OffSetLab

To start off, I understand some communities have historically had bad experiences with being subject to institutionally approved medicine that proved harmful and that this can lead to skepticism that is justifiably hard to root out. However, I don't understand why people would doubt science, let alone vaccines, in societies where people have reliably been protected by vaccines for decades. Even more, when our elders can still remember the deaths that had occurred before those vaccines were widely available.

Sure, corruption is a widespread phenomenon, but there's still peer review and, among the huge number of people involved, the information can no longer remain hidden for a long time. It's very trendy to debate about COVID-19 vaccines at the moment, and I'll say a few about them as well. I've no qualms about getting the COVID-19 vaccine when it's available to my cohort, even though I had received a flu jab recently and it was not an ideal experience. The form asked to give my consensus to a general statement that I was not allergic to the vaccine's ingredients without disclosing those ingredients. And then it specifically asked: "Are you allergic to eggs?". The entire process lacked transparency and did not instill much confidence.

To make matters more complicated, there's a synthetic vs natural aspect to the debate in vaccine production. While I'd prefer a vegan friendly vaccine, it's on everybody to make a choice for themselves between the very limited options there are. I opt to protect lives and if that means getting vaccinated and improving the herd immunity, that's what I'm doing. After all, I'd still go for another one. Why? Because I trust the vaccination process and that the vaccine has been tested and allowed to be produced, no matter how clumsy the disclosure of information at the individual level can be. Being vegan is trying to do the least harm and it would be irresponsible of me to cause more damage in the long run.

Vaccines prevent serious disease consequences including premature death and they could save more lives if vaccination efforts had more penetration than they currently have. A vaccine tells the body how to fight a disease without the process of contracting and surviving it (or being inconvenienced by it). When enough individuals are immune to a disease, this triggers herd immunity, meaning that, if enough people among the population are immune, the risk of spreading the disease to other individuals (who cannot get the vaccine due to various reasons, e.g. allergies) becomes unlikely.

Historically, vaccines saved a lot of lives since their introduction. There's a nice infographic about how they helped in the US.

The perceived reasons why vaccines are unnecessary are various. From simple fear of needles to discounting the dangers of a disease or having safety concerns about the vaccine in question. It turns out vaccines remain pretty safe and efficient, and overall, most side-effects are due to the immune system being agitated into a response to become fight-ready against possible oncoming exposure.

The disruption of herd immunity usually stems from the sociological phenomenon called free-riding. People can benefit from overall herd immunity even though they're not vaccinated, which is built-in by design - to protect those who cannot take the vaccine. Some of those who are eligible, but refuse and still free-ride the herd immunity promote the idea that there is no need to take vaccines as nobody is getting ill in the first place. If such influence spreads in the community and people start refusing to vaccinate, herd immunity weakens, which may in turn lead to disease resurgence and stifle the ability of the community to keep healthy in total as more individuals take sick than before.

This is a very dangerous and anti-scientific behavior. A disease is usually not eradicated and its effects can still be observed in individuals who contract it. It is still among us, it's just that we have reduced its access to viable hosts.

We can see examples of free-riding everywhere around us in people who use the resources available to a community, but refuse to uphold them, and we are often much more sensitive and disapproving of those examples. For instance, people at work who cruise on other people's efforts, people not paying for public transport tickets, people who litter counting on it being cleaned up by somebody else. You'll definitely see tempers melt when the topic of social benefits comes up in the context of people receiving them while dodging legal employment and contributing to the same system that has come to their aid. My pet peeve are people who are disinclined to sacrifice anything to offset climate change, but will enjoy the benefits if the problem is solved by others. The examples are numerous.

This type of behavior can lead to serious consequences when it comes to opting out of vaccination. Disease recurrences have happened in recent years, for example, with measles just some years ago in Croatia and Ukraine and even here in Dublin, in 2000. People need to learn from history. Not ignore it. People need to learn in general.

The lack of personal experience makes people insensitive. Out of sight, out of mind. It also brings about other conspiratorial ideas because of the trap of solipsism. The scientific method counters this with peer review. Of course, the experiment can be replicated. Very often people are not equipped to replicate it or can't be bothered to do it and see for themselves so instead of trusting the method, sometimes they opt to spread false (and debunked) claims. It's easier.

I want to point out that the vaccines are held to a higher degree of safety, especially COVID-19 because they are primarily to be applied to healthy individuals and the imperative goal is to keep them out of the health system and avoid stressing it further. True, side-effects are possible, but very rare and the consequences of the disease that the vaccination is against are much more severe and frequent, and might overwhelm the heath system altogether.

