Americans are currently living under a forecast of “impending doom” from our CDC Director. Let’s review how folks in Minnesota reacted when their doom was forecast by scientists. … | Continue reading
In the dark BC age it was thought that human psychology presented a significant barrier to human exploration of Mars. Humans were social animals who could never tolerate being locked into a small s… | Continue reading
From state-sponsored media (NPR) yesterday, “CDC Director Fears ‘Impending Doom’ If U.S. Opens Too Quickly”: In an emotional plea during the White House COVID-19 Response Te… | Continue reading
“President Biden not ruling out wealth tax and believes rich aren’t paying enough, White House says” (USA Todaym March 15): Warren, who campaigned for president on a platform incl… | Continue reading
“The bank effect and the big boat blocking the Suez” (FT, mostly paywalled, but the link might work because I’ve included a Facebook ID) is interesting and reveals some similariti… | Continue reading
Today is the one-year anniversary of the Slovenian government ordering residents to wear face masks. From Wikipedia: From 29 March, wearing a face mask, even one made at home, or equivalents such a… | Continue reading
The national lockdown in the U.K. ends tomorrow, March 29, according to the U.K. government’s general aviation page: Even after April 12, however, “travel should be minimised as far as … | Continue reading
Happy Passover, starting tonight, for readers who are practicing Jewcraft. We celebrate G*d facilitating our travel from Egypt to Israel, which Pharaoh had purportedly obstructed. “Once We We… | Continue reading
“Lessons From Slovakia—Where Leaders Wear Masks: The country’s politicians led by example, helping it flatten its curve.” (Atlantic): In March, when the severity of the coronavirus pand… | Continue reading
“Oakland clinic offers Mayan interpreter for COVID-19 vaccinations” (Mercury News): A new COVID-19 vaccination clinic in the Fruitvale neighborhood is offering interpreter services for … | Continue reading
I’ve long been an advocate for universities shutting down dormitories. Why take responsibility for what 18-22-year-olds do when they’re not in class? Build shared spaces for students to… | Continue reading
This is based on a March 2021 trip to Savannah, Georgia. Residents of and visitors to Savannah are constantly reminded to wear masks and that COVID-19 is likely to kill them. The city hall, festoon… | Continue reading
With apologies to George Wallace (“segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”)… “‘We have a new pandemic’: Angela Merkel sounds dire warning over dominant U… | Continue reading
… you will love The Lady and the Dale (HBO), a documentary regarding Elizabeth Carmichael, best-known for trying to bring Americans a lightweight three-wheeled automobile. Ms. Carmichael was … | Continue reading
“How Much Weight Did We Gain During Lockdowns? 2 Pounds a Month, Study Hints” (New York Times): … a very small study using objective measures — weight measurements from Bluetooth-… | Continue reading
Still celebrating the start of Year 2 of “14 Days to Flatten the Curve”… I closed out Commercial flights during Coronapanic: a mostly mask-free experience with I wouldn’t recommen… | Continue reading
I’m beginning to think that the Windows PC that I built in 2015 is ready for retirement (though if Joe Biden can be president at 78, maybe this PC can last until 2029?). In looking at new des… | Continue reading
Considering migrants who’ve arrived since 2014, of those who have said that they were under 18 years old at the time of border crossing (as these folks are undocumented, there is no way to know the… | Continue reading
My inbox has been filling up lately with emails regarding purported hate crimes against Asian-Americans. Somewhat curiously, these emails are coming from institutions that explicitly discriminate a… | Continue reading
Happy First Day of Spring! In Florida, though, it will feel more like what we in Maskachusetts call “summer”. This gives rise to the dumbest question you will hear all season… Ele… | Continue reading
“The MIT scientists behind the Moderna vaccine” (Technology Review) appeared in my mailbox: In the 1970s, at MIT’s Center for Cancer Research, Phil Sharp discovered RNA splicing and rev… | Continue reading
“Coronavirus: Czechs facing up to COVID-19 crisis by making masks mandatory” (euronews): Czechs, who have dug out their sewing kits in recent days to take part in a DIY drive to create … | Continue reading
Part of an email to family members from a PhD. in physical chemistry (like Angela Merkel!): The mRNA vaccines (Moderna & Pfizer/Biontech) or viral-vector (vv) DNA vaccines (J&J, AZ/Oxford, … | Continue reading
Among the middle-aged, the folks I know who are most afraid of COVID-19 are the least likely to have received it. I wonder if this is why we hear so much about people who are upset by the governmen… | Continue reading
