@LGN88

Welcome Home !

Pull up a chair.
Read a few timelines.
Follow a few people.
Jump into any conversation.
Ask any question.

You are safe here.

If for any reason you ever feel uncomfortable.
Use the tools:
Mute
Block
Report
and Conflict Resolution

https://counter.social/userguide.pdf

So how do we pay for a 75% lockdown?
If you realize that from February to October the personal savings rate soared to over 25% from year to date. So with low interest rates, we could as a nation have borrowed enough money to pay every worker, and every small, and medium sized-business, to get through a 4 week hard lockdown.
There is enough money right now in savings accounts to do this.

#CoSoCovid

During the "flatten the curve lockdown" we deemed, on average, 70% of the work force essential workers. Thus a very soft lockdown. What we need now is to follow New Zealand’s lead, and do a very hard lockdown. Lockdown 75% of all work. For 4 weeks, or until we're at less than 1 new case per 100,000, per 7 day period. That's how we get ahead. We need to financially support those workers.
Anything else. In the long run. Will cost more in lives, and money.

.

Local restaurant had a deal, 50% off if you buy more than 20 hot lunches. Delivery was free with local taxi service.

#CoSoCovid

I have been using Covid-19 projections from the IHME models.
But on further research have found that these projections are based only on one model, and these are often just wrong.

A much more accurate models exist, and can be found at the Covid-19 Forecasting Hub. They take an ensemble of over 50 models.

Please share the data projections only from the Forecasting hub.

COVID-19 Forecasts:

https://viz.covid19forecasthub.org

Not IHME

http://www.healthdata.org/covid

.

Local restaurant had a deal, 50% off if you buy more than 20 hot lunches. Delivery was free with local taxi service.

I just bought lunch delivered to 50 nurses, and staff in a local critical care ward.

Health care workers and auxiliary staff, in ALL US hospitals, are exhausted.
They are working double shifts, harder and longer than ever before, even during the worst in early spring. Shortages of people, equipment, drugs, and even PPE, are today worse, not better than In March.

COVID Deaths in The US, in the last 24 hours, about to go over 900.

Please do what you can to help.

I am in town today.
To have a bunch of dental work done.
Going home soon.

#CoSoWarfare

Army Picks Tomahawk & SM-6 For Mid-Range Missiles

Instead of picking a single missile to be its thousand-mile Mid-Range Capability, the Army has chosen to mix two very different Navy weapons together in its prototype MRC unit: the new, supersonic, high-altitude SM-6 and the venerable, subsonic, low-flying Tomahawk.

https://breakingdefense.com/2020/11/army-picks-tomahawk-sm-6-for-mid-range-missiles/amp/

And

https://thediplomat.com/2020/11/us-army-getting-into-the-anti-ship-cruise-missile-business/

And

https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapons/us-army-flexes-new-land-based-anti-ship-capabilities

#CoSoMaterialScience

How materials you’ve never heard of could clean up air conditioning.

Scientists are identifying promising “caloric materials,”

They placed plastic crystals of neopentyl glycol, into a chamber, added oil, and cranked down a piston. As the fluid compressed the temperature of the crystals rose by around 40 ˚C.

And alleviating it has the opposite effect: cooling the crystals dramatically.

By James Temple

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/11/12/1011999/how-materials-youve-never-heard-of-could-clean-up-air-conditioning/

#CoSoBitcoin

What ever you do, never buy cryptocurrency on Paypal !

tldr; buying cryptocurrency on Paypal means:

1. You can't use it for anything.
2. Paypal can lock you out of your account at any time.

I also learned from reading the FAQ that Paypal controls the private keys associated with any cryptocurrency you buy through Paypal. What that means is you have only illusory control of your cryptocurrency, not actual control.

https://boingboing.net/2020/11/12/beware-of-buying-cryptocurrency-on-paypal.html

#CoSoEnvironment

(another small victory)

An Energy Leader Wins an Election

DeAndrea Salvador is an energy justice champion. Now, she’s bringing that expertise to the North Carolina state Senate.

"The organization also works on community solar initiatives in South Carolina, where it more easily advances community solar projects that don’t require putting solar panels on people’s roofs to bring clean energy into their homes."

By Yessenia Funes

https://atmos.earth/deandrea-salvador-energy-justice-election-win-north-carolina-the-frontline/

#CoSoPhilosophy

Deepfakes and Sexual Fantasies:
Are they both impermissible?

"In his paper ‘Introducing the Pervert’s Dilemma’, Carl Öhman does this for deepfake pornography. In essence, he suggests that if we think the creation of deepfake pornography is morally impermissible, then we should also question the permissibility of generic sexual fantasies."

By John Danaher

https://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2020/11/deepfakes-and-sexual-fantasies-are-they.html

Paper:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-019-09522-1

#CoSoAI

AI is wrestling with a replication crisis

Tech giants dominate research but the line between real breakthrough and product showcase can be fuzzy. Some scientists have had enough.

"What’s stopping AI replication from happening as it should is a lack of access to three things: code, data, and hardware. According to an annual analysis of the field by investors, only 15% of AI studies share their code."

By Will Douglas Heaven

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/11/12/1011944/artificial-intelligence-replication-crisis-science-big-tech-google-deepmind-facebook-openai/

Paper:

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2766-y

#CoSoPhysics

(this is a very good explainer)

What Is a Particle?

It has been thought of as many things: a pointlike object, an excitation of a field, a speck of pure math that has cut into reality. But never has physicists’ conception of a particle changed more than it is changing now.

By Natalie Wolchover

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-a-particle-20201112/

#CoSoTech

talk the talk (a tech glossary)

Below is a condensed glossary from my time working in early stage VC, growth, and software engineering.
It is designed to approachable for everyone, especially those without a prior background in the subject area.

https://www.alec.fyi/talk-the-talk-a-tech-glossary.html

#CoSoEnvironment

Decision Trees.

Trying to automate environmentalism alone won’t resolve political barriers to conservation, but it might help us think differently.

"We can assess cities and structures by how well they will support other forms of life after the tidal wave of human-caused transformation recedes. This has historical precedent."

By Jason Rhys Parry

https://reallifemag.com/decision-trees/

#CoSoScience

A hypothesis is a liability.

“When someone seeks,’ said Siddhartha, ‘then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing. [...] Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”
~Hermann Hesse

By Itai Yanai & Martin Lercher

https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-020-02133-w