Merijn

Trevor Bedford, who does research on epidemics and infectious diseases, has compiled a number of papers and data sets with “strong evidence” that social distancing measures have slowed Covid-19 transmission rates around the world.

This report (from the Imperial College team who produced the sobering report that has been the blueprint for pandemic responses around the world) estimates that measures taken in several European countries have lowered their effective reproduction numbers (the R value) to close to 1.

Overall, we estimate that countries have managed to reduce their reproduction number. Our estimates have wide credible intervals and contain 1 for countries that have implemented all interventions considered in our analysis. This means that the reproduction number may be above or below this value. With current interventions remaining in place to at least the end of March, we estimate that interventions across all 11 countries will have averted 59,000 deaths up to 31 March [95% credible interval 21,000-120,000]. Many more deaths will be averted through ensuring that interventions remain in place until transmission drops to low levels. We estimate that, across all 11 countries between 7 and 43 million individuals have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 up to 28th March, representing between 1.88% and 11.43% of the population. The proportion of the population infected to date — the attack rate — is estimated to be highest in Spain followed by Italy and lowest in Germany and Norway, reflecting the relative stages of the epidemics.

And this was published on March 30 — here’s the latest data. The paper goes on to say (italics mine):

We cannot say for certain that the current measures have controlled the epidemic in Europe; however, if current trends continue, there is reason for optimism.

An Institute for Disease Modeling report from March 29 shows a similar reduction in their effective reproduction number in King County, Washington (the 12th most populous county in the US).

The graphs at the top of the post are from the latest data compiled by the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases. Lots of countries looking like they are headed for an effect R value of 1, which would indicate a slowing (rather than growing) epidemic.

Tags: COVID-19   medicine   science   Trevor Bedford

unlimited private repos for everyone

This is a video demonstration of Matt Reed's Zoombot, a crappy/humorous automated artificial intelligence system he created that sits in on Zoom teleconference meetings so he doesn't have to. Some more info about the system while I hang a curtain over the toilet tank to spruce up my own home office for videoconferencing:

in order to reclaim some of my precious time I built a Digital Twin of myself that uses the latest in advanced AI Speech Recognition and Text-to-Speech to handle my Zoom meetings for me. As it turns out, cloning oneself is actually much easier than Westworld would lead you to believe. I took a few screenshots of myself after opening Quicktime and doing File -> New Movie Recording. Next I just built a very-well-coded webapp that uses an open source library called Artyom.js to listen and respond. I programmed it to listen for phrases like... "How are you?" replies "I'm doing great thank you for asking" "Did you get that?" replies "I'm having trouble hearing you" "Bye" replies "Talk to everybody later. Be safe" ...while cycling through those still shots of myself in a very choppy fashion; obviously Zoombot has a bad connection. I then set up a Virtual Webcam with the webapp as the source using some software called ManyCam. That creates a system wide video input that you can set your Zoom webcam to. Now just crank up those speakers, fire up Zoombot, and freely go forth and enjoy all those other things you'd rather be doing than sitting on video conferences all day.

Now that's a great idea. And I'm not just saying that because I've never been part of a videoconference call that could even remotely be considered productive, but I haven't. Just like a phone sex operator who won't stop laughing at your fantasy, they're hard to take serious, and no matter how many times you yell REPRESENTATIVE, you'll never gonna get to speak with a higher-up and be issued a refund. Keep going for the video.

Players will be helping to map the human gut microbiome

This is a short TikTok video of a man slamming his kitchen cabinets to the drum solo in Phil Collins' 'In The Air Tonight'. Apparently this is something a lot of people have been doing on TikTok while stuck at home, presumably because their internet has gone out and their televisions have broken. Still, this is the best attempt I saw, even compared to my own (I screamed and ran when I saw the roaches). Keep going for the video.

In 2017, President Trump announced the USA’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. A coalition of mayors, governors and business leaders didn’t agree. They formed a coalition: We Are Still In. It now includes 3,500 representatives from 50 states. They’re committed to fighting the climate crisis on a local level. Switching to clean energy. Reducing emissions. Helping to fulfil America’s original promise.

