Quebec

Day 85 – June 9, 2020

My old high school calls me once a year… to sit on a sort-of Dragon’s Den panel thing… where all the students in business classes come up with business ideas and business plans, and the top 5 projects get presented to a panel of Dragons, much like the TV show of the same name. They do their business pitch, and the panel decides on the winner. Fun, interesting… and encouraging. There are some very bright, and soon-to-be successful kids coming down the pipe.

The winning pitch a few years ago was an App — ringtones that only young people could hear. Those higher frequencies, above 17.5KHz… most of us can hear them when we’re young… but by the time you hit 40, the ability goes away. The older you get, the farther down that number drops… below 15KHz and downwards. The presentation and demonstration were great; a bunch of blindfolded kids all putting their arms up in unison when the ringtone was activated; the rest of us unable to hear a thing. But the thing has other uses too — I used to use it to annoy my kids or get their attention. For those who can hear it, it’s loud and annoying, a super-high-pitched squeal that drives young people crazy. And nobody else can hear a thing.

It reminds me… a technology that didn’t exist when I was a kid… and has now cycled through to obsolescence… CDs, which were designed so that nobody would miss hearing a thing… 44.1KHz means 22,500Hz per stereo channel, more than enough frequency range for any human, and even more than enough for dogs to be able to hear that final note in “A Day in the Life”.

It’s also interesting that the standardized length of an audio CD, around 74-80 minutes (650-700MB)… was decided-upon because someone insisted that a full recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony must be able to fit. Recordings of that Symphony range from 70 to 79 minutes, so it’s all good.

And what’s further interesting is that by the time Beethoven wrote that symphony, he’d already lost most of his hearing. It’s beyond comprehension… perhaps the greatest piece of music ever written… by someone who never actually heard it. There are many stories about the premiere of that piece, in 1824… where Beethoven himself insisted on conducting, the equivalent of a blind air-traffic controller armed only with binoculars and a megaphone. Nevertheless, it was Beethoven, so he was given the podium, and threw himself into the role with great relish. The musicians ignored him and kept their eyes on someone else, who quietly conducted from elsewhere. The result of that was… that by the time the piece was finished, Beethoven was still a few bars behind, caught up in the version playing through his head… and he was still conducting while the audience was giving him the first of five full enthusiastic, jubilant standing ovations. At some point, one of the musicians stood up and turned him around, so he could see and appreciate the well-deserved cheers and applause. He couldn’t hear it, but he could see it, including hats and handkerchiefs being thrown in the air, arms waving wildly around… the whole thing was a tremendous success.

Indeed, it’s possible to have great success, even when the conductor doesn’t know what’s going on. Even when all he’s listening to are voices in his head.

There are too many examples… heads of state… governors… Swedish head epidemiologists, etc… a long list of conductors that are out of sync with their respective orchestras… and this is where the metaphor breaks down, because there’s no other conductor off to the side. Because the music isn’t so great. While the varying orchestras may be marching to a different beat, at the end of the day, they sound like one voice. And what does that voice sound like? In many cases, it’s numbers… not notes. And not great numbers when you start looking around at places that haven’t managed things well, or that have started opening up before they should’ve. Yesterday saw surges or record highs in Oregon, California, Arkansas, Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, and Florida. Russia and India have seen surges. Also, Summer up here means Winter south of the equator. Brazil is a mess, and getting worse. Peru and Chile are seeing some pretty ugly numbers. Ugh.

Around here, some room for optimism… for Canada overall, over the last few weeks, a slow but steady decline in new cases. The Time To Double has gone from 53 days to around 130. Ontario’s TTD three weeks ago was around 39. Today it’s around 100. And both Quebec and B.C., over the last week, have averaged a TTD of around 175. All very far cries from the early days of this pandemic where TTDs of 3 were not uncommon.

Let’s just keep in mind… this symphony isn’t over. We may have reached the first pause, between the first and second movements. But let’s also remember the rules of classical music etiquette… you never applaud between movements. You wait until the whole thing is over before you stand up and give it the final applause of great success.

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By |2020-10-08T01:23:04-07:00June 9th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Business & Economics, Travel Stories, Humour, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |11 Comments
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Day 60 – May 15, 2020

“Collect as much data as you can for now.” — this is a mantra that is common in many different disciplines, especially the ones where you’re not sure what data matters. One day, you’ll have a chance to look back on it and figure out what matters, but for the most part, especially initially, the thing to do gather as much as you can, and eventually learn from it.

“Eventually” could mean decades from now. It could also mean tomorrow. In fact, it could even mean 15 minutes from now. On that note, as you’re reading this, somewhere, on the periphery of your focus, there are ads and sponsored posts and other slight differences that are being thrown at you; an experience that will differ slightly for someone else. Some of it is based on your history, but some of it is just data collecting… like, does it work better to use this ad or that ad? Does it work better in red or green? Does it work better positioned here or there? This data is all being crunched, often in real-time — to deliver to you the most pleasant experience possible. Haha, sorry, not quite — to deliver to you the most profitable experience for someone… is the better answer. Facebook is worth $500 billion, and their revenue stream has to come from somewhere, since 99.999% of the people who use Facebook have never given them a penny… so, rest assured, those who are paying want to make sure they’re getting their maximum bang for the buck.

