Hygiene Theater

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Tyler Cowen on Bloomberg:

I am not arguing for passivity in the face of danger. It is distressing that US policymakers do not seem interested in spending big for pandemic preparedness. America needs a new Operation Warp Speed for pan-coronavirus vaccines and nasal spray vaccines. It should be gathering more data on Covid and improving its system of clinical trials for anti-Covid remedies, among other measures.

I am simply saying that removing the Covid test for entry to the US would bring an end to one of the more egregious instances of “hygiene theater.” And it would send a signal that America is welcoming the world once again.

The above summarizes a lot of my thoughts on the inbound testing requirement for the United States. I think it leaves out the fact that there are already hundreds of thousands of cases already present in the US and keeping out a few cases here and there is not a net win. Also, the number of cases not caught by inbound testing due to the disease not being present in large enough numbers in the host or the host not yet having symptoms is also a huge gap. Increasing the amount of research we are doing on long Covid, on future vaccines, and treatments would be time better spent.

I’ve heard from a number of people that the test they received was either a “joke” where they swab barely touched their nose or the test was completely ignored by the airline at the departure airport. From those who do test positive, even with no symptoms, they’re stuck with a costly longer stay in the country they are coming from and while some might be willing to put up with that, a lot of travelers aren’t.

All this to say, Covid is again spiking in the US though I get the impression most Americans aren’t paying attention or don’t care.

The Montreal Snow Removal Army

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I spent a few months traveling to Montreal for work right before Covid hit, right in the middle of winter. I noticed that the sidewalks and streets stayed mostly clear of snow and now I know why. This fascinating article on the snow removal process in Montreal makes every other city’s efforts pale in comparison.

In Montreal, a blizzard is a call to action. With a budget of nearly $180 million and a staff of over 3,000 workers, the city is poised and prepared to manage and remove it all. Once snow begins accumulating, a multiphase operation begins to unfold across the city’s 19 boroughs. Between roads, bike lanes, and sidewalks, the city clears over 10,000 km – roughly the distance between Montreal and Beijing.

Montreal doesn’t just push snow to the curb with plows – instead, snow is picked up by a fleet of trucks and transported up to one of 28 snow dump sites across the city. Throughout a typical winter, roughly 300,000 truckloads of snow are transported – a volume of about 12 million cubic meters.

Part of the snow removal process is available to view:

The whole article is a fun read. Montreal has massive snow mountains where snow is trucked to melt later and they use the old Francon quarry as a storage area as well –

The final site we visited was the crown jewel of Montreal’s snow storage strategy: the Francon quarry. In decades past, it provided the limestone that built Montreal’s posh downtown districts. And since its retirement, it has become the city’s largest snow dump.

This doesn’t mean Montreal’s snow removal is perfect though. On two of my trips to the city there was a large storm the day before I arrived and sidewalks were an absolute mess.

PDX Carpet Making a Comeback

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As part of the Portland International Airport modernization and expansion it has been announced that the old carpet will be making a return. From PDX Next:

Truth be told, we love it, too. More than a few of us have the shoe selfies to prove it. We can spot the carpet’s distinctive pattern from across the room, whether it’s on your socks, your keychain, or your T-shirt.

And so, we have a little good news: When the new main terminal opens in 2024, the old carpet is coming back to a few key spaces in the arrivals area.

And continues:

When the expansive, light-filled main terminal opens in 2024, you’ll find PDX’s iconic carpet in the pre-security “meet and greet” areas outside the security exits, along with a few other surprise locations we’ll share along the way.

So it won’t fill the airport again but will be in a few high traffic areas allowing people to get a little nostalgia and the obligatory photo. One small detail that is also noted is that the main areas of the terminal (security, shopping, etc.) will have terrazzo floors while gate areas and wings will have the current carpet.

Of course, the current carpet will remain in the concourses. And the areas of the main terminal that visitors travel through will have gray terrazzo floors—a smoother surface that’s easier for wheelchairs, assistive devices, and roller bags to navigate.

While I understand the use of carpet as a noise dampening agent in the gate areas, when you look at old photos of airports, including PDX, the solid surface floors are just so much nicer looking.

