07:43 – I don’t know what I was thinking yesterday. I set up MIT CourseWare on the Roku box and sampled 10- or 15-minute chunks of three or four lectures from the chemistry and biology groups. I guess I was expecting it to be like drinking from the proverbial fire hose. These lectures are, after all, being given to some of the best and brightest students on the planet. But no fire hose there. It was more like trying to suck water from an eye dropper, drop by drop. I concluded that it will be much more time-efficient and effective for me just to read the textbooks.
More of the same today, building and shipping science kits. We’re down under half a dozen of the slide sets that are an option with the biology kits, and some of the slides that we use to build those sets are backordered through the end of November. Not a thing we can do about that. I could order similar slides from a different vendor, but they also have 60- to 90-day lead times.
13:00 – Derek Lowe has a good post up about the Ebola situation. He hits all the important points and, as usual, offers several thoughtful comments.
I’d go a bit further than Derek, though. While he says that if Ebola infections continue in large cities things could get out of control, I’d argue that they’re already out of control and that it’s pointless to put more people and resources on the ground in the affected areas. Humanitarian issues aside, I suspect the optimum course in the interests of humanity in general may be to place an absolute quarantine on anyone who has been in the affected areas or a surrounding buffer zone and allow the epidemic to burn itself out.
It’s not that I’m particularly cruel or heartless. I don’t want to see large numbers of people die horribly, but the fact is that there’s little or nothing anyone can do at this point. That train has left the station. Isolating and quarantining the affected areas and allowing the epidemic to burn itself out probably would not result in more deaths than are inevitable no matter what we do or don’t do. In fact, it may result in fewer deaths.
A widespread Ebola epidemic in Africa, which I think we’re going to see no matter what, may have a silver lining. As Derek mentions, viruses tend to mutate. Yes, it’s possible that Ebola will mutate for the worse, becoming airborne. But it’s much more likely that Ebola will mutate for the better. It’s a matter of evolution and natural selection. Pathogens that kill their hosts quickly are self-limiting, as Ebola has been. But a mutated variant of a pathogen that has a lower mortality rate has a competitive advantage because more of its victims survive to spread the pathogen. This happened, for example, with measles, which a thousand years ago was both easily spread and had very high mortality rates. It killed so many people so quickly–entire villages and towns died to the last person–that in many cases it destroyed its own vector. Nowadays, measles is endemic in much of the world and there are a couple dozen variants of the virus, some with higher mortality than others. But in general measles is now a relatively mild disease, with untreated death rates of less than 1%. I hope that Ebola will also mutate to a less malignant form, and I think we’re going to find out no matter what we do or don’t do about the current epidemic. For now, the essential effort should be to quarantine and contain the epidemic to the areas currently affected.
Now we’re talking. LA school cops are getting some real equipment. One commenter asks “when do they get tactical nukes.” You know, just to be safe.
The chief says the armored vehicle will stay but will only be deployed on his direct orders with the approval of the school superintendent.
Yes, let’s put the “superintendent” in charge of the tactical nukes. Geez.
Try to explain why schools even need their own police forces.
Why doesn’t anyone ever offer me free armored vehicles and grenade launchers?
How high schools vary across the country (and sometimes just across town) is shocking. I went to an upscale suburban high school that had a decent chunk of military brats as students. So, I was shocked to walk into a high school back in the early 1990s and see metal detectors, a full-time on-duty policy officer walking the halls, and a sign that said “Chicano Awareness Office.”
Why doesn’t anyone ever offer me free armored vehicles…
They probably would to the “mayor” of the unincorporated hamlet of Thompson-ville.
One easy way to address the problem would be to return to how things used to be. All kids attend regular school through 8th or 9th grade. Only those who want to pursue academics attend high school. The rest are routed into a trade school, what was called Vocational/Technical when I was in high school. Nowadays, we’d need a third type of school for the huge numbers of kids who can’t even read or do basic arithmetic when they are in 8th or 9th grade. I’d suggest calling those facilities TFBS or taxpayer-funded babysitting sites. They would warehouse the losers until they were 18. Then, to expedite things, they could simply “graduate” directly to prison. Or the catapult.
Now there’s a Cunning Plan.
“They would warehouse the losers until they were 18. Then, to expedite things, they could simply “graduate” directly to prison. Or the catapult.”
Why wait that long?
Only those who want to pursue academics attend high school. The rest are routed into a trade school, what was called Vocational/Technical when I was in high school.
Mama’s sweet darling has to go to college so he can get a high paying white collar job to support Mama! And it is the school’s fault that darling cannot read or write.
Of course, darling has beaten up the nerd kids who can read and write since they deserved it.
Nowadays, we’d need a third type of school for the huge numbers of kids who can’t even read or do basic arithmetic when they are in 8th or 9th grade.
That is called a Junior College here in The Great State of Texas.
I hope that Ebola will also mutate to a less malignant form
I keep hoping the same about Obama.
Obama – Aboma – Eboma – Ebola
Now we know the chain of mutations…
It seems that none of the billions spent so far has done much to reduce the mortality rate of the current epidemic. We’re throwing our tax dollars away on ineffective treatment when we should instead be spending them on containment.
By all means, let’s air drop medical supplies at great expense so we can give IV fluids to an Ebola patient that will be dead in 12 hours. Let’s insert doctors (who, on a worldwide scale, are in short supply) and expose them to a deadly virus. That way they can expertly observe a patient who will, again, be dead in 12 hours.
Our borders should be tightly sealed to anyone whose travel originates in sub-Saharan Africa until they go through a 30 day quarantine at their own expense.
