Right back to COVID-19 (because it is undeniably a fascinating subject, and throws up all sorts of issues - moral, economic, political, scientific).
It's not such a big surprise when countries like Belarus, Iran, even America for a time, are in denial about the pandemic. But when you see pictures of busy shopping streets and thriving playgrounds in Stockolm, it tends to elicit a double take.
Sweden has always gone its own way in many areas, defiantly independent, supremely confident in the superiority of its own social welfare model. The country has a high per capita income, universal healthcare, free education right up to university level, and a high regard for civil liberties, gender equality and human development. It is a country that seems to have got it right in most spheres of human life, eminently sensible and reliably prudent.
And then along came COVID-19, and people are now starting to wonder at sensible, judicious Sweden's response to the pandemic. Sweden has not instituted any kind of lockdown, no school closings (for under-16s anyway), no ban on going to the pub or restaurant. Most pools and gyms remain open. Its government is pursuing what it calls a "common sense" response to the outbreak, low key, fiscally prudent, and, in the view of many - even equally sensible Scandinavian neighbours like Denmark, Norway and Finland - totally inadequate.
It has introduced some non-specific social distancing measures and encouraged (but not mandated) people to work from home where possible. Gatherings larger than 50 are prohibited, although this measure was only introduced on March 29th. Some businesses like ski resorts and cinemas have voluntarily closed, but they were under no obligation to do so, and there is no policing of closures or social distancing practices. The government insists that this softly-softly voluntary approach has been been "working reasonably well so far". It has denied pursuing a "herd immunity" policy, but health officials appear resigned that the virus will necessarily work its way through a certain proportion of the population.
Surveys always show that Swedes have an unusual amount of trust in their governments and institutions (and vice versa), and in each other, which is all well and good when things are going well. It also helps that, unusually, nearly half of Swedish households consist of a single person, and large multi-generational households are almost unheard of. Also, Swedes do not, by nature, kiss and hug as much as southern Europeans do.
But all of this may not be enough to allow the country to navigate this particular pandemic unscathed with such a laissez faire approach. Sweden's death rate, at 37 per million, is already much higher than neighbouring countries with much stricter precautions, countries like Denmark (28), Norway (13) and Finland (4.5). Canada's death rate is about 6.5 per million. In Sweden, 401 people have alread died as of April 5th, and that number is rising fast. 6,830 cases have been reported in the country to date, also rising fast.
Not everyone is happy with the official policy, even within Sweden. 2,300 Swedish doctors and public health experts recently signed an open letter calling on the government to pursue a more proactive and hands-on direction, while there is still time. One virus immunology researcher at the prestigious Karolinska Institute goes so far as to say, "They are leading us to cstastrophe".
It certainly seems like a high-risk, not to say rash, strategy in the face of mounting evidence from around the world. But those Swedes still trust their government.
UPDATE
Two months later, as Sweden sits with one of the highest per capita coronavirus death rates in the world, Swedish health authorities and politicians are starting to admit that its controversial policy was wrong. Top doctor Anders Tegnell admitted that the decision not to lockdown probably directly led to many more deaths than necessary and, as he rather tersely puts it, there is "potential for improvement in what we have done".
Maybe that old Divine Comedy song about Sweden ("Safe and clean and green and modern / Bright and breezy, free and easy / Sweden, Sweden, Sweden, in Sweden") is starting to sound outdated...
Monday, April 06, 2020
Sunday, April 05, 2020
Is Donald Trump actually a muppet?
Sorry to drag the tone of this blog right down, but has anyone else noticed the simularity between Donald Trump in full presser/lecturing mode, and some of the muppets like Beaker and the Swedish Chef whose hands are operated from below a table or desk?
I'm sure I'm not the first to notice this suspicious simularity. Is there a theory doing the rounds that Mr. Trump might indeed be a Jim Henson puppet?
UPDATE
Turns out there was indeed a Donald Trump muppet on Sesame Street back in 2005, as well as a Donald Grump grouch, and a Ronald Grump grouch, who lived in Grump Tower.
The surprising history of ping pong
Apropos of absolutely nothing, and nothing at all to do with COVID-19 or any of that nonsense, I was idly looking out at people playing table tennis in the park across from us, and idly wondering whether there was a difference between ping pong and table tennis.
I was always under the impression that ping pong was the original Chinese version of the game that involved making the ball bounce on both sides of the net, while table tennis was the more westernized (and easier) version where the ball only has to bounce once on the other side of the net, like tennis. And this is clearly the impression that many other people are under too.
