I was surprised to hear our own Rob Blessin the other day while listening to NPR on the drive home. He caught Covid, he seems to be fine but I think how crippled the NeXT community would be without him. Stay safe all and give Rob thanks for all he has done because you never know.
https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/npr/npr-story/1064344100
I was so sad and worried when I learned that Rob had caught COVID, and so happy and relieved when I heard he'd pulled through. I appreciate what he shared about his experience in the NPR article you linked above, both in the sense of how dedicated his doctors and nurses were to helping him survive, and (especially) his honest thoughts on vaccination.
I've just learned that two of my elderly relatives also bought into "Internet hype" and opted out of the vaccine (and in one case, actively promoted anti-vax conspiracies via Facebook), and now they're fighting through COVID too, and both expressing regrets about how they let unfounded conspiracy theories and online rumors influence their otherwise-pretty-rational worldview.
A big part of my interest in / passion for retrocomputing is getting to interact with older folks who were actively working on or building computers, software and systems that I'm too young to have used during their heyday. It's breaking my heart to imagine how many of these people are being impacted (or killed) by this virus - we were already losing a lot of firsthand knowledge of vintage systems due to natural aging, but I fear this pandemic has really accelerated an incalculable loss.
On the other hand, anyone reading this message has made it this far - I really, truly hope we can all get through this madness together and enjoy our retro hobbies in happiness and good health for many years to come!
I hate these politics here. Stop with all the bullying virtue signaling. I disagree with vaccines, they are meaningless to the variants. You think you're bright, but you're not. I know people that are triple vaxxed and succumbed but somehow we won't talk about that.
Why don't we agree to disagree, and agree we're happy Rob is recovered. And let's stick to the tech topic and not ruin yet another forum with politics.
Dear @zombie, great move to demand being quiet about (fully unpolitical) experiences and thoughts, but on the very same moment shouting your "politics" into this thread. And thanks for your insults, I appreciate it.
I locked this topic. Please, let's get back to talking about vintage computing. Thanks for your cooperation.