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My Corona



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No doubt — this is a crazy, scary, sad, worrying time for everyone. Most of us are sheltering in place and trying our best to adjust to a new reality. While we are not performing heroic deeds like all the frontline healthcare workers and first responders, grocery store employees and delivery drivers, we can all … Continue reading nine cool things on a tuesday (stay home, save lives edition)

“A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.” ~ Barbara Johnson   Did YOU take the cookies from the cookie jar? Who, me? Yes, you! Couldn’t be. Then, who?   Can’t fool me. I see crumbs on your face. ???? Don’t blame you, though. A cookie, at any time of day, always makes things … Continue reading cookie jar capers

1. ICMR partners with Bharat Biotech International Limited for developing indigenous coronavirus COVID-19 vacc...  Zee News
2. Bharat Biotech to lead monoclonal antibodies project for Covid-19 therapy  The Financial Express
3. Bharat Biotech to lead project on monoclonal antibodies therapy for COVID-19  The New Indian Express
4. ICMR teams up with Bharat Biotech to develop Covid-19 vaccine  Times of India
5. CSIR approves project to develop human monoclonal antibodies that can neutralize COVID-19 in patients  Times Now
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Kareena Kapoor is missing her shopping sprees with Saif Ali Khan, shares throwback pic from Morocco  Hindustan Times
2. A Glimpse Of Kareena Kapoor's "Saturday Mood" With Saif Ali Khan  The Newsopedia
3. Bollywood actors share their secret workout moves amid lockdown  NEWS9 live
4. Sara Ali Khan says brother Ibrahim is ‘definitely interested’ in joining Bollywood: ‘It’s a dream right...  Hindustan Times
5. Sara Ali Khan on Ibrahim Ali Khan’s acting aspirations: It’s a dream right now, making it a reality is on him  PINKVILLA
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Covid-19 Delhi latest figures- 224 new cases take capital’s total to 8,630, India tally at 59,662  Hindustan Times
2. Confusion over Delhi's Covid-19 toll as govt data, figures from hospitals don't match  Times of India
3. 3 More Private Hospitals To Treat COVID-19 Patients In Delhi  NDTV
4. Delhi Covid-19 tally tops 6,000 with 338 new cases in last 24 hours  Livemint
5. 100 rooms in Delhi's five-star hotels now hospitals  Times of India
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Not anticipating worst situation in India: Harsh Vardhan on Covid-19 pandemic  Hindustan Times
2. Health ministry says learn to live with coronavirus as India's COVID-19 count crosses 56,000  India Gone Viral
3. Government Tweaks Rules For Testing As COVID-19 Cases Rise. Details Here  NDTV
4. 80 per cent of Telangana will be rid of coronavirus soon: Eatala  The New Indian Express
5. ‘We must learn to live with the coronavirus,’ says health ministry  Scroll.in
6. View Full coverage on Google News

ICMR teams up with Bharat Biotech to develop COVID-19 vaccine  The Financial ExpressView Full coverage on Google News

Yep, it on!

Jules Hedges has written a thought-provoking blog post, On compositionality where he connects the familiar idea of compositionality to the idea of emergent effects in nature, where systems can be understood as either having compositional properties or emergent properties.

The key point about emergent systems is that they are hard to understand, and this is as true for engineering as it is for science. He goes on to say "As a final thought, I claim that compositionality is extremely delicate, and that it is so powerful that it is worth going to extreme lengths to achieve it", so that avoiding emergent effects is a characteristic of good programming language design.

Some thoughts:

1. His examples of emergent systems are biology and game theory from an economic perspective. I would add to this list physics: of his co-authored paper showing that the spectral gap is undecidable, David Pérez-García said "For example, our results show that adding even a single particle to a lump of matter, however large, could in principle dramatically change its properties."
2. Spolsky's famous characterisation of interfaces built on shaky foundations as Leaky abstractions to me makes the distinction between compositional and emergent systems a little less than sharp.
3. We could talk endlessly about the list of what he regards as compositionality-breaking features of PLs. The evils of global state are well-documented, but I find dmbarbour's argument that Local state is poison a very interesting alternative way to look at what properties do we want from code; more generally, what kind of compositionalty PLs offer is very much paradigm dependent. Gotos are considered harmful, but the Linux kernel has little trouble with longjmp because of its mandated coding style: compositionality in engineering is a not just a matter of semantics but also of use. He targets OO and Haskell's type classes - I think he is quite correct - note that within these paradigms one can regain compositionality by restricting to LSP or algebraic classes, and supporting his thesis we see that these ideas have spawned ideas for the design of new, cleaner PLs.

