Blog Day 46: Friday 08 May 2020

As I am writing this the PM is on the radio announcing the changes in the virus isolation restrictions. Essentially there will be a staged easing of restrictions over three stages.   Of course here in Victoria we are dependent on what Chairman Dan (CD) and his merry band of looney lefties are going to inflict on us after discussion with his union masters.  

CD has just been on the radio and while broadly acknowledging the changes in the corona virus restrictions as announced by the PM he has also stated that any changes in Victoria will be decided by him and implemented to a timetable also decided by him.  CD will advise us on Monday what the program will be for Victoria.

Last night at about 11.00pm I was having a look at the Flight Radar 24 app.  This app shows every aircraft in the air worldwide at that time.  There wasn't much traffic over Australia, but I was surprised to see a couple of international commercial flights on the map.  There was at least one Etihad and one Emirates passenger aircraft flying out of Australian airspace.  There was any number of large commercial transport aircraft in the air as well as RFDS aircraft and some helicopters.  The beauty of the reduced air traffic was that it made it easier to look at individual aircraft rather than the large masses of aircraft generally in the air.

Whilst looking at the Flight Radar app I noticed a very strange looking shape off the north west coast of Western Australia.  It was a round blob at about 61,000 feet (well above commercial aircraft altitudes), flying very slowly and with an erratic flight path.  On closer examination it turned out to be a high altitude balloon flying as part of a thing called Project Loon. Further investigation (Wikipedia) reveals that Project Loon (PL) is a project, initiated by Google, to put a number of large balloons into the stratosphere to provide internet access to remote and isolated areas and can also provide communications in disaster areas.  Isn't it amazing the things that are going on that we don't know much about.

Have a look at the Flight Radar app it is amazing.

One of my regular contributors to the blog has accused me of censorship because his comments on dysentery weren't published.  I can assure all readers that there is no censorship on this blog.  I have also assured said correspondent that we can all hardly wait to read his thoughts on dysentery while assuring him that I think that he would be well qualified to discuss same.

A question, since when has an abattoir become a "meat processing plant"?

Good to see no increase in the number of deaths Australia wide for the last few days, although Victoria still has the lions share of the increase in infections.

 

Current Virus Day Stats: Day 123

Vic: 1,467 infected (+13 from previous day) - 18 deaths (increase 0)

Aus: 6,912 infected (+18 from previous day) - 97 deaths (increase 0)

Recovered: 6,078

World: 3,845,718