October 13, 2020
In today’s news, we got lots of new numbers… see for yourself. It’s pretty-much what’s to be expected… a little better, if anything. Nothing drastically bad, at least.
What might be turning drastically bad… ok, not drastically, but just to point out… that in elections of the somewhat distant past, there have been some wild accusations thrown around… like the opposing candidate is a well-known to be an extrovert! His sister-in-law is a thespian! He’s engaged in nepotism with his sister in law! Not only that… but, before he was married, he practiced celibacy! And… when in college, he matriculated! Scandalous!
The voters of yester-year we suitably horrified and of course would never vote for such an awful person. You can almost see them crowded outside the balcony with torches and pitchforks, and the poor guy stammering, “But… but…”, but being drowned out by the crowd all chanting “Scoundrel! Scoundrel!”
Indeed, like that not-so-old joke says, waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay sounds like a lot of fun… unless you know what those two things actually are.
The problem with those amusing election allegations is that they’re all true, but of course, nowhere near as scandalous as they sound. Candidates have been hurling insults at each other forever, but I suppose it’s a bit of an art to do it powerfully, yet truthfully.
You might think this is all leading to a little Trump-bashing, but it’s not… other to mention that curious statement he served up recently… where, asked why he hadn’t implemented a nation-wide mandatory mask mandate, he accused Joe Biden of not doing it. It was puzzling to hear, because, of course, the only person who could mandate that is the president himself. But Trump knows what he’s doing, and loves it. He makes it up as he goes along, and his crowd doesn’t care. It doesn’t make sense to accuse Biden with something he couldn’t have done to begin with, but the Trump crowd couldn’t care less. It’s irrelevant. Trump good. Biden bad. Facts – whatever. It’s a bit of a contrast to the past, where as awful as the (non)-insults were, they sounded like they could destroy a career.
Ironically, Trump himself is an extrovert… and a thespian… and he’s been engaged in nepotism with most of his family for years. And, as he proudly mentions often, he matriculated at the Wharton School of Business. I’m almost tempted to post all of these facts on some Trump-supporting sites and watch me get attacked from every angle. How dare I say such outrageous, scandalous lies about a sitting president!
October 12, 2020
Food, water, oxygen. Those three things have something in common… which is, none of them are a big deal… until you don’t have access to them. Then, depending on how much time has elapsed, they all become a big deal. That is how it is with things we take for granted.
In the case of these three things, roughly speaking, three minutes without oxygen will kill you. Three days without water might too… and the same goes for three weeks without food.
These things we take for granted… we should think about more often than once a year… certainly, on the tail-end of this three-day (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend, pandemic notwithstanding, we really have a lot for which to be grateful.
Most people reading this are living in a country that is most certainly (as it is ranked, year after year) in the top-three in the world with respect to quality of life. And of the cities in this great country, let’s agree Vancouver easily hits that top-three list as well.
There’s no deep political message today; I guess I could write about the original Thanksgiving, and its ultimate implications. Certainly, the associated Columbus Day (which is today in the U.S.) requires a deep look and an intensive re-write, a process already in the works.
But let’s keep it simple… the sentiment of being grateful for what you have; that’s word-wide and eternal. If you’re sitting around a table doing the turkey thing tonight, or did it yesterday, or even if you don’t do it at all, it’s at least a good day to ask someone (and yourself) – name three things for which you’re grateful.
I always have a tough time answering that question. Not because I can’t think of anything, but because I have too many things I’d equally rank and can’t decide what to prioritize. It’s a dilemma I identify as “a good problem to have”. And if you’re reading this, you automatically share in that part of the same problem/dilemma. As bad as things may seem these days, the positives far outweigh the negatives.
We have plenty to appreciate. We have plenty to acknowledge. And we have plenty to celebrate. With that in mind, I think I’ll go have a slice of pumpkin pie. Maybe two. Actually, given all of the above… yes… three it is. However you choose to celebrate it — Happy Thanksgiving!
October 11, 2020
When NHL commissioner Gary Bettman stepped onto the ice a couple of weeks go to present the Tampa Bay Lightning with their hard-fought-for Stanley Cup, there was something missing. Well, there was a lot missing, not the least of which were the fans. To its credit, the NHL pulled off an excellent season, given the complexities involved. It all worked out as planned, their whole bubble-infrastructure held together, and even virtual fan experience was so well-executed, you’d forget there weren’t sold-out arenas surrounding the play. The lights, the sounds, the announcers, the crowd noises – as genuine and convincing as possible.
