Re: [tlug] GW projects

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull.stephen.fw@example.com>]

Raymond Wan writes:

 > Many cities in mainland China and Hong Kong have direct 
 > flights to Sapporo.  That's probably why Tokyo and Osaka's 
 > international airports escaped the first wave...less 
 > transiting?

Could be.  The network economics/econophysics/epidemiology geeks are
going to have a field day with questions like that.  I'm looking
forward to the day when new papers about how it got from there to here
are the big daily COVID news ;-), instead of who got it where :-(.

 > Yes, and once there was the possibility of bad PR, China was 
 > able to lock-down an entire province.  Something only they 
 > could do, I think.

Well, there's Israel which has been doing that to the Palestinian
state for decades.  But yeah, you'd need something with the
transmission characteristics of COVID-19 and the virulence of Ebola to
lockdown like that in the U.S.  And you'd need to use the military,
with live ammunition.  (I don't dispute Benjamin's point, but there's
a big difference between one city, such as New Rochelle, NY where I
used to go for early am swim practice, and a whole state or three.
Hubei province is bigger than enough US states to easily win the
presidency. ;-)

 > Why other countries started panic buying toilet paper, 
 > though, I don't know...

A couple of decades ago Japan had a panic buying spree on toilet
paper, and it caused a brief rise in the price of Charmin in the U.S.
I bet a lot of "consumers" remember that.  Pure speculation, of
course.

 > But it's only now that I realised how little STEM education 
 > there is.  Not everyone needs to be a scientist; but the 
 > level of STEM of the general population isn't enough to sort 
 > of fact from fiction in the news (or Facebook, which is now 
 > considered news...).

It's not really STEM, though.  It's civics -- how does government
work, why does it work that way -- and why does it work at all.  And
economics -- how does the economy work, why does it work that way, --
and why does it work at all. ;-)  I grant that there are "trust but
verify" issues with both, but look at the U.S. -- despite COVID-19 and
the Trump Administration's active attempts to kill elderly voters,
both are still functioning.  (As well as they ever do -- the same
people are homeless, starving, doing without health care, etc.  I'm
not saying that's good, I'm just saying that both market economies and
large bureaucracies are far better at "keepin' on keepin' on" than
most people are willing to admit.)

 > Yes.  I'm following the Canadian news and after this, 
 > they're talking about making things like masks within 
 > Canada, in case this happens again.  I'm not sure how long 
 > that will stick!

Not very long. ;-)  But the smarter and more paranoid entrepreneurs
will outsource to India and Vietnam and the Philippines instead of
taking the easy route back to China ....  And the *really* smart
industry confederations will be helping their members diversify.

 > Everyone has been wearing one here in Hong Kong since 
 > January.  You're not allowed to enter restaurants and shops 
 > without wearing one.  That's potentially 7 million masks a 
 > day and only Hong Kong...

Yeah, it'll be like that in Asia for a while.  But in the rest of the
world, you're going to see durable fashion masks, and masks-to-not-get-
beaten-by-the-police-for-wearing-a-mask-while-being-black-or-LatinX
(or in some places Jewish or Palestinian or Asian) made out of cloth
which are pretty much as effective (as long as nobody literally
sneezes in your face), and then somebody will invent a wash-n-wearable
comfortable N95 mask and a viricidal laundry detergent. :-)  You heard
it here first!

 > I have to say...your president makes our prime minister look 
 > even better.  :-)

That's what she (Ivanka or Melania, your choice) said!

 > Looking forward to that November election!  I hate to think 
 > that his approval rating has a chance of going up in the 
 > next few months...

It's up right now (in one poll, so don't start sweating yet), I
believe because the non-STEM independents (and a lot of programmer
bros :-( ) want to believe the economy is going to open and are glad
somebody else is going to have to take responsibility for mass deaths
if they happen.  "I'd rather be right than President" but I'd rather
never know I was right than be proved right the way I'm expecting to
be proved right in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.  I think it's a
reasonable estimate that there are 1 million unindentified SARS-CoV-2
carriers in the US at any given time from now until we get widespread
(> 1 million / day) testing and/or a vaccine.

I recommend The New Abnormal podcast.  Not a lot of optimism, but
TheRickWilson really rips into the people he hates, without ever
needing to tell a lie.  A guilty pleasure.  Today's episode included a
rather good interview with Andrew Yang.  Every episode ends with a
segment called "Fuck That Guy". :-)  Today's "guy" was Jared Kushner.
Last episode it was the whole GOP. :-)

Steve