The death penalty is revenge, not justice. It can be used as a political weapon. It discriminates against minorities and the poor. Mistakes can happen. And it’s never been proven to deter crime. Any country that executes people is committing the same violence it condemns. But laws are changing. The number of executions is falling.

This is a video of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost recreating 'the plan' scene from Shaun Of The Dead, but with a coronavirus twist. It made me want to rewatch Shaun Of The Dead, which I probably will considering everything is closed and I have nothing to do but sit at home and count the kernels in my popcorn ceiling. "How many are there?" Too f***ing many, I hate this prison. Keep going for the video, as well as the original movie scene for reference.

Five years ago, someone at Adam’s company made a commit. Like all good commits, it touched 200 individual files and 3,500 lines of code, and the commit message was simply: “Fixed”.

One of those 200 files was a .h header file, declaring a long pile of function prototypes. One of them is this one. It has no implementation, and isn’t used anywhere:

  void eXosip_suhnjbbbbynbhhhhhhhhhhhhbscribe_free (eXosip_subscribe_t * js);  

One of the most famous survival horror games ever implemented, which combines lo-fi, character-oriented “graphics” with escape room puzzles is VIM. Endlessly customizable, it offers a huge amount of replay value, if you ever successfully exit it.

Adam’s suspicion is that the developer was unwittingly in VIM’s edit mode, and accidentally mangled this. Either that, or a cat decided to do a softshoe routine on his keyboard while he wasn’t looking.

Regardless, that commit never got reviewed, as you can imagine, and thus this little “treat” has been sitting in the code base for five years. The real question is: what else got mashed into the code that no one knows about?

This is a video of science instructor Bruce Yeany discussing and demonstrating the movement of waves with a variety of different hanging loops, both limp and in motion. Some more info from the man himself while I daydream about the time I started a wave all by myself at a major league baseball game:

The speed of waves through a stationary ropes or chain can vary due to the tension and the density of the material. What happens when the rope itself is put into motion and then a wave disturbance is added? This idea is the start of our investigation using a few different loops of ribbon, rope and plastic chain. The ropes are made into loops by melting and joining the two ends together and then hang limply until put into motion. The behavior of the rope as it hangs stationary and limp versus when it is put into motion is quite remarkable.The closest analogy that might help to understand what is going on would be to imagine throwing rock in a moving stream or river. The waves traveling upstream would slow down and if the stream would be fast enough, the waves wouldn't be able to move in that direction at all. The waves headed downstream would move very fast since both movements would be in the same direction. Could we possibly stop a wave, and then reverse it's direction? This is something that I am attempting to explore.

Science! "What about it?" It's just another word for magic, which is just another word for God. "What did you smoke this morning, GW?" Banana peels! *shrug* If it's the end of the world I've got a list that needs crossing off. Keep going for the interesting, informative video.

This is an oldie but a goodie. Watch as a single busking bass player grows into the Vallès Symphony Orchestra and a pair of choirs to perform a rousing rendition of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Ode to Joy) in front of a delighted crowd. (via @victoriamia)

Tags: crying at work   Ludwig van Beethoven   music   video

Yascha Mounk writing for The Atlantic:

These three facts imply a simple conclusion. The coronavirus could spread with frightening rapidity, overburdening our health-care system and claiming lives, until we adopt serious forms of social distancing.

This suggests that anyone in a position of power or authority, instead of downplaying the dangers of the coronavirus, should ask people to stay away from public places, cancel big gatherings, and restrict most forms of nonessential travel.

Given that most forms of social distancing will be useless if sick people cannot get treated-or afford to stay away from work when they are sick-the federal government should also take some additional steps to improve public health. It should take on the costs of medical treatment for the coronavirus, grant paid sick leave to stricken workers, promise not to deport undocumented immigrants who seek medical help, and invest in a rapid expansion of ICU facilities.

This is very close to my own personal thinking right now, particularly after watching this excellent video about exponential growth and epidemics.

Tags: COVID-19   medicine   Yascha Mounk

Still waiting on a public announcement

because of course it was

Fifteen years ago this week, on Feb 22, 2005, I announced that I was going to turn kottke.org, my personal website, into my full-time job.

