Monthly Archives: July 2020

July 21, 2020

It was Arthur C. Clarke, notable author, inventor and futurist, who’s quoted as saying, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Very true indeed. We all take for granted technology these days that would baffle even the brightest minds of not-so-long ago. The little phone you carry around (and perhaps with which you’re reading this) is a prime example. We get mad at it when “the stupid thing isn’t working”, but you’d think about it differently if you considered the complexity of the underlying infrastructure that makes it all work. Imagine someone 50 years ago watching you take a picture with your iPhone. OK, fancy tiny camera… very cool. But not impossible. And then they watch you AirDrop™ that picture to the person next to you. That’d be nothing less than magic.

I’ve been around long enough to see true innovative technology arrive, explode onto the scene, and then slowly drift from relevance as newer, more advanced technology took over. For example, CDs. They appeared literally overnight (from a consumer point of view) and took over the world. They were, for a time… magic. And they have since drifted into obscurity.

One interesting thing in the early days of CDs was both the marketing and technology of what was called “oversampling”. There’s more to it than what I’m going to describe, but basically it was this – the laser that’s reading what’s on the surface of the disc has about a zillionth of a second to bounce itself off a particular spot and decide whether it’s a one or a zero. And it’s not always right. Since that’s happening 44,100 times per second, it’s not a huge deal if it gets it wrong once in a while. But, that depends how wrong… your music quality would tend to degrade, and if it’s data, it has to be perfect. Data inherently is stored with what are called “CheckSums” – that verify the integrity of the data. For example, a simple version might be that after every 1,000 bits, it tells you how many zeros there were. And also how many ones. If those two numbers don’t add up to 1,000… there was a problem, so read it again. Credit card numbers also have a built-in sanity check… VISA numbers start with 4, MasterCard with 5… but not just any random string of 15 digits after that will work. In fact, only one in ten.

But music isn’t stored that way… it’s just sample after sample. So what they did is this… they’d get the laser to sample each bit more than once. 2x oversample. 4x oversample. 8x oversample!! If 6 of 8 of those reads say it’s a one, go with that.

If this sounds just like adding more and more blades to your razor, you’re right. At some point, the diminishing returns no longer make sense. How many blades do you need to get a perfect shave? I don’t know, but I know that two blades are better than one. Four is perhaps better than three. But I’m not sure 27 blades on some 6-inch razor are better than 26.

With CDs, I once saw a model boasting 96x oversampling. Come on.

This all comes to mind when reading numerous articles about COVID-19 testing. Rates of false positives. Rates of false negatives. People who’ve tested negative then positive then negative then positive. Good tests, bad tests, expensive tests, cheap tests.

In some cases, it’s a threshold… you could have it, but not in a high enough concentration to test positive. This is exclusively a problem for asymptomatic cases; I have yet to read about a test that reports a false negative for someone with symptoms.

Just thinking out loud… it makes me wonder… what would happen if you treated testing the way those CD players used to it. Do 8 cheap tests on someone all at once… instead of a far more expensive single test whose failure rate is lower, but not zero. Like I said, just thinking out loud… but one path of managing this involves testing; lots of it. And if you form a triangle of “cheap, fast, accurate” and have to pick two at the expense of the third… perhaps “cheap and fast” is the angle to go with. This is just simple statistics… not magic.

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July 20, 2020

We will leave the “South of the border political bashing” for a day and focus on ourselves.

The little charts that I post below the numbers had become relatively useless, as we’re so far into this pandemic that the logarithmic representations no longer meant much. It would have taken some drastic movement to have made any difference.

So… what you see now is simply a representation of daily new cases, along with a moving average to smooth out the trend.

Looking at B.C., and listening to Dr. Henry… here’s the deal; we’re hearing pretty much what we were hearing the last two weeks of March, when I started writing these daily reports… so I will go back to saying exactly what I was saying back then: It’s up to us.