Seven Sketches in Compositionality: An Invitation to Applied Category Theory

2018 by Brendan Fong and David I. Spivak

Category theory is becoming a central hub for all of pure mathematics. It is unmatched in its ability to organize and layer abstractions, to find commonalities between structures of all sorts, and to facilitate communication between different mathematical communities. But it has also been branching out into science, informatics, and industry. We believe that it has the potential to be a major cohesive force in the world, building rigorous bridges between disparate worlds, both theoretical and practical. The motto at MIT is mens et manus, Latin for mind and hand. We believe that category theory—and pure math in general—has stayed in the realm of mind for too long; it is ripe to be brought to hand.

A very approachable but useful introduction to category theory. It avoids the Scylla and Charybdis of becoming incomprehensible after page 2 (as many academic texts do), and barely scratching the surface (as many popular texts do).

Tensor Considered Harmful, by Alexander Rush

TL;DR: Despite its ubiquity in deep learning, Tensor is broken. It forces bad habits such as exposing private dimensions, broadcasting based on absolute position, and keeping type information in documentation. This post presents a proof-of-concept of an alternative approach, named tensors, with named dimensions. This change eliminates the need for indexing, dim arguments, einsum- style unpacking, and documentation-based coding. The prototype PyTorch library accompanying this blog post is available as namedtensor.

Thanks to Edward Z. Yang for pointing me to this "Considered Harmful" position paper.

An enjoyable 25-minute introductory talk: YOW! Lambda Jam 2019 - Ken Scambler - Applied Category Theory (slides)

What do programming, quantum physics, chemistry, neuroscience, systems biology, natural language parsing, causality, network theory, game theory, dynamical systems and database theory have in common?

As functional programmers, we know how useful category theory can be for our work - or perhaps how abstruse and distant it can seem. What is less well known is that applying category theory to the real world is an exciting field of study that has really taken off in just the last few years. It turns out that we share something big with other fields and industries - we want to make big things out of little things without everything going to hell! The key is compositionality, the central idea of category theory.

Previously: Seven Sketches in Compositionality: An Invitation to Applied Category Theory.

(via Brian McKenna)

Love In The Time Of Corona?

There is no reason to think that Nobel prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez "Love in the Time of Cholera" and my desperate attempt at writing a book "Last Five Minutes of Fame" should be uttered in the same breath for literary purposes. But then again, Donald Trump shouldn't be President of the United States, so fuck it...here goes.

I Mean…What?!?

I’m Coming Back To Lindsay Lohan

Welcome back, Lindsay Lohan. And what better time than when we are all trapped in our homes desperate for something/anything to talk about. Linsday just dripped her first single, "Back To Me", since the year of the flood.

I Mean…What?!?

When Queens Becomes Kings (Tiger King)

The hysteria around the Netflix show "Tiger King" has been very eyeopening. What is it about this low-rent animal abuser has Jared Leto, Cardi B, and the many other celebrities peacocking their obsessions with his unforgivable shenanigans?

I Mean…What?!?

1. Kans op 2e golf, maar contactopsporing moet 2e lockdown vermijden: bekijk de beste fragmenten uit "Het coronadebat"  VRT NWS
2. Het Corona Debat met Marc Van Ranst, Erika Vlieghe, Maggie De Block (Open Vld), Bart De Wever (N-VA) en anderen  De Morgen
3. 'We moeten tijd winnen tot vaccin er is'  De Standaard
4. Het grote coronadebat: “We moeten tijd winnen tot vaccin er is”  Het Belang van Limburg
5. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

1. gaat voor een nieuw contract bij Antwerp - Voetbalnieuws  Voetbalkrant.com
2. 'Mbokani zorgt voor zeer onaangename transferverrassing bij Antwerp'  Voetbal24.be
3. Defour schenkt klare wijn over toekomst bij Antwerp  VoetbalNieuws.be
4. Steven Defour: “Er is wat interesse uit het buitenland, maar ik wil bij Antwerp blijven”  Het Laatste Nieuws
5. 'Sinan Bolat versiert fraaie toptransfer: Dit is zijn nieuwe club'  Voetbal24.be
6. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

