jwz: COVID risk assessment:

My goal is to not catch COVID at all. CDC tells me that my goal should instead be just "don't fill the hospitals past 100%", but I'm a little more ambitious than that.

Back in July, when Delta hit, the CDC maps started looking like something from the pre-credits scene of a Milla Jovovitch movie:

I’m in the same camp - I’m not interested in playing chicken with Murphy’s law about whether a recovered case of covid is going to turn into another chronic condition for me to worry about.

4 evolutionary scenarios for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 - STAT:

In the ongoing struggle of SARS-CoV-2’s genes versus our wits, the virus that causes Covid-19 relentlessly probes human defenses with new genetic gambits. New variants of this coronavirus with increasing transmissibility have sprung up every few months, a scenario that is likely to continue.

Some experts believe that the pandemic appears to be on an evolutionary slide toward becoming endemic, a “new normal” in which humans and the virus co-exist, as we currently do with influenza. But coronaviruses are clever. While an endemic resolution may be in sight, SARS-CoV-2 could still shock the human species with a devastating evolutionary leap.

Here are four possible scenarios, each taken directly from the known evolutionary playbook of coronaviruses.

jwz: CDC recolors maps to declare victory:

So if you had been thinking, "I'm going to avoid crowds until my county isn't SCORCHING RED", congratulations! CDC has solved that problem for you, without any of the underlying numbers having substantially changed!

And of course CDC is uninterested in talking about Long COVID at all.

As far as I can tell, the motivation here is:

“Federal, State and Local government functionaries, along with people in rural diners and lunatic Qanons, have decided that masking is over, and so we must make our guidance reflect the ‘Personal Freedoms’ that these idiots are going to do anyway."

jwz: From craft beer to Molotov cocktails:

At his brewery in an old industrial quarter on the outskirts of Lviv, where start-up firms operate from old shipping containers, Pravda's staff were churning out hundreds of Molotovs on Sunday in the corner of a yard.

(1) DIS on Twitter: “RT @deesnider: People are asking me why I endorsed the use of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” for the Ukrainian people and did not for the anti-m…” / Twitter:

People are asking me why I endorsed the use of "We're Not Gonna Take It" for the Ukrainian people and did not for the anti-maskers. Well, one use is for a righteous battle against oppression; the other is a infantile feet stomping against an inconvenience.

Review: Level Bolt is a stealthy smart lock contending with an imperfect world – Six Colors:

The Bolt is unlike most other smart locks in that it doesn’t replace your existing deadbolt. Instead, it fits inside your door, basically sandwiched in between the exterior keyway and the interior thumb turn. Inside sits a small motor with a Bluetooth chip, which can turn to shoot the bolt itself.

The engineering and design of this device is extremely clever. From the outside, the Bolt is completely invisible. The only place you can even see the device is the bolt itself, where Level’s logo is embossed on the end. (In another particularly ingenious piece of engineering, the bolt also contains a replaceable CR2 battery that powers the whole assembly. Swapping it out just requires unscrewing the end cap.) Another plus: the existing key and thumb turn for the deadbolt work exactly as before, and don’t interfere with the smart lock, or vice versa.

Great review of the one smart-lock I’ve tried myself… The design is fantastic, and if anything simpler than the original hinge mechanism that came with my deadbolt, and fairly reliable for my bluetooth usage.

Mask mandates lifted in Minneapolis, St. Paul | MPR News:

In a statement, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the move comes as COVID rates have been dropping rapidly in the city. He said public health officials will continue to closely monitor the situation and that masks will still be strongly recommended indoors in public.

St. Paul also pointed to a drop in case rates, positivity rates and hospitalizations in Ramsey County for ending the requirement.

It’s raining - you use your umbrella… When you no longer are getting wet, so you put it away… Are you confused when you get drenched? Maybe wait until the storm is over before you put away your protection.