We flattened this thing out, and now, the nonchalance may be catching up to us, but it’s not too late. Summer, parties, The Interior™… I get it. Anyone who grew up anywhere in B.C. gets it. Except perhaps some of the younger people, who have come to the conclusion that being outdoors, and being young, mitigates the risk to an acceptable level. It doesn’t. You can catch it, and you can give it to others… and with more than 100 cases over the weekend and Dr. Henry warning that we’re at the edge of “explosive growth” – that should hit home.

She made it a point of mentioning the younger people, and even made a plea to all of those younger people so adept at managing their social media; get the word out. Take this seriously. Social distance. Wear a mask.

Hopefully many of them do exactly that. My daughter will be blasting something out to the 10,000 or so followers that she has distributed among her social networks, and hopefully from there it’ll further propagate when all of those people do the same.

Indeed, getting the word out exponentially isn’t that hard to do. And that’s the only exponential thing we should hope to see around here. Or anywhere.

If you look at the now-more-useful graphs, you’ll see some definite trends… Quebec had a huge problem, resolved it, but needs to be careful… there’s a slow, gradual uphill in the making. Ontario seems to be trending downward and holding. And B.C…. well, you can see it pretty clearly… and that’s not the direction we want to continue. The same can be said for Canada overall.

And the U.S….? Pull up Trump’s interview with Chris Wallace from yesterday. Have a look at that graph. There’s little more to say.

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July 19, 2020

A note about the numbers… B.C. hasn’t published numbers since Friday, so tomorrow I will update my guesses and align them with reality. Also… it’s like magic… ever since the White House took control of the numbers away from the CDC, the U.S. numbers have been dropping. It’s like magic.

You know, there’s a good reason why rain dances always work… 100% effectively, and it’s that when you do them right, you don’t actually stop until it starts raining. It could happen right away… or it could take weeks. Maybe months or even years. Either way, it doesn’t stop until it “works” – and then everyone is happy and congratulates each other on a job well done.

I worked with a guy in the 90s… a real contrarian, who was sure the markets were going to crash and burn. The NASDAQ composite index was around 800 in those days. It slowly crept up over the months and years, and every time it would slip a bit, he’d say “this is it!!”… and he was wrong. Until one day, in early 2000, I guess he was right… the NASDAQ, which had crept up to close to 5,000… crashed. It never came close to the lows of 800, but it fell steeply enough that I’m sure he went around saying (and I can’t confirm, because I was out of touch with him by then)…. “I was right!! See?? Told you!”

I guess if you wait around long enough and refuse to be wrong, perhaps in your mind the world eventually catches up with you. And sometimes it’s real.

For those who follow baseball, the name Bartolo Colón might ring a bell. He’s retired from MLB, but still playing in Mexico (if any playing is going on these days…)

Bartolo is famous for many things, but here are a couple… one, he broke into the league in 1997 and was the last remaining player who’d played for the Montreal Expos. And two, while playing for the Mets in 2017, almost 20 years after he’d been at it, he hit his first career homerun, at the fine old age of 42. Even if you’re not a baseball fan, that’s worth finding on YouTube. His team went crazy. The announcers went crazy. Even most of the fans, notable because it was an away game.

So yeah, like a broken clock… wait around long enough, and it’ll be right. Twice a day, in that particular case.

This all comes to mind as Donald Trump, not known for ever admitting he’s ever wrong, continues to double-down (it’s at least a quadruple by now) with his “It’ll all just go away” thing. Like, magically, one day, COVID-19 will disappear.

So yeah, as per my examples, it’s true. One day it will be gone, and Donald Trump will be saying… “See!! Told you!!”

Of course, the question is… how many people will needlessly have suffered or died, while he waited around for his miracle to kick in?

And speaking of rain dances… I’ve spoken before about the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert, where it never rains. But back in 2011, it did… in fact, it snowed. And I’m sure there may have been some group of Changos who’d been at it for decades, dancing away… and who went around after that, telling everyone… “See?! Told you we could make it snow!!”

