2020/11 Ship's Log

Stephen Wolfram’s nerdy index of his “life hacks” is impressive. Best part? For all the tech, at the core are simple organization and habit rules that guide everything else.

We made it! Hard to imagine a drive through Chicago takes 30 minutes, but it does at 4:00 a.m. I’m so thankful Thanksgiving includes lots of food; my stomach was eating itself by the time we arrived.

Man, this video is powerful. Here’s an excerpt from my post:

Where news coverage bows it’s head in despairing silence over a land wracked with human evil, we who pledge our allegiance to King Jesus raise our eyes to a horizon of hope. Today we pray and act to bring into reality that beatific vision which our Lord Jesus set before himself on his march into the jaws of evil - the renewal of all things which is called the Kingdom of our God. Here’s a foretaste: Pittsburgh Blessing.

A couple short writings from the Kathy Fisher archives, chosen at random. Because they made me chuckle:

Matt Webb’s muse about “the After” - the fictitious time expanse beyond quarantine - is both thought-provoking and inspiring. He wrote the article in May, when the pandemic had only just begun to settle in, but his words are yet more relevant now that lockdown has truly become “normal.”

I’m inspired to make our family’s adjustment intentional. We’re always fighting the urge to “just survive,” but I don’t want to get stuck in that useless mindset. It’s time for action and change, not waiting for a future that’ll never arrive! What changes are you embracing this holiday?

Matt Webb exposes some of the most interesting content and explores the most original ideas of many on the Internet (that I’ve discovered anyway). This article about bread-making proves with history what is only inference otherwise; that the bread we eat from the grocery store is worse for us than any bread that’s come before. Time to break out the ol’ bread kit…

Thanks to Jason Prenas for fixing our bathtub faucet! Jason was professional, kind to our curious toddler, and gave us advice about another leak we’d recently noticed. I’d be happy to refer him. If you live near Evanston, IL and want a quality plumber, email me for Jason’s phone number.

Today a 31-year-old Black woman died of COVID just west of Hyde Park. As I took in this sad news, I wondered if Black and Latino Americans are more heavily affected than White Americans. This is what I found:

As of today, White Americans between the ages of 40-100 have died of COVID in Cook County in greater numbers than any other race.

It’s worth noting, however, that the tables turn for those younger than 40:

To verify, here’s the SQL query:

select
  count(*) as 'count',
  age,
  case
    when latino = 1 then ' Latino'
    else race
  end as 'race'
from
  medical_examiner_case_archive__covid19_related_deaths
where
  age between 40 and 100
  and race not in ('', 'Other', 'Unknown')
group by
  race,
  latino,
  age

Where do I get this data? See this post.

I’ve been sporadically learning a new keyboard layout, the Workman layout. I’d tried learning Dvorak a while ago and had some success, so I have courage to try again. Getting off QWERTY is one of many steps I’m taking to reduce strain on my body, especially my wrists. Typing lessons are extremely effective!

COVID Risk Planner is a data-centric view of the current risk that at least one COVID-positive person will be present in a gathering of size X. It’s fascinating that the estimate expects five times more cases than reported.

Victoria has a new post about CSS media queries and custom properties; I’m itching to try her suggestions!

This weekend, a 98-year-old Latino man died from COVID-related symptoms within walking distance of our apartment at 1415 Oakton Street, Evanston. This is when data gets personal.

My life goes on without unusual fear, even in a pandemic, but the approach of our trip to Rapid City is stirring more fear than I anticipated. How much risk are we willing to accept to visit family over the holidays?

Thanks to Kati Ray for surprising Amie and I with a candlelit date night, and to Lily Cohen for putting Graham to bed so we could go! It was a lovely evening, both the time spent together and the board games with Kati after.

A fascinating, and convicting, look at how national politics are skewed by outsiders with differing agendas. U.S. Election Through An African Lens

The coronavirus memorial has been on my home page for a few days now. It’s sobering to glimpse the story of COVID deaths in Cook County over time. If you’ve noticed that sometimes there’s no data, it’s because I’m honing in on the best times to run my cron update job.

I’m so thankful to have these shorter comments as an alternative to lengthy blog posts. I do want to keep writing long-form articles, but it’s been an insane season.