1. Remco Evenepoel: "Vandaag had een heel belangrijke dag moeten zijn"  sporza.be
2. Remco Evenepoel verkiest Giro boven Luik-Bastenaken-Luik | Wielrennen | Sport  Het Laatste Nieuws
3. Contador over 20 minuten-test Evenepoel: “Als die klopt, kan hij nu al de Giro winnen”  WielerFlits.be
4. Patrick Lefevere bevestigt dat Remco Evenepoel de Giro gaat rijden  Wielerkrant.be
5. Remco Evenepoel rijdt Giro in het najaar: "Intriest dat hij Luik niet kan rijden"  sporza.be
6. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

1. TV-bazen over de impact van corona - DEEL 2. Davy Parmentier van VTM: “Hoe het straks verder moet, weet vandaag nog niemand”  Het Laatste Nieuws
2. 'Een vrijscène met 1,5 meter afstand, hoe doe je dat?'  De Tijd
3. TV-bazen over de impact van corona - DEEL 1. Olivier Goris van VRT: “Ik hou er rekening mee dat we de komende zes maanden geen seconde fictie draaien”  Het Laatste Nieuws
4. Zomer vol herhalingen, en herhalingen van herhalingen: coronacrisis is opdoffer voor alle tv-zenders, en vooral voor VRT  Het Laatste Nieuws
5. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

1. 'Temptation'-verleidster Eline verrast: “Vriendinnen met Elke, géén contact meer met Arda”  Het Laatste Nieuws
2. 'Kk hadt naaien', een slappe worst en een ongeziene belediging: dit viel onze 'Temptation'-watcher op  Het Nieuwsblad
3. Eline uit Temptation Island doet pikante uitspraken: 'Elke moet mij dankbaar zijn'  Nieuws365
4. Een erg straffe Elke, harde levenslessen en vreemde kronkels: dit was aflevering 12 van 'Temptation Island'  Het Laatste Nieuws
5. Zach over zijn gedrag in 'Temptation Island': “Ik wou een psychologisch spelletje spelen met Romee”  Het Nieuwsblad
6. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

1. Samsonite Oudenaarde stevent af op collectief ontslag  De Standaard
2. Samsonite plant ontslagronde in Oudenaarde  De Tijd
3. Corona kost banen bij reiskofferfabrikant Samsonite: “Het gi... (Oudenaarde)  Het Nieuwsblad
4. Mogelijke ontslagen bij Samsonite Oudenaarde door coronacrisis: “Niemand wil een reiskoffer kopen”  VRT NWS
5. Samsonite Oudenaarde kondigt ontslagen aan (Oudenaarde)  Het Nieuwsblad
6. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

Minister De Croo (Open Vld): 'Hoop dat misbruik van coronasteun door zelfstandigen randfenomeen is'  De MorgenHele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

Honger treft de VS, boven op corona  De Standaard

1. Betogers uit erg diverse hoeken protesteren tegen coronamaatregelen in Duitsland  VRT NWS
2. Duitsland demonstreert tegen coronamaatregelen  De Standaard
3. Duitse ME grijpt in bij protest tegen coronamaatregelen  Telegraaf.nl
4. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

Experts, economen en politici: iedereen is nu al bezig met een tweede coronagolf. “Zolang er geen vaccin is, zal het nieuwe normaal blijven bestaan”  Het Nieuwsblad

Look what I found!

Some time ago, I posted every page of the Image Notebook I created to help me imagine the world and people of Industrialized Faerie for The Iron Dragon's Mother. What I didn't mention was that it was actually the second such notebook I'd made. The first notebook I lost--forever, I thought. But as it turned out, it had been misfiled in my office.

This is why you should clean your workspace at least once a decade.

The Zero Notebook, as I think of it, was begun all the way back in 2009. I pasted images from magazines and newspapers into it, created collages, some of which I altered, sought inspiration from the uncanny but visualizable. The end result is something very close to (but not identical with) outsider art.