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July 18, 2020

The year 2010 was only 10 years ago, but wow, does it ever feel like a long time ago. That was when the Winter Olympics were here; the memorable Iginla to Crosby gold-winning goal… also the year I should’ve been generating and holding Bitcoins… but, who knew.

It was also the year of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Notwithstanding the catastrophic uselessness with which British Petroleum managed their little “faux pas”, there was an interesting footnote to the whole thing… which was that the environmental impact was far less than people imagined.

Don’t misunderstand; it was brutal, among the worst environmental disasters in American history. Almost 5 million barrels of oil leaking into the water over a period of months. The impact was felt for years, and BP ended up paying close to $20 billion to make it right; the largest corporate settlement in U.S. history.

But that interesting footnote of a lesser impact was due to… microbes. Little bugs that actually ate the oil and broke it down. While there had been some talk of trying to infuse the water with some sort of oil-eating bugs, and arguments whether the benefits outweighed the risks… and perhaps some little tests to sanity check it all… well, in the midst of that, mother nature came along and provided its own version, on top of what the humans were throwing at it. And surprisingly successfully.

Over the last couple of years, a lot of research has been done with respect to microbes and bacteria that eat plastic. And really, by “eating”, we mean consuming it and breaking it down… literally bio-degrading landfill waste. There’s that huge 600,000 square-mile garbage patch swirling in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between California and Hawaii… which some people think will be there “forever’. It won’t be… far from it. For now, it keeps growing, because we keep adding to it. But one day, when man is no longer around, that thing will start shrinking on its own… a far cry from “forever”.

A few days ago, scientists announced finding a bacteria that oxidizes manganese…and there are other microbes that can create conditions on other metals, leading to their breakdown.

The summary of all this is not that we shouldn’t care about our planet and the environment… we certainly should, because we have to live in it, in the present. More importantly, our children and grand-children have to, as well.

But it’s sobering and reassuring to know that no matter how badly we screw it up, it’ll all fix itself in due course. Unfortunately, that due course is measured in glacial, geological time frames. A million years isn’t much to earth (.02% of its existence), but it’s a lot if we’re hoping humanity lasts that long. It’s good knowing our super-long-term problems have solutions. Now let’s work on the present-day ones.

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July 17, 2020

What a beautiful day… I hope you all managed to take advantage of it, and if not… good news… it’s mostly supposed to stick around over the next few days.

That is good news; what’s not so good news, as usual, is what’s going on south of the border. I know I sound like a broken record, but sometimes it’s important. Many news outlets are keeping track of Trump’s lies, as they should… otherwise, you get used to it and normalize it and it becomes par for the course. Accountability is important, even if it’ll ultimately be after the fact. Some things are not an OK part of the new normal.

Yesterday came the news that the White House will be controlling the data. Today comes the news that the White House will block the CDC from testifying on re-opening schools.

Not everyone believes in prayer, but whether you do or not, keep Ruth Bader Ginsburg in your thoughts. She is a fighter, a trooper, a survivor… a legend. And, for the moment, her presence implies a significant tipping point for the Supreme Court.

But she is 87 and is now undergoing chemo for a 4th recurrence of cancer, this time pancreatic… having fought off lung and colon over the last 20 years. The reality is she’s unlikely to be around another 4 years, though we can hope. But given her fighting spirit, perhaps we can see her hanging around till the end of the year… or at least, long enough that Trump wouldn’t have the opportunity to replace her with a frightening ultra-conservative.

It’s funny (or perhaps tragic) to listen to some of the fervent Trump supporters screaming things like “This is not a democracy! This is a republic!”

There isn’t enough room nor enough time for me to voice what I’d like to try to explain to some people, and unfortunately, it might go in one ear and out the other. But, to be honest, when I started writing this daily thing exactly 4 months ago (to the day), it was all about the pandemic. It’s shifted to the management of the pandemic, where the vast majority of the world is handling it properly, or at least making an effort to do it as well as they can. We’re all familiar with the glaring exception.

