Category: Worth Your Time

Corona

1. A post-pandemic world will have more government, be less globalized, and rethink its market economies
2. A list of the economic and political areas C19 will impact (improve?)
3. The “real” death rate from C19 in NL (measured via “excess deaths”) is 9,000 — 32% higher than the official C19 death count.
4. Good advice on how to keep yourself sane in lockdown
5. Covid as the “shift” from US to Chinese dominance
6. Universities shouldn’t re-open but adapt
7. This cartoon says it all

Non-Corona

1. Why are so many leaders incompetent — and male? 
2. A useful summary of the good points (somewhat buried by its poor format) in “Planet of the Humans.” I agree with all 5 — and have for years 😉
3. Logs, which I kinda understand, are pretty cool
4. Episode 1,000 of Planet Money: behind the green curtains

H/Ts to IH, VZ

Corona-related

1. Read this excellent summary of how much C19 risk you face in confined spaces, outdoors, etc.
2. Real asset values will fall when we factor in the loss of buying power
3. “Inevitable” urbanization isn’t.
4. This article on the death of small businesses did not change my mind, because it’s wrong. Yes, many businesses will fail, but many more will rise in their place (“creative destruction”) IF governments allow free competition instead of subsidizing friends. Let’s see.
5. Students are asking if they are getting value for their money from universities as courses go online. Good question.
6. A good summary of what C19 has taught us about ourselves
7. Mapping the virus  — including its genetic mutations
8. Good podcasts: The environment recovers from our assault, the economy slows (and that’s good), and the economy crashes (and that’s bad).

Non-Corona

1. Robots are not really a threat
2. Advice for new grads, from old grads TED speakers
3. TU/Eindhoven’s campaign to hire only female professors (to correct a gender imbalance) is going well: 35 are hired (out of a target of 150?)

H/Ts to NN and RP

Corona-related

1. The retail landscape (especially in the US) will change radically
2. Good podcasts on US failures: The government bails out billionaires, the rich and powerful fight Federal incompetence to find a vaccine, and a venture capitalist explains how the federal government is failing to use its normal tools to replace financial shortfalls.
3. A really good corona charts explainer
4. “Trump-administration officials do not yet understand the significance of the chaos they have created in place of what used to be American foreign policy.”
5. Financial markets have been decoupled from the real economy by government intervention desperation, but that may will not prevent a depression.
6. Compare US Federal (good and chaotic) to California to Dutch C19 communications

Non-corona!

1. 68 pieces of good advice!
2. A really excellent overview of what markets do
3. A deep, insightful discussion of digital identity. Related: Five books on “information” that goes way deeper into how we make decisions

Covid-related

1. Every Covid commercial is the same (OMG!)
2. Good advice for coping with quarantine… 
3. The Dutch government seems to be confused over the purpose of — and decision rule for exit from — lockdown
4. The technology of tracking you via your phone
5. The Coronavirus reveals: The US is a failed state
6. How will colleges cope with C19? 
7. “Amsterdam’s old centre had been largely abandoned to mass tourism and the sex industry until coronavirus hit, and is now an oasis of peace and quiet.”

Non-covid

1. Want change? Pay attention to the hierarchy of leverage points
2. Why sharp knives cut better
3. When the world was innocent: Setting international standards

H/Ts to JS and VZ

Corona-related

1. Skies over quarantined cities are remarkably clean. Car sales are imploding. Coincidence?
2. This obscenity-laden analysis of US government failure is dead right.
3. Nobody predicted C-19 (obvious if you look at the market’s mid-Feb drop)
4. When assholes embrace social distancing (comedy)
5. A Marxist hopes workers might rebel against corona-capitalists
6. The Amish have a better health care system
7. How BoJo’s government failed to cope with Corona

Non-corona

1. The transition to clean energy will be neither clean nor easy
2. China, proving pessimists right, has taken the “low road” in holding back Mekong water for itself. Food security is falling for downstream countries.
3. Truck pirates are a thing
4. Listen to this podcast for the China discussion, not the C-19 angles

H/T to NN

Corona-related

1. Department of Ignorance: Arsonists torch cellular towers in NL. They think 5G spreads C-19. NL has not implemented 5G.
2. Scientists still don’t know if recovered C-19 patients are immune
3. Female leaders are doing well at protecting their people from C-19
4. Some clues about what the “1.5 meter economy’ will look like
5. One American worries “We are destroying the working class to save the elderly,” and American hospitals — accustomed to profiting from “excessive/elective” procedures — are going broke, but the cost of C-19 deaths (based on the value of lost lives) is headed toward $10 trillion.
6. Are trolls (the same ones that interfered with elections) “helping” Americans die from C-19? Probably… 

Non-Corona (ratio is tipping… a good sign or just bored with C-19?)

1. Bill Nordhaus, whom I have criticized for missing the boat on carbon pricing, makes a useful proposal on “carbon clubs” as a means of enforcing de-carbonization.
2. Practice Better writing with common easy words
3. James Burke on how “scattered” thinking creates new ideas and solutions
4. “Why the War on Physical Cash Is a War on Freedom“

H/T to LS and BW

Corona-related (It’s all corona-related!)