And, of course, an awful lot of data is being collected about this virus, and there are disagreements about what’s important. As per above, it’s always a good idea to gather it all and then figure out later what matters and what doesn’t. Sophisticated modelling techniques do this all the time. For example, a neural network. That sounds a lot fancier or scarier than it really is. It’s not some sort of artificial brain which can think for itself, become sentient and launch an attack on humanity… rather, it’s just software for taking a ton of data, much of it possibly unrelated, and grinding through it in such a way that it “learns” what inputs are relevant to outcomes, and which are noise. A properly trained neural network can be very useful for predicting outcomes that a person may not as easily see, because it’ll have filtered out the irrelevant aspects and focused only on what makes a difference.

A simple example would be trying to train a neural network to predict the outcome of horse races. This is a project that as been on my “to-do” list for about 30 years, and perhaps if enough horse racing returns soon, and I’m still locked up at home, I’ll finally have a chance to work on it. And I will tell you exactly what I plan to do, and what I hope to find. The first thing is to take tens of thousands of historical races and format the data in a way that it can be fed into a neural net. Then, it will grind away on it, “learning”… and I would assume it’ll find a high correlation for specific horses with respect to things like fractional quarter-mile times, weight carried, relative class of opponents and track-surface-conditions. It’ll find a low correlation with things like the name of the horse, what time the race was run and what day of the week it was. That’s the beauty of the neural network; just throw all of the data at it, and let it figure out what matters. It might figure out correlations for specific horses… that even the most astute handicapper or sharpest bookie might miss.

I know a lot of people reading this are thinking whoa dude, that’s pretty cool. Yes, it is… it would be. I’ll keep you posted.

More relevant to all of us are our local numbers, and there are many to look at. We are on track (haha!!) for opening things up soon, and, at least around here, it makes sense. It’s been a while since I’ve talked about “Time To Double”, so let’s look at that a bit. The graphs below don’t do justice entirely to where we’re at, because TTDs when presented in this fashion becomes a “lagging” indicator. Things are better than what those graphs imply, if you’re looking at the TTD lines.

Recall, back in the day… like back in March, which seems like it was 20 years ago… we were looking at some scary TTD numbers. The new-cases numbers were increasing by about 25% day-over-day, a TTD of about 3. Scary exponential growth.

If we take some averages of the last 5 days of confirmed new cases… the TTDs and percentages look like this:

B.C.: 130 (0.53%)
Ontario: 43 (1.63%)
Quebec: 37 (1.89%)

Canada: 44 (1.62%)

These are obviously very-flattened curves, compared to where we were.

I am well aware of the people standing up screaming that those numbers aren’t real. Have a seat, and let’s discuss the obvious. Of course not. There are more, and have been more, cases than we’ve “known” about. We will in due course know how “off” we were… like is the real number 10x that? 100x? 1,000x? I’d love it, if it were 2,000x because that’d mean we’ve all been exposed to this, and if you believe that gives you immunity (and that seems to be the case with coronaviruses in general), we’d be in great shape. That number is way too big, but while I’m here, in an effort to make numbers and guesses and projections more accurate for all of us, I urge you all to visit the bccdc dot ca site and take the survey. You may even get a serological antibody test out of it.

Inaccuracy of those particular numbers aside, there are some concrete ones which are indisputable… hospitalizations, ICU cases, “pressure on the medical infrastructure” and excess deaths… to name a few of the most critical ones. These numbers vary wildly around the world, but they’re the best indicators, along with new cases, to indicate how close jurisdictions are to phasing-in re-openings. At least around here, those numbers look good… good enough that we’re marching ahead to the next phase.

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By |2020-10-08T01:24:24-07:00May 15th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Science of COVID-19, Travel Stories, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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Day 35 April 20, 2020

On the evening of March 23, 1989, Captain Joseph Hazelwood retired to his stateroom for the night, leaving his ship, the 987-foot, 240,000-ton Exxon Valdez, in the less-than-capable hands of his (unlicensed) 3rd mate. Shortly after midnight, the oil tanker fetched up on Bligh Reef, cracked open and, over 3 days, spilled almost 11 million gallons of crude oil into the pristine waters of Prince William Sound, contaminating more than 1,000 miles of coast line, 200 of it very badly… damage still evident today. Hundreds of thousands of animals — fish, birds, otters — lost their lives, in what must have been viewed from their eyes, their own hellish pandemic. A literal Black Death oozing towards them, like some Stephen King horror swamp creature brought to life.

Captain Hazelwood was crucified in the press and public opinion. Every bad story needs its villain, and he took the hit. Ultimately, the captain is responsible for his ship, period… but for things to go so wrong, there’s usually more to it… and there was, but that didn’t stop the finger pointing, and all of those fingers pointed to him.

More recently, like yesterday at around 4:30pm, The Spirit of Vancouver Island, a B.C. ferry, had a bit of a hard landing in Tsawwassen after its 90-minute journey from Victoria. The ship was slightly damaged, but no oil was spilled and no injuries were reported, and other than the hassle for some people having to wait up to 4 hours to disembark (and completely wrecking the day’s schedule for sailings), that was pretty much it.