There are some awesome photos on the PDX Next website of the old Portland International Airport, including this gem:

Old Portland International Airport Terminal

Fear and Traveling

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From Live and Let’s Fly:

In the years to come, we will only begin to understand the devastation our overreaction to the pandemic inflicted upon the most vulnerable among us: the children who were kept out of school, the elderly and hospital patients who were separated from loved ones and made to endure pain alone, and those who were forced to live in isolation for a “public emergency” that still has not ended.

We will return to “normal” because we want to return to normal. That should actually unite us, even if we disagree on how fast it should be. The last two years taught us the amazing spirit of human ingenuity that so quickly developed a vaccine. It also taught us that we need one another and those who have been at the forefront of rolling back restrictions cannot simply be dismissed as selfish miscreants, but humans who recognize our need for one another in every area of life.

I don’t disagree that we need to start making moves to return to normal, but I don’t think the new normal will be anything like it was 3 years ago. At the same time it’s a bit of a cop-out to state that “we should want to return to normal” but that it can be over a timeline that we can disagree on. I don’t know of anyone in the United States who really wants to keep things as they are. Even in the article quoted it seems like the author is more concerned about the speed of the return to normal rather than what normal means.

Majestic Cafe

As someone who has lost a family member to COVID-19 (who caught it at another family event) the cost of normal seems too high. Would I love to go out and eat at restaurants or travel freely around the world again? Sure. Is it worth the loss of another family member? Absolutely not. People are tired of being cooped up or limiting their interactions due to COVID but a lot of that is because there is a real risk. We don’t fully understand the impact that the disease has on young children or even healthy adults. We don’t know what long COVID will mean for people who are still struggling from a disease they caught months ago. But sure, let’s just act like none of that is happening and get back to normal.

Also, the use of quotes in the above post carry a tinge of sarcasm. Is 900k+ dead in the United States not a public emergency? Is it only a real problem if we see death in the streets?

Honestly, I think the return to normal is a choice that each person is going to have to make for themselves. I know people who are traveling now and following all of the country protocols of the places they visit. I also know people who are immunocompromised and are staying home for their own safety. I don’t think there is some simple formula we can apply as a society and say “we’re back to what we were” overnight. There is a calculus that people are having to work out for themselves on what they are comfortable with and when.

As far as masks on airplanes and in airports, I’m fine with it; Every airport I’ve visited in the last year or so have been jam packed with people. I would rather the United States end the mandatory testing to enter the country or at least remove it for vaccinated people. I am not sure the policy is actually helping us keep COVID at bay but it is certainly putting a financial burden on people who do test positive after being overseas. For me, I am looking for international travel later in 2022. I hope by then we’ll be at a place where COVID is less prevalent and more people have had the opportunity for vaccination.

Positive Hitman Reviews

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It’s your classic story, man gets blackmailed for hush money, man takes extreme measures to not be exposed by hiring killers. Then because he’s a good internet citizen he leaves a review and eventually gets caught.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Maund, who is married, reached out to his ex, 33-year-old Holly Williams, about visiting on his upcoming trip to Nashville in February 2020. Upon hearing of the messages, Williams’ estranged boyfriend, 36-year-old William Lanway, allegedly messaged Maund asking for hush money and threatening to expose the relationship if it wasn’t received. A month later on March 12, 2020, Williams and Lanway were found dead at a Nashville construction site in a white 2005 Acura.

Maund allegedly hired three men to see the crime through: 47-year-old Gilad Peled, owner of Austin-based Speartip Security Services, 46-year-old Bryon Brockway and North Carolina native Adam Carey. Since the killings, both someone by the name of “Erik Maund” and Bryon Brockway left five-star reviews for Speartip.

Maybe the five-star review was a little premature.

Long Covid and Brain Gray Matter Loss

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A study out of the UK has found a significant number of Covid-19 patients who become hospitalized and recover have a noticeable amount of gray matter lost in their brains. The full study is here, but the important excerpt:

We used structural and functional brain scans from before and after infection, to compare longitudinal brain changes between these 394 COVID-19 patients and 388 controls who were matched for age, sex, ethnicity and interval between scans. We identified significant effects of COVID-19 in the brain with a loss of grey matter in the left parahippocampal gyrus, the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the left insula. When looking over the entire cortical surface, these results extended to the anterior cingulate cortex, supramarginal gyrus and temporal pole. We further compared COVID-19 patients who had been hospitalised (n=15) with those who had not (n=379), and while results were not significant, we found comparatively similar findings to the COVID-19 vs control group comparison, with, in addition, a greater loss of grey matter in the cingulate cortex, central nucleus of the amygdala and hippocampal cornu ammonis (all |Z|>3). Our findings thus consistently relate to loss of grey matter in limbic cortical areas directly linked to the primary olfactory and gustatory system.