But what was missing were the boos. It’s a well-known tradition… Bettman steps onto the ice, and the fans boo. Loudly. Like the monkeys pulling each other back from reaching the banana, most people might not even know why they’re booing… but everyone else does it, so you do it too. And, for what it’s worth, there are plenty of reasons to boo the guy; pretty-much every team has a reason to, thought it occurs to me that Arizona might be the only exception… and further to that, Arizona might be the only place on the planet that cheers Bettman and boos Wayne Gretzky.
I’m sure the NHL and the broadcasters thought about it. I’m sure they had the recorded boos all queued up ready to play, and left it to a last-minute decision. I’m sure Bettman wouldn’t have cared; he always laughs it off. And/or knows, to a great extent, that he deserves it.
It was a missed opportunity though… just one little bit of normality that could’ve been implemented, but wasn’t… and that’s too bad. I guess the politics and implications of it outweighed the humour and fan appreciation of it… but these days, when all of us are looking for evidence that, as crazy as things are, there’s some normalcy lurking in the background… it would’ve been nice to see.
I hope the next time he’s awarding the Stanley Cup, Bettman is showered with 20,000 real-life boos. I can’t wait. It will long and loud and powerful. I’d love to experience it. And, considering what that implies, I think we'd all love it. Even Bettman himself.
October 10, 2020
No new local numbers today or tomorrow (or Monday), so while we wait in limbo to collectively answer the question, “How are we doing?”, here’s a different sort of thing to do with numbers. I thought I’d mention this because it’s a good one to have when you’re bored or have nothing to do.
Actually, wait… there’s a big difference between being bored and having nothing to do… actually, it’s more like we all, always, have something to do – something we should be doing, something that’s been on the backburner for a while… something left to do for a rainy day or long weekend. Whether we actually feel like doing it is a different story, and sometimes we want (ie. need) something relatively mindless.
A few months ago, my friend Elaan pointed me towards such a thing… and I both thanked her and cursed her for it… because it was interesting, immersive, and I wasted hours – many hours – on it.
It’s very simple… there’s this website with a button that says [Make paperclip]. Click the button… your inventory of paperclips just went from 0 to 1. Bang on it a bit… each click produces one more. And you’ll notice there’s public demand for your paperclips, and by [lower] or [raise] the price, you can manage the inventory… perhaps find a good balance between price and demand. All along, keep clicking and making paperclips.
When you’ve saved up enough money, you can buy an autoclipper. Now you can worry about other things (the price, buying more wire… marketing upgrades which boost demand)… anyway, by virtue of a few clicks that create paperclips, you’re soon running a business.
How big can you grow it? Keep at it, though I’m warning you… you may end up wasting a lot more time on it than you intended.
That being said, I’m not sure it’s wasted time… you’ll engage your brain, you’ll learn a lot… and those 100 things that need doing… they all waited this long; they can wait a bit more. This is, after all, Thanksgiving Weekend… let’s not forget to thank ourselves too. We’ve earned it, and if that means a little bit of time put towards growing a virtual paperclip empire, so be it. And if you waste all weekend doing so, don’t blame me… it’s not entirely my fault. But do let us all know how far you got… and how long you kept at it…
Here you go:
https://www.decisionproblem.com/
October 9, 2020
If there were any doubts about there being a second wave here in Canada, that question seems to have been answered. We’re no doubt in it, and the question that remains is how bad might it get.
This is a big country… from here in Vancouver, St. John’s is not much closer than Tokyo. That’s a lot of space, in which the 38,000,000 of us are all navigating this journey differently.
Heading into the weekend… yesterday, B.C. crossed that “10,000 cases” line. Alberta will have crossed their 20,000 line by the time you read this. Comparatively speaking, Quebec has seen 10,000 new cases in only the last 10 days. Ontario will see its 3,000th death tomorrow.
As we head into this rainy weekend, I don’t have much more to add for today, but one thing… we won’t get updated local stats till Monday, and while I used to do some fancy math to extrapolate/guess what might be in store, I think I’ll back off from that. This isn’t a math exercise; each stat is a real person somewhere, just like you and me.