I wasn’t on that ferry (and unless you had some urgent business, you shouldn’t have been either), but I can imagine what was going on after that happened. An announcement… “Sorry folks, as I’m sure you realize, blahblahlah, we’ll sort it out”. After that, for the people who were stuck on board, more “sorry” and free juice. At the time it happened, on the bridge, right after that veritable “Oh… shit” moment, someone saying “Sorry… so sorry, my bad”. As the last cars and trucks finally drove off, I’m sure there were more waves from the crew, and “sorry”. After the fact, B.C. Ferries put out at statement saying… yeah, you guessed it.

It is such a Canadian thing; we are known as the kings and queens of sorry, to the extent it may have lost its meaning. You might be standing in the street minding your own business, and some idiot buried in his phone will walk right into you, and you will find yourself saying, “Sorry!” You might be standing in some grocery aisle trying to decide which brand of maple syrup to purchase, and some fool will run his shopping cart into you, causing you to drop your maple-leaf-shaped bottle… but for some reason, you will say “Sorry!” Not too long go, I found myself saying sorry to a door that I’d just bumped. How very Canadian.

But Captain Joseph Hazelwood… he didn’t say sorry. I remember watching an interview when this happened more than 30 years ago, this guy getting grilled by the reporter, and the last question… “Are you sorry?”

You could see it in his eyes, his quivering lip… he desperately wanted to, but couldn’t. Like, of course he was sorry. That’s what he wanted to say… a long, heartfelt apology to the people of Alaska, to his family, to Exxon, to the planet… for screwing up, at least to the extent that he was responsible. But no, because no doubt… some lawyer, before the interview, told him… no matter what… no matter what, Joseph… do not say sorry.

The reason is pretty straightforward… the legal implications. Sorry means: “I know I messed up and therefore it’s my fault and therefore I’m responsible and therefore you may sue me.” This is in the United States, where most certainly, when you screw up and when you’re liable, you will get sued.

Around here, we actually have a law… we needed a law… to allow us to continue to be Canadian, and say sorry, and not incur any liability in doing so. It’s so Canadian, you’d think we’d cover it federally, but we don’t. Each province and territory (except Quebec and the Yukon) have their own version of an Apology Act, which basically lets you say “Sorry!” to anyone and everyone, and not incur the sort of blame that would stand up in court.

South of the border, though… not many apologies and lots of lawsuits. As things continue to go… south… in certain jurisdictions, the finger-pointing will get more aggressive. The blaming will get louder. The alternative-facts will become entrenched and indistinguishable from reality. And there will be lawsuits; many of them. As people die and businesses fail, someone is going to have to take the blame, and it’s always someone else. Cities will blame counties, counties will blame states, states will blame the federal government. But the leader of the executive branch of the federal government is not well known for apologizing or taking blame; indeed, he’s well known for lashing out at anyone who blames him for anything… so where will it lead?

I have no idea, culturally, what “sorry” implies in China. But I do know that a class-action lawsuit (based in the U.S., of course) involving 10,000 claimants from 40 different countries is seeking 6 trillion dollars in damages from China, because the virus is, you know, all their fault. Maybe if that goes through, we can all go after Spain next. With 100 years of interest on top of it.

Six trillion dollars.. I can’t even begin to describe how much money that is, but here’s a visualization. Take a stack of $100 bills… we can all visualize $1,000… just 10 bills. A thousand of those stacks is a million dollars. That stack would be about a metre tall. So a billion dollars would be a stack 1,000 times bigger… a kilometre. And by the way, that’s a pretty good “wow” of just how much bigger a billion is than a million. But a trillion? That’s a stack of bills 1,000km high. That gets you to the International Space Station and back again to the ground and then another 200km back up. Oh, and it’s 6 trillion… a 6,000km stack of $100 bills.

Apologizing went out of style with President Trump, and lawsuits have always been in style… and nobody wants to be the one holding the bag at the end of colossal losses being incurred by a situation that, ironically, perhaps has no nexus of blame. Which means lawsuits, for decades. And no apologies.

For what it’s worth, 20 years later, in 2009 (after all the legal entanglements had been unravelled, and whatever relevant statutes of limitations had expired), Captain Hazelwood did indeed offer a heartfelt apology.

OK, while I’m here… an update on numbers… B.C. is really looking good, on track for some of the mid-May relaxations we’ve been told about if these trends and numbers hold. Let’s wait till 2 weeks after the long weekend to make that judgement. So far, so good… keep at it… that finish line, in whatever form it initially takes… is getting closer.

Finally… like I’ve said before, when I sit down to write this… the intention is to talk about some relevant aspect of the pandemic, but sometimes I’m not really sure where it’s going to wind up. Sometimes it’s current and sometimes it’s thought-provoking and sometimes it’s relevant and sometimes it’s… well, what can I say if it’s none of the above… if you read all that and now wish you had those few minutes of your life back………. sorry!

