deathmtn

We are going on a quest! We will reach Bear Hill Tower! It’s important to have quests during these times.

I’m finding some philosophical satisfaction in washing dishes and utensils as soon as you use them. It’s not going to hold up during the week, though.

The ol' judo club is now closing for two weeks as well.

It was a rough day. The first day of working while the guy was home all day. I had a hard time tuning out the guy (my computer display is in the kitchen), nor was I really able to engage with him, which made me feel bad. Then, I forgot to eat lunch and wasn't able to concentrate when everyone left the house later.

However, once the workday ended, we had a good dinner, and the guy came up with a really good song.

Considerations for school closure (PDF)

Available modeling data indicate that early, short to medium closures do not impact the epi curve of COVID-19 or available health care measures (e.g., hospitalizations). There may be some impact of much longer closures (8 weeks, 20 weeks) further into community spread, but that modelling also shows that other mitigation efforts (e.g., handwashing, home isolation) have more impact on both spread of disease and health care measures. In other countries, those places who closed school (e.g., Hong Kong) have not had more success in reducing spread than those that did not (e.g., Singapore).

So, this great logistical difficulty could be for nothing. Who knows, maybe something else will come out countering that, though.

The model sheet that comes with this statistical analysis about the spread of coronavirus and large organizations is really interesting to plug numbers into.

Welp, Cambridge Public Schools is closing after tomorrow. (No confirmed cases there.)

I've kinda psyched myself out about working out lately, so I did a short set to ease myself back in. 14-4-9.

The Daily goes over how China and Korea successfully got the coronavirus under control. Mostly: Really aggressive measuring.

Here in the US, you have to get a state official and a federal official to get tested.

Upbeat spacewave matches up with Apollo 11 communications as well as the more commonly ambient stuff that's on Space Out.

Re: Why it's not as easy to decide to close a school in order as a precaution against Coronavirus:

We will make the decision to close a school or multiple schools in collaboration with local and state public health experts and officials. Please keep in mind that while many businesses and universities can function without being physically open, public schools have must weigh additional factors in our decision-making. A large number of our students rely on CPS for a portion of their nutritional needs. And, although our primary mission is education, many working families would experience significant financial hardship if their children were not at school during the day.

CPS is working closely with City officials to address these challenges for vulnerable families in the event that schools need to close. Again, guidance around these decisions is evolving as the situation unfolds, and any decisions to close will be made jointly with health officials and informed by the latest state and federal guidance.

From the superintendent of Cambridge Public Schools.

I bought a pair of replacement earpads for my headphones that cost $25. I felt stupid, but A) these are good headphones that I've had for over a decade and B) it's cheaper than buying new headphones. It would be nice if C) I knew how to make my own headphone earpads.

For whatever reason, I'm still subscribed to my old judo club mailing list, even though I haven't done any judo for over ten years. I sometimes look at the emails, and they're sometimes an interesting look into life going on back there. There is a doctor in the club, and they consulted him about the coronavirus.

With the spread of the new virus, COVID-19, we have discussed the need for precautions to take and changes that may need to occur regarding practice and events. This virus is spreading in the community and will likely continue to spread and worsen in the coming days to weeks. It appears to be more serious for people who are older, particularly above age 50. There is likely an increased risk to those with prior illness and weakened immune system.

This disease is spread similarly to cold and flu viruses including the following:

Coughing

Sneezing

Touching surfaces that have been contaminated

The most common symptoms are:

Fever
Cough
Difficulty Breathing

For now we are asking the following :

If you or your children or anyone in your family is ill with cold or flu symptoms (cough, shortness of breath, fever) please do not come to judo practice or events until all symptoms are gone and you have been seen by a healthcare professional. This is particularly important if you have older family members and please do not hesitate to seek help.

If you may have been exposed to someone who may have this virus, please avoid coming to practice or events until you have been evaluated by a healthcare professional.

All judoka please wash your hands prior to practice and after practice. Parents direct your children to do the same.

Wash your GI after every practice.

Avoid touching your face as much as possible during practices.