Consider the young American who doesn’t wish to become a test subject for a vaccine whose own manufacturer characterizes it as “investigational”. He/she/ze/they will still have al… | Continue reading
In order to get a shot that he did not need, a healthy slender fit work-from-home 32-year-old whom I know volunteered for 8 hours at a vaccine clinic in northern California. “People are suppo… | Continue reading
Software Design for Flexibility: How to Avoid Programming Yourself into a Corner (MIT Press) is hot off the press, co-authored by Gerry Sussman, one of the authors of the classic Structure and Inte… | Continue reading
“Dr. Seuss Enterprises Will Shelve 6 Books, Citing ‘Hurtful’ Portrayals” (NPR): First published in 1937, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street is the book that prope… | Continue reading
March 1, 2021. “Trump” occurs 7 times on the nytimes.com home page. What’s the relative importance of the person who actually occupies the White House? “Biden” occurs … | Continue reading
I’ve been referring to everything that happened prior to March 2020 as “BC” (Before Corona, not to be confused with “BCE” for years prior to Jesus’s birth). We&#… | Continue reading
A Floridian’s Facebook post today, updated for her by Facebook’s team of scientific experts: (Disclaimer: I was not one of the Deplorables who “liked” this post!) Facebook i… | Continue reading
Coronapanic has shut down America’s schools and/or turned them into pale online shadows of their former selves. It is now exactly one year since unionized public schools in Maskachusetts shut… | Continue reading
We received a copy of Bowdoin magazine, the official publication of the liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine featured in these aerial photos. I emailed the intended recipient, an alumna of this… | Continue reading
Wanting to see what the fuss was about, as soon as the book made it into the news, I reserved the not-banned If I Ran the Zoo from the local public library. A few days later, a librarian called. My… | Continue reading
We’re now at the one-year anniversary of when the governor here in Maskachusetts declared a state of emergency and began to tell healthy young people that they needed to give up what turned o… | Continue reading
Clubhouse users seem to care primarily about three things: BitcoinVenture capitalSelf-improvement I don’t own any Bitcoin. I am completely unimproved (some might say “a throwback”… | Continue reading
A tale of a recent trip from Boston to Washington-Dulles on United Airlines… (my first on an airliner since the BC epoch (“Before Coronapanic”)) The good news is that all of our p… | Continue reading
“You Were Duped Into Saying Yes. Is That Still Consent?” (New York Times, March 5): Imagine the following hypothetical situation: Frank and Ellen meet at a night course and end up getti… | Continue reading
Wikipedia on Mahaprasthanika Parva, a book within the Mahabharata: Indra appears in his chariot with a loud sound, suggesting he doesn’t need to walk all the way, he can jump in and together … | Continue reading
Five years ago I purchased two Samsung 32-inch 4K computer monitors for $1300 each. These UD970s boasted “99.5% Adobe RGB and 100% sRGB Color Compliance”, which I thought would make the… | Continue reading
From February 16, 2021, Is it double-masking or Joe Biden’s presidency that has beaten coronavirus?, which contained the following chart: I felt confident enough that this strong trend would contin… | Continue reading
A bedtime scene: 7-year-old: Joe Biden is going to send us money.Mom: No. Joe Biden is going to take money from us and send it to other people. Our income is too high to qualify for the money that … | Continue reading
In a group chat, a friend posted a picture of the Samoyed puppy he hopes to adopt. Here’s Alex the puppy, from 1996: Response from another friend: I am disturbed by the whiteness of your dog.… | Continue reading
There are more than 2 million members of the U.S. military. Let’s start out with the heroes… a transient A-10 at our local Air Force base, back in October: And let’s hope that the… | Continue reading
An applicant for a Vermont state-sponsored job was confronted with the following form: Note that it is unclear whether Nuetrois is a new gender identity or simply a variant spelling of the familiar… | Continue reading
A Maskachusetts resident who has achieved Super Karen status when it comes to advocacy of masks and shutdown (daily Facebook postings for our full year (so far) of “14 days to flatten the cur… | Continue reading
The 2,200 members of the Capitol Police and 3,800 officers of the D.C. Police and the FBI and the Secret Service are not sufficient to protect our nation from an ongoing insurrectionmergency. ̶… | Continue reading