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By |2020-10-08T01:24:52-07:00April 20th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Politics, Business & Economics, Life in Vancouver, Sports & Gaming, Space & Astronomy, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |21 Comments
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Day 31 – April 16, 2020

The B.C. number was published minutes after I posted this at 5pm, so I’ve just updated it… and it’s a good one, only 14 new cases. Great to see after yesterday’s spike… and although one day doesn’t make or break anything, that’s the direction we love to see.

Ontario’s growth continues to remain consistent, around 6% — which is a TTD of 12 days. Quebec is probably in a similar range, maybe less (ie better) — but is more volatile. They had a bit of a jump in today’s new cases, but that could be for many reasons. I’ll have a lot more to say about B.C. tomorrow after the modelling presentation… which you should watch, if you can… at 11am.

A couple of shoutouts while I’m here — to the staff and residents at the South Granville Park Lodge… my grandfather, who passed away many years ago… lived his last few years at that residence, and it was a peaceful and happy time, after a 94-year life full of extreme highs and lows. The staff was exemplary, and they unfortunately now find themselves a cluster of COVID-19 cases. I wish them all well.

And… a family friend in Montreal — who I’ve known my entire life… in fact, our families go back close to 80 years of knowing each other… 4 generations now… had been struggling in the ICU with COVID-19, on a ventilator for two weeks with a high fever that would come and go but never go away… well, as of this morning, I’m incredibly happy to report… no more fever and no more ventilator. He’s going to be ok, after a hellish 2-week nightmare. He is my age, my demographic, and at least as healthy as me. That struck very close to home… this thing is serious and this thing can hit anyone. But in this particular case, I probably can’t find the right words to express my relief. Whatever else, it’s been a great day.

And to radically shift gears, the rest of this post will serve as a bit of a public service announcement… these days, scammers, who may also be locked up in isolation, also need to make a living and are trying all sorts of new things, one of which is scary enough that a few people have reached out to me to ask if it’s for real.

You may have received an email where the subject line contains your password… and when I say your password, I mean some password you used somewhere, at some point in the past. And if it happens to be your current online banking password, that can indeed be really scary. I really hope that it’s not a password you use everywhere, because while things aren’t as scary as you think, you do have a bit of a hassle on your hands. But let’s break this down into little bits, and solve each piece of it.

  • how did they get my password and/or name and/or email address?
    – what else do they have?
    – how real is the threat?
    – what do I do?
    – what do I not do?First thing, relax. No matter how bad you think it is, it’s not.

    The email has your actual password, which is certainly enough to get your attention… and it then goes on to say that they’ve seized control of your computer and camera, have a complete log of you sitting in front of your computer doing whatever you do there, and a list of all the sites you’ve visited and all of your contacts. And unless you send them some amount of Bitcoin, they will send that video and list of websites to all of your contacts.

    Rest assured, nobody has taken control of your computer or your camera or your contacts or anything else. There is no video. It’s all complete bullshit. The scary aspect of your password sitting on the subject line means that somewhere, some site where you used that password got compromised… and if you use that password anywhere else, you really should change it… though I will point out that if it’s your “junk” password, it barely matters. I can assure you, some Bulgarian hacker has no interest in fiddling with your subscription preferences to “Turnip Harvester Weekly”. That being said, it’s always suggested you have unique passwords for everything, specifically for this reason — if some database gets hacked (which unfortunately happens more often than it should), that’s the only site and password-reset you have to worry about.

    Huge lists (with millions of names) exist for purchase on the DarkWeb where your name, email address and that associated hacked password are available. These lists sell for cheap, and anyone with some time and a bit of knowledge on how to merge a database with an email template can put together an email like the one you got, and send it to a million people. It is like casting a million little fishing lines into the ocean, and seeing what bites. Usually the email address it came from isn’t even valid, and the email will say — don’t bother trying to contact me. Or reply for proof that I have your contact lists. On that note, if it is valid, do not reply… because that might actually get you onto a list of “live ones”, which only means you’ll now be getting 10x the number of those scam emails in the future. And if you replied and if they did have a list of your contacts, again… relax… it didn’t come from your computer. At the end of all that, the scammer wants you to send some Bitcoin, and if you do, he’ll delete the video and leave you alone forever.

    So… they got your password from a hacked site. If you use that password anywhere important, go change it now. If they sent you a list of contacts to prove they know who you know… they probably got it from Facebook, which has an option that lets people find you via your email address. This is a security hole that everyone should adjust, because if they can find you on Facebook with your email address, and you have your friends list open to the world… then that’s how they know all these people you know. Fix that now… go to Facebook, under Settings, under Privacy… there is a section called “How People Find and Contact You” — settings for who can find you via your email and who can see your friends list and who can look you up via phone number. None of those should be set to “Everyone”. At worst, “Friends of Friends”. Just “Friends” is better. “Only me” might be best. That’s up to you, but lock it up so that random strangers can’t find you or your friends.

    The scammer wants you to send Bitcoin because it’s anonymous. Incidentally, if you need any further proof that this is all nonsense, consider that he’s sending the same Bitcoin wallet address to everyone. If you send him money, he actually has no way of knowing the money came from you. He’s hoping some of those one million little fishing lines will bite, and the Bitcoin wallet will just magically fill up from victims around the world.

