These are sick, sick people

I am opposed to the death penalty, seeing it as an utterly barbaric practice that no society that considers itself civilized should countenance. In the US, some states allow it, while others do not. The federal government does allow it but it has been very rarely carried out. But Trump and his attorney general Bill Barr seem to have a relish for it, so much so that they are rushing to carry out executions before they leave office, presumably because Joe Biden, who opposes the death penalty, might not carry them out.
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How many steps a day do you need?

I spend most of my days in a sedentary fashion, seated at the computer or reading. This is not good for one’s health generally but sitting for long times especially runs the risk of deep vein thrombosis.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) occurs when a blood clot (thrombus) forms in one or more of the deep veins in your body, usually in your legs. Deep vein thrombosis can cause leg pain or swelling, but also can occur with no symptoms.
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Deep vein thrombosis can be very serious because blood clots in your veins can break loose, travel through your bloodstream and lodge in your lungs, blocking blood flow (pulmonary embolism).

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Pat Robertson has a cunning plan…

I am sure that all of you have been wondering what televangelist Pat Robertson’s thoughts are on the election now that his hero Trump is on the way out. He says that he knows what can be done to keep Trump in office and that if Trump asks him, he will tell him. It can’t hurt since the Rudy Giuliani-Sidney Powell legal clown circus is not going anywhere.
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Trump is learning what it means to be a lame duck president

Trump is learning what it feels like to be suddenly viewed as a paper tiger. Before the election, almost all Republicans would snap to attention when he said anything and would not dream of criticizing him even when he said and did the most outrageous things. But ever since it became clear that he lost and is on his way out, more and more Republicans, especially at the state and local levels, are feeling freer to defy him, especially when it comes to his demand that they overturn the results of the election.
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Revisiting The Queen’s Gambit

In a recent review of this hit Netflix series, I mentioned that I found the lead character Beth Harmon not compelling and that this reduced my enjoyment of the series. Some commenters disagreed with me. I could not quite put my finger on why I had this reaction but Sarah Miller who, unlike me, has read and loved the book by William Tevis on which the series was based, writes that she too was dissatisfied with the character because, while most of the series stayed close to the book, the creators of the series had made a crucial change in Harmon’s character that eliminated the central tension, because the lead actor Anya Taylor-Joy “is way too good-looking to play Beth Harmon”.

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What the hell?

Rebekah Jones is a data scientist in the state of Florida who was fired after becoming embroiled in a controversy with the Republican governor of the state Ron DeSantis about how the state reports its covid-19 data. Just another bureaucratic fight, right? But look at how an armed police team raided her home with guns drawn and treat her family, including her young children, like they are violent criminals.

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Faithless electors: Another Trump Hail Mary?

This election has made many of us aware of the minutiae of US election processes and the series of dates that lead up to the results of the presidential election becoming official. One major date is December 14th which is when the people who were elected on November 3rd to serve as Electoral College voters meet in their respective states to cast their votes for president and vice-president. That is what is meant by the Electoral College meeting. But while much attention has focused on that date, today saw the so-called ‘safe harbor’ deadline when each state has to certify its election results, resolve any controversies about who the electors are, and submit their names, thus ending any unresolved issues. Enough states have done so for Biden to get over 270 electoral college votes and those electors are thus fixed, making the December 14th vote mostly a formality.
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How social norms affected behaviors during the pandemic

ProPublica has an article that discusses why people engage in risky behaviors during the pandemic. In times of uncertainty, people tend to take their cues from social norms, from what other people around them and whom they know are doing.

When Las Vegas reopened, crowds showed up without masks. An estimated 365,000 people attended the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. Many didn’t wear helmets or masks. The festivities included a non-socially distanced concert by Smashmouth. And even though masks were distributed and required at a recent Trump campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, some attendees did not wear them, and the campaign packed people into crowded buses.

It may not always seem like it, but people are rational and weigh the costs and benefits when they make decisions, said Eve Wittenberg, a decision scientist at the Center for Health Decision Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “People are not stupid here,” she said. But they have no experience thinking through a pandemic and are also getting mixed and conflicted messages from leaders, she said. That creates uncertainty and can lead people to rely on patterns of risk perception that may not be accurate.
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The fascinating story of Wubi

Those of us who use the English alphabet take for granted the QWERTY keyboard on our computers. But what about people who use other alphabets? Do they need their own keyboards? This problem becomes particularly acute with languages like Chinese that uses more than 70,000 characters that are symbolic representation of the objects, that are pictures rather than words made up of an alphabet.

In an utterly fascinating episode of Radiolab, the show discusses the crisis faced by China in the 1980s when it was becoming clear that computers were the way of the future and that their written language could not be represented on the limited QWERTY keyboard. Since China had ambitions of being a major player in the scientific and technological revolution that would be driven by computers, they had to adapt to the constraints of the computer keyboard. It appeared that they might have to abandon the written form of the language that had endured for thousands of years and had formed such an integral part of its culture, something that horrified many people. An entire institute was even set up to develop new forms of the written language.
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The looming vaccine challenge

Now that vaccines for covid-19 are on the horizon, the next challenge will be to get enough people to take it. It seems that roughly 60% is the minimum number of people who should have immunity to the disease for herd immunity to take effect. Since the vaccines are about 90% effective, that means about 70% of the population needs to get it to achieve herd immunity. But getting to that number is not going to be easy. Surveys suggest that for various reasons, about 30% of Americans are what is called ‘vaccine hesitant’ and likely will not take it. That means that we will barely make the required threshold even if everyone who is not opposed to vaccines gets it. The 30% is greater than the hardcore anti-vaxxers who oppose giving vaccines to their children.
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