And wishing every one of those people a good start to this Thanksgiving weekend.
October 8, 2020
A little follow-up to yesterday’s post… and the words “abject despair” that I used.
In trying to remember a time I felt something like that, what comes to mind is the first time I ever participated in Paintball. If you’re not familiar with paintball, it’s where your shoot other people will fancy weapons that fire out gumball-sized balls of paint.. so that when you hit your target, there’s no doubt you “killed” them.
It was a large outdoor course… trees, flats, hills. Both teams start at either end, perhaps 200 yards apart, in their own little fort… which houses a flag. The idea is to attack the opponent team’s fort (10 people per team), take their flag, and bring it back to your own fort.
We strategized for a few minutes, before the horn sounded to start the game, and came up with a pretty good plan… some of us would launch a blatant attack up the middle, while a couple of other stealthier and faster teammates would try to sneak around the sides and attack from behind. A few others, known to have good aim, would guard our fort and flag.
I was chosen to be one of the “up the middle” attackers… tasked with basically getting as close to the enemy fort as possible, surviving as long as I could, hopefully killing some of them, and distracting them away from the periphery.
The horn sounded, and I began sneaking my way toward the enemy. Hiding behind obstacles where I could (rocks, trees, brush), I impressed myself with how close I’d managed to get.
But just as I was about to continue my journey from behind the rock I was presently hiding behind, a paintball went whizzing by me. Shit… I’d been spotted. And for several minutes, there I was, pinned behind the rock. As soon as any part of me moved, paintballs would fly all around me.
Even though it’s a game… even though you’re not going to really die… the despair of being trapped like that really started getting to me. I’m sure my adrenalin, heartbeat and blood pressure were all off the charts.
At some point, my brain just blew a gasket. Without really understanding what I was doing, I stood up, screaming, and charged up the hill toward their fort.
Had this been a Hollywood war movie, this would’ve all been shown in slow motion… possibly black and white… powerful classical music underscoring the pyrotechnics and explosions all around me… and on me, my chest exploding from the many machine-gun bullets ripping into me, my face a grimace of despair and pain.
In reality, I was cut down by about 10 paintballs within 3 seconds… but, might I add, it was just the distraction one of our guys needed. Right after I was "killed", I saw our guy sprinting down the side, headed back to our home fort – enemy flag in hand. Too bad that in real life I would’ve been dead and not witnessed the contribution I’d made to our victory.
Anyway, the point of all that… I learned something about the human animal that day; we all have our instinct to survive, and we all have our breaking point. That was my moment of abject despair, and I hope I never feel it again. I hope none of you do… and as bad as things might get, like I said yesterday, there’s always somewhere to turn; somewhere nearby, your teammate is in the same predicament.
October 7, 2020
After the NTSB investigation into US Airways flight 1549 – the one that was so rudely interrupted by a flock of Canada Geese, and plunged into the Hudson River on January 15, 2009 – the pilots were asked if they would’ve done anything differently. Notwithstanding the whole episode was one of heroic achievement (“The Miracle on the Hudson”)… nobody died, the movie (Tom Hanks) was made, and so on… still, it’s a question worth asking. First Officer Jeff Skiles had an answer: “I would’ve done it in July.”
Sure, if you’re going to plunge a plane into a river, the warmer summer waters are preferable to the icy winter alternative. Unfortunately, they didn’t have that choice.
Similarly, nobody chose the starting date for this pandemic… but if we’d had to have made that choice, chances are, around here, we would’ve picked almost exactly what we got; right at the start of spring, as the weather gets better, the air is warmer and the skies are bluer. We would’ve chosen that, because, at least, it’s a more gradual descent into the sort of unpleasantness that now awaits us.
There was never any chance of this going away by the end of the year; the “12 to 18 months” thing was an ambitious take, already factoring in the corner-cutting and fast-tracking that would otherwise take years… but, six-plus months into it, those estimates are looking pretty good. The unfortunate part of this is that it’s not going to go away “suddenly”. It’s not like the virus will one day sign a surrender to the allies and we’ll all be dancing in the streets. But, after all this time, much has been learned about treatment. In the coming new year, eventually, we’ll all have immunity. There will be vaccines… probably numerous ones, all landing at the same time. A few will get the big OK from Health Canada and over time we’ll all have access to them, and, slowly… things will head back to normal.