But interestingly enough, with all my Trump bashing, I think I’ve gotten through to a few people. Every time I write about Trump, I hear about it from a few people, including family… not because they disagree, but because they know I’ll be facing a barrage of negative comments.

And for a while…initially, that was true. A few Facebook friends took exception to my continual bashing of their guy, and left. A few others have stuck around, and stuck to their… guns. And I do hear from them.

But there’s also a contingent that perhaps has seen the light; perhaps has managed to differentiate their political leanings from the person who’s supposed to be promoting and leading those ideals. Trump's falling ratings… the only thing he seems to genuinely care about… are indicative of that.

I’m not American and I don’t get a vote. But I have family and friends who live down there, and while I fully support keeping the border closed for now… I miss them; they miss me. Trump’s spokesman yesterday said, “Why would anyone want to go to Canada, anyway?” … and he continued with the usual “this is the greatest country in the world, and Donald Trump, blahblahblah”.

Well, to reply to that rhetorical question, the answer might be “to get the hell away from exponentially growing coronavirus numbers”.

It’s kind of melodramatic to say that the suvivial of the U.S. as we know it depends on it… but history is full of examples of Republics rounding that ugly corner. It all used to be a joke, how Trump might be the last democratically elected president. Ha ha, it’s not so funny now.

From up here, all we can do is watch…enjoy our sunshine and our safe, closed border. And worry. And hope, that down there, they figure it out.

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July 16, 2020

It’s been one of those days where I haven’t had much time to think, let alone write anything… so I will simply dig into my trove of cool words and pull out this beauty:

Semaphorism (noun): a conversational hint that you have something personal to say on the subject but don’t go any further—an emphatic nod, a half-told anecdote, an enigmatic ‘I know the feeling’—which you place into conversations like those little flags that warn diggers of something buried underground: maybe a cable that secretly powers your house, maybe a fiberoptic link to some foreign country.

I didn’t write that definition; I literally cut-and-pasted it… but I’ll give you my 2 cents, because, like some many oddities these days, it’s relevant.

I’m finding that as things migrate from the complete “WTF is going on” that we all felt in March and April… to May and June where we got used to the weirdness… that here’s what July and August will look like; very familiar, yet unfamiliar. It’s worth noting that this has all been (and continues to be) the strangest of times, and that applies to us all equally…. like, my life has been derailed in ways that make it completely unrelatable to what I was used to. You can say the same thing; everyone can. But what used to be normal for you was never normal for me to begin with. You’’ve been dealing with your own issues, as have I.

Forget the pandemic for a moment… even without it, we’ve all been absorbed in our little worlds from the day we were born. We’ve all had unique experiences. But suddenly, we’re all in the same boat, and it’s curious to think that the present derailed versions of what we’re all going through have a lot more in common with each other than ever… 6 months ago, we were all so different. Now we’re all derailed… and much more similar. Recall that word Sonder… the realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own… isn’t it ironic (don’t you think) that it took a global pandemic to “normalize” life to this extent? A huge earthquake, a meteor strike or a nice, huge unexpected nearby volcanic blast would all achieve the same thing (and let’s hope we don’t find out anytime soon… but 2020 is only halfway done…), but when you think about it, we all have a lot more in common than we used to. We don’t need to fake it in conversations; we know exactly what someone is talking about when they talk about something that until recently, would’ve been completely unfamiliar to all of us.

A bit of a silver lining on the huge cloud… and I’m looking forward to the day when talking about all of that commonality will be within conversations that begin with, “Remember when…”

 

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July 15, 2020

I haven’t been in many actual fistfights in my life, but by far the most memorable one took place in the backseat of a car, where my very good friend and I took a scientific discussion to a whole new level.

