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staydecent.ca

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Not really a side project but:

I've been using linux for a few years now as my main/only OS, but have mainly just used Linux Mint as a sorta plug-and-play distro.

Looking to revive my 15 year old ThinkPad (1st laptop ever!) by building up from a base Void linux install. As I'm doing it I'm writing install-scripts and getting my dotfiles in order (after never really doing so for 17+ years as a programmer lol), so I can repeat the process in the future on other machines, or when I want to do a fresh re-install.

https://github.com/staydecent/void-setup

I was able to find ICU capacity and occupations for Alabama[1].

Interesting to note, that last time that COVID patients were occupying the peak 700-800 bed range, was Jan 2021. Only, back then, there was ~150 more total capacity. Why has total capacity dropped since the start of the year?

No doubt, COVID hospitalizations are spiking, but total beds available are dipping at the same time. Not a good recipe!

[1] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/hospitalization-7-day-trend...

"Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) [..] allocated $12 million in federal funding this month to bring travel nurses to Alabama hospitals experiencing staffing shortages, such as the ones that DeMonia’s family encountered."

We are seeing nurse shortages in Canada as well. Mostly due to poor working conditions (long hours, no paid sick-leave in some jurisdictions). Some low staffing even attributed to evading forest fire smoke (anecdotal).

It's very hard to find the info in Canada. But, it would be interesting to see historical fluctuations in ICU capacity, how much spare capacity is maintained, and how much capacity is taken up by COVID patients.

A 2015 study found that critical-care capacity varied across Canada and should be addressed to avoid regional disruptions for spikes in need[1].

Healthcare systems were perhaps already stressed, and requiring adjustment and improvements, and COVID pushed them over the edge.

[1] https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-01...

the cost of these vaccines is largely hidden, no? Each country made deals behind closed doors AFAIK. I've seen some estimates of $12-$30 a shot, but have no idea the validity of this.

How much do the treatments cost? Is it vastly different?

No long term side effects.

How do you know? I thought the only study/data from Pfizer covered 6 months. That's not very long term? https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261159v...

I don't think we need to replace vaccines, but large swathes of the population still don't have access. It seems very likely that a multi-modal approach would allow us to treat more people, faster.

Even Pfizer sees vaccination as well as treatment as the path forward: https://www.pfizer.com/science/coronavirus/antiviral-efforts

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

This just may be my imagined takeaway. But..

There's a theme around creativity existing on, let's call it a plane, and this plane is accessible to anyone. I've yet to think much on if this plane (or, perhaps way of thinking) is the same for everyone or actually shared in some way.

This idea massively shaped my understanding, or feelings towards, the brain, and the immense ability for our own brains to limit or enhance our potential.

This was a very literary way for me to form the advice that could be boiled down to: "think positively"

This sort of repurposing is how I got the most use out of my Firefox phone (Geeksphone Peak). There's a fork of FirefoxOS called JanOS[1] intended for powering IoTs, which I came across before FirefoxOS pivoted.

I ended up keeping a footbag[2] ontop of the proximity sensor and when it was removed, it would notify my office-mates (via slack) that it was time to stop working and come play some footbag :) Source is on GitHub[3]

[1] http://janos.io/about.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footbag

[3] https://github.com/staydecent/footbag-os

He is not struggling for words, or thinking hard, as even bright, articulate whistleblowers under stress will do. Rather he appears to be transmitting whole paragraphs smoothly, without stumbling.

When I watched this, the assumption I made was that he was carefully prepared to take on this massive endeavour – better to be prepared for the consequences and media than to foil the effort.

But, really, we have no fucking idea.

I am so confused as to how you came to all these conclusions. To me, it seemed pretty clear that he wants to develop things, and to program as his job, rather than run a business.

"without doing much of the kind of work I actually enjoy."

Definitely interesting, but would love to see some results other than leafy greens and basil. From what I know (farmed in Vancouver, BC) neither have much disease pressure, nor require much manual attention.

If an initial goal is to increase local produce for winter months in cooler climates (than California) then seeing tomatoes, summer squash, and fruits seems necessary. I think berries could be confined to the small space, but what about fruit trees? I personally store (preserve or freeze) berries and peaches to have in winter.

Kale and other leafy's can be over-wintered with much cheaper (to build and operate) green or hoop houses – at least in the pacific northwest.

I understand they are in the MVP kinda stage, but to me, to see any potential value I would need to know if fruit, tomatoes, summer squash can be done in winter, as those require more heat, more sun, and have higher disease pressure.

For any Extension developers, there are some workarounds to avoid asking for the "tabs" permission.

