Had some leftover BBQ chicken from the other night. Used an instant pho bowl for the soup. Again, I didn’t follow the instructions, I just put everything in a pot of boiling water for three minutes. Added an egg (almost forgot) and served with some chopped green onions and home made Sauerkraut. Perhaps a non-traditional addition to ramen, but I love the crunchy zing of sauerkraut adds.
Back when I was on social media, the stepson of a friend believed, it seemed, that the Earth was flat. My friends wife wanted someone to talk to her son and, I suppose, convince him that the Earth was actually round. My first reaction was that this was just someone having a bit of fun with the people around him. I was assured this wasn’t the case. My take was that this was all harmless, that I seldom notice the curvature of the Earth, and unless he was working at NASA, this was probably harmless. Surely everyone has some quirky beliefs.
I suppose it was still troubling to his mother, and I had no interest in having a discussion about the shape of the Earth with a stranger. I didn’t see myself convincing this young man of the non-flatness of the Earth, and I was sure he would not be moving me any closer to his, um, worldview. It would have been a waste of my time and his.
Today I read a very good posting which ties this bit of quirkiness to all the other reality “deniers” out there. Vaccines, the Holocaust, the moon landing, etc. It is really surprising how many of these reality denial groups are out there, each as absurd as the next, some more harmful than others. The premise is that it is a bit of a protest against the modern world, in a less explicit way than Ignatius Reilly.
From the Notes From Disgraceland Blog:
One Day the Day Will come when the Day Won’t Come
An article from The New Atlantis. I’m not familiar with this journal so I did a quick check. It is described as conservative and even Luddite. It does seem to be a well researched and written article. The take aways are that COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death in the US and in NYC responsible for more deaths than all other causes combined. And this happened very quickly, in a matter of a few short weeks. Anyone who thinks re-opening the economy or getting back to “normal” is a good idea at this point probably hasn’t seen (or understood) this data. A graph and a link to the article:
Not Like the Flu, Not Like Car Crashes, Not Like…
It’s about the spike.
The word apocalypse is actually a Greek word meaning a revealing or uncovering.
apocalypse (əˈpɒkəlɪps)
1. a prophetic disclosure or revelation2. an event of great importance, violence, etc, like the events described in the Apocalypse[C13: from Late Latin apocalypsis, from Greek apokalupsis, from apokaluptein to disclose, from apo- + kaluptein to hide]
We Are Living in a Failed State
The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.
Was playing around in a recent post with a heart rate / oxygen level meter. Turns out oxygen levels could be an important indicator for COVID-19. An early symptom is very low oxygen levels without the usual symptoms.
The Infection That’s Silently Killing Coronavirus Patients
Read recently that the mathematician John Conway had passed away. I spent lots of time at a certain point in my life playing his game of “life“. Not the board game, but the cellular automata simulation. One of these simple things that gets complex (and interesting) quickly. The cause of death was not disclosed in the first article I read after his passing, but Scientific American, where he had a long professional relationship with Martin Gardner, states his cause of death as COVID-19.
Remembering Mathematical Magician John Conway
His creative and influential ideas spilled over into quantum physics, philosophy and computer science
Not many subjects are not only so misunderstood but filled with so many emotional, and often contradictory, explanations. A good posting from Collaborative Fund on how this all really works. On a related note, it does matter what you go into debt for. Taking out a loan to buy a long term asset like a house is much, much different from, say, taking out a loan because you lost big in Vegas.
Who Pays For This?
Suppose to pick up some sandwiches for lunch. Told I needed a mask to go out. Heard you could make one out of a sock. I have a sock! Scissors didn’t work so well so I went with my handy Shin knife. Excellent.
Looks like some sort of alien jock strap. Doesn’t fit so well. Might have to try a version 2.0. Except I don’t have any more unpaired socks. Need to think about this one.
Steven A. Guccione 