    It’s always occurred to me that anyone who’s intelligent enough to be able to figure out how to purchase Bitcoin and then send it — probably wouldn’t fall for this in the first place. But that password thing is a little scary… so maybe it got you thinking in that direction. No worries.

    Summary of action items:
    – if you use that password anywhere, change it
    – review your Facebook settings as per above and adjust as needed
    – google your email address and see if that pops up any information you wouldn’t want out there
    – delete the email

… and stop worrying.

 

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By |2020-10-08T01:41:04-07:00April 16th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Follower Favourites, Life in Vancouver, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , |25 Comments
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Day 30 – April 15, 2020

The textbook definition of the word “optics” has to to do with light, and its interaction with the physical world. The most familiar adaptations we’re familiar with have to do with light interacting with our own eyes… optician, optometrist, ophthalmologist.

If you’re a professional photographer, this extends to different lenses and fields of vision and lighting and focal lengths and so on.

When it comes to business or politics, “the optics” refers to how it looks… to the general public. “What are the optics?” is the buzzword-question asked of advisors and consultants and marketers and branding experts and spokespeople and press secretaries — by the people behind the scenes who’ll care about the answer. How will the public take it?

Over this last long weekend, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decided to join his family, who’ve been living in the Harrington Lake cottage for the last few weeks, for Easter. The cottage is in Gatineau Park, which is in Quebec.

That visit violated the social distancing orders that the federal government and every provincial government has imposed on its residents — the same ones Trudeau himself repeats every time he’s at the podium. That visit also violated the order with respect to crossing the provincial border which at the moment is supposed to be open only to essential travel.

And just to shove it a bit more in all of our collective faces — us, most of whom who stayed home all weekend, many of us who have cabins and cottages and places to where we’d love to have gone to get away from it all… and if not, especially in this beautiful weather, just pack up the SUV and go camping somewhere — he posted a selfie of himself and his family.

The picture shows a beautiful, smiling family of five, clear blue skies with a few light, scattered clouds in the background. Everyone dressed appropriately for the crisp, fresh air. A few wispy trees. The lake itself in the distant background. From a photographical optics point-of-view, excellent. From a political optics point-of-view, awful. Just awful.

Forced to explain himself, the PM gave a somewhat meandering and deflective comment. Within his statement was the sentence, “We continue to follow all the instructions of the authorities.” You’re supposed to be the top of that authority, Mr. PM.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, not to be outdone, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer stepped onto a government jet in Regina with his entire family, completely destroying any semblance of social distancing a 9-seater plane may have been able to offer its present two occupants. Why would his family, who one would think should be isolating at home in Regina, need to be heading to Ottawa. In a normal world, that last sentence would have a question mark after it, but these rhetorical questions don’t need them because the answers are self-evident.

We seem to have been dealt a fortunate hand here in B.C. — our provincial leaders convey a calm, consistent message with logic and transparency. They walk the walk, not just talk it. The plan is collective; you hear the word “we” a lot, and that “we” includes them. One wonders what that might look like at a national level. Like, how would it look if there were an entire country being guided by the calm, clear plan and intelligent reassurance we hear almost daily from Dr. Henry? What would it look like if B.C. were its own country and had control of its borders and could independently navigate this entire ordeal?

That particular rhetorical question actually has an answer: New Zealand… which coincidentally has a very similar population of around 5 million people. But the similarities don’t end there.

Their Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has a lot in common with our own Dr. Henry. She stands up in front of her people, she speaks calmly and intelligently and pulls no punches when expressing the seriousness of the situation… but at the same time, is reassuring and inclusive and transparent. She is very much one of them, and she knows how to talk to them, and they listen.

On March 14th, when there were only 8 confirmed cases in the entire country of New Zealand (B.C. was at 73, Canada at 252), PM Ardern clamped down hard and implemented all sorts of measures that have now become familiar to all of us; 14-day isolation upon returning from out of the country, canceling cruise ships, cancelling big events and festivals. She went on TV and said a lot of things, many of which will sound familiar… “We will get through this together”. “Be strong”. “Be kind”.

Eight cases might sound early, but the results have been better than anywhere else on the planet. She saw what was happening around the world, she realized that time was of the essence and that even the slightest variation of the initial conditions (see yesterday’s post) can make a big difference. If she erred, it was to the side of caution, which these days might be the only right way to be wrong.

One of the sound bites of that TV address was her plea: “We must go hard and we must go early”. It has been said that this is the same sort of rallying cry that the coach of the New Zealand All Blacks might give his players before a game. My personal experience playing a rugby team from NZ would agree. They proceeded to go hard and go early and destroy us. Great bunch — this was in high school, so there were no after-match drinks, just handshakes, but I would’ve enjoyed a pint with those guys. Their game was disciplined, cohesive and well-executed. It was all business, from start to finish.… much like New Zealand’s response has been so far. And that’s why they’re winning; they can all relate, and there is tremendous trust in their leadership and the plan. It looks and sounds good, and it’s working. Good Optics.