The point of all that is a crucial one – and one we all need to keep in mind, especially since we haven’t managed to get rid of daylight savings time yet – that soon, it will be dark and cold and depressing, and this holiday season, already a stressful time for anyone that’s not a kid, will be worse than usual. It’s easy to say, “Hang in there”; it’s harder to actually hang in there, and the mental health toll of this pandemic is becoming evident. But the crucial point is this – as hard as it is to believe it sometimes – and that is… that there *is* a finish line… that there *is* a normal world on the other side of it… and we *will* eventually get there.
Dr. Henry has etched into us a slogan that we’ll never forget… but there’s more to “be kind, be calm and be safe” than just being polite to the stressed-but-socially-distanced crowd at the supermarket; it’s just as much an inward-facing mantra that you deserve to hear and you deserve to live: Be kind to yourself. Stay calm. Do what you can to remain safe. That is all very much the starting point to coming out of this is one peace, because it’s not just a matter of healthy lungs. A healthy brain is part of it too. And remember, the way you’re feeling – some days ok, some days abject despair… you’re not alone. Someone nearby, someone you know… is feeling the same way.
Don’t ever hesitate to reach out to them. They’ll be happy to hear from you, and happy to share with you the same things you’re feeling. These are the people with whom one day you’ll be sitting in a crowded restaurant, laughing and rolling your eyes, and every sentence will begin with, “Remember when…” or “Remember how…”
Hang in there. We’ll get there.
October 6, 2020
We’ll keep the Trump-bashing to a single paragraph today… just to point out that Donald Trump, once again putting himself ahead of anything that might mean something important to anyone else — because callously and recklessly putting at risk and/or infecting everyone around him isn’t enough — called off the stimulus package talks… really, for no other reason than to stick it to the Democrats and make them, and Nancy Pelosi, look like the bad guys. It was a move that caught even his fellow Republicans by surprise. So who’s affected? Millions upon millions of Americans whose lives have been devastated by C19 and who are seeking some economic relief out of the mess… from the president that led them into it.
I’d like to briefly compare that to what’s going on around here.
Last week, the House of Commons voted on bill C-4, to replace CERB with something more robust… to add more flexible and generous aspects to employment insurance. To add a new benefit for those who don’t qualify for EI. To add a sick-leave benefit and caregiver benefit for those who need to take time off work, due to C19.
The Liberals proposed it, and the Conservatives and NDP and Bloc all had issues with it. They all argued and postured and threatened and made lots of noise. And ultimately, having discussed it and re-aligned and addressed their concerns, voted on it… where it passed, with a unanimous vote of 306 to 0. Welcome to Canada.
As much as you may disagree with the Liberals and a lot of what they do, let’s at least recognize that we’re fortunate to have a functional government. There’s a long list of countries around the world that are not so lucky. One of them is next door… hopefully a situation that doesn’t last much longer… 28 days, or 106 days… depending how you look at it.
Local government financial help aside, it’s still up to us to do our part to end this nightmare sooner than later… and Quebec’s health minister is pleading with people to stay home, if they can… because things are approaching a frightening tipping point. Since Oct. 1st, Quebec has averaged more than 1,000 new cases per day… and has recorded 49 deaths. In fact, their deaths per million of population is 691, which is higher than the U.S’s 651. For comparison, Ontario is 203, Alberta is 65 and B.C. is 48.
It might be time for some official harsher measures; a gram of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure.
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February 1, 2021
Monday is data catch-up day, when we try to make some sense of where numbers are… and, on the surface… for the moment… not bad. The downward trend is evident everywhere… all across Canada. Here in BC, the first 10 days of the year averaged 539 new cases a day and an average of 364 people hospitalized. The next 20 days saw an average of 493 daily cases and 339 hospitalizations. The last 10 days have shown an average of 445 new cases… and 303 hospitalizations. Today’s numbers show 277 new cases and 289 people hospitalized across the province with C19 (79 in ICU).
If looking at numbers isn’t your thing, just look at the pictures. Great, right?
Sort of. Also, over the weekend… Canada surpassed 20,000 C19 deaths. Quebec alone is approaching 10,000. Nevertheless, the trends are going in the right direction. What could go wrong?