I'll spare you the bulk of the images. But starting today I'll be posting ten images from the notebook. One on each weekday when I don't have any other news to pass along. This is the first one: the notebook's cover.


And what, you ask, does it mean . . . ?

The eye, of course, represents the eye of a dragon. It's slashed across the oval to create a zero.  The dot to the lower right is meant to suggest that the glyph represents the letter Q.,  though, of course, not exactly. That's because I wasn't looking for Answers. Just Questions.

There are a few (not many) words in the notebook. Here's an entry I ran across that begins with (almost) the cover glyph:

Q. What does the Goddess want?
A. Wrong question.

All of the above carried through into the novel and became a major, if close to undetectable, theme. The Iron Dragon's Mother would have been a very different book if I had started it with a different image.

The crinkly stuff is wide transparent tape, used to seal the image onto the cover. If this notebook ever winds up in somebody's collection, that's going to be a major conservation issue. Not my problem.


Above: First image. Nine to go.

The solution is not to scold drivers but to make structural solutions.

  I must confess: I was tempted to write a column along the lines of “Yes, it’s a war on the car, and it’s a just war!” But we don’t need a war on the car. What we need is an intervention. We need a serious conversation about our collective, structural addiction to this substance, […]

The post Our addiction to driving is costing lives, and more appeared first on Torontoist.

Food, art, even public space now seems to revolve around aesthetic value as judged by the social network.

Whether it’s a small new restaurant or a major art gallery exhibition, it seems Toronto’s cultural institutions must cater to the “like” seeking set. The price of success today is a sacrifice made at the altar of Instagram. Of course, to some, it’s not viewed as a sacrifice at all, especially when it boosts business […]

The post Has Toronto Become a City of Instagram Photo Ops? appeared first on Torontoist.

Why all the secrecy?

If you follow the news in Toronto or if you’re interested in technology, you’ve probably heard of Sidewalk Toronto by now. It’s a joint project of Sidewalk Labs, a sister company of Google, and Waterfront Toronto. This is the tech giant’s first foray into urban development and infrastructure, with Toronto hosting the pilot project. In […]

The post Civic Tech: We tried to get a copy of the Sidewalk Toronto agreement appeared first on Torontoist.

Wisconsin officials believe a plan of reducing compensation to highest-earning employees should help save the athletic department about $2.8 million.

Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh penned a two-page open letter advocating flexibility for college athletes looking to enter the NFL Draft.

I do enjoy painting orcs, it is so enjoyable and freeing after painting hundreds of identical uniforms. These bases had an extra level of enjoyment because they contained many orcy helmets converted with green stuff. I think in the whole they turned okay and add to the hodge podge look of the units. I had planned to spread these helmet guys out but ended up using them all on these two bases, they were finished and ready to go when I needed them, so they were used.
This giant orc Warlord is from Reaper Miniatures. He is massive and so he counts as two orcs in one. My six to a base rule works out as if they are small Goblins, they get an extra figure or two. If they are giant warriors, well then they get one less. This is to keep the fighting value of the base the same visually.
Plastic Warlord Games orcs with green stuff heads and an old plastic GW banner bring up the rear. Also on this base is the classic standard bearer for Harboth’s Black mountain boys. Classic! No point hanging onto these precious opp models, get them painted and use them I say.
It appears my years in Art college weren’t wasted after all. Subconsciously when basing these brutes, I arranged them in such a way that the surrounding orcs weapons help guide your eye on to the leader of the piece. Twenty five years later I finally got it right...
Plastic axes were stuck on the leader’s helmet to give him a kind of orcy centurion look. This is influenced by the films I have to say and has a nice brutal look to it.

The Elf head on the standard was a nice find, however the pole was really thin and bendy. I reenforced this by adding a green stuff banner which really helped. I tore holes in it and made it look very tattered and the result was very pleasing.
The orc above with the mace was made from a Fire forge Sergeant’s body, oathmark goblin arms, warlord games orc head and green stuff mask. He also has a plastic cloak from somewhere too. A real  jumble of bits and pieces. I think here lies the real fun of this project, using parts to create unique figures. It’s very rewarding and I have to say becomes very addictive, in fact once you start it’s hard to stop.
A new base now and this one is lead by a very old sculpt indeed. I think it is an old ‘Perry’ Chaos warrior. Well, an orc who is a Chaos warrior at any rate. I always try to theme my bases slightly and they are always influenced by the leader. This oop figure needed some old friends to keep him company, so I found some other old Citadel miniatures for the base. Saying that, his two closest warriors are more kit bashed plastics with green stuff helmets. New meets very old.
Orcy spears and pole arms can be made by cutting off spears and sticking on naggaity goblin swords. Obviously this works better with plastics and plastic glue. I have found that once the glue has melted the two bits together the weapons are quite durable. The spear shaft will bend rather than the sword break off.
Again the arrangement of  positions helps to draw your eye into the centre of the piece. I surprise myself with this arty bullsh@t.