At the end of the day, Covid-19, even if survived, is not a disease you want. And it’s not just brain matter; People are finding themselves with other very serious long term effects.

Critical Thinking Skills in the Age of Information Overload

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A bit of skepticism is a healthy thing. We should question motives, goals, and drivers in our leaders and in their policies. However, it seems like the sheer amount of information is stifling our ability to take in, process, and move through the chaff. News websites are run by a few different major news organizations and republish the same story with slightly different wordings across their network. Then you have the small time blogs (like this one) that publish stories as fact with little to no journalistic integrity. Those stories then get reposted on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook and “go viral” as a headline without the readers taking the time to read past the headline. So how does someone take in this deluge and not get completely steamrolled by too much information and how do they decipher what is news or opinion or simply information meant to incite some sort of innate emotion?

The first step is to look at how you find and consume news. Completely ignoring anything that is posted on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram is a good start. Most of the “news” you will find there is a friend of a friend’s blog that is usually just a way for that person to vent (case in point, what you are reading right now is that). Sure, there are some actual news stories that get posted on Facebook but a lot of that stuff bubbles to the top because the news organization is trying to get as many eyes on it as possible and they will use headlines or graphics that are misleading to get a potential reader to click the link. Turning off the television is another great way to avoid hyperbole meant to grab your attention. Local news stations are good but remember that most are owned by a big news company. This isn’t to say that they are bad, you just need to know what lens they see the world through as you take in the information.

You can see where I am going. I like written news, whether it be print or online, I tend to get my news in written form from a number of different sources. To know which way the thing that I am reading leans, I use the media bias chart from ad fontes media.

Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart

Just from a quick glance I can tell that NBC and CBS skew a little to the left while The Hill and Wall Street Journal skew a little more to the right on the political spectrum. This doesn’t mean I discount or ignore what they say, it means I read each of them knowing that they tend to favor one side or the other.

My reading list for news is the following (in no particular order)

  • The Hill
  • The New York Times
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • NPR
  • Bloomberg
  • ZeroHedge
  • South China Morning Post

There are a few others that I will glance at including Real Clear Politics and The Atlantic but I try to spend as much of my time as close to the middle of that media bias chart as I can. Knowing that the New York Times is going to lean a little left on a story I can quickly look up the equivalent story in the Wall Street Journal and see what the right leaning thoughts are. This is particularly important when reading opinion pieces because again, these aren’t news, they are someone’s thoughts on a subject, they are going to lean one direction.

Critical Thinking Ignores Personal Bias

Maybe “ignores” is too strong of a word. Critical thinking softens personal bias. If all someone views is news and video stories about how antifa is setting the world ablaze, they are going to tend to think antifa is setting the world on fire, regardless if it is true or not. As a society, we should want as many well read people as possible. I want debates of issues but I want those debates focused on the issues, not the cruft that some news personality brought up. If more people read more opinions that don’t echo their own beliefs, we’ll be better for it. If more people know what is happening in the world, we’ll be better for it.

Part of what I see right now is hyper focus on a few domestic issues and those issues are surrounded by hyperbole and vitriol that actually adds very little to the conversation. It’s intention is to agitate the base on either side of the aisle enough to get them to repost on Facebook or Instagram and get more people agitated. We have to see through that.

Just removing vitriol is a huge first step. Abandon Facebook, or simply limit your time on it. Abandon Instagram, or at least avoid the politics cesspool part of it. Abandon Twitter, or start putting vitriolic posters on your muted list. If the yelling and noise doesn’t get constantly repeated eventually it will fizzle out and people can have debates with actual value and content. Knowing that we are being overloaded with information and disinformation is a good start.