Three big things, with varying degrees of potential impact.
One is that I mentioned, perhaps a little short-sightedly, that the worst is over with respect to large family gatherings. Notwithstanding the ridiculously irresponsible penthouse parties popping up in Yaletown… upcoming, we have the SuperBowl. Then there’s Lunar New Year. After that there’s Family Day. All of that is supposed to look a little different this year, and for most people it will… but not everybody… so, there could be an effect… especially because of number two…
… which are these new C19 variants, which have everyone a little concerned. The concern isn’t that they’re any more deadly, because they’re likely not. As viruses evolve and mutate, their intention is to propagate faster, and killing the host too quickly isn’t part of the plan. Killing the host at all, by the way, isn’t necessarily part of the plan, from the virus’s point of view. It just wants to propagate. The fact it makes us sick is an unfortunate side-effect, one about which, I assure you, the virus couldn’t care less. Because, of course, it can’t care in the first place.
But, we can care, and we should… because, as we’ve learned, we’re never too far from a full-on outbreak, and a virus with a higher Rø the potential to cause exactly that. Many people are sick and tired of hearing Dr. Henry’s “Now is not the time to (party/travel/get … [Continue Reading]
January 31, 2021
Several years ago, I visited the U.S. for about 30 minutes with a process that’s called “Flag poling” – where you in essence cross the border, touch the American flagpole, and hop back into Canada. The reason was to take my nephew who had to re-enter Canada to validate his student visa… which requires entering through some specific port of entry. You can’t do it from within Canada.
The idea was to just drive down, do a U-turn, and come back and do the paperwork. It’s all on the Canadian side; the U.S. doesn’t care at all. Or, shouldn’t.
When we got to Peace Arch, there was a long lineup (this was a Saturday morning) – more than a 90-minute wait… backed up well-past the Duty Free on the right. Which got me to thinking… let’s just walk. Walk into the U.S. enough that we can turn around and walk back into Canada with a little piece of paper proving where we were.
We parked the car in the Duty Free parking lot and set off on foot. It’s not a long walk… and, it’s kinda cool. We did the “haha you’re in Canada and I’m in the States” nonsense and took some pictures. Then, we kept walking, and, as we approached the U.S. border control from the “wrong” side, there was border guard, with a big gun, standing with his back to us. He was staring to the south and couldn’t hear us coming, but the last thing I wanted to do was “surprise” this guy, so… while still walking towards him, when we were about 20 meters away, I coughed loudly. He spun around quickly, both hands on his automatic weapon… which, fortunately, he didn’t point right in our face.
“What are you doing!!”, he screamed at us. I explained.
“You’re doing it wrong!!”, he screamed. Yikes. Welcome to America. OK, noted for future reference… there’s a right way — and a wrong way — to walk into the U.S…
Our wrong way took us not just past the actual Peace Arch but, of course… if you’re there already, you walk through it.
The Peace Arch itself is exactly that, a monument to peace between these two great nations, celebrating the longest unprotected border in the world. Attached to the Peace Arch are some iron … [Continue Reading]
January 30, 2021
If, off the top of your head, you had to guess which three countries in the world had the most cases per 1M of population, you would think about it, come up with three countries, and be completely wrong. It wouldn’t make sense not to include places like U.S, India, Russia, Brazil, U.K, Spain, Italy… etc… on that list of guesses… but again, with exception of the U.S. (which lands in 8th place), none of the others even make the top 10. In fact, with only Spain at number 18, none of the others make the top 20.
The list of the top three countries with the highest case counts on a per-capita basis are: Andorra, Gibraltar and Montenegro.
Wait, you say, those places are barely populated and that skews the numbers. That is correct. Andorra, top of the list, scores 128,000 per million of population who’ve tested positive. Close to 13% of the population. That’d be like Canada having close to 5 million cases (we’re at less than a million). But, of course, Andorra only has a population of 77,000. Only 100 people there have died of C19. Gibraltar has a population of 34,000. Same idea… and, for what it’s worth, both of them share a border with Spain, where, no doubt, all of their cases came from.
So what, you may be asking….
If you look at Europe as a sort of big country, and each individual country as a province, then some issues relevant to Canada come to light.