This was on the very last leg of a long road-trip, so perhaps we were feeling a little stir-crazy, but what happened was this: We got into a discussion about The Universal Gas Constant which, using the conventional (and very convoluted) units, is generally agreed to be 8.31

More accurately, it’s 8.31446261815324, but you never need that many digits for these sorts of numbers. For example, Pi (π) is an irrational number, and goes on indefinitely… and there are people who love to memorize the first hundred or thousand or, in one case, more than 65,000 digits of it… but you only really need 39 significant digits of π to accurately calculate the circumference of the universe using the width of a hydrogen atom. The rest is just for show.

Anyway, in this case, my friend had written a test where the teacher had given some problems to solve, and told the students to assume the UGC was 8.32. I argued that’s just wrong. It can be 8.31 or 8.314 or 8.3144 or even 8.3145 if you round from after the 44… but there’s no version of proper rounding or significant digits that gets you to 8.32. You can not go from 8.3145 to 8.315 to 8.32… you just can’t.

The discussion turned violent after he suggested that for the purposes of that test, given it’s what the teacher imposed, it was right. And I argued that you can’t just create facts like that to make life easier and expect them to be correct. That very good friend is reading this, and he’s now a chemical engineer… so I’d be more than happy to hear an updated expert opinion…

Indeed, a more famous (and less violent) case of something similar was in Indiana, in 1897, when some guy tried to legislate Pi to be equal to 3. The guy had figured out some math that managed to squish a circle around a square “evenly”… and if you look at his math and his diagrams, they’re all obviously wrong, but if you subscribe to the idea that science or math is just an opinion, well… this certainly makes sense, and it certainly makes life easier. No more pesky irrational numbers. Looking at this guy’s math, if π were 3, then suddenly, the square root of two doesn’t need to be irrational either. While a good approximation for √2 is 99/70, his math showed how now it can be 100/70 – so much easier.

And indeed, this is the problem when you try to play with facts… which are, in fact, that… facts. Not opinions… that when you mess with them, you break everything else that’s associated with them. You can’t change the value of π or √2 without wrecking everything else. The reason it all holds together in the first place is because it’s not a fancy opinion. It’s facts… the same facts that define the laws of physics and the fabric of our universe.

Every once in a while, someone will publish something “proving” they’ve measured particles that exceed the speed of light. And instantly, the “Einstein was wrong”, “Science is just an opinion” crowd is all over it. It’s really painful to read those comment threads.

Once again, here’s the thing… particles exceeding the speed of light wouldn’t be one little thing; it’d destroy thousands of associated theories and dependencies upon which the world has relied for over 100 years. You can’t just undo facts.

And yet… one of the more baffling things going on these days is the idea, by some people, that science is just another opinion. Science offers us ideas, but so does the neighbour’s grandmother, who’s really good with tarot cards… and opinions are just opinions, so we should take both into account. Some doctors say vaccinations are good, but my neighbour’s grandmother’s step-sister’s nephew knows someone who got vaccinated, and then developed some rare form of cancer and died. Therefore, blahblahblah.

And today comes word that no longer will the CDC receive COVID-19 data directly from hospitals. Instead, it will all go to the White House, who will then decide what to dish out. The New York Times is quoted as saying, "[the] database that will receive new information is not open to the public, which could affect the work of scores of researchers, modelers and health officials who rely on C.D.C. data to make projections and crucial decisions."

Well… we will see how this all looks going forward. This shatters the confidence I have in the numbers I get from a source that directly gets them from the CDC… I have a bad feeling that this will feel like π being 3 and √2 being a rational number… because Trump wants it that way. Because Trump says so. Because Trump needs it to. Let’s just create the facts that will suit the narrative. And people will continue to get infected and die… in record numbers, and nothing will fit, and none of it will make sense… because, while you can change opinions, you can’t change fundamental facts. Why is this happening. How did we get here.

To three significant digits, The Universal Gas Constant is 8.31

And, like Donald Trump, both π and √2 are irrational. And while some things can’t change without disrupting the fabric of the universe, other things could… but choose not to.

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July 14, 2020

You’ve probably heard of the book “1984”, even if you haven’t read it. Same with “Brave New World”. You probably had to (or were supposed to…) read one (or both) in high school. Maybe you went the Coles Notes route…

In any event, the two books are similar in that they talk about a dystopian future.

