2020
Coronavirus: The Mask Wars – Science Vs
Scientific studies suggest no conclusive evidence that cloth masks help slow the spread of coronavirus. N95 masks are definitely helpful, but we’re not sure whether the same is true for surgical masks, or homemade cloth masks, or bandanas.
I’m going to keep wearing a mask anyway, when I go out in public, because the difficulty is low and potential payoff is high. Also, social signaling matters.
“Shoe-leather” contact tracing works – Cory Doctorow
The only effective way to do contact tracing is by paying an army of people to do it – the “shoe leather” approach. Contact-tracing apps are at best helpful in automating record-keeping.
It appears that the countries that have done best at containing coronavirus are those where the people trust their government, and that government is worthy of trust. These are two conditions that do not exist on a national level in the US.
I do trust our local, county and state governments in matters like this. Although I may not agree with them, they seem to me to be competent people who are acting in good faith to serve their constituents. The same is not true on a federal level, and has not been for a long time, predating Trump.
HP Lovecraft warned readers to stay away from pulp magazines – Cory Doctorow.
Readers should turn to the Bible and Lord Dunsany instead, said Lovecraft in a 1920 letter to the editor of the Omaha Bee.
I interviewed the science fiction writer Robert Charles Wilson, who said he read a letter or essay from some 19th Century person who was denouncing the “boys books” of the time, with their preposterous, ridiculous stories of little boys who run away from home to become sea captains. T
These sorts of books (said the 19th Century literary person) were awful stuff, to be avoided.
Wilson said they sounded awesome to him, and he sought out and read a few, and that became his own excellent novel, “Julian Comstock: A Story of the 22nd Century.”
Department of Justice Reopens Spat With Apple Over iPhone Encryption
Daring Fireball:
Saying you want technology companies to make a backdoor that only “good guys” can use is like saying you want guns that only “good guys” can fire. It’s not possible, and no credible cryptographer would say that it is. You might as well say that you want Apple to come up with a way for 1 + 1 to equal 3….
The DOJ is not asking for Apple’s cooperation unlocking existing iPhones — they’re asking Apple to make future iPhones insecure.
On Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic
++ This is the first pandemic ever experienced by a society that understands how pandemics work, and other insights from Renaissance historian and science fiction writer Ada Palmer.
++ You can raise a person’s IQ 25% by getting that person out of poverty, as that person no longer has to devote attention to jugging bills all day, Palmer says.
++ Gig economy companies are massive Ponzi schemes. A restaurateur fights back by arbitraging pizza.
++ England’s storks have returned for the first time since 1416.
++ The case for universal broadband.
++ “Platform coops” are gig economy services where the workers own the platform.
If Not 10,000, How Many Steps Should We Be Walking Each Day?
The 10,000-step rule is completely arbitrary, writes journalist Tanner Garrity at InsideHook. There is zero science behind it. The figure was plucked from the air by a Japanese electronics company trying to sell a new pedometer in the 1960s.
In the mid-1960s, a a Japanese watch company called Yamasa Clock debuted the figure that has been associated with daily step-counts, activity meters and modern wearables like Fitbit and Apple Watch ever since. The young brand’s marketing team named their pedometer Manpo-kei, which translates to “10,000 steps meter.” Something about the number sounded right: it was large enough to feel like a goal, but small enough to feel like an achievable one for the average adult. But Yamasa’s motive was even less scientific than that. The Japanese character for 10,000 somewhat a resembles a gentleman out for a brisk stroll: 万.
5,000-8,000 steps a day seems to be a more scientifically justified goal.
Even knowing all this, I try to do 10,000 steps a day because why not. Often I do not hit that goal. My hard goal is 7,500 steps a day. I’ve done at least that every day since we got back from Africa 11 months ago.
Says Garrity:
Most of all, remember to enjoy the steps you do take. Last week, The New York Times asked New Yorkers to share “the things they achingly miss” during quarantine. I long for my daily constitutional from InsideHook’s office in Midtown to the lower reaches of Central Park. The Heckscher Ballfields are down there and I like to stop and watch the midday games, which are inexplicably comprised of coeds in their mid-20s and guys who look like they taught at NYU in the ’90s. It was going to be my job this spring to find out how they all know each other. I miss scrambling over the schist, knowing the bench that gets the most sun, dodging selfies. It’s admirable to try to improve your physical conditioning each day with thousands of steps — just remember to leave a few hundred or so for the soul.
What We Might Learn From The 1918 Flu Pandemic – Fresh Air – In broad outlines, public reaction to the the 1918 flu pandemic and covid epidemic follow the same course, says historian John Barry – “the outbreak was trivialized for a long time.”
Also, Woodrow Wilson was almost certainly sick with the 1918 flu during the Geneva peace talks. He wanted to argue against punitive settlement with Germany, but was too sick to do so. So, while it’s a stretch to say the 1918 pandemic led to the Nazis, it’s not a HUGE stretch.
Knockoffs – 99% Invisible – Dapper Dan went from street hustler to fashion impresario and has spent time on both sides of American trademark law. In the world of fashion trademarks and knockoff merchandise, it’s hard to tell the legitimate merchants from the outlaws. They’re often the same guys.
Inside Trump’s coronavirus meltdown
Edward Luce delivers a fast but deep read on the Financial Times, about how Trump and his henchmen have bungled pandemic response, unnecessarily killing tens of thousands of Americans — so far! — and destroying America’s world leadership.
“America is first in the world in deaths, first in the world in infections and we stand out as an emblem of global incompetence. The damage to America’s influence and reputation will be very hard to undo.”
A pandemic is no walk in the park, except yesterday that's exactly what it was
Yesterday, Lake Murray was open for the first or second day since the social distancing order became law in California (which was March 20, by the way, so that’s nearly two months now). I went there on my daily walk.
Too many people! Social distancing was difficult, too easy to slip inside the six-foot distance. Only about half of the people were wearing masks. Maybe less than half. You could walk in and out freely but they had park workers set up on the entrance road to keep the parking lot from filling up. According to what I read, they were allowing only 50% capacity in the parking lot, to keep the park from getting crowded.
The photo here doesn’t look crowded but it was tricky trying to maintain a brisk walking pace AND social distancing. Pedestrian traffic on that trail is tricky even under normal conditions because you’re basically trying to manage four or five groups of people, all moving at different velocities: You’ve got people out strolling, often with small children in strollers, who are moving very slowly and not paying attention to their surroundings; there are brisk walkers like me; there are runners; there are adults riding bicycles and other wheeled human-powered transportation; and there are also preteens on bicycles, who rocket along at a million miles an hour not paying attention to their surroundings and occasionally colliding with other objects and people.
I was feeling nervous when I got home, and did not get close to Julie until I’d showered and changed my clothes. I plan to not go back to the park, to resume my daily routine of walking there, for a while, until it feels safer.
In other pandemic news: We got a shipment of paper towels yesterday. We are also stocked up on toilet paper. We are ready to face the apocalypse with clean countertops and butts. 📓
Montgomery Ward, 1960 via
Fred Willard doing opening monologue on SNL, 1978 via
Trans World Airlines (1952) via
Jughead, 1970. It doesn’t require much individuality to be viewed as an eccentric iconoclast in Riverdale.
There’s Nothing Like a ‘54 Ford via
Fred Willard, 1978. via
The death cult at the grocery store – Retail workers are being called on to enforce facemask requirements, and they’re facing threats and violence from anti-maskers.