“Homoslackass-erectus”
http://ozziesaffa.blogspot.com/2013/12/new-species-discovered-homoslackass.html
and
http://www.sott.net/article/255905-A-new-human-species-has-been-discovered
Homoslackass-erectus
Report to the nearest PRC, bitte. No Tobasco ration until the 6 month mark.
Perhaps we should enact the “Escape from New York” strategy instead of the PRC. Just airdrop them into Manhattan.
FWIW, my second PolarPure arrived today, meaning the order is complete.
Which vendor did you order from?
Campers Haven. I don’t recall that as the vendor shown on the Amazon page, but it’s likely that either I forgot or there’s a stack of DBAs and wholly-owned subsidiaries and who knows what.
Corker’s Kerry Critique Leaves Boxer ‘Shaking and Trembling’
Oh dear oh dear oh dear! It’s a rough old world out there, Babsie!
Who cares if they’re doing any good? Who cares if the effect is to spend our money and make us less safe? They have good intentions and that’s all that counts!
Haters.
In other nooz, Dr. Pournelle has resurrected his Reviews pieces; look pretty good, too; I got a pre-pub copy in Word format.
“This is a pre publication copy of the upcoming CHAOS MANOR REVIEWS September column. It is being sent as a courtesy to selected
subscribers and supporters. The mailing list is old and contains a number of former subscribers; we will be editing the list before
the next column.”
“CHAOS MANOR REVIEWS is back, and will be regularly published in future.”
So, is there going to be anyone left in the NFL to play football by the end of the season?
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Cardinals-RB-arrested-on-assault-charges-5762948.php
We’ve got a saying here in The Great State of Texas. Just about any district attorney can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Getting a conviction will be much more difficult, especially in that very conservative county.
Please note that I am not condoning Adrian Peterson’s whipping a four year boy that hard. He definitely went over the line but, he should not go to jail and lose his job. I am very much pro discipline of children and pro spanking but, that was over the line.
We’ve got a saying here in The Great State of Texas. Just about any district attorney can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.
As Tom Delay and Rick Perry found out.
Solution to school discipline is easy: bring back the cane, esp. in lower grades. Pavlovian conditioning will take care of later years.
Pity about those lectures. If you find any that aren’t geared toward third graders, let us know. Anyone noticed how science documentaries have gotten the same way over the last 30 years? I used to enjoy Nova and the like, but now they talk s o s l o w l y I scream at the TV, “Get to the goddamned point!”
On a related note, I am not, nor ever have been, a member of the audible book party. Perhaps it’s just my brain, but if I want to assimilate information I use my eyes and read. Heckuvalot more efficient. Which make those lectures even more interesting because I probably wouldn’t listen to an audio only version. Hmmm…
Working Kelpies and Border Collies might be, ah, “exploring new opportunities” if this idea works:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bushtelegraph/robot-dog/5750828?WT.ac=infocus_adelaide
Jim Cooley, I agree on the relative efficiency of spoken-word versus printed-word data transfer. However, podcasts and audible books can be listened to while I’m doing something else, such as software development or driving long distances. I can even listen to an audio stream while reading, and not miss much.
Steve made my point for me–audiobooks and podcasts are VERY good as background on the computer(s) and in the car.
.mg
I have to listen to the radio while doing software development. It actually helps me focus and drowns out noise (especially speech) from the rest of the office. I rarely sing along though as I am really in my good place thinking about the algorithm at hand. You know, the place where logic rules and things just fall into line as they are suppose to. Far from the harsh realities in life where chaos rules and logic is ignored.
In the car, I love audio books. Especially Jack Ryan or Sean Dillon books.
I have yet to try the audio CD’s in the vehicles; have mainly listened to music on the radio and CD’s but I’m going to give them a try now that I’m on these hour-long rides each way. Probably start with poetry and the KJV. I don’t wanna listen to political stuff as I’ve found that I waste time both ways, with speakers I already agree with, mostly, and those that just make my blood boil. Which I don’t need. So poetry from roughly 500 BC to mid-20th-C.
I tried my hand at Kindle formatting a few years ago and laboriously recompiled the Oxford book of English verse (the old, small one). Indexed by author, title, AND first lines. I should dig it out and send to Pournelle as freebie companion to his reader.
I still couldn’t listen to podcasts or audible books when driving. Takes too much attention. Music is okay as long as I’m on an interstate, but not in town.
I mention the poetry because I can think of nothing more unpleasant than listening to a computer read poetry, a la Steven Hawking. Lol.
To me, listening to poetry or the KJV is like unto listening to music, and it’s not a distraction; I am a driver whose attention is very focused on the driving and other operators, and have never, in 44 years, been in an accident that was my fault. In one of the two, I wasn’t even driving, only the sole passenger and it was unavoidable; ditto the second one, where I was driving, but a drunk ran a red light and we sideswiped each other, no one hurt in either accident. And I’ve had advanced driver training several times over the decades and learned in the first place down in the Commonwealth of Maffachufetts, including Boston and Woostuh, and if you can drive there, you can drive anywhere.
Some of the 20th-C poetry I’ll be listening to is/was read by the poets themselves, including Eliot, Pound and Frost. A lot of it from the old Caedmon series that was on cassettes originally.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d7-yvs8-JE
I’ve been in several accidents that were my fault, including one where the only mistake was driving out into a blizzard, but I and my cars have also been involved in several accidents where I was not at fault at all. Such as the one where the police and insurance company tried to tell me that my car’s crumpled front end was obviously my fault. That’s a reasonable default judgment, but in this case the car wasn’t moving. And the engine was off and the parking brake set. And I wasn’t in the car. Some jackass hit my car in a parking lot while I was in class, then drove away. Obviously my fault.