Please stay in the [club] side of the building during all practices and keep all children there as well. We share the building with [another group] who have many older members in their Adult Day Care Program and we would like to minimize exposure to them. The door to the Kitchen area and Water Fountain will be locked. Therefore you should all bring your own water bottles or buy Water/Gatorade from the dojo.

More information is available here:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html

This current situation will continue to evolve and we may need to take further measures. Practices will continue for now but this may change. We will let you know if and when the situation changes. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

So, they're continuing practice. Cambridge Public Schools are still open.

These are really tough calls to make, except for really large gatherings, which obviously should be cancelled. And I don't know where to draw the line on large gatherings. There was a recent discussion in our D&D group about this. Is eight people a large group? My sense is no; it doesn't seem like a significant factor, and I'm guessing most of us don't move around among large crowds now.

I really don't think there is enough information to make these decisions, which makes them interesting.

I was talking to Alex at project night about how I spend a lot of time doing a bisection search in vim with :earlier n and :later n when I'm trying to undo a bunch of stuff but not too much. He found that you can just type :changes and get all this:

:changes
change line col text
100 69 0 // imageContext.lineTo(800, probable.roll(800));
99 68 47 // imageContext.moveTo(0, probable.roll(800));
98 10 48 import { renderMessage } from './render-message';
97 68 61 // imageContext.moveTo(0, probable.roll(800));
96 34 55 function render({
95 13 23 import { Soul, GameState, ColRow } from '../types';
94 34 124 function render({
93 152 0 // Warning: This is a reference. Is d3 going to change it unexpectedly?
92 76 50 renderMessage({ message: gameState.displayMessage, onMessageDismiss });

It's really hard to read, and yet I'm delighted to discover yet another little subworld in vim.

Also, even more people came by project night! I hope we engaged them enough. Project night is weird in that it's mostly about working on projects, but when new people show up you feel you should chat them up but also that at some point you should do the thing that project night is about.

There's a lot of pleasant emptiness out there today. I visited my accountant today, who said that traffic was noticeably quieter in Arlington, reminding of her when much of the Boston area was on lockdown during the Marathon bombing incident.

My company has ordered everyone to work from home, following a really compelling analysis of the rate of contagion and the availability of hospital beds. So, I'm not on the T today, but apparently, it's fairly sparse. (Don't make the mistake of clicking through to the Twitter link like I did; you'll immediately see reply garbage.)

Dan Wang observes that Beijing is also quiet.

I see movement regulations. Every business I enter (whether that’s a restaurant, supermarket, or retailer), someone takes my temperature and asks me to write down my phone number.

The casino in Everett is also taking everyone's temperatures.

All of this temperature taking is fascinating to me. I'm assuming it's going down via infrared thermometers that require no contact, rather than sticking traditional thermometers into hundreds of thousands of orifices, and that without this new form of thermometer, it would have been too hard in terms logistics, hygiene, and patient consent. I'm impressed.

Sher Minn has a good post about what's lacking about digital objects and materials.

Computers make for very cold material for creative work. It is intangible – perlin noise, space-walking algorithms, random number generators, mathematical concepts, you can’t hold them. It doesn’t have the same tactility as things of this world.

I miss being able to grasp material in my hands, manipulate it, seeing it interact with my body and surroundings. I want to inhabit it, adorn myself with it, to get lost in its sensations. Maybe that’s why I am so in love with metalworking for making jewelry.

I think that, for me, what makes physical object compelling is not necessarily that they're touchable, but they have infinite levels of detail and are part of a very complex system (the real world), making interactions between it and that system very rich with possibility.

On the civil service exam:

How do you ensure you score more than your competitors in essay writing? Not by being the most elegant writer, nor the most eloquent, but by demonstrating a command of official style. Outstanding candidates write their essays in neat handwriting. They choose the most appropriate words, they quote from the classics and they express complete loyalty to the party’s Central Committee. The content of what they write is, of course, shaped from the top. It is no exaggeration to say that Xi Jinping’s reports to the Party Congress are the civil servant’s bible. Candidates must be sufficiently familiar with the congressional reports and Xi’s lectures. Key paragraphs must be memorised.

Messed up, but not that different from writing various forms of pitch documents in a company. Those have some amount of original ideas, but often tie things back to executive statements to bolster persuasiveness.