I recently quit my web design gig and — as of today — will be working on kottke.org as my full-time job. And I need your help.

I’m asking the regular readers of kottke.org (that’s you!) to become micropatrons of kottke.org by contributing a moderate sum of money to help enable me to edit/write/design/code the site for one year on a full-time basis.

It seemed like madness at the time — I’d quit my web design job a few months earlier in preparation, pro blogs existed (Gawker was on its 3rd editor) but very few were personal, general, and non-topical like mine, and I was attempting to fund it via a then-largely-unproven method: crowdfunding. As I wrote on Twitter the other day, attempting this is “still the most bonkers I-don’t-know-if-this-is-going-to-work thing I’ve ever done”.

These days, people are used to paying directly for online media through services like Kickstarter, Patreon, and Substack and kids want to run their own personality-driven businesses online when they grow up. But back then, aside from the likes of the WSJ, websites were either a) free to read or b) free to read & supported by advertising and being an online personality was not a lucrative thing. But I figured that enough of you would pitch in to support the site directly while keeping it free to read for everyone with no advertising.

In order to make it feel somewhat familiar, I patterned it after a PBS/NPR fund drive. During a three-week kick-off period, I asked people to support the site by becoming micropatrons. The suggested donation was $30 (but people could give any amount) and there were thank you gifts — like signed books, software, signed photo prints, a free SXSW ticket — for people who contributed. Several hundred people ended up contributing during those three weeks, enough for me to do the site for a year. I still remember that first day, responding to well-wishes from friends on AIM and watching my PayPal account fill up, and it hitting me that this bonkers scheme was actually going to work and pretty much bursting into tears.

Fast forward to the present day and this little website is still chugging along. In its almost 22 years of existence, kottke.org has never gotten big, but it’s also never gone away, predating & outlasting many excellent and dearly missed sites like Grantland, Rookie, The Toast, The Awl, Gawker, and hundreds of others. I have other people write for the site on occasion, but it’s still very much a one-person production by a reluctant influencer (*barf*) who, as an introvert, still (naively?) thinks about posts on the site as personal emails to individual readers rather than as some sort of broadcast. I’d like to thank those early supporters for having faith in me and in this site — you’re the reason we’re all still here, gathered around this little online campfire, swapping stories about the human condition.

About 3 years ago, I returned to the crowdfunding model with kottke.org’s membership program. Since then, I’m very happy to report, readers like you who have purchased memberships have become the main source of financial support for the site. As I’ve written before, I have come to love the directness of this approach — I write, you pay, no middlemen, and, crucially, the site remains part of the Open Web, unpaywalled & free for everyone to read. If you’ll indulge me in a request on this anniversary, if you’re not currently a member of the site (or if your membership has lapsed) and can afford to do so, please consider supporting the site with a membership today. I really appreciate everyone who has become a member over the past few years — thank you!! — and I hope you will consider joining them.

Note: I have no photos of myself taken around this time in 2005, so the photo at the top of the post is me circa spring 1996. I’d dropped out of grad school & was back living at my dad’s house, spending 10-12 hours a day online (via a 28.8K modem) trying to figure out how to build websites. I applied for jobs & internships at places like Wired/Hotwired, Razorfish, Studio Archetype, and MTV but no one wanted to hire a physics major w/ no art or design education or experience to design websites. kottke.org was still a couple of years off at this point…

Tags: Jason Kottke   kottke.org   webdev

you can switch to NextDNS or disable it entirely in Network Settings

Onderzoekers hebben met behulp van deep learning een nieuw antibioticum ontdekt. Hun algoritmes voorspelden op basis van moleculaire structuur dat een middel tegen verscheidene bacteriesoorten zou moeten werken.

I tweeted a joke that got 100k+ likes a while back and it sucked, 800k+ sounds horrifying

This is 'Neo Takes The Blue Pill', a mashup/deepfake video created by Youtuber Ctrl Shift Face with the help of visual effects artist Chris Ume, imagining Neo in the world of Office Space, complete with boss Bill Lumbergh getting the Agent Smith treatment. 3/5 but would still watch a full-length version in the theater. "Can I come?" Depends, are you going to try pulling the ol' penis in the popcorn trick? "Is it really a trick if you're expecting it?" Hoho! Get extra salt and butter. Keep going for the video, as well as a worthwhile side-by-side comparison of the effects.

he compares it to the coding equivalent of home cooking: deliberately amateur, loose, and unscalable

Universe Sandbox is a interactive space & gravity simulator that you can use to play God of your own universe.

