in contact with the 2019-nCoV, but we should try to keep everything in perspective. I know this is not really the forum to discourage people from preparing for a disaster, but perhaps I will shif...

There is really no way to prevent people from panic buying PPE because of a vanishing* chance of coming in contact with the 2019-nCoV, but we should try to keep everything in perspective. I know this is not really the forum to discourage people from preparing for a disaster, but perhaps I will shift...

I thought this video had a few interesting points about the holiday context and the impacts for industry centers like Shenzhen (mostly second-hand from others within China). This guy's channel normally produces content focused on manufacturing and technology, visiting various places in China, but hi...

Maybe this was already posted. Here's a dashboard with map that shows realtime updates on the coronavirus. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 The latest update for 2020-01-28 from this great site shows the number of confirmed cases near...

My high school robotics students snapped the pins off the connectors for some expensive, proprietary robot motors. I got my high school engineering students, whom I have trained to solder, to solder new pins on and fix them. Win! Beware the man with a soldering gun who knows how to use it. :D I was...

Listening to the news, you may have heard about the recent rash of Ring home cameras being hacked. I don't own a Ring camera (I generally despise "Home Automation"/IoT devices that I see a superfluous), but when I read a Motherboard article ( We Tested Ring’s Security. It’s Awful ) describing their ...