Justin… Andrew… come on guys, you can do better, and the country deserves better. We need better. You’re both “one of us” too. Lead by example. Don’t just tell us what to do; do it yourself as well. Lead by example, because mixed signals and a “the rules don’t apply to us” attitude — Bad Optics.

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By |2020-10-08T01:24:55-07:00April 15th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Politics, Business & Economics, Life in Vancouver, Travel Stories, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |13 Comments
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Day 27 – April 12, 2020

Today is the day we don’t get numbers in B.C. — Dr. Henry and Mr. Dix are taking a well-deserved break, so accurate numbers will have to wait till tomorrow. For now, as usual, I’ve plugged in my B.C. guess for the day — I’ll fix it tomorrow. But assuming a good day locally, it’d make it a good day nationally. Growth rate was down in Ontario for a 4th straight day, and 3 straight days in Quebec.

But while they’re resting, and the numbers people are resting… as many of you are as well… let’s look at things from a much bigger-picture point of view. Like, these days, the earth is also resting.

If you were to believe that the earth is in some way alive and/or conscious, you’d be making the interesting parallel these days that, as a living being, Gaia finally got sick and tired of the virus infesting Her and decided to vaccinate Herself. For the most part, the young people who had nothing to do with wrecking the place would be spared… but the older you are, the more responsible you are for the disregard and destruction and pollution and reckless abandon that have finally made Mother Earth say “Enough”.

Gaia doesn’t have to wipe us all out to heal Herself. She just needs to give us a bit of a wake-up-call, and not much of one as it turns out.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s interesting to note just how irrelevant humanity is to this planet. In a matter of mere weeks, there are changes occurring. The sky is more blue. The water is cleaner. The air is undoubtedly less polluted. People in Punjab can see the Himalayas. People in L.A. can see the Hollywood sign. If there was ever a sign that a little change can make a big difference, there you go. And for all of us thinking we’re wrecking the planet, we are… without a doubt. But if you think this planet can’t fix itself once humanity is gone, that’d be wrong. It can and it will, very easily. Our time on this earth is so irrelevant in Her own grand scheme of things, that… well, let’s explore it. Let’s start by talking about big numbers.

Let’s say you walk out of the bank with $1,000 in cash. It’s a collection of different bills… you’re not sure exactly how many hundreds or fifties or twenties, but it adds up. The teller counted it out in front of you. There’s a Starbucks next to the bank, so you pop in there and get that Pumpkin Spice Latte you’ve been craving. Yes, certainly by October, you’ll be doing this.

The PSL costs… whatever, you’re not paying attention. You give the barista a ten dollar bill and get back a handful of change… some Toonies and Loonies and whatever else, which you jam into your pocket. If someone at that point had asked you how much money you have on you, your answer would be “Around $1,000”. On your way out of Starbucks, there’s a homeless guy there. You fish into your pocket and give him a Toonie. How much do you have on you now? “Around $1,000” is still accurate.

You walk a block and there’s a shiny Loonie sitting on the sidewalk. Quick Karma repayment! You pick it up and put it in your pocket. How much do you have now? Yes, around $1,000… and if you hadn’t picked up that Loonie, the answer would still be the same… around $1,000. That Loonie is little more than a round-off error in your present grand scheme of things of how much you have on you. And that $1,000 is similarly related to a million dollars. If you have around a million dollars, adding or subtracting a thousand doesn’t change anything. It’s still around a million dollars.

I mention all that to create some context and scale between a number we’re all familiar with… a thousand is relatable in many ways. A million less so… we know it’s a lot bigger, but sometimes we don’t realize just how much bigger. And to keep going, when we hear about a billion, we maybe don’t quite realize how big that is. A million is pretty irrelevant when you’re taking about a billion. A million seconds is less than 12 days. A billion seconds is close to 32 years. Indeed, 3 million heartbeats is a few days. 3 billion is your entire life.

Let’s pretend we map out the age of the earth (4.5 billion years) as a long road — the Trans-Canada highway. And let’s walk it. We’ll start at Mile 0 in Victoria — a charming little park at the foot of Douglas St. There are some stairs down to the beach… those would’ve been Terry Fox’s last steps before dipping his artificial leg into the Pacific Ocean, had he completed his Marathon of Hope. Today is the 40th anniversary of the start of his heroic effort, so we’ll begin our walk down there, one foot in the water on our long journey to St. John’s. Each step to the east is one step back in time.

At this scale, each step is 5,800 years. One step out of the water and that’s pretty much all of recorded human history. In fact, by the time you hit the monument at the top of the stairs, that’s about 600,000 years. Humans haven’t been around that long. And we’re still really at Mile 0. The era of humanity is barely a rounding error, as far as the age of the earth is concerned.

Keep walking east, going back in time as you do… dinosaurs died out somewhere near Abbotsford… and only appeared somewhere near Kamloops. Mammals appeared somewhere around Cache Creek. And right around Golden, before you even set foot in Alberta, now we’re at 540 million years ago… that was the emergence of anything more complicated than single-celled life forms. And beyond that, there is a lot more time and distance. It’s all single-celled organisms until somewhere in central Quebec, and then, there ceases to be any life at all. Quite a journey. Canada is a big place. 4.5 billion years is a long time.