Growing up as a kid, there was mandatory vaccination that was usually done in schools. Aside from a few tears and fear of the needle, nobody I know had a related issue later in life, and it was commonly understood that it was for our benefit. Vesna, however, remembers having a nasty case of chickenpox for which we weren't vaccinated. This vaccine is today available and it would've spared her some misery at the time. Vaccination runs were a regular occurrence. It's how it was for the whole country and it was considered perfectly normal. No outbreaks of diseases and everyone healthy and alive. I believe they still are regular, but I notice the push-back in the general public has become more vocal.

So back to COVID-19 vaccines, which are mostly focused on dealing with the Sars-CoV-2 spike protein. There is a hesitancy stemming from the safety issues. No longitudinal study has been done and it couldn't have been. The disease is about a year old, it has turned the society upside-down and its dangers are not abating. The solutions were bound to be on the radical side.

There are several approaches to the vaccine and a lot of them are authorized and proven to be very effective. One of the approaches to the COVID-19 vaccine is the mRNA technology. Even though it was not licensed for use in humans until now, the research on it is nearly 30 years old.

There are some hurdles with mRNA vaccines, though. The delivery mechanism is coating it in lipid particles because it's very unstable and has to be kept very, very cold making it difficult for logistics of the vaccination programs. However, quick adaption of the vaccine for the variants makes this a technology that we'll rely on in the long run. Not just for the present pandemic.

For the explanation on how the mRNA vaccines work, a good one was done by Bert Hubert on a BioNTech/Pfizer example of the vaccine mechanism.

It's time for the civilization to step up. A truckload of money has been thrown at the issue greatly accelerating the results, and the mRNA vaccines have became a second coming in the fight against the disease. While the process was expedited, no corners were cut. They must not be, otherwise we face more problems than we currently have. We're in the pandemic together and in the unexplored waters. Humanity has never faced a challenge like this before and vaccine research is doing the best it can with the amount of time at disposal.

Last post was a bit depressing because I detailed some of the bad things that happened in the last year. This one is focusing on good things. Don't get me wrong, 2020 was horrible, both personally and overall with the events in the world, but there were some good things.

Like always, we had ambitions to travel last year, but we did not realize those plans, considering. The year did include some foreign travel, though:

• Croatia, customary beginning of the year that we took to see families
• Morocco, Fes, Rabat and Marrakesh, where we went in March, but the trip was abruptly interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We ended up on a grand adventure to return from Africa to Europe because Morocco closed the borders so we had to be repatriated to
• Austria, Vienna, that we didn't see at all since we slept in an airport hotel to wait for the Dublin flight

Back home, the first in the series of lock-downs went in effect so we didn't really have much freedom to travel, but we did meet with friends, another couple, for outside hangouts. When restrictions were lifted we used the break to escape the city with them on a few occasions. In that time we saw:

• Kildare (St. Brigid's well, National Stud and Japanese Gardens), Monasterevin, Emo Court House, Athy, Kilmacurragh Botanic Gardens, Wicklow Lighthouse, Rock of Dunamase
• Ticknock forest and Fairy castle nearby

The rest of the time we explored the parks around our place. At their most strict, the restrictions prohibited travel beyond 2 km from people's homes so we didn't have much choice, however the weather had served us well and there were a lot of interesting nooks and crannies we got to see. I don't regret it one bit.

Regarding entertainment events, we didn't attend any in 2020. Early before the pandemic we booked a stand-up comedy show that was promptly canceled and is now waiting to be rescheduled. If it does, I'll mention it.

We shifted most of our shopping online (hello, craft beer). This saved us valuable time. One side effect of restrictions is saving money instead of burning through it (while traveling). Coupled with a better paying job our loan repayment has accelerated a bit, but it's still a long way to go. The other side effect is spending that extra cash on buying things we wouldn't have afforded ourselves otherwise (because we spent it on traveling). We got a really good blender that allowed us to make things like fake cheese and homemade nut butters. Cocktails, too. Like a lot of people stuck at home these days, I tried my hand at jam making and the carrot one I made turned out great. During summer I also resumed making cold brew and recently I've really gotten into Japanese cuisine.

In the department of apartment automation, we also bought a robotic vacuum and programmed it to do its job a few times a week. We just need to make sure the path is clear for it the evening before. Since we're both long haired, it really helps keep the place in order. Room corners are the difficult bits, but they can be handled separately with a normal vacuum. Every now or then we still need to use a normal one to get underneath some of the places our new pet cannot reach.

Regarding software projects, the only thing I did this time was upgrade Shamrock to a new version so it can pick up the new API set by Trefle.

Drawing efforts were low-key. Vesna got me one of those gloves not to sweat on the graphics tablet and I was drawing digitally just to get a hang of it. Nothing to show yet. It was a learning experience so I would stay in shape.

As for the courses and personal development, Vesna used this time to finish one about the front-end and I watched some videos on DevOps before my new job started. We're in the loop still. No conferences happened even though EuroPython was supposed to be during the summer in Dublin. COVID-19 threw a wrench in the cogs, but they held it online.

