Went out to do some yard work and saw this crossbow arrow halfway through my fence. This is a fence about 25 yards inside of my property. Looks like it came from the geniuses who live behind us. Decided it was best to let the police discuss it with them. My excitement for the day.
A columnist for Bloomberg, Joe Nocera, apologies for weeks of promoting the policies of Florida governor DeSantis on COVID-19. I suppose it is good that Mr Nocera realized the error he made. Perhaps even better that he owned up for it publicly. I am not satisfied, though. People are dead and more are dying. This person used his professional position to promote one side of an argument that was not only wrong, but terribly wrong. It ignored people with expertise in this area in favor of people with personal and political agendas. I don’t plan on reading any more of Mr Noceras writings. From Bloomberg.
I Was Wrong About Florida’s Response to Covid-19
I gave Governor Ron DeSantis more credit than he deserved for the low death rate in his state.
By Joe Nocera
July 23, 2020, 5:00 AM CDT
I started this blog as a sort of protest alternative to Facebook. It is just a place for my content and really made for a few close friends and family. Originally it was meant to be photos from travels and maybe links to a few unusual stories. Maybe document some of my tech projects like the Raspberry Pi desktop experiment.
It seems the world had other plans. Not much travelling and really the only story of interest is the unfolding pandemic and the US response. I suppose one day I can look back on this page and recall these extraordinary times.
I guess that still leaves projects. I seem to be starting more than I finish. Right now I’m trying to clear out the back third of an acre that I had loaded up with a few brush piles over the years. My Landroid robotic mower broke down and I have an ongoing battle to get the parts to fix it. Seems parts are no longer available, so I’m going to have to improvise. Started cutting back some trees that I had ignored for too long, to the detriment of my lower back. Still thinking about converting my old riding mower to electric. Also considering making my own Raspberry Pi sprinkler controller. I guess I have plenty of time around the house but it is a bit hot right now for yard work. On top of fun techie projects there is the usual repairs (broken sprinkler head today, leaky pool pump seal one day soon). Cooking a lot. Maybe I need to pick one project and finish it off. But then I think, what’s the hurry?
A really good interview with a Democratic data analysis guy. Explains some of the mathematical and demographic issues in US politics that I haven’t seen other places. From New York magazine.
David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
From the New York Times
From CNBC. A good graph of what is going on state by state.
It looks like the White House is making a grab to control COVID-19 data via a Peter Thiel project. It is pretty clear that deaths are already under reported (my own ballpark guess is the numbers should be about a third higher). The only reason I can see for this change is to cook the books and further under report COVID-19 cases and deaths. From The Verge.
White House reportedly orders hospitals to bypass CDC during COVID-19 data collection
The Department of Heath and Human Services may collect the data in a central database
Because the internet needs cat pictures now more than ever.
Seems someone or some group is making lots of money seemingly knowing what Trump is going to tweet. These are very large sums and seem to be the definition of insider trading. From Vanity Fair.
“THERE IS DEFINITE HANKY-PANKY GOING ON”: THE FANTASTICALLY PROFITABLE MYSTERY OF THE TRUMP CHAOS TRADES
The president’s talk can move markets—and it’s made some futures traders billions. Did they know what he was going to say before he said it?
From the article:
But these wins were peanuts compared to the money made by a trader, or group of traders, who bought 420,000 September e-minis in the last 30 minutes of trading on June 28. That was some 40% of the day’s trading volume in September e-minis—making it a trade that could not easily be ignored. By then, President Trump was already in Osaka, Japan—14 hours ahead of Chicago—and on his way to a roughly hour-long meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping as part of the G20 summit. On Saturday in Osaka, after the market had closed in Chicago, Trump emerged from his meeting with Xi and announced that the intermittent trade talks were “back on track.” The following week was a good one in the stock market, thanks to the Trump announcement. On Thursday, June 27, the S&P 500 index stood at about 2915; a week or so later, it was just below 3000, a gain of 84 points, or $4,200 per e-mini contract. Whoever bought the 420,000 e-minis on June 28 had made a handsome profit of nearly $1.8 billion.
A few years ago we had some pool furniture that had some mesh covering that gave out. I liked the aluminum frames and saved them hoping to do something with them. I came up with a plan and used some PVC pipe, zip ties and pool noodles to make some really comfortable chairs.
Unfortunately, the UV from the Texas sun destroyed the pool noodles in just a few months. We bought some cushions and threw them over the PVC pipe which worked out ok, and still works for two of the three chairs.
One of the three had a cushion that also gave out. Thought I might give the noodle chair another go. All I would have to do is cut the noodles and put them back on the pipes. Took about an hour, but it was 106F today. Went with black and white. Probably going to get some sort of UV cover the make this one last.
