So, the U.S. is pretty much on the same trajectory Italy took with this thing. And that is bad. Italy’s health system was in better shape than ours is, and had more hospital beds per capita; lots more when you…
What’s The Problem: Math From The Back Of An Envelope
A lot of folks, including many of the public faces of government response, don’t seem to really understand what’s going on here. Pandemic. Scary word; very scary problem. So let’s look at what that problem is. I’ll use my local…
Disrupt The State: Monolithic Governments Need To Go Away
There are a lot of things that need doing, but that many of us just don’t trust the government to do. Fair enough. But that still leaves a bunch of stuff that needs doing: health care, identity management, election security,…
A New Normal: Business In A Time Of Pandemic
This is gonna take a while. A long, long while. So yesterday a new study came out that predicts abound 2 million deaths in the U.S., if everyone tries to just go about their business as usual. That’s … really…
Don’t Get Comfortable: Quarantine, Evacuation, And Curfew
It’s still important that we don’t normalize this. Just to start this off properly, they are correct this time: You should stay at home. You should keep about ten feet away from other people. You should minimize your contact with…
Hey America: Shut It All Down
A message from Italy: take this one seriously. Very seriously. It’s not often that I talk about something here where the solution is: extremely obvious widely agreed on by experts immediately doable by everyone (Usually, it’s the second one where…
No More Charity: Let’s All Do It Together
I’m not gonna go this far, but I’ll get close. You’d think I’d be all-in for charity. Helping the poor; doing good deeds; not having the government involved. Totally in my wheelhouse, all of that. But there’s a problem with…
Long Overdue: Get The Government Out Of Marriage
When Prop. 8 was current news here in California, I found the whole thing very confusing. Why is the government involved in marriage anyway? Fine; of course. People have been getting married for, like, ever and laws have been hung…
Saying It Isn’t So: There Are No “Other Ways Of Knowing”
Contrary to what seems to be a common belief these days, we do actually have an entire discipline for evaluating “ways of knowing”. It’s called “epistemology”. And it distinguishes between “belief” and “knowledge”. “Knowledge” is “justified true belief”. Meaning a…
Voice Assistants: Big Sister Is Watching You
Well, mostly just listening at this point. But don’t get cocky. I’m no fan of the Internet of Things, or “cloud” services (as should be obvious from Escrow: Keep The “Cloud” Honest). But voice assistant devices bring them to a…