Like, with respect to vaccinations, guess where in this country we have the highest per-capita vaccination rates. Now you know it’s a bit of a trick question, so perhaps it’s harder to fool you… so if your guesses included places like the three northern territories, you’re correct. By far.
Vaccination rates for a few key provinces…
B.C.: 2.5%
Ontario: 2.2%
Quebec: 2.8%
Vaccination rates for the territories:
Northwest: 21.0%
Nunavut: 13.5%
Yukon: 15.4%
Some say that’s fair. Some say they should be distributing it more evenly. Some say more should be directed to the hotspots. And everyone is a little perturbed with last week’s news… at the … [Continue Reading]
January 29, 2021
There’s an age-old question… would you rather fight a horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?
OK, it’s not an age-old question. It actually materialized in 2003, in a UK newspaper, but really rose to prominence in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” thread in 2012… where it was a question posed to president Barack Obama. Obama never got around to answering it, but the question wound up on “the crawl” on TV, and the rest is history. Here are my thoughts…
While a 1,000 pound duck would be formidable indeed, it’s one single enemy… and a coordinated, well-timed attack is all you’d need to neutralize it. On the flipside, I know horses… and I can tell you, dealing with a single angry horse is a handful; a potentially dangerous one… and 100 angry little horses would step on you, kick and bite you relentlessly, and not give up… so yeah, I’ll try my luck against the big duck.
Speaking of Reddit, and fights between one big thing vs. lots of little things… you’ve probably recently heard the words GameStop and AMC and short squeeze and hedge funds…
In a nutshell, here’s what’s going on:
The opposite of the well-known game-plan of buying a stock when you think it’s going to go up, holding it, and then selling it for a profit… is what’s called “shorting” the stock… and it’s what you do when you think a certain stock is over-priced. What you do is borrow the shares from “someone”, sell them… and then wait till the price goes down… and then buy it back at the lower price. Then you return the shares you borrowed and pocket the difference.
Huge (multi-billion-dollar) hedge funds like to short stocks here and there… for varying reasons. Given that their mandate is to hedge risk (it’s in the name…), part of that might be to take positions that go contrary to upward market movements… to hedge the risk in case the opposite happens. But also, using the same analytics and metrics they’d use to picks stocks they think will go up, they do it in the opposite direction.
Arguments can be made about the ethics behind shorting stocks to begin with; you’re basically betting and hoping that a company will do poorly. It goes against a lot of principles, like… well, … [Continue Reading]
January 28, 2021
There’s a lot of vaccine news these days… perhaps too much to accurately convey in a short space… but I’ll take a jab at it…
Like in the Seinfeld episode where they’re arguing about the rental car… it’s easy to book a reservation. Having it honoured is a whole different thing. At present, although Canada is at the top of the list with respect to reserving (“procuring”) vaccine, we’re 20th on the list for vaccinations per million, and that number is going to drop further… because every time there’s going to be a delay in deliveries, it seems like we’re part of it. We’ve “reserved” 10 doses per person, more than any other country… but we’re not getting the stuff. It’s clearly understood that there’s a world-wide demand, and everyone wants as much as they can get, as quickly as they can get it… but it’s not difficult to see what this would look like if the countries were personified into a crowded pub where everyone wants a drink, and is storming the bar, much to the concern of the two bartenders who are feeling totally overwhelmed.
Some countries would be pushing their way to the front, shoving others out of the way… “Hey, gimme two hundred million vodka sodas!” – while Canada would be standing near the back wall, timidly raising its hand… “Umm… excuse me… umm… sorry, could I get… oh, sorry, no, you go ahead… yes, of course… sorry.” So… we politely standby while everyone else gets served.
We’re told it’s just a little bump in the road… we’re told we’ll effectively get it all at the pace we were promised, just not at the rate we thought. Try to parse some sense into that… implying we’ll hit the finish line when we were promised, just not at the speed we need to get there.
Or… throw all that away, because there’s a report today that completely contradicts PM Trudeau’s promise that most of us will be vaccinated by September. The report claims it’ll be “well into 2022” before most Canadians get their shot… and that’s because countries like the U.S., the U.K. and all of the E.U. come first. Maybe you need a “U” in your name to get attention. Hey, Canaduh would like a drink.
It’s interesting … [Continue Reading]