1. This funny video sums up my online teaching nightmares
2. The Corona-crisis is hitting supply and demand, which is why we’re headed for a recession and perhaps a depression.
3. How the food supply chain is (not) dealing with corona-hoarding (“hamstering” in the Netherlands 😉
4. I started Station 11 on a friend’s recommendation before coronavirus brought “global pandemic” the rest of the world’s attention. It’s a good book (no spoilers) for post-pandemic thinking. Here’s a great interview with its author.
5. Bats’ amazing immune systems make them dangerous to us
6. Update from Beijing
7. 30 predictions on how corona will change the world
8. How many “excess deaths” are statistics missing?
9. Good sense on coronaviruses and pandemics from an epidemiologist 
10. Time for social safety net reform in the US? A few ideas.
11. Post c-19 panic, incumbents will try to fool us into returning to the Old Normal of buying, stressing and consuming the planet. Don’t accept the Old Normal. Time for a new status quo.

H/T to RP

I don’t normally forward copy-pastas, but this makes sense (and has, reportedly, been checked by another nurse

“CORONA Common Sense

Since they are calling on Respiratory Therapist to help fight the Coronavirus, and I am a retired one, too old to work in a hospital setting, I’m going to share some common sense wisdom with those that have the virus and are trying to stay home. If my advice is followed as given, you will improve your chances of not ending up in the hospital on a ventilator. This applies to the otherwise generally healthy population, so use discretion.

1. Only high temperatures kill a virus, so let your fever run high. Tylenol will bring your fever down allowing the virus to live longer. They are saying that Ibuprofen, Advil, Aleve, Motrin, etc. will actually exacerbate the virus. Use common sense and don’t let a fever go over 103 (39C), if you got the guts. If it gets higher than that, take your Tylenol, not Ibuprofen or Advil ( or any type of anti-inflammatory drugs ) to keep it regulated. It helps to keep your house warm and cover up with blankets so your body does not have to work so hard to generate the heat. It usually takes about 3 days of this to break the fever.

2. The body is going to dehydrate with the elevated temperature, so you must rehydrate yourself regulaly, whether you like it or not. Gatorade with real sugar, or pedialyte with real sugar for kids works well. Why the sugar? Sugar will give your body back the energy it is using up to create the fever. The electrolytes and fluid you are losing will also be replenished by the Gatorade. If you don’t do this and end up in the hospital they will start an IV and give you D5W ( sugar water ) and normal saline to replenish electrolytes. Gatorade is much cheaper, pain free, and comes in an assortment of flavors.

3. You must keep your lungs moist. This is best done by taking long steamy showers on a regular basis. If you’re wheezing or congested, use a real minty toothpaste and brush your teeth while taking the steamy shower and deep breaths through your mouth. This will provide some bronchial dialation and help loosen the phlegm. Force yourself to cough into a wet wash cloth pressed firmly over your mouth and nose, which will cause greater pressure in your lungs forcing them to expand more and break loose more of the congestion.

4. Eat healthy and regularly. You’ve got to keep your strength up.

5. Once the fever breaks, start moving around to get the body back in shape and blood circulating.

6. Deep breathe on a regular basis, even when it hurts. If you don’t, it becomes easy to develope pneumonia. Pursed lip breathing really helps. That’s breathing in deep and slow, then exhaling through tight lips as if you’re blowing out a candle. Blow until you have completely emptied your lungs and you will be able to breathe in an even deeper breath. This helps keep lungs expanded as well as increase your oxygen level.

7. Remember that every medication you take is merely relieving the symptoms, not making you well.

8. If you’re still not improving, then go to the ER.

Coronavirus

1. Why you should wear a mask (assuming you can get one!)
2. Good news: Air pollution is dropping (almost as fast as economic activity)
3. Be careful what you wish for: Amsterdam tourism crashes, but the streets are cleaner. Will the future bring “sustainable” tourism or a return of unruly mobs?
4. Americans seem to understand C-19 risks thorough their political beliefs (Rs are taking more risks).. That’s charming but C19 will kill Republicans, Democrats and independents.
5. Will Peru’s politicians use C-19 to grab power? (Orban already did.)
6. The Netherlands needs to do more to really be food secure.
7. Will the quarantine help us reconsider our lives?

Non-Corona

1. A nice proposal for graduated income taxes that complements my idea for taxing wealth (via property taxes)
2. National Geographic looks at the bad news/good news futures of the Earth fifty years after Earth Day. Fun fact: No advertisers for the “bad news” side. For the good news side, the advertisers are Dow chemical and the Alliance to Stop Plastic Waste (sponsored by plastic manufacturers).
3. A really good discussion of the “three languages of politics” that was recorded before C-19 hit. Then, and now, it’s important to consider the different “life perspectives” of conservatives, progressives and liberals.

Coronavirus

1. Poor countries will have a hard time with C19
2. Sanity in the time of corona
3. Should we trust experts or politicians? Some tradeoffs
4. The US faces the worst case of coronavirus. How will it end?
5. What do infection and death statistics mean in the Netherlands?
6. Mr Money Moustache says hold steady on your investments
7. Silicon Valley “techbros” shorten the facemask supply chain

Non-Corona

1. One man embodies the 52/48% reality of Brexit
2. How land regulation makes housing unaffordable
3. Some creative perspectives on legal rights