We didn't manage to fix up everything we wanted in the apartment, like getting proper desks. IKEA is not receiving its shipment of desks so we are not able to order. Some of the shelving we're planning will require more than just simple assembly, so I'll get my hands dirty this year, rather than 2020. This will most likely include the balcony vertical garden. It was put on hold since I was missing some components and it was too late to start planting things last year. I'll sort it out this year.

We bought some other stuff as well, some more useful than others, we got a trampoline so we can jump up and down indoors. I got a Fairphone 3 and a new GoPro so I can geotag the photos automatically now and take 360 photos. We're still waiting for the place to be complete before I make a 360 tour for the parents. We were considering investing more in the photo equipment, but it didn't happen since all the trips were off.

The citizenship application also got sidelined because of the pandemic. It's much harder to gather all the paperwork and witnesses, and they require submission of original travel documents, which could leave me stranded. In addition, the processing of applications has ground to a halt.

Fingers crossed that this year won't be as bad as the last one so we can all resume our lives and figure out what to do next.

Murphy holds true to his word. Just when you think that things can't be worse, they just get worse. I was really convinced that this time the troubles would be over, that finally we were on track to normalcy, but no such luck. Before all, we're fine. Nothing bad happened to us. It's just that the plethora of bad stuff happening to the people around us is making us really unfocused. To be honest, I don't know even where to start, but I'll try.

My family first. In one of the recent posts, I mentioned open heart surgery of one of my family members. It was my Dad. The pandemic happened so it was very difficult to schedule the surgery. Most of the hospitals turned into COVID-19 hospitals and the whole medical system got severely understaffed so things were on hold. Once it was finally scheduled, the actual procedure went well. Dad got a valve replacement and a triple bypass without major issues, but it left a nasty scar.

Some weeks passed and the recovery was steady, but slow. However, this year had more in store for us. The big scar I mentioned - Dad got a MRSA infection. All in all we considered ourselves lucky as it didn't happen immediately after the surgery so there was less chance of complications and he was a bit stronger as well. Targeted antibiotics did their work, but the delivery mechanism was IV, so he had to be in the hospital for a month and receive a drip. Some 200 bottles later, he got home. Blood vessels all messed up, arms swollen, but alive. Everyone was happy and relieved.

Except he seemed to have picked up COVID-19 in the hospital. A few days later, the family members who were involved with caring for my Dad started showing symptoms. Some tested positive, everyone else went into self-isolation. I kept in touch as they all developed fever, general fatigue, lack of breath, loss of senses of smell and taste, but all I could really do was wait. Dad had it the worst. No matter the antipyretic treatment, the high fever was not going down. They kept battling to get it down, but it was not happening and it became clear he would need to go back to the hospital.

Which is when it also became clear that the system was collapsing. His GP said he needed to be hospitalized, but the ambulance wouldn't pick him up as they made an internal arbitrary call that he was "not in a life threatening situation". How they judged that based on a phone call and against a GP's recommendation, will remain a mystery, but they did complain about not having the right protective equipment. At this point, the entire household was in self-isolation so nobody could drive him. The national public health emergency service, who are supposed to have the answers to these questions, said they didn't know what to do, but to try the police. The police very helpfully determined that this wasn't in their jurisdiction, but that leaving the household would be, as it would be considered an offense. It took three days to negotiate my Dad's transport to the hospital.

He got diagnosed with COVID-19 related pneumonia and placed into the ward with fifty patients, one practitioner and two nurses. Then he took a turn for the worse and got hooked up to oxygen and fed a cocktail of other medications to combat the condition. Days passed, we didn't know if he would make it. But he did, he got better and got released, still with pneumonia, but there was a constant influx of new patients in need of beds. He lost around 20 kg, in the first days he could not speak and could barely eat.

In the meantime, on the other end of the country, while nobody was looking, grandma contracted coronavirus, developed an abdominal aneurysm, ended up in a hospital, got transported back to the nursing home because there was nothing to be done and died. The funeral was held with only a few family members attending.

Then there are the earthquakes. Nobody got hurt, but everybody is still shook up and the afterquakes keep a lot of people perpetually anxious. Other family members and friends have also contracted the virus and recovered in the meantime. The country is doing a poor job of controlling the spread, but life waits for no-one and now there are various other complications arising from it.

Sigh. We're still here, some 2000 km away, with our third lockdown in effect. As I write this, my laptop managed to die so I hooked the drive up to a different PC to complete this article. We're healthy, both mentally and physically, we're not leaving the apartment. It is just incredibly difficult to force ourselves to do something constructive. 2020 cannot come to an end soon enough. Looking forward to 2021 and some more happy articles. Stay safe.