Cargo is Piling up Everywhere

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From NPR —

Soaring demand from Americans for everything from iPads to cars is leading to a surge in freight crossing the Pacific, hitting business owners such as Nephew.

When the cargo with his games finally arrived on the West Coast, the container was immediately emptied so it could be sent back to China for another load.

The games then continued on to Minnesota by truck, rather than rail, which would have been more economical. The final shipping cost was about $12,000, at least 50% more than the game maker had budgeted.

We are getting a lesson in basic economics in real time. Businesses are trying to meet increased demand but there is a constraint on the supply (the shipping companies) and so things get delayed and prices go up. When we look at something like lumber, which is mostly produced domestically, those prices are finally starting to normalize as supply starts to meet demand.

Browsing Instagram or TikTok and you will see people blame increased prices on Biden or the global cabal but in reality the prices you are seeing in stores have little to nothing to do with who is in the oval office and more to do with basic economic principles. Another example is the basic issue of getting empty containers where they need to be to carry more cargo.

From Bloomberg —

First there were the queues at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which left as many as 40 container vessels awaiting a berth in early February amid a flood of traffic. Combined volumes at the terminals hit a record of 1.9 million containers in May, nearly double the Covid-19 low in March 2020.

Part of the problem has been that containers aren’t in the right places. In global terms, trade enjoyed a remarkably short and sharp pandemic. By September last year, volumes were already running ahead of their seasonally adjusted levels in January and February, as demand for medical equipment and spending on durable goods picked up in rich countries.

Trying to make all those deliveries on time meant that many vessels started making their return journeys empty, saving a few precious hours that would normally be spent picking up vacant boxes to ship back to China. That’s resulted in a glut of containers in European and North American ports and a shortage in Asia, pushing freight rates to astronomical levels on export routes.

Containers are sitting empty at ports around the world and can’t be shipped back because the ships are trying their best to keep up with demand. Add to this, there is not a huge demand for U.S. goods in places like China, there is no reason to ship back empty containers on these boats and return the containers to pick up more cargo. Some of the predictions are that this could take years to correct. The empty containers need to get back into a normal rotation which relies on demand to return in certain parts of the world and ships need to reposition to carry all of that cargo.

If there is one thing that COVID-19 has taught me, it’s that supply chains are fragile. Everyone saw the ‘Great Toilet Paper Shortage’ as a problem but what’s sitting in ports right now and the rates to ship goods around the world are the real issue. And the unfortunate reality is that there is no way to speed the process of recovery up for shippers. It will happen as demand returns.

Ford F-150 Lightning – An Ultimate Truck?

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I have been on the fence on the Tesla electric vehicles for a while and for a few reasons. For one, it seems ironically wasteful to buy a new vehicle simply because “it’s electric” and has a bunch of bells and whistles. The price point tiers of the Tesla are also a downside. Yes, you can get a base Model 3 for $33k but to get any kind of upgrades it’s $42k and if you want more performance, it’s $50k. All for a sedan.

Enter the Ford F-150 Lightning. I am still hesitant to buy an electric vehicle right now but the F-150 is more my speed. Ford has taken their best selling vehicle and made it an electric powerhouse. This feature preview by Marques Brownlee points out some of the coolest things with picture and video better than I ever could.

An EPA estimated range with 1000lbs of cargo of 300 miles but in reality closer to 450 miles (based on Marques’ math). Also, dual direction power where if your house loses power, you can use the truck to provide power to it. That’s huge. It’s a 6000lb truck but can still do 0-60mph in 4.5 seconds. I mean, that’s not something you’re going to use everyday but it is impressive.

It seems like a vehicle to keep an eye on. I have a feeling Ford is going to sell a lot of these and it might play a huge role in more electric vehicle charging stations and other tech entering the market.

The Covid Crisis in India

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From NPR:

India reported nearly 350,000 new cases on Sunday, more than any country on any day since the pandemic began, the fourth day in a row the country has broken that grim world record. Many worry case numbers are woefully undercounted since test kits are hard to come by, and hospitals are completely overrun.

Now cases and deaths have skyrocketed. Crematoriums are running day and night, unable to keep up with the bodies. There are desperate pleas for oxygen, hospital beds and medicine.

This is an unbelievable tragedy that is unfolding. I hope more countries step in to offer aid.