But not so, apparently. Table tennis is in fact exactly the same as ping pong, although some people claim that table tennis is the designation for the more serious, competitive game, while the more onomatopoeic and fun-sounding ping pong name is reserved for the informal version played in people's garages (or, like I used to as a kid, on an old door supported by two saw-horses). The use of ping ping pong as opposed to table tennis is not, however, offensive or pejorative in any way, as some people seem to think. And, whichever name is used, the ball can only bounce on both sides of the net when serving or any other time, otherwise it would result in a lost point.
Even more surprising to me, table tennis/ping pong originated in Victorian England, where it was played as an after-dinner parlour game for the upper classes (although it is possible that it was brought back to England from India by British military officers in the 1870s).
Either way, despite the Chinese-sounding name, ping pong is not Chinese in origin (the name, incidentally, was designed by the British originators of the game to be onomatopoeic, and the Chinese word ping-pang was derived from it, not the other way around). It only began to be played there in the 1920s, when it was already in the process of becoming something of a worldwide phenomenon. Subsequent changes to the rules and equipment were also mainly British in origin. Chinese/Asian dominance in the sport has only occurred since the 1960s.
So, there you go. Ping pong. Not Chinese. And where did that urban myth about double bounces come from?
I was always under the impression that ping pong was the original Chinese version of the game that involved making the ball bounce on both sides of the net, while table tennis was the more westernized (and easier) version where the ball only has to bounce once on the other side of the net, like tennis. And this is clearly the impression that many other people are under too.
But not so, apparently. Table tennis is in fact exactly the same as ping pong, although some people claim that table tennis is the designation for the more serious, competitive game, while the more onomatopoeic and fun-sounding ping pong name is reserved for the informal version played in people's garages (or, like I used to as a kid, on an old door supported by two saw-horses). The use of ping ping pong as opposed to table tennis is not, however, offensive or pejorative in any way, as some people seem to think. And, whichever name is used, the ball can only bounce on both sides of the net when serving or any other time, otherwise it would result in a lost point.
Even more surprising to me, table tennis/ping pong originated in Victorian England, where it was played as an after-dinner parlour game for the upper classes (although it is possible that it was brought back to England from India by British military officers in the 1870s).
Either way, despite the Chinese-sounding name, ping pong is not Chinese in origin (the name, incidentally, was designed by the British originators of the game to be onomatopoeic, and the Chinese word ping-pang was derived from it, not the other way around). It only began to be played there in the 1920s, when it was already in the process of becoming something of a worldwide phenomenon. Subsequent changes to the rules and equipment were also mainly British in origin. Chinese/Asian dominance in the sport has only occurred since the 1960s.
So, there you go. Ping pong. Not Chinese. And where did that urban myth about double bounces come from?
Saturday, April 04, 2020
Turkmenistan has the solution (not)
Turkmenistan's autocratic president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has banned the public use of face masks and any use of the word "coronavirus". The word has also disappeared from all health information brochures distributed in schools, hospitals and workplaces. Citizens contravening this new law risk a run-in with the many plain-clothes police that patrol the country, and the uncertain attentions of its judicial system.
And it seems to be working: Turkmenistan has not reported any cases of COVID-19 at all, despite bordering Iran, which currently has about 56,000 cases (and that's if you believe Iran's publicity machine).
And it seems to be working: Turkmenistan has not reported any cases of COVID-19 at all, despite bordering Iran, which currently has about 56,000 cases (and that's if you believe Iran's publicity machine).
Friday, April 03, 2020
Profiteer charged with assault for coughing
This is the first time I have ever heard of a person charged with assault for coughing on someone. At any other time than this, that would qualify as bizarre and improbable news. Right now, all it elicits is an impatient "hmph!" How times have changed.
The #COVIDIOT in question is one Baruch Feldheim of Brooklyn, New York, and he is worth naming and calling out because, at the time of said cough, he was being arrested by the FBI for profiteering and price-gouging. He was taking delivery of a truckload of medical supplies from Canada, including nearly 200,000 N95 surgical masks, 600,000 medical grade gloves, and up to 100,000 other pieces of equipment, all of which are which are now being re-directed to New York's beleaguered doctors and nurses. As an example of Feldheim's trade, 1,000 of the N95 masks were originally destined for a New York doctor at a price of $12,000, about a 700% mark-up over normal prices.
This is the kind of scumbag that comes crawling out of the woodwork in these times of crisis, when everyone is supposed to be pulling together.
UPDATE
Well, go figure, this thing is contagious. A guy in Lethbridge, Alberta, has also been charged with assault for deliberately coughing in the face of a police officer while he was being arrested for a domestic violence incident, adding for good measure that he hoped the officer would get infected.
The #COVIDIOT in question is one Baruch Feldheim of Brooklyn, New York, and he is worth naming and calling out because, at the time of said cough, he was being arrested by the FBI for profiteering and price-gouging. He was taking delivery of a truckload of medical supplies from Canada, including nearly 200,000 N95 surgical masks, 600,000 medical grade gloves, and up to 100,000 other pieces of equipment, all of which are which are now being re-directed to New York's beleaguered doctors and nurses. As an example of Feldheim's trade, 1,000 of the N95 masks were originally destined for a New York doctor at a price of $12,000, about a 700% mark-up over normal prices.
