Good day gals and guys! Hope you are doing well on this sunny Friday morning. I have not been generating new posts for a few weeks. Sorry about that. I was on holiday for a couple weeks and then had my second and final elective surgery. I wanted to get it in before the next COVID-19 wave shows up.
As is in most companies now a days, after you have accumulated a specified number of vacations days, if you do not take it you will lose it or you are forced to take them. Last year I lost a couple weeks, so this year I decided to act before it was too late. My wife and two granddaughters headed to Barcelona, Spain. The weather was great, the prices quite reasonable and COVID-19 for the vaccinated people (our case) was fine with us. At the time you had to wear a mask when in public spaces. Restaurants were open and you did not have to wear a mask while sitting down for a meal.
We all had a great time. At first we tried avoiding public transportation, but as time went on, we decided that the risk was so low for us (all vaccinated), that we started using taxis and trains.
People are great in Spain. We like to chat with locals and learn about their current life. At the time they were experiencing similar problems as we do back at home with COVID-19. Some people have received the vaccine but some refuse to get it. The problem is that until most of us do not get the vaccine, we will not reach herd immunity.
The idea of herd immunity is great, but recent news indicates that all vaccinated people will need to get a booster shot. There are two reasons for this. The first is that resistance to COVID-19 provided by all current vaccines diminishes as time goes by. The suggested time is about 6 to 8 months. The second reason is due to the COVID-19 mutations. There are several mutations in the wild so all vaccine manufacturers will be required to provide periodic shots to provide protection from the most common mutations (e.g.., delta, and lambda). In other words, COVID-19 vaccines as they exists today, will have to provide in a time basis a booster just as the regular flu shots so common in Europe and North America. Due to the second reason, the possibility of getting world heard immunity is starting to look weaker and weaker. Pharmaceutical companies need to develop a one-time vaccine in order to beat the war against COVID-19.
One last thing that we noticed was that no one cared if you were vaccinated. On our way out we did not need to get a COVID-19 test, but on our way back home, at our own expense, we had to get a COVID-19 test. In either travel direction we did not get asked if we had received a vaccine or not. This is just another example why people are and will continue to avoid the vaccine because it is not as effective as it should be, and governments prefer to trust a test over vaccination. If you are vaccinated you should automatically receive a passport and not require a test. Obviously that is not the case.
Regarding my second elective surgery on the second knee, I had it done at the beginning of this month. Due to the amount of exercise in the past several months, recovery has been faster than expected. My wife and I will start walking tomorrow and I have been riding a stationary bike for a week. I am glad that with the surgeries my knees will be back to normal. I should have them done a couple years earlier, but COVID-19 decided to change my plans.
Now let’s get to the main topic for this post. A couple months ago I watched an on-line presentation on a new blockchain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain) feature for SQL Server. It looked intriguing to me, so I decided to learn more about the technology. I selected a set of articles and books to read and learn.
After reading: What Is Blockchain? I decided to generate this post.
While reading the document I copied the sentences to Notepad++ and modified them here and there to make sure I was following and understanding the document. Based on my approach, I do not feel good about providing my notes in this post. If you are interested please read the source document.
The document is informative and definitely promotes the use of blockchain with emphasis on Internet currencies (i.e., Bitcoin, Ethereum). I thought the information was interesting but definitely need to keep on reading additional materials to better understand the blockchain technology.
I guess that is all for this post.
If you have comments or questions regarding this, or any other post in this blog, please do not hesitate and leave me a note below. I will reply as soon as possible.
Keep on reading and experimenting. It is one of the best ways to learn, become proficient, refresh your knowledge and enhance your developer toolset.
Thanks for reading this post, feel free to connect with me John Canessa at LinkedIn.
Regards;
John