deathmtn

Hospitals Know What’s Coming

Working on things you know aren't going anywhere is very demoralizing. I know that firsthand. But being a nurse or doctor right now must be soul-crushing.

When the hospital first faced the pandemic in the spring, “I was buoyed by the realization that everyone in America was doing their part to slow down the spread,” Johnson says. “Now I know friends of mine are going about their normal lives, having parties and dinners, and playing sports indoors. It’s very difficult to do this work when we know so many people are not doing their part.”

(I did fix the typo and edit mismatches that are in the version I posted here before sending, though.)

Well, I'm now just that guy that writes to the City Council all the time now.

Hi. I know you have been flooded with waves of pressure from the Chamber of Commerce and similar organizations.

I understand where they are coming from, to a degree. It is very hard to keep businesses going. However, they are reminiscent of a milder version of the city fathers of Cork, Ireland. In the '50s, they suppressed news of a polio outbreak because they did not want local businesses to go under. I'm sure they lobbied city politicians quite a bit as well.

I urge you not to give in to them and to consider the lives that will be lost as a result of not doing everything you can to slow down the spread of COVID-19 during this massive surge, chief among them stopping inessential indoor gatherings. Most of the people that will die as a result of inaction here elderly people, their lives are as important as the well-being of businesses, as important as they are. And younger people have been suffering long-lasting damage as a result of COVID-19 as well.

The voters of Cambridge will remember and honor you for doing the right thing here, despite the pressure you receive from powerful groups with outsized influence.

I made the old Ghost Crab Workshop logo almost ten years ago using a font I couldn't remember the name of, so I thought I was screwed. I put it aside for a few weeks.

It turns out I saved both the font and the original PSD in Dropbox! (When I didn't see them in GitHub, where I now usually keep these things these days, I assumed it was all gone.)

Also, The League of Movable Type, the open source font foundry that made the font is still alive and kicking! And they now publish woff versions of their fonts, which is handy.

I made some oatmeal, went to the bathroom, and then came back and started eating the oatmeal.

Then, Bonus Cat threw up a significant amount of oatmeal onto the floor.

From the school newsletter:

We’ve also heard that the lines for COVID testing have been long this week, which suggests that many Cantabrigians are planning to take some risks this break.

Thanks, risk-taking Cantabrigians. I hope you remember your turkey meal when more older people die and the schools shut down.

I made a pretty good pumpkin soup for lunch. So, I’ll say it’s a marginally good call to save and boil your pumpkin guys.

Back around nine or ten years ago, when I was really excited about iOS development, I met this iOS dev that I had some good chats with.

I just remembered him and looked him up. He’s still an eager promoter of everything Apple and Elon Musk. Either no new information has gotten to him about these entities or brand loyalty can’t be beaten.

Lately, I have been concerned about people’s inability to grow and change, especially at work, where people just keep on chugging with the aggressive positivity, despite explicit signals that the people at the top of the corporation are not going to do the right thing, no matter how much you talk about committees and guardrails.

This, combined with watching idiots blatantly doing stupid things that we now know spread the coronavirus — like gathering indoors for Thanksgiving — despite new cases exploding all over the country, has brought my disappointment in people to an all-time high.

People, even when well-informed, cannot stop choosing short-term selfishness over the long-term common good. Even long-term selfishness can’t compete.

Of course, there is systemic condition that explains this, but it is tempting at this age to just just give in and assume the worst about everyone. 43 is when you become a cranky old man, I guess.

Whoa! I could have been using TypeScript in Svelte for four months now!

As you might expect, the more expensive health care plans do cover more stuff, but the premiums are high enough to make them probably not worthwhile. I need to add a wider variety of scenarios to my spreadsheet to better judge this.

Corona Virus Vaccine!!! It sounds like the kind of techno you'd find in Final Fantasy. It was posted eight months ago. I credit it for the recent breakthoughs!