Brent Simmons has written a blog post that does a good job of explaining my greatest fear about COVID. It’s not just about whether or not I might die if I got the disease, it’s how much it might ruin my health, forever, if I got the disease.
I think far too many people are just looking at the death rates and thinking COVID is no worse than the flu or pneumonia, which have their risks but low probability of resulting in death without pre-existing conditions.
The problem with those comparisons is that we know much more about those illnesses than we know about COVID. The unknown consequences increase risk to everyone because we know of people who are otherwise in good health becoming seriously ill and even dying.
I wish someone would point out to Dave Winer that because micro.blog uses Micropub, one can use a number of different editors, perhaps even one of their choice like the the Ulysses that his correspondent is using, to publish their writing to their blog. I personally use Drafts on my iPad and Omnibear whereever I use Chrome to write my blog posts.
Someday I want to work with writing some Javascript to post to my blog and see if I could get that to work with Roam to publish a block of text via Micropub.
Well, Mitch, if you feel so strongly that corporations should stay out of politics, how about passing a law targeted at overturning Citizens United?
Just because a Supreme says it isn’t so, doesn’t mean it isn’t so. Based on the decisions made by SCOTUS over the last decade, I don’t know how one can say that it is not now partisan.
These are the Chromebooks getting Android 11
My Google Pixelbook and Lenovo Duet are in the list. Reports are that the upgrades will start with Chrome OS Version 90. My devices are currently on Version 89.
New COVID-19 cases in Michigan are increasing, death rates remain low relative to early in 2020, bearing in mind that death rates lag. I can’t help but feel that lack of political will is stopping the same response as occurred last year.
Today I learned that LG is getting out of the smartphone business. Frankly, I am a bit surprised that we haven’t seen more of either consolidations or companies dropping out as I think there have been too many players in the market. Over the years I had one LG phone, and I think over the years that have had some pretty good products.
I read this long piece about how western countries have struggled to respond to COVID, which resulted in a tremendous loss of life. To me, it boils down to one issue, politics. It seems that in western countries led by elected leaders, decisions and lack of decisions were due to the calculus of political consequences. For example, the Trump administration’s slow response was due to all decisions made in terms of whether they help or hinder their ability to be re-elected. In the east there were no worries about election consequences, so there was probably little debate over whether to move fast or be alarmist.
In the United States we seemed to have lost the idea that there should be non-partisans in government positions so they focus entirely on the public interest and not on their political ambitions. The transition is most obvious in what has happened to the Supreme Court, which unlike the intent of the Founders, has in practice become partisan.
While reading Dave’s riffing on his perceived lack of apps, particularly good editors, I am wondering whether he has spent any time looking at the iOS or Android app stores. It seems to me he is only looking for desktop apps, and my sense is that much development as moved from the desktop to iOS. Cynically, I think development much more about making money today that it might have been back in the day.
My suggestion to Dave would be to do a search on markdown editors.
A sizable minority of Americans want to use airplanes belonging to others, theme parks belonging to others, sports stadiums belonging to others—without concession to the health of others or the property rights of owners. With guns, with COVID-19, with tech, the new post-Trump message from the post-Trump GOP is: Private property is socialism; state expropriation is freedom. It’s a strange doctrine for a party supposedly committed to liberty and the Constitution, but here we are.
David Frum, writing in The Atlantic
Requiring proof of vaccination is so attractive to businesses precisely because tens of millions of Republicans feel entitled to behave as if there were no pandemic. According to Gallup, those who don’t intend to get vaccinated are less than half as likely than those who are fully vaccinated to avoid public places, avoid small gatherings, avoid large crowds, and avoid traveling.
A consequence of not taking COVID-19 seriously is that the longer it lingers the more it will mutate and the longer we will keep fighting it.
In Jim Nance voice:
Welcome to opening day and freezing temperatures, a tradition like any other other!
Spring training is complete for the Chicago Cubs. Opening day is on Thursday, 1 PM versus the Pittsburgh Pirates at Wrigley Field. The weather forecast has temps in the mid 30s.
UPS delivered the new BenQ monitor that I ordered on time and to the correct location.
I don’t get this claim that baseball players can’t do contract negotiations and play ball at the same time. Lots of people do lots of things at the same time, all the time. Wait until Rizzo becomes a dad.
Minnesota Duluth won the longest game in NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey history early in the fourth overtime.
Just watched the North Dakota and Minnesota Duluth men’s hockey teams finish the third overtime of their NCAA regional final. Doubleheaders are not normally a hockey thing. Right now this is the second longest game in NCAA tourney history.
Whitmer claims that the current COVID-19 surge in Michigan is different because of the vaccines, and I find that hard to believe. I think citizens have demonstrated an unwillingness to do the right thing and the corresponding loss of life is of little concern.
Weeks ago Michigan began “opening” up again by allowing more people in restaurants and bars and more sporting events. Predictably, the number of new COVID-19 cases has been trending back up. I wish people would look at the graphs, it shows the numbers keep going up when we open up and down when we close down.
Unfortunately, I strongly suspect the governor is less likely to impose another lock down due to the amount of pressure put on by the people who continually cause the increase in numbers.