The point of all this… as much of a blip in the radar as humanity might be, and as much as the thought of Gaia being this living/breathing thing that Herself is sick… we fight off sickness by being healthier; by allowing our bodies to heal. By giving them the opportunity to do so. A vaccine doesn’t cure you; it allows your body to cure itself. A ventilator allows you to breathe, and it’s the processes beneath that, carrying oxygen-rich blood to your cells… which heal you. Anything that stirs your immune system into action, whether physical or just mental (placebos work for good reason).

So while the earth has temporarily kicked us all into a state of self-reflection and healing, we can see that it doesn’t take much to heal the bigger picture… and it also gives us an opportunity to find some sliver linings to this big cloud, because there are many. I’m as anxious to get back to the real world as you are, but already I can see some changes I’ll make going forward, and I’m sure many of you have as well. We’ve all been learning a lot about ourselves and our habits and what’s important and what isn’t.

I leave you with this… written by Kitty O’Meara, which will read like a prayer for those who are religious, and a like a poem for those who are not. Either way, beautiful words that make you think as you stare out at the sky on this beautiful day… whether out the window or from your balcony or porch or back yard… and yeah, the sky does look more blue, doesn’t it?

And the people stayed home.
And read books, and listened, and rested,
and exercised, and made art, and played games,
and learned new ways of being, and were still.
And listened more deeply.
Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows.
And the people began to think differently.
And the people healed.
And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

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By |2020-10-08T01:24:56-07:00April 12th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Business & Economics, Science of COVID-19, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |21 Comments
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Day 24 – April 9, 2020

Oh, Canada… our home and native land is a lot more relevant to the majority of people reading this, so I’ve made some changes. You will notice that the original graph that started this little daily update is gone. It’s served its purpose, which originally was to map an apples-to-apples comparison of Italy, the U.S. and Canada — with South Korea thrown in for reference — if you were to superimpose their trajectories from a comparable starting point. When that started, Italy was 10 days ahead of the U.S. and the U.S. was 10 days ahead of Canada. On the graph, all of those lines were on top of each other, and it was going to be interesting to watch what happens as time goes on.

To summarize what has happened since… and you can look at yesterday’s final version of that graph to see what I mean (or go back even further and see when things really started to diverge)… The U.S. was actually doing better than Italy for a while, until all hell broke loose… then they burst through that green line and have never looked back. Italy, while still in the midst of their crisis, has definitely seen its curve flattening. Canada, for a while worryingly tracking the U.S., “fell off the bottom” of that blue curve and has comparatively been doing a lot better. The B.C. line, on this scale, is indistinguishable from the X-axis. Indeed, it’s the scale of this graph (linear Y-axis) that has rendered it useless. The unfortunate blue-line numbers will just keep squashing the other lines down, so we retire this graph with full honours, though I will still track the data and update the TTD logarithmic graph of Canada vs. The World.

But there are two new graphs… one, on the bottom left, is exactly what I described above, but just for Canada… with B.C., Ontario and Quebec. You will notice with some degree of curiosity that the Quebec line is above the Canada line… how can that be? Isn’t Quebec still part of Canada? Let’s not have that particular discussion, right here, right now. Yes, of course they are, so what’s the deal?

Nos amis from la belle province, with their usual panache, were simply late to the party. Given that this graph aims to compare apples to apples, its starting point is the same for everyone. Quebec recorded its 100th case March 18th or 19th. On that day, both B.C.and Ontario were around 250 each. Canada’s total was around 800.

Forgetting when it happened, but rather how it happened, Quebec’s numbers were not great for a while; they quickly accelerated at a frightening rate. They went from 100 to 1,000 cases in 5 days… a pace that exceeds Canada’s overall trajectory. The good news for our frères and sœurs is that things have recently looked a lot better. In fact, while numbers keep growing, they are growing more slowly. The “Cases Increase” percentage columns all tell that same story. Social/physical distancing… you know.

Where are the Prairies, the Maritimes, the Territories in all of this…? Listen, you don’t want to be on my charts… I aim to chart the big, significant numbers. Hope you never get so relevant that you need your own data column and squiggly line… anyway, there are only so many colours.

Special shoutout to Nunavut… with respect to this pandemic, they are having none of it. Ha Ha!! (Sorry). But indeed, they’re the only province or territory with zero cases. How it that possible? It’s very simple… the population density of our northern compatriots is 0.02 people per square km. In other words, everyone up there gets their own 50 sq. kms. In other words, go up there and draw a square that’s 7km per side. It’s all yours. It’s also really cold. All of that combined equals automatically-imposed social/physical distancing. And check it out… zero infections. Case closed.

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By |2020-10-08T01:26:04-07:00April 9th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Travel Stories, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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Day 15 – March 31, 2020

You know that feeling you used to get back in school, when the teacher was handing back tests? The anticipation/dread… moments away from finding out how you did. Maybe you should’ve studied a bit more. Maybe you knew the material, but dammit… you froze, and blew it. Maybe you did ok, but almost certainly you made some stupid mistake.