This is the kind of scumbag that comes crawling out of the woodwork in these times of crisis, when everyone is supposed to be pulling together.
UPDATE
Well, go figure, this thing is contagious. A guy in Lethbridge, Alberta, has also been charged with assault for deliberately coughing in the face of a police officer while he was being arrested for a domestic violence incident, adding for good measure that he hoped the officer would get infected.
Wednesday, April 01, 2020
Zoom-bombing is now a thing (yawn...)
In these strange days when everyone and their dog is using the video-conferencing app Zoom, there are more and more questions being asked about how secure the platform is.
It is now ranked as the number one app in the US, and number 2 in the UK, and its share price has just about doubled in the last couple of months. While it may be fine for my wife to participate in her virtual gym class, when we see Boris Johnson using it to host a cabinet meeting, security becomes kind of important (especially given that the UK Ministry of Defence has banned its staff from using Zoom for that very reason).
Zoom just doesn't offer end-to-end encryption (encryption that ensures that no-one other than the invited participants can see a meeting), which should be an issue for companies and governments who are using it for sensitive political or commercial purposes. In the past, various security concerns have been voiced about the app, including the possibility of attendees being removed from calls, spoof messages from users, hijacked shared screens, even a vulnerability that allowed some users to be forced into a call without their knowledge. There have also been complaints about the "employee tracker" feature that allows hosts to check whether attendees have been paying attention.
Now, the issue is "Zoom-bombing", in which perfectly wholesome shared video calls can be interrupted by pornography or hate speech. For instance, a meeting of black journalists is taken over by racist chants and pornographic images, a virtual synagogue service is hijacked by anti-Semitic ravings, recovering alcoholics are harassed by trolls who break into an online AA meeting, several online classrooms have been hacked and had to deal with racist and pornographic images (one such example causing Singapore to ban the use of Zoom for online education), etc, etc. (Why does almost all this stuff involve racism? What is the relationship between hacking and the ugly extreme of the far right?)
There ARE security settings and means by which crashers can be excluded or controlled, as the Zoom Blog explains, but whether this keep EVERYONE out, I don't know. All successful technologies seem to have to go through this proving process, as hackers around the world, with apparently nothing better to do, try their damnedest to show that they can hack through any security. It's a bore, but it's a fact of life.
UPDATE
And, as one security hole closes, another opens up. Now, it seems that many Zoom chats that were saved to the cloud, either deliberately or accidentally, are visible to all and sundry. The Washington Post reports that thousands of Zoom chats are accessible online, partly because of the way that saved files are named. The Post was able to access any number of video sessions, from one-on-one psychotherapy sessions to small company financial meetings to elementary school classes to a demonstration of how to give a Brazilian wax.
It is now ranked as the number one app in the US, and number 2 in the UK, and its share price has just about doubled in the last couple of months. While it may be fine for my wife to participate in her virtual gym class, when we see Boris Johnson using it to host a cabinet meeting, security becomes kind of important (especially given that the UK Ministry of Defence has banned its staff from using Zoom for that very reason).
Zoom just doesn't offer end-to-end encryption (encryption that ensures that no-one other than the invited participants can see a meeting), which should be an issue for companies and governments who are using it for sensitive political or commercial purposes. In the past, various security concerns have been voiced about the app, including the possibility of attendees being removed from calls, spoof messages from users, hijacked shared screens, even a vulnerability that allowed some users to be forced into a call without their knowledge. There have also been complaints about the "employee tracker" feature that allows hosts to check whether attendees have been paying attention.
Now, the issue is "Zoom-bombing", in which perfectly wholesome shared video calls can be interrupted by pornography or hate speech. For instance, a meeting of black journalists is taken over by racist chants and pornographic images, a virtual synagogue service is hijacked by anti-Semitic ravings, recovering alcoholics are harassed by trolls who break into an online AA meeting, several online classrooms have been hacked and had to deal with racist and pornographic images (one such example causing Singapore to ban the use of Zoom for online education), etc, etc. (Why does almost all this stuff involve racism? What is the relationship between hacking and the ugly extreme of the far right?)
There ARE security settings and means by which crashers can be excluded or controlled, as the Zoom Blog explains, but whether this keep EVERYONE out, I don't know. All successful technologies seem to have to go through this proving process, as hackers around the world, with apparently nothing better to do, try their damnedest to show that they can hack through any security. It's a bore, but it's a fact of life.
