Notes from Covid 19

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Corona Virus (CV) may be the defining moment in our lives. In such times, lets remember three things 1) Keep your circle of concern within your circle of influence 2) Don’t feed mind monsters - see the positive 3) In crisis, you see both the best and worse. Focus on the best.

Don’t feed mind monsters, focus on the positive.

Leave quarantine better then when you startd

Hard to articulate it better then this video:

Media’s incentive is scaring you

From James Altchur: Media companies make money scaring you. Politicians stay in office (or get office) by assuming the worst case and hoping for the best so they can say, “Look, we did everything we could.”  So ignore that. Also ignore the market. As I said the other day, as long as it’s going up or down 5-10% a day, don’t invest. There will be opportunities later.  Is the market cheap? It sure is. $5,000,000,000,000 in stimulus is going to hit the economy, which is already assuming a worst-case scenario Depression which is not going to happen.

Crisis Porn

“Hold on I need to check the latest news to make sure I don’t miss something.”

Really? Do you? Do you think the Govenor is going to call and ask your opinion? Do you think anyone cares about your opinion? Do you think you have an ability to influence the pandemic that requires you to check the news hourly, daily or maybe twice a week? I doubt it.

A great line from aa fantastic youtube video that described much of my early behavior during the pandemic

Humanity has prioritize lives over profits

From Mr. Money Mustache

Assuming we are preventing 3 million early deaths, this means our society is foregoing about one million dollars of economic activity for each person’s life that we extend and frankly, it makes me happy to know we are capable of that.

In the more compassionate case which we are currently following, we drastically reduce the amount of contact we have with each other for a few months, which cuts the number of deaths in the US down from 3-6 million, down to perhaps 200,000. In exchange, our economy shrinks by several trillion dollars (it was about 21 trillion in 2019) for a year or more.

Bill gates models being a class act.

Go watch how Bill Gates answers questions around how the government did nothing in February (the past is always outside the circle of influence). He ignores the bait on what we got wrong yesterday, and focuses on what we need to do today (core to the circle of influence) That’s a class act leader:

  • Interviewer: Trying to Stir a rage answer on why wasted on February
  • Bill Gates: OK, we didn’t act, but the good news is “focus on productive action”

Tesla and Dyson making incubators

3M Refusing to ignore order to stop shipping PPE to other countries

Big Tech still pays hourly workers.

Zoo Pandas mate for first time

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/in-the-mood-for-love-hong-kongs-middle-aged-pandas-rediscover-their-mojo

Middle-aged couple of giant pandas in a Hong Kong theme park have mated for the first time in more than 10 years, after finally enjoying a period of privacy thanks to the coronavirus lockdown.

Ying Ying and Le Le have been at Ocean Park since 2007 but, despite the encouragement of zookeepers, they had shown little inclination to have sex while daily hordes of visitors were watching their every move.

Chinese scientists, after losing patience with natural breeding, extracted sperm from Le Le and artificially inseminated Ying Ying, but this resulted in miscarriages. When the pandemic forced the closure of the park on 26 January, the 14-year-olds were halfway through the panda’s average lifespan and almost a decade past the start of sexual maturity.

But, after more than two months of being alone together, the couple have recently shown signs they were in the mood for love. Local reports say Ying Ying – in her oestrogen cycle – spent more time in the water and Le Le left more scent markings around the enclosure.

On Monday morning, the pair were seen cuddling more intensely than usual and then finally did what comes naturally, much to the delight of park managers.

“The successful natural mating process today is extremely exciting for all of us, as the chance of pregnancy via natural mating is higher than by artificial insemination,” Michael Boos, executive director for zoological operations and conservation at Ocean Park, noted in a press release.

First Zonkey Born

OK this has nothing to do with CV-19, but a cross between a zebra and donkey is wild!

Circle of concern and circle of influence.

Model good behavior

Teddy bear brigade

Virtual Play dates

Setting up a Minecraft server

Some bizarre consequences

Shortages caused by retail arbitrage.

I didn’t realize this was a thing, but people buy stuff locally (often at thrift stores and garage sales and discount) and then sell it on Amazon. This is a big cause of shortages. Great story in the NYT about something that bought 10K items of sanitizer and masks. Interesting since needs to be sold on Amazon or E-Bay pretty easy to find. Also, E-bay makes 10%, and Amazon 15% so it’s a great business for them.

Glut of lobsters

Because no one can celebrate Chinese new years which is a major consumer of lobsters, and lobster production was done pre-corona virus, lobsters are no dirt cheap.

Prisoners making hand sanitizer.

The New York prison system is making inmates create hand sanitizer - that is awesome

Door dash thinks FB is a DDoS since all employees signed in at once.

Expected Tech innovations

Nose filters

UV blasters

Gloves that keep you from wiping your eyes

My optimizations

Stop watching the news.

It’s a waste of your time, and your energy. Remember no one wants your opion.

Meet people for virtual coffees

Get a home exercise routine

Get dedicated electronics for the kids

Figure our remote magic and lighting.

Make a schedule when working from home

Data

The data analysis during this defining event has been terrible. However, focusing on the positive, the gives me a chance to see how “good data is presented” and to build some of my own data visualization skills.

Here is the best visualizer. Its good for may reasons, I should study it in the future.

I’ve also got some relative data on my mortality post, however I don’t think the problem is mortality, it’s the health system being overwhelmed and the economy, neither of which is reported.

My personal dashboard

Other good data sources

The best news of all - a dry run of something fatal for the human race.

Not to underplay the current crisis, but imagine CV with the mortality rate of Ebola or SARS. that would have been the end of humanity. CV gives us a chance to learn process and prioritize so we’ll be ready for the “big one”.