Why aren’t there good fish tank cameras? (underwater in the aquarium)

Public aquariums have webcams, e.g., from the Georgia Aquarium (funded by Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus and reopened, unlike our aquarium here in Boston). What about for hobbyists? We should be … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Are Florida and Texas good natural experiments in the effectiveness of masks?

Given what I have seen of mask usage in practice, I do not think they will be helpful in the U.S. except maybe to delay infections by a few weeks. I agree with the Swedes and the WHO that this is l… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

New name ideas for the Redskins? How about Washington Vampires?

The Washington Redskins will soon be renamed. As with the Land O’Lakes redesign, white people are getting rid of the Indian and keeping the land (stadium/revenue). Old: New: What is a good na… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

If you’re on an airliner packed with masked passengers, why don’t you get Covid-19 when your middle seat neighbor removes the mask to eat or drink?

A variety of U.S. airlines are going the full cattle car route, right? (see ) The theory is that the magic of masks will protect the 150 people on a 150-person Boeing or Airbus from giving each oth… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Get rid of single-family zoned suburbs?

“It’s Time To Abolish Single-Family Zoning” (The American Conservative, so you know already that it can’t be right!): The first of many ironies, of course, is that single-family z… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Fairfax County School Shutdown Karen thought process

A friend sent me this post from Joe the Shutdown Karen of Fairfax County: To our fellow FCPS families, this is it gang, 5 days until the 2 days in school vs. 100% virtual decision. Let’s talk it ou… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

PhD Computer Nerdism in 1969

“Syllabi and qualifying examinations for the Ph. D. in computer science at Stanford University” from 1969 (uncovered while doing a prior art search on a patent case): What are the moder… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Coronaplague test data show that Florida successfully flattened the curve?

Florida is being described as a Covid-19 disaster zone, but I wonder if the state is being punished for its own success at the March 2020 dogma of Flatten the Curve. Here’s a chart of tests p… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Donald Trump is a dictator and the U.S. is the worst place in the world for Coronaplague…

… however, according to M.I.T. and Harvard, it is essential for the welfare of foreigners that they stay here in the U.S. to be governed by Donald Trump and subjected to an unmitigated textbo… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Why is it still impossible to buy N95 masks?

Americans in many states and/or cities are required by law to wear “masks” of some sort, but compliance seems to be spotty and competence yet spottier. The “mask” devolves i… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Priority for Students of Color in returning to public K-12 school

From the Educrats in Washington State: Reopening WashingtonSchools 2020 District Planning Guide. The phrase “students of color” occurs six times. Good news for Rachel Dolezal: white stu… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

(Corona)State of Maine

I just talked to a friend to see how badly he was suffering in Month 4 of quarantine at his oceanfront estate in Maine (see “Your lockdown may vary”). How was society up there doing? Ou… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Shutdown Karens throw rocks at Sweden

“Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale” (NYT, today): Its decision to carry on in the face of the pandemic has yielded a surge of deaths without sparing its economy from damage … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

The (settled) science of coronaplague

From Massachusetts General Hospital (“the Massive Genital” to some of my physician friends), a 50-page summary of what is known regarding Covid-19 risks and mitigation in schools. A fwe… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Test and trace revisited

Back in May, I asked “The government can’t find the 22 million undocumented, but it will find and track every coronafected human inside the U.S.?” And what about those 22 million soon-t… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Looks like I picked the wrong week to sell stock in a coronavirus testing company (Harvard)

“Harvard will allow some students on campus this fall so long as they take coronavirus tests every 3 days” (CNBC): Tuition will not be lowered from $49,653, although students enrolled r… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Official Newspaper of the Shutdown Karens may have been a little too successful

The New York Times has been a leader in stoking coronaplague panic (see “Power of the Media to Shape Coronaplague Beliefs” for an example of how the newspaper spun a declining death cur… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

When does coronaplague stop being an emergency?

The Swedish epidemiologists, just as everyone else was shutting down, said “coronavirus is going to be with humanity maybe forever, just like influenza; can you stay shut down forever?”… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

The evolving science of herd immunity from coronaplague

Back in March, the best scientists, including one with a Ph.D. in physics who happens to run Germany (see “60% to 70% of the German population will be infected by the coronavirus, Merkel says… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Robot overlords versus dog with upset tummy

We are told that we will soon be replaced by robots. An account of one of our future overlords cleaning the house… So … one [of] my dogs had a BAD accident and then my Roomba went off at 4 am… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

How was the mask compliance at July 4 gatherings?

My Facebook feed has been dominated for about two months by friends who have faith in the perfectibility of human beings. Americans are on the cusp of wearing masks consistently and correctly, but … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Treason Day Parade

From our suburb of Lincoln, Maskachusetts: Why oh why can’t we buy a 6-seat, or even a 5-seat, convertible like the one shown? How tough can it be to engineer this with modern materials such as hig… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Why won’t the NFL play the Black national anthem before every game?

“NFL to play Black national anthem ‘Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing’ before ‘Star Spangled Banner’ at Week 1 games” (CBS): “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

History lessons from the musical Hamilton

The price of a ticket to Hamilton finally came down to something I was willing to pay: $0 (already subscribing to Disney+). So far I’ve learned that taxes in the American colonies were sky-hi… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

More Americans will die from all of the coronaguns than from actual coronaplague?

