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In perspective: US projects 3,000 daily deaths by June
From ArsTechnica:
US projects 200,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, 3,000 daily deaths by June
Leaked gov’t document predicts rise in deaths as Trump aims to “open up America.”
The United States is expected to see about 200,000 new COVID-19 cases per day by June 1, with daily deaths hitting 3,000, a leaked Trump administration document shows.
I'm feebly trying to think of a way to put that risk into perspective.
According to the Google, There are a total of 13,843 McDonald's locations in the United States as of April 07, 2020.
So let's suppose each day there would be 1 death in your community for every 4 McDonald's locations. That sounds about right.
Suppose the following happens once per day. For every four McDonald's locations in a county, a single BigMac drops out of the sky into a random location. Wherever that BigMac lands is where a death occurs in that county. Every day. What are the odds of you coming into contact with one of these BigMac biological death bombs?
How safe would you feel from being killed by a BigMac? Every day.
How likely is it you would have come into contact with a BigMac while it was still contagious? Are you protected enough from the BigMac? Maybe a full body hazmat suit if you venture out in public?
Stay at home. Bored up the doors and windows. Eat the same fine food the president eats. Standard order:
- 2 Big Mac
- 2 Filet O' Fish (yuk! and double yuk!)
- Chocolate Shake
Stock up on these items. They last forever without refrigeration.
Does the DNC monitor their email replies?
Join us.
Runaway,
You've been hearing a lot about the importance of campaign fundraising recently, and I wanted to take a second to explain more about a big piece of that: Our opponents' massive fundraising lead.
Donald Trump and the RNC have more than $240 million in the bank for the general election. That's a historically unparalleled number -- in huge part because of when they started. At every turn, Trump has used his office as an opportunity to campaign instead of lead, and he's already begun to spend his war chest on attack ads against Joe Biden. We’ve always known that Democrats don’t need to match Trump’s fundraising numbers dollar for dollar, but we can’t afford to fall further behind and let our candidates face Republican attacks without our full support.
We’ve built an incredibly strong Democratic Party infrastructure in the last three years, and we’re in a good position to capitalize on these efforts as we get closer to November. That said, our financial disadvantage puts us in a tough position. A lack of resources means we’re less able to plan ahead and act strategically, and that could have major consequences for our presidential nominee and Democrats down the ballot. That's why I'm asking you to do something important today:
Will you make a $7 donation to the DNC today to close the gap on Trump's fundraising lead and help Joe Biden and Democrats in competitive races fight back? Every bit helps.
DONATE: $7
DONATE: $10
DONATE: $25
DONATE: $50
DONATE: $100
Donate another amount
Since Tom Perez took over as chair in early 2017, the DNC has made unprecedented investments in organizing, data and technology infrastructure, and voter protection efforts. We know that the presidential election is likely to be an incredibly close race, and with so many House and Senate seats up for grabs, we can’t risk not fully funding these critical programs.
That’s where you come in, Runaway. Grassroots supporters like you are the lifeblood of the Democratic Party, and victories up and down the ballot this November require your early support.
With just 184 days until the most consequential election of our lifetimes, we need Democrats like you to commit to our shared goals now, while there’s still time to make a difference. Can I count on your $7 today?
Thanks and stay safe,
Patrick
Patrick Stevenson
Chief Mobilization Officer
Democratic National Committee
P.S. Trump’s fundraising advantage is arguably the single biggest reason he could be reelected. The good news: You can fight back, Runaway. Make a $7 donation and help close the gap today.
If you no longer wish to receive emails from the DNC, submit this form to unsubscribe. If you’d only like to receive our most important messages, sign up to receive less email.
If you’re ready to elect Democrats in all 50 states, make a contribution today.
Contributions or gifts to the Democratic National Committee are not tax deductible. Paid for by the Democratic National Committee, www.Democrats.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
Runaway
2:56 AM (2 minutes ago)
to feedback
I've heard a lot about campaign fund raising, yes. I haven't heard a lot about any candidates that I can support. Is Creepy Joe lucid today?
_________________________________________________________
I've been sending similar replies for more than a month now, to two or more emails each day. You would think they might figure things out.
Online math education
During this period of home-schooling, I've come to a realization about online math learning that applies specifically to ixl.com, but is probably general. The exercises are generated by computer programs, and it is trivial to generate new problems of the same type by re-randomizing inputs. So students have to solve dozens of problems of the same type, like:
If f(x) = x87, what is the 86th derivative of f(x)? [with minor variations]
Or,
y = (7/3)x - 4. Show the line by clicking coordinates on a graph.