In the 1984 version, the future is an ugly place because the government controls everything, right down to reading your thoughts. Books are banned, free speech is banned, and society is captive to those that control it and “create” the truth, which they then jam down everyone’s throats.

In the Brave New World version, the world is a prettier place, and there’s no need for any of that because the world is happy in its ignorance. There is no need to ban books if nobody ever wants to read one. People are happy to be spoon-fed whatever keeps them happy, and do whatever they like to keep themselves entertained… hedonistically documenting their selfies, their incredible lives, their tasty food… while the world crumbles around them.

OK, that last sentence was a little retro-fitted to relate to the present, because as visionary as Aldous Huxley was when he wrote it, he probably couldn’t have conceived of that specific example.

I used to think this was very much a “1984” sort of world. After 9/11, even more so. Government over-reach is nothing new in times of crisis… the issue is getting some of those compromised freedoms back in due course. Twenty years later, the U.S. is still dealing with Homeland Security and TSA and so on. But it seems we’re pretty complacent when allowing the government to impose things on us “temporarily” because, well… it’s temporary, and it’s… well, whatever.

You know what else is temporary? Income tax… here in Canada, it came into existence in 1917 to fund The Great War for a couple of years. To quote Sir Thomas White, the Minister of Finance at the time, “I have placed no time limit upon this measure… a year or two after the war is over, the measure should be reviewed.” Yeah, if you could let us know how that review is going… that would be great.

You know what else is temporary? The power lines that run all the way up and down Boundary St… also put there just during WWII. An eyesore to be sure, but don’t worry – they’ll be gone soon.

This list goes on, and it’s why whenever the government goes for a grab, be weary on getting it back. It’s not so easy.

But that’s not what this is about… because as “1984” as it appeared the world may be heading, it’s entirely shifted course, especially when the temporarily-imposed government directives are killing people.

We’ve very-much been heading in a “Brave New World” direction. Big Brother is watching, and nobody seems to care. Ostensibly through concerns of security, a lot of personal freedoms are gone… but nobody cares enough to change things back. The hedonistic MeMeMe attitudes of people basing decisions purely on short-sighted self-interest have led us to a place of complacency… which works well-enough when times are good, but falters quickly, abruptly and, as we’re now seeing, tragically… when things go downhill.

Brutal to see that as opposite as those two dystopias are, we’ve managed to acquire parts of both of them. But it’s also interesting to see that when people finally start realizing that the great leaders above don’t have their best interests at heart… well, that’s when real change starts happening.

As usual, I’ll close this out by repeating my endless mantra: How lucky we are to be here. As bad as you might imagine things are here (and they’re not, far from it), they’re far worse elsewhere.

Imagine if Dr. Henry suggested one thing, but John Horgan ignored it and made up whatever he wanted… which was also contrary to the wishes of the local mayors… and in the midst of that arguing, Trudeau would parachute in a useless, contradictory directive. And throw into that mix… all local hospitals filled to capacity, and case numbers growing exponentially.

Yes, around here, it could be a lot worse. Let’s just keep doing what we’ve been doing, shall we?

Relevant to note… one final thing: Aldous Huxley also said… “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Wise words… that unfortunately go unheard by those who need to hear them the most.

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July 13, 2020

Those who haven’t had the unfortunate displeasure of dealing with an actual narcissist might be surprised at the continually baffling attitude of Donald Trump. Those who are familiar with the typical attitude and behaviour of a narcissist are not the least bit surprised.

One fundamental aspect of narcissism is the binary way in which the world appears. Good or bad. Black or white. You’re with me or against me. There is no middle ground.

Almost without exception, the crappy CEOs of the world are textbook narcissists. They rose to their position of power by trampling and clawing and stomping over others, on their way to the top (laughing while doing so), and will never relinquish that power. And one effective way of doing that is simply surrounding themselves with people who agree with everything, and getting rid of them when they don’t.

