Three question answered about coronaviruses

What is a coronavirus?
"Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds." "Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses."
Which coronaviruses affect humans?
"Seven strains of human coronaviruses are known:
1) Human coronavirus 229E (HCoV-229E)
2) Human coronavirus OC43 (HCoV-OC43)
3) Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)
4) Human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63, New Haven coronavirus)
5) Human coronavirus HKU1
6) Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), previously known as novel coronavirus 2012 and HCoV-EMC
7) Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), previously known as 2019-nCoV or 'novel coronavirus 2019'"
What other names are used for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2?
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was "previously known by the provisional name 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)". "Because the strain was first discovered in Wuhan, China, it has sometimes been referred to as the "Wuhan virus" or "Wuhan coronavirus", although the World Health Organization (WHO) discourages the use of names based upon locations. To avoid confusion with the disease SARS, the WHO sometimes refers to the virus as "the virus responsible for COVID-19" or "the COVID-19 virus" in public health communications. Both the virus and the disease are often called "coronavirus" by the general public, but scientists and most journalists typically use more precise terms." The President of the United States currently uses the term "Chinese virus". The term 'Trump virus' has also been used quite frequently for SARS-CoV-2.

The quotations have all been taken from Wikipedia.

Politicians and centralisation

Politicians seem to love centralising power.

As one example, most politicians have completely disregarded the costs involved following a possible accident in an atomic energy generator. These costs should have been included in the electricity costs for this type of generator, but have been ignored in most countries by politicians transferring the costs for any such accident from the generating company to the taxpayers. They managed to do this because the taxpayers did not realise that they were spending so much of their money. I think the taxpayers have still not realised it, but they have at least realised that atomic energy is far too expensive. The reason that politicians did this was to centralise, and therefore increase, their power. This can been seen by the campaign by German politicians, now that they have lost the argument for nuclear power, to build wind generators that are far too big and expensive, instead of letting capitalism, and in particular small, competitive companies, decide what size of wind generator is the most economic.

A second example is the constant campaign by whichever party is in the government in the United Kingdom to avoid even the slightest improvement in allowing the voters more say, the current case being the introduction of the alternative vote (in which a voter can number the candidates in order of preference) instead of the first-past-the-post system (in which a voter can only choose one candidate and if that one is not elected then that's it). This year's campaign has consisted mainly in personal attacks, although even this small change is a huge improvement for democracy.

A third example is the bailing out of big banks, instead of protecting the small investors and letting the bank be liquidated. Politicians protect large companies instead of creating a level playing field because they have more power when economic power is more centralised.

In my opinion, these scandals can only be avoided in future if there is much more participation in politics by the taxpayers, and I think that this is best achieved by increased use of referendums, because it has been shown that voters discuss policies more when they can vote on them directly.

If this deficiency is not solved in the coming decades, I would expect there to be a great danger of democracies turning once again to dictatorships. So, it is not just a matter of keeping a few politicians in their place.

Death of a Terrorist

Since my childhood I have thought that it is simply not right to be pleased when someone dies. A few days' ago, I was confronted with many images in news items of people rejoicing because a particular terrorist had died. So, I thought it best to allow a few days to pass to collect my thoughts.

Many of his relations wanted nothing more to do with him, but still I can imagine that they have mixed emotions following his death, similar to but much more intensive than mine. However, what shocked me somewhat is the fact that his 12-year-old daughter saw him being killed. One rather hopes that any 12-year-old does not have to experience anything like that. At least the children were taken away in an ambulance, so that they are presumably receiving the help they now need.

I am well aware that it is not really possible to plan a raid to arrest a terrorist of this sort, and I do not reject the possibility that the plan may have been the best one possible. However, I think we need to respect fellow human beings even when we are sure that they have acted in far too an extreme manner. It is now more important than ever to seek dialogue between people with different religions and with none, and having parties to celebrate anyone's death does not seem to me to be the most constructive way towards World Peace.

Scientists' bias

A study led by the University of Toronto appearing in the journal 'Vision Research' claims that on length, the distance between a woman's eyes and mouth should be 36% of the overall length of her face from hairline to chin. For width, they calculated that the space between a woman's pupils should be 46% of the width of her face from ear to ear. However, the study looked only at white women, and the researchers admit their findings could not be applied to other groups.

So, scientists once again consider white people more important than everyone else. When will they learn that there is much more to the human race than white people?

Writing

Although I very much enjoy writing, I have not been writing very much here! After I started it, i discovered Wikipedia, which is much more enjoyable, because my errors are corrected by other editors and I can spend inordinate amounts of time correcting errors by other editors. I even find time to write new articles, and it seems much more worthwhile than writing about myself and my thoughts.

Unfortunately, I also started playing the online game Mafia Wars, which is a big waste of time, but has a rather hypnotic effect on me. I am hoping that I will soon become annoyed or bored with the game so that I can return to wasting more time on Wikipedia.

Work is interesting again

Summer came and went, and I grew my beard for the two weeks that I was in England with my family, but shaved it off again afterwards in the hope that this would be better for work. Well, after a few setbacks, I am now enjoying work again far more than at any time since I had my own company. It probably does not have anything to do with the beard; it probably has a lot to do with organisational changes in the company where I work. I am just enjoying getting interesting things to do and seeing how well I can do them. In a way, that is the way it was in school, which was a very long time ago.

Without a beard

When I left school many years ago, I spent the Summer travelling from town to town within Great Britain playing in a number of chess tournaments. Along with several other tournament chess players, I took the opportunity to grow a beard. I kept the beard throughout my university days, and for very many years after that. It got longer at first, and then shorter. Finally, last weekend, my daughter removed it, with my consent of course, and I am without a beard for the first time since my school days. It feels naked. Unfortunately, I don't have a camera at the moment. So I cannot upload a photograph. It is certainly interesting to try something out. I had noticed that I had been trying out too few new things in the last few years. I wasn't exactly stuck in my ways, but I felt that I was becoming a trifle lethargic - at least relatively.

The best opportunity to grow it again is in the Summer. So there is a long time to make any decisions, and I would rather like a photograph!