After about three of each problem, boredom and sloppiness set in, but the drills continue again and again. In proper math textbooks, each problem is different, and you can't just apply the exact same methodology from the last problem to the next problem. I guess that's why parents are complaining about rote learning. Some repetition is ok for younger grades where kids are becoming familiar with numbers and their properties, but high school students should start spreading their intellectual wings. Instead, they are forced to do repetitive drills for the convenience of educational websites and teachers.
Michigan militia puts armed protest in the spotlight
Gun-carrying protesters have been a common sight at some demonstrations calling for coronavirus-related restrictions to be lifted. But an armed militia’s involvement in an angry protest in the Michigan statehouse Thursday marked an escalation that drew condemnation and shone a spotlight on the practice of bringing weapons to protest.
The “American Patriot Rally” started on the statehouse steps, where members of the Michigan Liberty Militia stood guard with weapons and tactical gear, their faces partially covered. They later moved inside the Capitol along with several hundred protesters, who demanded to be let onto the House floor, which is prohibited. Some protesters with guns — which are allowed in the statehouse — went to the Senate gallery, where a senator said some armed men shouted at her, and some senators wore bulletproof vests.
For some observers, the images of armed men in tactical gear at a state Capitol were an unsettling symbol of rising tensions in a nation grappling with crisis. Others saw evidence of racial bias in the way the protesters were treated by police.
For some politicians, there was fresh evidence of the risk of aligning with a movement with clear ties to far-right groups.
Prominent Michigan Republicans on Friday criticized the showing, with the GOP leader of the state Senate referring to some protesters as “a bunch of jackasses” who “used intimidation and the threat of physical harm to stir up fear and feed rancor.”
President Donald Trump, who has been criticized in the past for condoning extremist views, called the protesters “very good people” and urged Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to “make a deal.”
Michiganhas been the epicenter of the political showdownover how to contain the spread of the deadly virus without decimating the economy. About a quarter of the state’s workforce has filed for unemployment and nearly 4,000 people have died.
for the rest of the story click spoiler or click the link
Rally organizer Ryan Kelley said the event was intended to pressure Republicans to reject Whitmer’s plan to continue restrictions on work and travel. He called the protest a “huge win,” noting the Republican-controlled Senate refused to extend Whitmer’s coronavirus emergency declaration — though she said Friday her stay-at-home order remains in effect.
Kelley, a 38-year-old real estate broker, said he and other organizers are not part of a formal group but represent people who have been harmed by the stay-home order. He said he invited the Michigan Liberty Militia, which is listed as an anti-government group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, to serve as “security.” He suggested anyone who had a problem with their presence should read the Constitution and “live life without fear.”
Gun-carrying protesters outside state capitols are a regular occurrence in many states, especially in Republican-leaning ones. But rarely do such protests converge at the same time around the country like they have during the coronavirus pandemic.
In Wisconsin, about a dozen men, several wearing camouflage, carried what appeared to be assault rifles and other long guns and stood around a makeshift guillotine at a protest attended by about 1,500 people. In Arizona, a group of men armed with rifles were among hundreds of protesters who demonstrated at the Capitol last month demanding Republican Gov. Doug Ducey lift his stay-home order. Many in the crowd also carried holstered pistols.
Gun groups have been involved in organizing several of these protests — which drew activists from a range of conservative causes. Gun rights advocates believe the restrictions on some businesses and closure of government offices are a threat to their right to own a gun, said Michael Hammond, legislative counsel for Gun Owners of America, a group that bills itself as the “no compromise” gun lobby.
Hammond said he routinely gets messages and emails from people around the country, complaining that authorities are making it impossible to exercise their Second Amendment rights. In some cases, that has meant orders closing gun shops or gun ranges or offices shutting down that process permits.
But Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun-control group, considers these protests organized by the ultra-right and not necessarily reflective of most gun owners.
While it’s legal to openly carry firearms inside some state capitols, Watts called it “dangerous to normalize this. Armed intimidation has no place in our political debate.” She said those carrying guns at protests are almost always white men, and are “a vocal minority of the country” that opposes the stay-at-home orders.
An overwhelming majority of Americans support stay-at-home orders and other efforts to slow the spread of the virus, according to a recent survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The visual of heavily armed protesters, mostly white men, occupying a government building to a measured response by law enforcement is a particularly jarring one for many African Americans.
