A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months…
Retracing yesterday’s morning flight, but southbound and in the afternoon. From Portland, Maine to Portsmouth, New Hampshire:
From our Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine trip in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow and I were flying.
Also available as a streaming 8K video.
Full post, including commentsA post in a helicopter pilots’ group: “Pandemic times” over the following photo.
Nobody came up with my preferred reaction (“You have to say global pandemic”). Sampling of the responses:
A Berkeley, California friend’s Facebook post:
given #B117 mutation, masked protection needs to be intensified
I’m doubling down, with cloth on top of N95 (thx Mitt Romney)
Also bought a little neck fan for blowing air – designed to cool off the wearer, when inverted it nudges incoming air away from my mouth
Stacking layers in my SafetyLasagna (which includes vitamin D in the AM, saline spray to line my nasal passages, then these crazy additions)
Above a photo, cropped for privacy:
Although this inventor is a Dr. just like Dr. Jill Biden, MD, his California friends are not impressed:
My understanding is that fans, while protective for the wearer, actually increase the risk to others by blowing exhaled virus farther. I would steer clear of anyone I saw in public with a fan near their face.
Your fans could harm others if you were unknowingly covid+
I have read that the masks with the valve are not appropriate as a virus barrier, but are intended to prevent dust inhalation–so they let your breath out but prevent particles from coming in. You have an N95 underneath, so not an issue here, but since this is an opportunity for community review of a safety plan, wondering if you have thoughts there. Stay healthy! #SafetyLasagna
We actually do know that fans increase projection of viral particles. If you are wearing a fan, you increase risk of transmission from you to others, but also from others to you, just by stirring up a lot of air near the face.
I told him that I thought it would be simpler to eat real lasagna until his BMI hits 40 and thus get higher priority for the vaccine. A friend from MIT with some mechanical engineering ability:
If he is going to bother at all, which is debatable, he should use a P-100 respirator and NIOSH approved goggles. If you are really that concerned, add a faceshield. Doubling two useless filters ain’t going to do it…. P-100 filters are 167 times more efficient than N-95 (which are 10-20 time better than surgical masks). You need an elastomeric/plastic seal on your face or you aren’t getting to the next level. Some N95s have such seals.
Readers: Who has seen some interesting PPE solutions lately? The LG PuriCare (N95-ish mask with fan assist), announced in August, doesn’t seem to be available in the U.S., but online retailers in Hong Kong show that it is in stock there for HK$1,180 ($150 in the currency that Jesus prefers everyone to use).
Full post, including commentsIs LGBTQIA the most popular social justice cause because it does not require giving money? looked at the question of why individuals might love to wave the rainbow flag.
What about employers, though? Why is it Pride Month Every Month at employers whose businesses don’t relate to romance, sex, gender reassignment surgery, or anything else that might seem directly related to LGBTQIA+?
Let’s consider heterosexual sex acts from an employer’s point of view. These encounters regularly result in the accidental production of children whose existence then leads to (1) up to a year of paid parental leave during which time employee productivity is zero, (2) additional years or decades of reduced productivity, and (3) massive increases in costs for health insurance (or health care for the self-insured employer).
From a rational employer’s point of view, therefore, it makes sense to promote all things LGBTQIA+. From my 2016 visit to the Facebook campus (see Open-pit Coding), for example:
Another way to look at it, which of the follow individuals would you rather employ?
Related:
Portland again!
More importantly, after borrowing a car from the good folks at MAC Jets, lobster rolls downtown:
From our Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine trip in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow and I were flying.
Also available as a streaming 8K video.
Full post, including commentsRunning out of exciting caption ideas for this series… Westport, Maine down to Portland:
From our Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine trip in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow and I were flying.
Also available as a streaming 8K video.
Full post, including commentsOur neighborhood has gone from Bleak Maskachusetts Winter to Yet Bleaker Maskachusetts Winter due to folks having taken down their epic yard displays, e.g.,
What about cashing in on the latest trends in righteousness, and making American suburbs far more beautiful in the process, by offering animated and illuminated BLM yard art analogous to what one can buy for Christmas? The Christmas season is short, but the BLM season can last continuously for decades!
Americans have demonstrated a commitment to BLM yard displays by purchasing signs, but generally these are not illuminated. This should give us some confidence that some containers of night-time BLM yard displays would fly off the shelves.
Readers: What should the illuminated and animated displays depict? Let’s refer to the Wikipedia timeline of BLM for a few starter ideas:
What if we adapt the idea to the religion of Rainbow Flagism? Would would the nighttime lawn scenes look like then?
Related:
Full post, including commentsAfter departing Vinalhaven towards KRKD
This photo is a favorite (steep bank in the helicopter to get the straight-down perspective):
Enough power for your Tesla, near Westport, Maine (but where does all of this power come from and what is it needed for in an apparently deserted part of the shoreline?):
Gourmet breakfast sandwich stop at Owl’s Head General Store:
From our Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine trip in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow and I were flying.
Also available as a streaming 8K video.
Full post, including commentsA Facebook user posted “Canadian expert’s research finds lockdown harms are 10 times greater than benefits” (Toronto Sun) regarding an academic paper by Dr. Ari Joffe, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at University of Alberta (i.e., a colleague of Dr. Jill Biden, MD).
I’m not that interested in the paper because, even in March I expected that the shutdowns would kill far more people than they might save, What was interesting to me was the gloss added by the Facebooker:
Of course, we can’t actually do this reassessment because doing so would admit that the last year was madness. The lockdowns are like Vietnam, the political and media establishment have so much invested in them, only a gradual drawdown will be permitted, regardless of the “science.”
Readers: What do you think of this analogy? We decided that the Vietnam War was unwinnable in 1968, but we didn’t get out until 1975 (timeline).
MLK Memorial:
I oppose the war in Viet Nam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. There can be no great disappointment where there is no great love … Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as the war hawks. As they spread the propaganda of war we must spread the propaganda of peace.
Related:
An attorney friend has been a subscriber to the White House mailing list. After receiving her first email from President Biden, she unsubscribed:
If the government wanted to keep a database of people like her, what would the table be called?
Full post, including comments