Blog/April 2020/Apr 24th

April 24th

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We had a pretty busy week, returning more or less to “normal” while under moderate general quarantine. As of this week, we’re allowed to go 500m from our homes on foot, and can drive to go shopping or for other necessary activities. We’re required to wear face masks when outside our homes. But there may be light at the end of the tunnel finally.

Oh, and we supposedly now have a “unity government”, finally! Or maybe not…

Some thoughts on the COVID-19 era:

An article in “The American Spectator” opines we caught more than coronavirus from China. The thrust of the article is that government overreach is going to be the norm now, and that the authoritarianism we despise in China’s government is exactly where we’re headed. I’m hoping he’s overstating the reality, but numerous mainstream news articles in the past weeks tend to support his ideas.

Dr. David Dunning, of the eponymous “Dunning-Kruger effect”, talks about the baleful influence of “armchair epidemiologists”. He’s not an epidemiologist, but he’s also not wrong. Interesting read.

And to cheer you up, an article discussing just how coronavirus kills. It’s a mean little beast, though I’d be interested in a comparison of its modes of attack vs. seasonal influenza, for instance. I’d reckon it’s similar, overall.

This and that:

• Chemists usually don’t seek excitement in the lab.
• The Danes, apparently unhappy that their ancestors saved Jews during WWII, decided to erase Israel from their new Bible edition.
• The “Zoom” app has faulty crypto leading to serious privacy breaches, and its faults were not unknown to major players. There are some alternatives, but I don’t know how good or secure they are. YMMV.
• And the “Stripe” payment processing application records its customers’ movements. Why?

I made my first post-pesaḥ sourdough, and it came out really nice. In fact, for the first time ever, I was able to use the “banneton” properly and get a nicely shaped loaf. Sarah made her first bread ever, and also made her first batch of pita, ever. So you might say that that virus is causing some behavioral evolution amongst its hosts.

Esther and I were working all week, which is a good thing. Her boss got her a monitor she can use with her laptop, so she can now work in a similar manner to how she did in the office (though working from her she-shed while I’m working from my man-cave). I finally plugged in a second monitor on my desktop, and discovered some interesting things I needed to fix in 8th.

We had our first serious heat-wave this week, but it’s left and now we’ve got colder-than-seasonal weather. The upcoming week looks to be “up and down”, weather-wise, but not particularly hot.

This shabbat we’ll try to subsist upon:
homemade ḥalla, “orange soup”, brisket, roasted chicken, various salatim, and chocolate chip cookies.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom and ḥodesh ṭov!

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