The White House has had a revolving front door since 2016, and we’ve all become familiar with the pattern of people going in “he’s the greatest, tremendous, the best, my people tell me they’ve never been more impressed”, and then one day leaving… with the expected presidential barrage of infantile insults.

Dr. Fauci has been around since the Reagan administration, and his list of credentials, publications and awards simply don’t fit in this little posting. Feel free to Google him, and prepare to be impressed.

There’s another tell-tale sign of narcissists… they like to surround themselves with “great” people… only because it elevates the narc to the same level (in their mind).

Interestingly, this strategy of surrounding yourself with people “better” than you is a good one. If you do that, and let those great people do their thing, it’s often a good path for success. That's when you let them do their thing, as they do best.

But in this case, nobody can outshine the president, and these very intelligent and capable people, many of whom have been skating on very thin ice, at some point simply can not sit around a tow a party line that’s actually going to kill people.

Close to that chopping block may now be Dr. Anthony Fauci, but it’s not so easy for Trump…

Interestingly, Trump can’t fire Dr. Fauci… for reasons that go back to the guy that assassinated President James Garfield in 1881 (shoutout to Meri, his great-granddaughter – who’s reading this). The guy who shot Garfield wanted a job – which Garfield refused to give him. And to clarify things, after the assassination, it’s become impossible for a president to hire or fire a career federal employee without a damn good reason. And a difference of opinion certainly doesn’t qualify.

What Trump can do – or at least, try to do… is to silence Dr. Fauci. He’s no longer part of the TV briefings, he’s not heard from a lot… sort of being kept away from the action. Kudos to him though, for still being able to get his message out, even if it’s no longer through official channels.

Needless to say, if you’re hearing two diametrically different things being said… one from Trump, one from Fauci… and still, for whatever reason, you’re not sure who to listen to… I dunno, let’s randomly pick a strategy. How about alphabetical? Let’s see… F comes before T. Perfect. Let’s go with that.

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:24-07:00July 13th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , |7 Comments

July 12, 2020

Yesterday’s piece led to a lot of reactions and comments, mostly from people who’ve observed the same things… and yet, there continue to be people stuck on the “it’s a hoax” or “it’s totally overblown” thing…

Two things that appeared elsewhere in the news yesterday… one guy’s Facebook postings, starting in April… a whole progression of Pro-Trump/anti-mask… it’s hype, it’s a hoax, it’s all BS, I have some symptoms, I’m getting tested, I have it COVID, I feel awful, this sucks, etc. Poor guy died two days after testing positive.

The other one was the person who died after going to a COVID party… his last words, to his nurse, were… “ I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not”. Yup… well, at least he immortalized his last words… though probably not the ones he’d have wanted to go out on… and correct on both counts. He made a mistake, and it’s not a hoax.

There is a big difference between ignorance and stupidity, but self-imposed brainwashed ignorance falls into stupidity. Especially when otherwise intelligent people are drinking this Kool-Aid and falling for this nonsense.

I had thought we were done with exponential curves. The ones you see below have all flattened out… but that’s because I’m not charting things like Florida. They are setting records every day, and not the sort one would be proud of it. I think it’s beyond stupid, to be honest. So easily preventable if one just takes a step back and looks at the big picture. Agh. Frustrating.

On the flip-side, that’s just my opinion and I know not everyone agrees with it. In fact, here’s a word… with a bit of a long-winded definition:

Occhiolism (noun): the awareness of the smallness of your perspective, by which you couldn’t possibly draw any meaningful conclusions at all, about the world or the past or the complexities of culture, because although your life is an epic and unrepeatable anecdote, it still only has a sample size of one, and may end up being the control for a much wilder experiment happening in the next room.

There’s an expression I really dislike, but it seems to be accurate for so much these days… and it’s not an excuse, just an explanation… and not a very good one: It is what it is.

 

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:24-07:00July 12th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Interesting Words|Tags: , , , , |11 Comments
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