I don’t get why we they’re talking about “bail outs” instead of making purchases that solving other problems. I was seeing news stories about people stuck abroad followed by news stories about airlines needing money because no one was flying — paying for flights to bring people back to the US seemed like an obvious win-win. Now there are restaurants going under & kids who are out of school not getting meals. Hotels with no customers and individuals without a safe home in which to shelter. Instead of floating loans or handing out money, *buy* services and fix two problems simultaneously.
Month: March 2020
News and Falsehoods
Even without watching the live mid-day briefings (which we do watch), I’m amazed at how much disinformation makes it to the edited evening newscast. Trump’s got a good feeling about some drug that didn’t have production scaled up for a bunch of “wtf, it cannot get worse” off-label use. Or, hell, his seeming claim to have legalized off-label use because it’s the only way we’re going to address the current health crisis.
Before this outbreak, it infuriated me to tune into the evening news and hear “Trump said X” when X was verifiably untrue. Sure, ‘Trump said the untrue thing’ was accurate … but without clarifying the veracity of Trump’s statement … saying “Trump said X” comes across as “X” to a whole lot of people. Hasn’t changed just because it’s more dangerous to say “Trump says chloroquine / hydroxychloroquine is a game-changer and is totally safe”. If nothing else, were I writing copy, I’d delve a little into the difference between the two drugs. Hydroxy- is a less toxic derivative … which doesn’t at all sound like “totally safe, slam some and see if it works” to me.
Low Yeast, Long Rise Bread
There’s been a run on yeast. Well, there’s been a run on a lot of things. But most things have viable alternatives. No broccoli, get some carrots. No tomato sauce, get diced tomatoes and use a blender. While there are unleavened breads, and breads leavened with baking soda … it’s not yeast bread. I’ve found some recipes using brewing yeast for bread, but I wanted to see how little baking yeast would make bread. Last night’s pizza dough used a quarter teaspoon of yeast. I took a cup of warm water, added about a tablespoon of sugar, and a quarter teaspoon of yeast. That sat until there was activity. Mixed together three cups of whole wheat flour, one cup of white flour, a few tablespoons of vital wheat gluten, and a teaspoon of salt. Added the water/yeast, then added enough water to make a dough. The dough sat overnight to rise. I gently deflated it in the morning, then left it to raise again. Gently deflated it around lunch time, and left it alone until dinner time. Very good crust — great flavor, nice crunchy crust to it. And beautifully leavened.
Did you know … you can restore a deleted Microsoft Teams channel?
Click the ellipses menu next to the team name and select “Manage team”
Select “Channels”
In the channel listing, click the “Deleted” section to expand it.
Select “Restore” (you’ll get asked if you’re sure you want to restore it)
Voila, your channel is back!
Willful Ignorance
Somehow, in the past month, the number of Republicans who view SARS CoV-19 (COVID-19, ‘coronavirus’) as a threat has decreased. Commercial news needs to address the desire to be misinformed because it makes you happy. My one grandfather used to watch the weather on each of the broadcast TV channels — hit ABC at the top of the hour, CBS for the main weather forecast at 15-past, and head over to NBC for the quick recap just before the end of the show. He went with whichever forecast made him the happiest (e.g. garden getting dry? Go with the one that had a higher chance of rain tomorrow.). This was innocuous — firstly because the three forecasts didn’t have that much variance, but also because he was completely aware of what he was doing. Wasn’t like he’d refuse to water his garden today because channel 9 promised it was going to rain last night.
It seems like a lot of people have taken this approach to news in general. Without awareness of their choice, and without a willingness to concede reality. There’s no difference between willful ignorance of the impact pollution has on the environment that allows you to support harmful policies (or the disingenuous belief that the invisible hand will guide companies away from polluting actions) and willful ignorance of dangers posed by this virus. In both cases, you aren’t just harming yourself. You’re harming *everyone*.
Office 365 Feature Scale-back
Microsoft is adjusting some non-core features to save capacity while the number of remote workers increased dramatically. This won’t impact core services (signing on, viewing/sending messages, uploading/downloading files), but don’t be concerned if you’re getting replies where the person seemingly didn’t type, presence updates seem slow, avatars aren’t showing up next to someone’s name (or yours in the upper right-hand corner of Teams), etc.
COVID Break Educational Activities
In addition to a Science Experiments For Covid19 Break, lots of e-books from the local libraries, the free learn-at-home program from Scholastic, and a handful of new physical books, I’ve got four daily educational activities for Anya during this school not-a-break:
10:30 Cleveland Science Center Curiosity Corner Experiments https://www.youtube.com/user/GreatLakesScience
11:00 Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Animal info https://www.facebook.com/ClevelandMetroparksZoo
13:00 The Kennedy Center / Mo Willems Drawing https://www.youtube.com/user/TheKennedyCenter
15:00 Cleveland Metroparks Naturalist https://www.facebook.com/ClevelandMetroparks
There are two get-moving videos that we’ve checked out … but it’s maple sap season so most of our physical activity is “hike in the woods and collect sap” 🙂
Wednesday @ Noon, https://www.clevelandinnercityballet.org/ does a virtual ballet lesson
Daily, not live, https://www.facebook.com/DominiqueMoceanuGymnasticsCenter/ has mini-workouts
Republicanism
Reading this, I cannot help but think the response to this pandemic is playing out according to a fundamental tenant of Republican philosophy. Push power down closer to ‘the people’. Each school district, city/township, county, and state gets to decide how to respond to this virus. In other words, it’s a feature not a bug.
Personally, I think it’s important to have a strong federal government to coordinate things that impact everyone — environmental regulations, educational concerns, energy efficiency, public health. I hope people who push for decentralized government think about how chaotic our response is and extrapolate to how their preferred form of governance can react to other important situations, whatever those may be.
Web Meeting Platform Capacity Comparison
I’ve had several situations now where a group is looking to start an online video meeting. To eliminate platforms that don’t support the number of people required, I put together this quick list. Teams and Zoom are, unfortunately, something home users are less apt to be familiar with … but it really is “click to join the call” easy.
Microsoft Teams (300)
Zoom (100)
Facebook Messenger (50)
Skype (50)
FaceTime (30, but limited to Apple products)
Google Hangouts (10)
Hangout Meet has a 250 person limit, but only if it is part of the gSuite subscription. It’s not part of our school district’s education package. Not sure if it’s part of our Township’s government package. Update: Google is now offering paid Hangout Meet features for free through 01 June.
SARS CoV-2 Data
Visualization from Johns Hopkins Uni Center for Systems Science and Engineering: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Testing Stats: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing-in-us.html
Interesting combination of data — there have been 13,624 tests (although the data points for the past few days is currently incomplete) and 1,663 infections. That means like 87% of the people who have been tested weren’t infected. Which could be that they’ve been tested before they are infected enough, or it could be that there are a LOT of uninfected people getting tested. Since the actual number of tests is going to be higher, the percent actually infected is lower.