Cory Doctorow book, started as "ThemePunks" serialization. 2005-10-11-DoctorowThemepunks ISBN:9780765312792 (more)

Tiago Forte system of highlighting+

Digital Garden hosting service based on the engine I built for myself, now available for you. http://flux.garden (more)

Omicron variant, Delta variant, and the Need for More Accurate Hospitalization Data. We now have six laboratory studies showing a decreased ability of Omicron to infect lung tissue, providing cellular level support that Omicron is less likely to cause the dreaded viral pneumonia prompting admission for supplemental oxygen or mechanical ventilation. So why then is the U.S. seeing a surge in hospitalizations that looks poised to surpass last winter’s high? Possible reasons include the following: (more)

A covid-19 surge in Western Europe has U.S. bracing for another wave. Infectious-disease experts are closely watching the subvariant of omicron known as BA.2, which appears to be more transmissible than the original strain, BA.1, and is fueling the outbreak overseas. (more)

Due to a combination of high levels of immunity and the reduced severity of the Omicron variant has rendered COVID-19 less lethal than influenza (the flu) for the vast majority of people in England (more)

AppliedDivinityStudies: Is Time Working for or Against You? Finance is the most obvious example, but it’s not an isolated case. Lots of things grow and compound (compounding), far beyond the effort you put into them. (more)

Scott Alexander: All In All, Another Brick In The Motte. One of the better things I’ve done with this blog was help popularize Nicholas Shackel’s “motte and bailey doctrine”. But I’ve recently been reminded I didn’t do a very good job of it. So here is a clean new post on the concept that adds a couple of further thoughts to the original formulation. (more)

Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (March 11, 1915 – June 26, 1990), known simply as J.C.R. or "Lick" was an American psychologist [1] and computer scientist considered one of the most important figures in computer science and general computing history. He is particularly remembered for being one of the first to foresee modern-style Interactive computing, and its application to all manner of activities; and also as an Internet pioneer, with an early vision of a worldwide computer network long before it was built. He did much to actually initiate all that through his funding of research which led to a great deal of it, including today's canonical graphical user interface, and the ARPANET, the direct predecessor to the Internet... In 1960 his seminal paper on ManComputerSymbiosis foreshadowed interactive computing, and he went on to fund early efforts in time-sharing and application development, most notably the work of Douglas Engelbart, who founded the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and created the famous On-Line System (NLS) where the computer mouse was invented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._R._Licklider (more)

Ivan Edward Sutherland (born May 16, 1938)[1] is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics.[2] His early work in computer graphics as well as his teaching with David C. Evans in that subject at the University of Utah in the 1970s was pioneering in the field. Sutherland, Evans, and their students from that era developed several foundations of modern computer graphics. He received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal computers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Sutherland (cf CAD)

We have an Aprilaire humidity-control system integrated into the house HVAC system. (Which probably needs servicing, like everything else.) (more)

Reminded by my calendar. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: The Long Long Covid Post. First I deal with Katja Grace’s post, then Scott Alexander’s Long Covid: Much More Than You Wanted to Know. (more)

Scott Gottlieb (born June 11, 1972) is an American physician and investor who served as the 23rd commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 2017 until April 2019. He is presently a senior fellow at the conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA),[1][2] a member of the board of directors of drug maker Pfizer, Inc,[3] a member of the board of directors of Illumina, Inc.,[4] a contributor to the cable financial news network CNBC, and a frequent guest on the CBS News program Face the Nation.[5] He is the author of The New York Times best selling book Uncontrolled Spread[6] on the COVID-19 pandemic and the national security vulnerabilities that it revealed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Gottlieb

Zvi Mowshowitz Covid-19 Omicron Variant #16: Danger in China. Scott Gottlieb says we essentially don’t know the extent to which Omicron has spread in China... We know China has not made great use of its time so far, and seems incapable of the loss of face necessary to get mRNA vaccines (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 3/10/22: We Have a Plan. Covid situation continues to improve, although Covid remains a thing. There’s a new executive plan that I did my best to read with incomplete success, that checks off lots of boxes and doesn’t have anything horribly wrong with it. (more)

Rochelle Paula Walensky (née Bersoff; born April 5, 1969) is an American physician-scientist who is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.[1] Prior to her appointment at the CDC, she was the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Walensky is an expert on HIV/AIDS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochelle_Walensky

Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, sold under the brand name Paxlovid, is a co-packaged medication used as a treatment for COVID-19.[3][5][9] It contains the antiviral medications nirmatrelvir and ritonavir.[3][5] It is taken by mouth.[3][5] In December 2021, the co-packaged medication was granted emergency use authorization by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of COVID-19.[5][6][7][10] The co-packaged medication is not authorized for the pre-exposure or post-exposure prevention of COVID-19 or for initiation of treatment in tho se requiring hospitalization due to severe or critical COVID-19. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir

Researchers have established the existence of three sublineages of Omicron variant. The 'standard' sublineage is now referred to as BA.1 (or B.1.1.529.1), and the two other sublineages are known as BA.2 (or B.1.1.529.2) and BA.3 (or B.1.1.529.3).[47] They share many mutations, but also significantly differ. In general, BA.1 and BA.2 share 32 mutations, but differ by 28.[48] This makes them as different as some other major variants,[49] and it has been suggested that BA.2 should receive its own name based on the Greek alphabet.[48] BA.1 has itself been divided in two, the original BA.1 and BA.1.1, where the main difference is that the latter has a R346K mutation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Omicron_variant#Sublineages_and_BA.2_subvariant

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 3/3/2022: Move Along. The good news is that this is rapidly ramping down in many places, and perhaps coming to an end. The CDC has revised its mask guidelines to target a much more sensible metric, and now recommends unmasking in a large portion of the country. I would go farther, but the offer seems acceptable (more)