Is omicron leading us closer to herd immunity against COVID? | MPR News:

Experts say it's not likely that the highly transmissible variant — or any other variant — will lead to herd immunity.

“Herd immunity is an elusive concept and doesn’t apply to coronavirus,” says Dr. Don Milton at the University of Maryland School of Public Health.

DNA Lounge: 9-Feb-2022 (Wed): Wherein nobody’s boosted, and nobody believes that Long COVID exists:

Cholera cases are declining in our community. Now's the time for everyone to resume drinking fecal contaminated water from the Broad Street pump! #FecalUrgencyOfNormal

How a Book Is Made - The New York Times:

Here, we will show you how vats of ink and 800-pound rolls of paper become a printed book.

The title we will follow on its journey is “Moon Witch, Spider King,” a fantastical epic that draws on African mythology, the second book in a trilogy by Marlon James.

Let’s watch this book get born.

Father arrested after ordering son, 4, to shoot at officers in McDonald’s drive-thru, police say:

A man was arrested Monday after ordering his 4-year-old son to shoot at Utah police officers in a McDonald's drive-thru during an incident that began over an incorrect order, police said.

Is that the “good guy with a gun”? I’m so confused…

After watching Guys & Dolls last night, got into the Wikipedia rabbit hole and found that Bill Condon is booked to direct a new adaptation of the classic musical. When discussing that… We started talking about dream casting for the leads….

Nate Diamond - Chiwetel Ejiofor Miss Adelaide - Carla Gugino Sky Masterson - Oscar Isaac Sarah Brown - Zendaya Nicely-Nicely Johnson - Tituss Burgess

Opinion | The Moral Danger of Declaring the Pandemic Over Too Soon - The New York Times:

The lesson of the AIDS pandemic is that it’s easy to leave people behind, even if it is at the cost of our collective peril. Coronavirus variants can develop in people with weakened immune systems who struggle to clear infections on their own, like those with untreated H.I.V. Think of the home we’ve then made for viruses like SARS-CoV-2 by impeding access to vaccines and by allowing millions to go without AIDS treatment even now. Variants can emerge because of our desire to put it all behind us. No one is truly safe until we all are. Yet might we act to save millions of people not just in the interest of self-preservation but also simply because it’s the right thing to do? That would be a signal that this pandemic has changed us. For good.

Elon Musk making unfunny Hitler jokes in support of the Canadian anti-vax trucker convoy | Boing Boing:

Elon "Pedo Guy" Musk keeps telling us who he is, but his fans refuse to listen. He is so mad that Canada is taking non-violent measures against the disruptive protest against commonsense, ie not letting them fund their action with crypto, that he is tossing around images of Hitler as favorable.

Bond villian in training.

More than 7 percent of U.S. adults now identify as LGBTQ, doubling in a decade | Boing Boing:

Turns out Kinsey might have been right with 10% after all, after decades of that number being debunked. After all, that's how many Americans are expected to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or more in the coming years.

Why I Reported Dr. Oz to His State Medical Board:

But I saw a clip of Oz a few weeks ago on Fox where he questioned the value of masks. Oz himself is on record earlier in the pandemic saying masks work, and yet now here he is lying in a way that could hurt someone immediately. I am sure some people see him as a credible source, so imagine if someone catches COVID because they took his advice? What if they give it to their immunocompromised mother? Or their unvaccinated child gets it and becomes sick? Or a pregnant person who then dies?

The Pandemic Isn’t Over for Immunocompromised People - The Atlantic:

Two years later, COVID-19 is still all around us, everywhere, and millions of people like Landon are walking around with a compromised immune system. A significant proportion of them don’t respond to COVID vaccines, so despite being vaccinated, many are still unsure whether they’re actually protected—and some know that they aren’t. Much of the United States dropped COVID restrictions long ago; many more cities and states are now following. That means policies that protected Landon and other immunocompromised people, including mask mandates and vaccination requirements, are disappearing, while accommodations that benefited them, such as flexible working options, are being rolled back.