UPDATE
And, as one security hole closes, another opens up. Now, it seems that many Zoom chats that were saved to the cloud, either deliberately or accidentally, are visible to all and sundry. The Washington Post reports that thousands of Zoom chats are accessible online, partly because of the way that saved files are named. The Post was able to access any number of video sessions, from one-on-one psychotherapy sessions to small company financial meetings to elementary school classes to a demonstration of how to give a Brazilian wax.
Face masks get a rehabilitation (maybe)
Well, I hate to say I told you so, but Asia may have been right about coronavirus and face masks, and the rest of the world is coming around. Go figure!
So, all I need to do now is to get hold of (or make) the masks, and then get my head around actually wearing them.
Mind you, I'm still in two minds about the whole thing myself. On the whole, I think I actually tend towards the rather more skeptical opinion of Andre Picard in today's Globe: sure, wear one if it makes you feel better, but 1) don't use a medical grade mask, because they are needed by medical personnel and the immunocompromized, who are at much greater risk than you, 2) don't assume that they suddenly make you bullet-proof, because they don't, and 3) try not to pick at them, and end up touching your face.
God, even the simple things are difficult at the moment!
So, all I need to do now is to get hold of (or make) the masks, and then get my head around actually wearing them.
Mind you, I'm still in two minds about the whole thing myself. On the whole, I think I actually tend towards the rather more skeptical opinion of Andre Picard in today's Globe: sure, wear one if it makes you feel better, but 1) don't use a medical grade mask, because they are needed by medical personnel and the immunocompromized, who are at much greater risk than you, 2) don't assume that they suddenly make you bullet-proof, because they don't, and 3) try not to pick at them, and end up touching your face.
God, even the simple things are difficult at the moment!
The unsung work of the medical illustrator
The New York Times, whose firewall usually shuts me out and insists that I subscribe, has cooperated today and given me a fascinating glimpse into a job that most of us probably never knew existed, that of the medical illustrator.
This is the inside story of that cute, but faintly menacing, artist's rendition of a COVID-19 coronavirus virion. That "spiky blob" we all know so well was actually created by Alissa Eckert, a 40-year old (approximately) biology-trained medical illustrator with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and it is a fascinating mix of anatomically-correct rendition from electron microscope images and directed propaganda.
Yes, those spiky protein studs are actually a part of the real virus, but Ms. Eckert's original brief was to create an "identity" for the virus, "something to grab the public's attention", and her own intention was "to make them look like they're really alive".
The coronavirus image she produced is what is called in the trade a "beauty shot", a detailed solo close-up. And, although reasonably true to "life", there are also some elements of artistic license. For example, the actual coronavirus virion has much fewer of the red "spike proteins" than the smaller orange "membrane proteins" and the yellow "envelope proteins", but she chose to emphasize the S-proteins because they are the means by which the virus speads itself (plus, they are more "photogenic"). She gave them a kind of stony texture, and even shadows, all in the interests of making a point and alerting people to their various properties, and not out of a concern with verisimilitude. The colour scheme was just one that "really stood out" for her (she tried several).
The articleshows some of Ms. Eckert's other work, including images of gonorrhea bacteria, a norovirus virion, a mumps virus particle. They are all quite beautiful, until you stop and think about what they represent. Medical illustrator will probably (hopefully!) never be a mainstream occupation, but Alissa Eckert has probably achieved as close to rock star status as the profession will ever get.
This is the inside story of that cute, but faintly menacing, artist's rendition of a COVID-19 coronavirus virion. That "spiky blob" we all know so well was actually created by Alissa Eckert, a 40-year old (approximately) biology-trained medical illustrator with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and it is a fascinating mix of anatomically-correct rendition from electron microscope images and directed propaganda.
Yes, those spiky protein studs are actually a part of the real virus, but Ms. Eckert's original brief was to create an "identity" for the virus, "something to grab the public's attention", and her own intention was "to make them look like they're really alive".
The coronavirus image she produced is what is called in the trade a "beauty shot", a detailed solo close-up. And, although reasonably true to "life", there are also some elements of artistic license. For example, the actual coronavirus virion has much fewer of the red "spike proteins" than the smaller orange "membrane proteins" and the yellow "envelope proteins", but she chose to emphasize the S-proteins because they are the means by which the virus speads itself (plus, they are more "photogenic"). She gave them a kind of stony texture, and even shadows, all in the interests of making a point and alerting people to their various properties, and not out of a concern with verisimilitude. The colour scheme was just one that "really stood out" for her (she tried several).
The articleshows some of Ms. Eckert's other work, including images of gonorrhea bacteria, a norovirus virion, a mumps virus particle. They are all quite beautiful, until you stop and think about what they represent. Medical illustrator will probably (hopefully!) never be a mainstream occupation, but Alissa Eckert has probably achieved as close to rock star status as the profession will ever get.