TIPS.
The motley crew. Earth brown paint was stippled over these guys to give them a real dirty look.  Lots of brown washes of various shades, green washes, black washes, in fact just go crazy with colour washes, you can’t really go wrong. Once a fine metal dry brush goes over the top, it all looks good and gives the armour a grungy look.

 Flesh wash is good for rusty armour so put patches of that here and there. If you have any bronze looking armour or shields, try some green wash on that too. Mix washes together to make the grungiest washes. I have a pot labelled ‘magic mix’ where I have mixed black with brown ink, this is great for orc skin, armour, weapons... well everything really. Just slap it on all over. It even smells bad because the tap water used in the mix has gone off, every time you open the orc shading pot... you get the orc!.

Give the kit bashing a go, it’s great fun and you will create something unique. Just because you have bought a plastic box set, don’t be scared to mix it up with another of a different make. Single sprues of Dark Age/medieval plastics can be bought on eBay for under a fiver. I use these to try and test things out, if I really like the results I will commit to buying a whole box. Plastics are a lot cheaper than lead so there is room to buy and try out different options without busting the purse strings..
Create me an army worthy of Mordor!

A new comic strip—in Russian and in English—about some of the curious characters who have won Ig Nobel Prizes. The series appears on Instagram.

Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "DOWNSIDES: Adobe people may periodically email your newsroom to ask you to call it an 'Adobe® PDF document,' but they'll reverse course once they learn how sarcastically you can pronounce the registered trademark symbol." My own pet peeve, speaking of how normal humans choose to communicate, is people who send an […]

I am so nervous about Valentine’s Day.  I haven’t ever done this before until I visited Earth and my friend Skeeter told me about it.  Should I give Spec a Valentine that is special and tells him how cute I think he is or should I give all my friends a Valentine that is the […]

Dear Idea Seeker or Ally of the Idea Seekers, I have great news!  Greedy Cloud has been chased away and Spec and Tra discovered some new spring time house and garden items that he was hiding from everyone. Check them out in my house and garden, or go see Spec, Tra and Skeeter’s houses. Here […]

One of the people that I'm subscribed to on YouTube a while back did a tribute video to this song by My Darkest Days to the new Robin Hood movie starring Russell Crowe. I thought this song would be a perfect match to the Mad Max trilogy

There are some movies that yu watch that stick with you that you never get tired of. One of those movies for me is Robocop. I love the fact that this movie has no CGI and that the robots such as Ed-209 have a grainy look to them

Posting videos on YouTube can be a great way to show off your video editing skills, post video blogs, or even your own mini series. Because YouTube is the largest video sharing site it’s also a great way to promote products, or your website to thousands new potential viewers. But what happens when you post a video and it’s either slapped with a copyright infringement or banned all together, and what are the consequences to your account?

When you submit a website to search engines, most search engines automatically crawl websites looking for links and popularity of the sites they crawl to determine how they list on search engine results, one site that doesn’t is DMOZ. Also known as the Open Directory Project or ODP, this directory is entirely monitored by people (volunteer editors), this means that you have to submit your site and wait for somebody to physically look at your site. This process can take weeks, months, or even in a few cases years, so why bother with this site at all?

First off what is a favicon? If you look at the browser bar on this webpage just before the sites URL address is a small picture. When it comes to helping make your website or blog stand out there a huge benefit. They allow your readers to find your web pages easily if they have many browser windows and tabs open at once. If a visitor bookmarks your site in their favourites list the standard “e” icon is replaced by your picture helping your link stand out from the rest so they can return to visit. And they can also be used to help brand your site. Who would have thought a tiny 16x16 picture could help that much.