If you just need to know when a tab is visible for your content scripts to do things, use the Page Visibility API[1].

If you want your Extensions background scripts to notify all content scripts of something, you can rely on `chrome.storage.onChanged` event. The storage API does not warn users about permissions[2]

If anyone's interested in code samples, I could through some snippets in a gist.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-page-visibility-20110602/#sec-p... [2] http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/permission_warnings.h...

Apple really is leading the way with accessibility. A family member, also sided with an iPhone over a visually-impaired-targeted phone.

Moreover, they prefer OSX's built-in accessibility features over JAWS and similar software available for Windows.

What Americans Buy 14 years ago

It may be of interest to some: As food costs have come down in US so have some important nutrients in fruit & veggies.

Eating Your Veggies: Not As Good For You? http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1880145,00.ht...

And,

Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999 http://www.jacn.org/content/23/6/669.full

Which concludes: "We suggest that any real declines are generally most easily explained by changes in cultivated varieties between 1950 and 1999, in which there may be trade-offs between yield and nutrient content."

Well said. And, I agree. I didn't even think of enhancing an existing basic JS slider with additional animations using CSS3.

I'm still not sure if I'll switch from SlidesJS to Sequence, just because I am quite familiar with the SlidesJS source. But, definitely good work by ianlunn--I'm going to attempt a similar effect with SlidesJS sometime soon.

From the site: "Unique transition styles created using CSS3"

Couldn't these "Unique transitions" be applied to most existing slideshow plugins, since they are done with CSS3 and not the plugin itself?

Say, if I was using http://slidesjs.com/, I could do `addClass('animate-in')` using the `animationStart()` event.

I say this as I'd like more people to contribute to a solid, widely used and tested slideshow plugin, instead of adding another choice--of course this assumes that there's no need for another choice.

> GMOs, herbicides, and pesticides have saved hundreds of millions of lives from death by famine. Current levels of food production are not possible with GMOs.

That's great. But, we need to look ahead. Monsanto's high-yield crops rely on herbicides/pesticides and monocultures. This negatively affects biodiversity[1], genetic diversity, pollinator populations[2] and increases risk of cancer[3] and land degradation[4]. High-yield crops are a quick fix. Patch work. What about in 25 or 50 years? What if we have severe colony collapse? What if we have severe soil contamination and degradation? How will we feed ourselves then? What if we have to increase our use of pesticides just to get the same yield?

[1] http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/environment.asp?id=1834

[2] http://www.epa.gov/pesp/pesp/members/strategies/north _america_pollinator_protection_campaign.pdf

[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9498903

[4] http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1214-unu.html

I don't understand why you chose India and Africa as examples? Their food situation is vastly different from China. India especially, has not (on a whole) benefited from Monsanto's GMOs (http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1087730/how_i...)

1. If we continue our use of herbicides/pesticides to the point of wide-spread colony collapse, spread of plant disease (perhaps canola, soy, or corn), significant reduction of nitrate fixation, increased human cancers we may also see hundreds of millions of people die or be without food.

Obviously, no one is suggesting we stop producing enough food for people to eat. But you need to look past the next 5, 10, 25 years. Those issues listed above are all real. And can all be linked to herbicides/pesticides and monocultures. We need to work on a new solution, a new system. The current situation is not a long-term answer.

2. This is more a theoretical morality issue. How much control/ownership should any one entity be allowed to have on life. What if they aren't just patenting seeds for RoundUp resistance? More so, say I live in a certain climate where I want a certain field tomato to grow. And under those circumstances I end up with a seed similar to a patented Monsanto seed. I lose in court. Other varieties of tomatoes don't grow will in my area. What do I do? I no longer have the freedom or right to grow successful tomatoes. This is not reality, but a possibility. One, that I do not believe in the slightest is worth risking. This could also lead to outrageous seed pricing.

Oh while I'm at it. Let's add climate change, land degradation (http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1214-unu.html). Basically, yes we need to feed billions, but we also need to do that 25-50 years from now. The practices used for high-yield crops are limiting our ability to produce food in the future.

1. Genetic manipulation by Monsanto has relied on herbicides/pesticides and monocultures. This comes with averse effects and risks. The use of herbicides/pesticides must be reduced. We need pollinators, we need genetic diversity and biodiversity. We must look ahead more than 25 or so years. When it comes to soil fertility and contamination we should be looking ahead 100 years.

2. Is it possible for a group to select and breed their seeds over years, and eventually having a breed that is similar to a patented Monsanto seed?

3. It very well may not be on the most hated.