“Gun sales are off the charts” (Fortune): U.S. consumers are rushing to buy guns as the Covid-19 pandemic and protests over police brutality combine with U.S. presidential politics to f… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

What if Thomas Edison were alive today?

Edison by Edmund Morris, gives us some hints as to how Thomas Edison might have dealt with our society’s challenges today. (Below, Edison’s workshop, transported to Michigan by Henry Fo… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Get rid of exercise in the name of public health (Sweden did okay, though)

What’s the best strategy for dealing with a virus that attacks the obese and out of shape? Stay home for three months right next to the fridge. “In Fight Against COVID-19, Physical Acti… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Get rid of public restrooms in the name of public health?

One of the things that Western do-gooders scolded India for was its lack of public restrooms, a hazard to public health. What was the first thing that we did in response to coronaplague? Close our … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

The Frito Bandito delivers a lecture on Black Lives Matter

Who knew that the Frito Bandito was an expert on social justice? Frito-Lay’s Doritos brand delivers Do You Hear Us Now? #AmplifyBlackVoices via YouTube: On the YouTube site, the company says … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Catholic priest at MIT fired for not following the state religion

“Catholic chaplain resigns over email responding to Floyd killing” (the Tech): Rev. Daniel Moloney, MIT’s Catholic chaplain, resigned June 9, according to a statement by the Archdiocese… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Why won’t the Europeans let in Americans who test negative for coronavirus?

“EU Sets New List Of Approved Travel Partners. The U.S. Isn’t On It” (NPR): U.S. travelers won’t be among those allowed to visit the European Union when the bloc begins open… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Reddit stuffs the gender critical feminists into the Memory Hole

: archive.org shows that, as June 26, the discussion group had 64,400 members: As advertised, they are hostile to an Ask Me About My Pronouns T-Shirt. Feminism is the movement to liberate women fro… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

“promotion from mathematician to engineer”

“NASA Names Headquarters After ‘Hidden Figure’ Mary W. Jackson” (nasa.gov): NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Wednesday the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C.… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Power of the Media to Shape Coronaplague Beliefs

On a recent WhatsApp video call, a friend in Ireland expressed concern over the disastrous wave of deaths washing over the United States. He’d scanned newspaper headlines and had processed th… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Migrants and Refugees were Genghis Khan’s best weapons

I enjoyed Professor Dorsey Armstrong’s Years that Changed History: 1215 course. One interesting tidbit: When Genghis Khan wanted to take over a big fortified city, he would attack surrounding… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Maskachusetts Teachers Consider Returning to Work

“Reopening and Reimagining Our Public Schools”, from the Massachusetts Teachers Association (a.k.a. “teacher’s union”), describes a theoretical world in which those wh… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Looking at Covid-19 death rate is like the old saying “An economist is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”?

A couple of mathematically sophisticated friends were debating Sweden’s policy with respect to Covid-19. One argued from the assumption that the death rate in Sweden was higher than in some n… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Wicked Swedes and Righteous-but-imperfect Americans forecast to have same coronaplague death rate

The wicked Swedes who refused to lock themselves down, refused to pull their children from schools, refused to follow WHO advice (the latest advice, that is, not the June 4 advice) to wear masks, a… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Mask-induced eyeglass fogging will lead to pedestrian fatalities?

I have heard a lot of people say that their eyeglasses fog up when they’re wearing a mask. Especially given the higher speeds that are now possible on urban streets, should we expect to see a… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Norwegian TV series for the Age of Corona: Occupied

A (tenured professor) friend recommended Occupied, a 2015 Norwegian TV show on Netflix that is surprisingly timely. In the first episode, the prime minister has to decide whether it is better to di… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Swedes are too polite to call us stupid…

… instead they call us crazy. The leader of the Swedish government’s epidemiology team is interviewed in “Sweden’s Covid Expert Says ‘World Went Mad’ With Lockdowns” (Bloomb… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

New hate speech phrase: “Thank You ALL Workers”

Like righteous Lexington, Massachusetts, our white heterosexual suburb loves to hang banners celebrating Black Lives Matter and a rainbow of LGBTQIA+ victimhood (see “Our faith calls us to af… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Biden, Warren, and Sanders are Beardstown Ladies?

Today was supposed to be the last Democratic Presidential primary. We’ve heard primarily from three candidates: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren (though this article says that … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Father’s Day reflections: How not to get a job at Hallmark

Some epic tweets regarding yesterday’s Hallmark Holiday of Father’s Day: The author is “Feminist, socialist, part of the 99% and proud.” Can we agree that she would have a t… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

How can ordinary people buy the statues that are being pulled down?

“Roosevelt Statue to Be Removed From Museum of Natural History” (NYT): “The equestrian memorial to Theodore Roosevelt has long prompted objections as a symbol of colonialism and r… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

How is Sweden doing with coronaplague?

I like to check in on forecasts versus reality at three-week intervals. Maybe prophets are getting better! Previous posts: From the first of those… What’s the latest from the prophets at IHME… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

Most U.S. states are now on the Swedish plan?

My Facebook feed is alive with righteous expressions of outrage at growing coronaplague in reopened Sun Belt states. A typical story posted, underneath some complaints about the unmasked, Donald Tr… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago

From which file sharing service will people pull videos out of the memory hole?

“BBC remove Fawlty Towers’ iconic ‘Don’t Mention The War’ episode from UKTV streaming site” (The Sun): The streaming service which is owned by the Corporation, have decided to take down… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 4 years ago