Friendly reminder that becuase so many people have chosen to jumpstart “returning to normal” instead of being responsible, swaths of people may never be able to return to normalcy the same way.

DSHR’s Blog: EE380 Talk:

I'm David Rosenthal. I worked with James Gosling on CMU's Andrew project in the early 80s. I was a DE with him at Sun later in the 80s working on window systems including X, and file systems. I quit to be employee #4 at Nvidia where Curtis Priem and I did the basic I/O architecture, then was an early employee at Vitria, the second company of founders of Tibco. Before I start talking about cryptocurrencies, I should stress that I hold no long or short positions in cryptocurrencies, their derivatives or related companies; I am long Nvidia. Unlike most people discussing them, I am not "talking my book".

Cryptocurrencies' roots lie deep in the libertarian culture of Silicon Valley and the cypherpunks. Libertarianism’s attraction is based on ignoring externalities, and cryptocurrencies are no exception.

Penny Arcade - Comic - Certainty:

Eunoia: Words that Don’t Translate:

Eunoia allows you to search for untranslatable words by language, tag, or the word itself. There are over 500 words in the database, across 50+ languages and 50+ tags.

Measles Makes Your Immune System Forget Its Protections Against Past Illness:

Historically, contracting the measles has been linked to subsequent illness (and possibly death) from other causes. In the past few years, scientists have discovered why this is: measles causes “immune amnesia”.

jwz: Apartheid Emerald Mine Space Karen has a new gig: Monkey Vivisectionist:

The PCRM filed a complaint with the the US Department of Agriculture on Thursday, accusing UC Davis and Neuralink of nine violations of the Animal Welfare Act. "Many, if not all, of the monkeys experienced extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments, which were performed in pursuit of developing what Neuralink and Elon Musk have publicly described as a 'brain-machine interface,'" the group wrote in the complaint. [...]

Musk said in December that Neuralink hoped to start human testing this year.

Dude is a Bond villian in training.

Let’s Talk About Our Favorite Monsters (As Romantic Partners) | Tor.com:

Monsters. They lay bare our darkest desires and deepest fears. There’s no hiding the worst with a monster—it’s right there, on the surface. And aside from the fact that claws and big teeth just look awesome, monsters are way more fun than moral, upstanding characters, aren’t they? That darkness is alluring. Sometimes, it’s like gazing into a mirror.

Regardless, our love for monsters remains evergreen. Which means the discussion of which ones we’d like to hook up with rises time and time again. But what would some of these monsters actually look like as romantic partners? Would they be good spouses? Or would they be the type to not even text back?

Here’s the DFEH lawsuit against Tesla, and it’s way more serious than the company made it sound - Electrek:

Because the factory was racially segregated, Defendants’ workers referred to the areas where many Black and/or African Americans worked as the “porch monkey station.” Defendants’ workers with tattoos of the Confederate flag made their racially incendiary tattoos visible to intimidate Black and/or African American workers. Racial slurs were also dispensed in Spanish and included “mayate” and “negrita.” Additionally, Defendants’ workers referred to the Tesla factory as the “slaveship” or “the plantation,” where Defendants’ production leads “crack[ed] the whip.” Many Black and/or African American workers understood these terms to be references to how Defendants treated its Black and/or African American workers. One Black worker heard these racial slurs as often as 50-100 times a day.

Joe Rogan delights his fans by mocking Asians and making fun of Angelina Jolie’s Bell’s Palsy | Boing Boing:

As long as Joe Rogan remains profitable for his publisher Spotify he'll have a platform to spread racism, make fun of people's medical conditions, and promote quack Covid-19 nostrums.

If you continue to use Spotify while they’re supporting Rogan, you’re contributing to this. If enough people scrap their accounts and mention Rogan in their exit questionnaire, he’ll be deplatformed there.