It draws a stark contrast to the images that emerged from Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, when crowds of unarmed, mostly black men, women and children took to the streets in protest after a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown. Police shot tear gas to disperse the crowds, further inflaming the tensions between predominantly black community and law enforcement. It worsened when members of an armed militia group called the Oath Keepers arrived, some of them armed and sitting on rooftops. Jon Belmar, who was then St. Louis County’s police chief, said at the time that the presence of the group, whose members wore camouflage, bulletproof vests and openly carried rifles and pistols, was “unnecessary and inflammatory.”
“Systemically, blackness is treated like a more dangerous weapon than a white man’s gun ever will, while whiteness is the greatest shield of safety,” said Brittany Packnett, a prominent national activist who protested in Ferguson.
The Michigan demonstrators, she added, “are what happens when people of racial privilege confuse oppression with inconvenience. No one is treading on their rights. We’re all just trying to live.”
Trump, meanwhile, suggested it was Whitmer who should be moved to action.
“The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire,” the president tweeted Friday. “These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.”
It's an AP story, several sites are carrying it, I chose to use https://www.bigcountryhomepage.com/news/us-politics/michigan-militia-puts-armed-protest-in-the-spotlight/
Privilege on Parade
Only white people get to do this
(no hot link permitted) https://johnpavlovitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screenshot-2020-05-01-08.55.40-1536x1021.png
The reaction is quite different otherwise. Amirite?
A mob of the MAGA persuasion
Conducted a statehouse invasion
Though heavily armed,
They departed unharmed
That's how you know
They're Caucasian
No More Nekkid Stargazing In Your Backyard
The time is not far off that your dishwasher has more, and more intelligent, twitter followers than yourself. What's more, he/she/it will probably have a better Internet connection too.
Ahem. Yet another car maker has announced plans to up a fleet of satellites into space, for reasons of Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Driving, and oh, Global Monitoring of the Internet-of-Things.
This one is Chinese -- Geely Group, of Volvo and Lotus -- and is planning to launch a mere 500 satellites (a year). Plans were announced in March, factory has now been built, as well as the first two satellites destined for LEO. For fun and giggles, they've named it the OmniCloud.
Only a matter of time before some smartass thinks: 'Hey!! Cameras!!!!'
Gilded Rumsfeldesivir
Broken business models
Someone mentioned Circus City and Divx. I was going to reply, but I thought I'd write a journal entry instead.
Ah Divx. Cloudy. Broken business models.
Remember Circuit City's Netpliance iOpener ?
This was about the year 2000. The iOpener was a Linux computer with monitor and dial up modem, for $99. (A steal of a price, at that time, except . . .) it was tied to a dial up internet service subscription. The idea was that you would buy the iOpener at an insanely cheap price, and they would make their profits on the required service subscription to get online. The "i" in iOpener probably meant intarwebs.
Of course, what happened was hilarious. Evil hackers intent on destroying the very fabric of society published online information about how one could:
1. buy an iOpener at Circut City for $99, without signing anything, and walk out of the store
2. hack, modify or reflash (sorry don't remember which) Linux on the device
3. have a useful computer that was worth at least four times what you paid for it
4. without paying Netpliance a single cent more
5. Profit!
Netpliance was upset. Circus City was upset. Something must be done! Some law must have been broken! It is a violation of the agreement!
Runner up: Radio Shack's Cue Cat free bar code scanner with serial port connector. The R/S sales droids would run up to you shoving these free Cue Cat scanner packages in your face! It's FREE!!! The package had the scanner and a disk of software. The scanner would be used to scan bar codes on ads or something to get grate fantastical dealz! Of course, to most of us here it was a free barcode scanner worth about $35 at the time, IIRC.
Any other great broken business models you can think of?
Let's redo the primary
Newsom or Cuomo?
Or the same old shit?
Where has all the ECC RAM gone?
It's about time I built a new PC. The old Phenom II X6 1045T is getting a bit long in the tooth.
I was looking at some sort of AMD X570 chip set motherboard from ASUS and a Ryzen CPU and I was looking for RAM to go with it. I have ECC RAM in my Phenom II and it has detected and fixed the odd error here and there over the 10 years I've had it so I want to put ECC RAM in my new machine.
It seems that it's as rare as hen's teeth these days. In days of yore you just went to www.crucial.com and put in how much you want and it would spout a list of all the options. Now there's none. I believe I would need two sticks of unbuffered DDR4 with ECC.
Some re-sellers have it listed but you have to go looking for it under "Server Memory" and it's mixed up with all kinds of weird stuff. Most of the stuff for sale seems to be very high clock rate, unbuffered and with no error checking to make the games run 2% faster.
What is the world coming to?