It's the start of October. This year's Autumn started, FWIW. Once again life interfered with my writing schedule. Aside from the pandemic, and the health situation back home, I also quit my job. It's like a torrent of events that never ends. I am happy, though. I joined the remote workers' club by starting a job for a company in New York that does genomics. I am a part of the engineering team that handles their software needs. The codebase of the projects we have is very functional. Everything passes through proper channels and is working efficiently. Switching to a Mac was frustrating at first because I've been a Linux person for a long time, certified to work with software in most major distributions, but I am getting a hang of it. The field the company works in, genomics, is a very interesting field providing insight into building blocks of organisms. I am still battling the administrative part of starting a home office, like invoicing and reclaiming costs. I don't have a proper working desk yet because IKEA is slow to replenish their stock. Yup, growing pains.

We also had to go to the embassy to prolong our absence from the country because the notification expired. I started collecting the papers for the citizenship application. There are some hoops to jump through, but my application should be straightforward enough. One other thing to look forward to.

In other news, Vesna and I didn't travel anywhere, despite her low-key campaign to just "go for it", and the upcoming second wave of pandemic is making things even scarier. Instead of spending money on travel expenses, we've invested in some additional household items to automate things further. The ever growing family of devices was joined by one smart kettle and a robotic vacuum cleaner. They both work great and are following a schedule that we're accustomed to already. The amount of menial tasks is reduced and now we can focus more on things that matter. Things that make us happy.

Right now I think that the amount of crazy is diminishing and I can start properly writing, painting, programming, cooking.

I know that Hacktoberfest and Inktober started, both with their share of drama. Hacktoberfest started with spam on the GitHub repos, and Inktober had the controversy between the author of it, Jake Parker, and Alphonso Dunn, who claims that Jake Parker stole content from Alphonso Dunn's book. I actually bought the Pen and Ink drawing book some time ago. I like how Dunn is presenting his material. His channel on YouTube is really good to learn from.

The following month is NaGa DeMon and NaNoWriMo, but I am already playing catch-up with all of the things I failed to do in the past few months. Not that you need a special event to do things, but it's good to have all of them so you can get inspired to do things on your own.

Vesna got me one of those fancy gloves that has only two fingers for gliding across the graphics tablet so I don't leave sweat stains all over. I am painting, but it's nothing to show because it's a learning process. Recently, for most of the time I've just been doing it for the sake of doing it, building a routine. I also bought a new version of Corel Painter, 2021 to be exact. So I will get my bearings and figure out the right workflow so I can start doing digital artwork more seriously. I sure could use that desk I keep trying to order from IKEA.

Also, if you are interested in cooking, Wil Yeung has a great channel with recipes so be sure to check it out if you want to try some new things. Ramen with peanuts is very nice.

I wish I had something else to write about. The pandemic is preventing us from traveling far, although I don't mind it too much. We explored all the nearby parks within 5 km from our place, and even went on a small adventure just outside the city borders to see a bit of open fields. There's still a lot of daylight and that dull gray that's characteristic to Ireland most of the year is still not in full effect. Sure, they say the green is dominant, and the grass is very soft, but being placed north does funny things to the diurnal cycle.

We went around the city to see Wicklow Head Lighthouse, Kilmacurragh Botanic Gardens, the town of Athy and spent a night in a countryside accommodation. Then the next day we saw the rock of Dunamase, Emo Court, the town of Monasterevin, Kildare National Stud and Japanese Gardens, St. Brigid's Well and went back home.

It seems a lot, but in reality, it's a small circle around the capital and getting outside was to run away from the city concrete, glass and steel. Two days in total.

Aside from that, there was a medical emergency in my family involving an open heart surgery, which had me worried. The pandemic is not helping, I am 2k km away, no visitations. Croatia is not on the Irish green list. Still, it turned out OK in the end so that's one thing less to worry over.

I also handed in my notice and will be joining the ever-growing family of remote workers. It was a tough decision to make, but it should be the right one. Hindsight is always 20/20. I'll write more about it once it starts.

On other fronts, I ordered some more hardware for my hydroponics project. I cut through some plastic bottles and as a proof of concept, it seems to work. It's still a long way to go before I can give out details about it. I use Shamrock in the software part of it and I had to publish a new version of the library I already wrote about. Trefle released a new version of the API so I had to keep up. It went well.

Right now I am on my holidays so I am getting all of the things I missed doing in order. I am actually glad I got on track the first day which is always good, even though it's sometimes as dull as figuring out the finances. We have a year of orderly payments for the apartment loan behind us.

I am still drawing/painting digitally, but lately it's just been to get it done each day. I have to focus to do something proper while this period was as turbulent as it can be. Hopefully, aside from the status update, I can write about something substantial in a few days. Staying put.