Keeping Up-to-Date with COVID-19

Apr 112020
 

Here are some resources I depend on to update my understanding of this pandemic. (For more of an intro, see this page.) First, the numbers: Raw numbers: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en Numbers charted: https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest The JHU Dashboard is still good, though I mostly rely on the above two now: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 Authoritative Twitter sources I read religiously: Scott Gottlieb (previous FDA Commisssioner) is not so secretly perhaps the most influential person right now in how the US is responding — POLITICO calls him the “Shadow Czar.” His tweets are extremely informational and well thought-out. Definitely read all the AEI reports he links to: https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMDBob Wachter is head of UCSF Dept of Medicine. He does a daily recap thread in the evening that is superb [more . . .]

COVID-19 Resources

Mar 152020
 

(updated Mar 30 15:58 ET) It’s a challenge even for me, as someone deep in the healthcare world, to wrap my head around what is happening and how to think about the COVID-19 pandemic. Where is it? How bad is it? What are the symptoms? Is it getting better? How are we responding (or not)? Who should I trust? I’ve therefore collected some resources here that I’ve found helpful. Contents: The Daily Update | Overviews | Interventions | Updates | Bay Area | DC/DMV | Biology The Daily Update I browse to these sites once a day to get a clear, data-driven, and hype-free update: General global trends: https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest Global numbers: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 US Numbers: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en Trusted sources on Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1239042160483110912 [more . . .]

On the Turkish Constitutional Referendum Tomorrow

Apr 152017
 

Tomorrow is one of the most important votes in Turkish history — a vote on the referendum on the Constitution of Turkey to transform it from a parliamentary system to a presidential one. I was woefully ignorant about it until today. Here are some of my thoughts about it. I’d be lying if I said that this huge vote was on my mind as I flew here for my long weekend holiday. In actuality, I’d completely forgotten about it until an excitable merchant at a kebap stand started engaging with me about it over my order at lunch. So now, it’s the eve of the vote, and I’m now sitting here in Istanbul at a rooftop terrace bar overlooking the Hagia Sophia, [more . . .]

Dogsledding in Finnmark with Engholm Husky

Jan 172017
 

On 2-6 of January, I was up in Finnmark, Norway with Christian Monaghan and Alex Prokop for a few days of dogsledding. Specifically, our home base was Engholm Lodge near Karasjok, Finnmark, which, perhaps not coincidentally, holds the record coldest temperature in Norway at -51.4ºC. The serenity, the feeling of oneness you experience gliding through the soft, white, crunchy desolation with the dogs is nothing like I’ve ever experienced. The deafening quiet, the unwavering untouched snowfields, the full inch of hoarfrost forming on the dwarf birches and reindeer fences, the single ptarmigan pecking at berries, and of course, the team of powerful, friendly, empathic huskies that become at once your family, your engine, and your link and protection with and from [more . . .]

Death Valley Cottonwood/Marble Canyons Backpacking

Dec 032014
 

For Thanksgiving, we embarked on a hiking trip through Cottonwood and Marble Canyons in Death Valley National Park. It was an orienteering hike, in that there was no signage the entire way, and we would have to depend on old fashioned maps and compass most of the way. In addition, there was no guarantee that would be water through the 4-day hike, so I ended up carrying 11 liters in. Here’s the National Park Service info page on the hike, and below is a topo of the two canyons. View Larger Map If you’re going to do the hike, I’d recommend these maps: Cottonwood Canyon 7.5′ USGS Topo 2012, Harris Hill 7.5′ USGS Topo 2012, East of Sand Flat 7.5′ [more . . .]

Converting Unix

Sep 212012
 

It’s pretty annoying supporting both Windows and Linux systems. One of the things that comes up over and over is line endings. You’re about to run a script, and immediate get an error about the bash command not found or something bizarre like that. Fortunately, there are easy ways to fix this. (note, in the following, to type the ^M character, you’ll actually be typing ^V^M) Solution 1: use sed sed s/^M// Solution 2: use the same replacement string in vim :%s/^M//g Solution 3 (the really easy way): Use the dos2unix command that comes with most *nix distros: dos2unix

Virgin America is even more the best

Jul 232012
 

Awesome. Virgin America just announced its loyalty program. That used to be the main reason I still tried to fly Delta. But now, there’s really not too many reasons to not fly Virgin, unless I have a spate of trips planned for somewhere like Minneapolis or another city Virgin doesn’t serve.

Mammoth Ski Trip, Part 1: No Snow, No Problem!

Feb 252012
 

(The complete set of photos can be found in my SmugMug gallery.) After the disastrous 2nd annual Mammoth Lakes ski trip, we embarked on our third one this year over MLK weekend. The problem was that there wasn’t any snow in Mammoth Lakes. Well, no problem, some of us said; we’ll just go hiking. And so we hiked through terrain for five days that’s usually completely impassable this time of year save on cross-country skis or snowshoes or crampons. Tioga Pass was open this time of year for the first time since the 1930s, which cut an hour or two from our drive from the Bay Area to Mammoth. Tioga Lake was frozen over though, so we had a bit [more . . .]

Page 1 of 3 1 2 3