That 5-second rush of emotion as she calls your name or just drops the marked test onto your desk… just before you flip it over to reveal your grade… that’s the feeling I get every single day when Dr. Bonnie Henry steps up to the mic to begin her update.

I find myself rooting for what I know would be good numbers. I know my charts and I know the math. I know exactly what number indicates the tipping point between this being a green day or a red day… and I find myself thinking the same thing I’d be cheering if I’d just bet zero on a roulette wheel… come on green. Come on.

Today was most certainly a green day, but, as usual, we’re still in this grey zone. Dr. Henry, intelligently, never leans past cautious optimism, and keeps talking about how “we’re two to fours weeks away from knowing”. and “this is a critical juncture”.

There are two parts to that.

Keeping in mind that we’ve been locked-down longer than a week, and that the incubation period is at most 14 days, we’re less than a week away from knowing what that particular impact has looked like. All indications with respect to that are optimistic. There’s no doubt our numbers in this province are trending favourably. For now.

BUT… there are people who will have gotten sick after that cut-off. And the people they’ve infected. And people who’ve arrived since the cut-off, and the people they’ve infected. And the people who are simply not following physical-distancing guidelines, etc. It takes a while for all of that to work its way through.

Along with that comes a serious reality check which is now being brought to light… that if this whole lock-down thing is the right way to do things (and it certainly is), we need to be prepared to do it for quite a while. At least in B.C., there’s zero chance of any of these standing orders being modified before the end of April, but it’s likely to be a lot longer.

Looking at the rest of Canada… there are some possibly-concerning numbers coming out of Quebec, but what’s interesting is that overall, the country’s numbers are doing reasonably well. I’m not close enough to what’s going on in Ontario and Quebec to say anything intelligent about it, other than to point out that Ontario has twice as many cases as B.C.. and Quebec has twice as many as that. Those combined ON/QC numbers are going to strongly influence the national numbers. Kind of like a federal election. Out east, they’re on their own “lock-down period vs. incubation period” countdown, so let’s wait till they’re clear of that before we start making assumptions. There’s green in that column too.

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By |2020-10-08T01:26:08-07:00March 31st, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Politics, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments
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Day 13 – March 29, 2020

Today’s update will be brief… because B.C. doesn’t update numbers on Sunday, so anything I post is incomplete and/or speculative. Just for fun, I’ll do just that… we do have numbers for Ontario and Quebec (as well as a few, much smaller numbers from other provinces), so I am going to make an educated guess about how many new cases B.C. had today, fill it in with all sorts of warnings that this is pure speculation based on math, and we will retrofit and adjust things tomorrow when the official numbers are announced.

Given recent trends, I’m going to assume 105 new cases today, bringing B.C.’s total to 989, and adjusting that to the national total, 6,385 total cases in Canada. Which, might I add, if accurate, would make it a pretty good day all around. But I won’t comment on any of it until we have some real numbers; more on that below.

But while I’m here, let’s talk about recent numbers and recent trends. Not counting today’s guesswork.

The “how often is it doubling” question is being thrown around a lot, in many different contexts. Let’s call it Time To Double (ttd). Since I am dealing primarily with new cases, I will focus on that.

The higher the exponential growth, the quicker the ttd. I’ve included a little chart below the graphs that shows the ttd with relation to the percentage growth. The cells highlighted in yellow show the crossover point where the number has doubled. In this example, how long does it take to double a 10 to a 20?

For 10%, it doubles somewhere between the 8th and 9th day.
For 25%, somewhere between the 4th and 5th day.
For 40%, it’s somewhere between day 2 and day 3.

[I've edited this post and removed some numbers — I'm not comfortable making projections based on guesses. Real numbers come out on Monday and I will provide more (accurate) detail.]

As I keep saying, we’re in the middle of this grey zone where the social isolation number hasn’t caught up to the incubation period number. Provincially and nationally. Every day we don’t see a huge spike is one day closer the bottom of the big rollercoaster drop I mentioned yesterday. But without real numbers, I think we’ll leave it at that for now… suffice it so say, we’re at a critical point here in Canada. It could go either way. Stay tuned. And stay home. I’ll have more to say about ttd and its implications in the coming days.

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By |2020-10-08T01:26:08-07:00March 29th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Day 8 – March 24, 2020

As is often the case with us here in BC, the Wild West of Canada, we’re not always in sync with the rest of the country… and since the majority of people reading this are in BC, I’ve added a whole new set of data and graph… which is us… British Columbia.

I haven’t been following closely other province’s responses. Nationally, yes. BC, yes. But I’m not sure when Ontario or Quebec locked things down, nor the manner in which they did it. The reason that’s relevant is that while we’re seeing some not-so-great numbers out of Quebec today, the last few days here in BC paint a better picture.

We’re still over a week away from seeing the direct impact of the social-distancing order, and numbers will indeed increase between now and then… but the manner in which they increase is important, and for the moment, at least around here, it looks pretty good. The growth is linear, not exponential. At least for now. It’s evident in the BC graph, and it’s very evident when compared to the rest of Canada, which overall continues to pretty accurately track where the US was 10 days ago.

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By |2020-10-08T01:26:39-07:00March 24th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days|Tags: , , , , , , |12 Comments
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