You can create star systems: “Start with a star then add planets. Spruce it up with moons, rings, comets, or even a black hole.” You can collide planets and stars or simulate gravity: “N-body simulation at almost any speed using Newtonian mechanics.” You can model the Earth’s climate, make a star go supernova, or ride along on space missions or see historical events.

I found Universe Sandbox after watching this video about what would happen if the Earth got hit by a grain of sand going 99.9% the speed of light (spoiler: not much). This game/simulator/educational tool is only $30 but I fear that if I bought it, I would never ever leave the house again.

Tags: astronomy   gravity   physics   science   space   video   video games

Geraldine Brezca has worked on several of director Quentin Tarantino’s movies,¹ and for Inglourious Basterds, she was the slate operator — i.e. she clapped the clapper before each scene. And as this video shows, she was very entertaining and creative in her duties:

For each scene’s label, Brezca came up with something funny (A66F = “au revoir 66 fuckers”), ribald (29B = “29 blowjobs”), appropriate (39FE = “39 feet essential” on a scene featuring feet), respectful (4AK = “4 Akira Kurosawa”), or profane (79E = “79 fucking explosives”, which got quite a chuckle from Brad Pitt). See also Here’s Why Slate Operators Matter (And Why Quentin Tarantino’s is So Great).

1. Brezca’s IMDB page shows that the last movie she worked on was Django Unchained in 2012. Not sure if she left the industry or passed away or what…↩

Tags: Brad Pitt   Geraldine Brezca   Inglourious Basterds   movies   Quentin Tarantino   video

a social network simulator for iOS where you’re the only human with millions of bots obsessed with you

The creation and adoption of surveillance systems based on Artificial Intelligence often feels like it’s widely outpacing the speed at which cities and countries can legislate any kind of control. So it’s always an encouraging sign when new well considered decisions are rendered and put the public good and human rights first.

One such decision is the Dutch courts’ ruling that a welfare surveillance system violates human rights.

A Dutch court has ordered the immediate halt of an automated surveillance system for detecting welfare fraud because it violates human rights … The case was seen as an important legal challenge to the controversial but growing use by governments around the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and risk modelling in administering welfare benefits and other core services.

It’s especially encouraging since disfranchised and minority populations are usually the ones facing the brunt of surveillance, with little recourse for corrections and / or without the means to pursue legal options.

Deployed primarily in low-income neighbourhoods, it gathers government data previously held in separate silos, such as employment, personal debt and benefit records, and education and housing histories, then analyses it using a secret algorithm to identify which individuals might be at higher risk of committing benefit fraud.

One hopes the decision will have repercussions far outside the Netherlands.

Alston predicted the judgment would be “a wake-up call for politicians and others, not just in the Netherlands”. The special rapporteur presented a report to the UN general assembly in October on the emergence of the “digital welfare state” in countries around the globe, warning of the need “to alter course significantly and rapidly to avoid stumbling, zombie-like, into a digital welfare dystopia”.

Image credit: Rotterdam at night by Joël de Vriend.

Tags: netherlands   surveillance

Trans people identify with a gender that differs from their sex. Prejudice against them is real. They encounter violence, discrimination and social disadvantage. Understanding of their needs is growing, though. From January 2022, the World Health Organisation will no longer classify gender incongruence as a disorder. The aim: to reduce stigma while ensuring access to healthcare. Gender identity isn’t a lifestyle choice.

Netflix heeft instellingen toegevoegd aan zijn website om autoplay uit te zetten in zijn apps. Gebruikers kunnen het automatisch afspelen van trailers in menu's uitzetten. Het was al mogelijk om uit te schakelen dat Netflix automatisch de volgende aflevering begint af te spelen.

a delightful, practical look back at how CSS evolved

a companion to the vocal burst map, an interactive visualization of emotions conveyed by music

Increpare made a hellish four-way version of Tetris