Hopefully, this is the last of the abnormally cold days we've
been seeing in the last while (-20 to -30 C). You dress like a bear
and a spot of cheek that isn't covered screams this is TOO cold!
I've seen reports this is actually due to climate change with the Jet
Stream slowing down and making a more pronounced sine wave.
But that is not the whole story. Below:
Those very determined truckers in Ottawa are ipso facto lobbying the Biden
Administration; not a promising affair. Is this really necessary? Where is the
bureacratic analysis of the situation for cross-border trade!? Granted
fighting the epidemic is top priority, but deconfinement may need some
thoughtfulness...
* * *
There is a tragic element in all this: the one thing that pandemic measures have
been aimed at is avoiding close contacts between the unvaccinated. and this is exactly
what this demonstration seems to be delivering. Will it be a cauldron of infection
for Omicron; I hope not. I have bee looking forward to going for a double double
this week - as Quebec restaurants re-open - albeit at a 50% capacity Tim's... Maybe not!!
Of course, natural immunity is also part of the equation. Hard to know who has natural
immunity from a past infection and whether this is adequate faced with omicron... 👳♀️
* * *
DAY 3
For any of the truckers who might be dismayed at the difficulties
of finding food and drink in downtown Ottawa; you have my full
sympathy. Ottawa is not a normal city with shopping and eats at its core; it
is a government town with civil servants crowding in during the week
but a largely empty hull week-ends.
Bottom line, there is coffee and muffins everywhere till noon, but then not.
(Booze picks up later in the day). One can buy lunch in a line-up; there are actual
restaurants in government buildings that serve lunch to departmental employees.
To find a family restaurant one needs to go toward the suburbs, down Bank street
going South or out to the West. The train station off the Queensway is large, warm
and has stuff. There are French speaking folks in the East of the City.
On a normal day, downtown Ottawa is a traffic nightmare early in the morning, and
then around four in the afternoon. The Prime Minister goes to work in a limo with
police escort at nine in the morning because he wouldn't make it any other way...
* * *
Day 4
Real-time map of Ottawa:
It's cold as anything and I'm getting bored. Might dust off my vaccine
passport to go to the local foodcourt and get a liter of milk, browse the
cookies...Who knows!?
This is when I start to muse about the Milankovich cycle!
Between the cold and the covid restriction, I get to watch a lot of YouTube.
Below, a really interesting overview of early humans entering Scandinavia.
Didn't really understand about Doggerland before thi; makes me realize I have
been out of school for a long time. Awesome!!
From Le Devoir:
That said, there is no real reason for demonizing the unvaccinated.
One might take a sociological stance on the issue. Like, not
everyone adopts novelty at the same rate and there is no reason
to assume the unvaccinated are malevolent. I don't have a shaved
haircut but my daughter does. Perfectly normal situation. The vaccination
effort we are living through now seeks to simulate natural immunity
in the population because we are dealing with high population spread
of airborne diseases. That's the truth of the situation.
Couldn't finish yesterday's entry for CS50 AI properly because
I couldn't manage to download the python tokenizer (charmingly
named 'punkt'). In the cool light of morning today, I solved it.
Forget pip, just go on the python interpreter in Command Prompt.
One needs to locate 'punkt' from the list of options.
Ploughing through on CS50 AI.
Been google - ing again, this time on the great Boris Johnson Party
Saga. Seems there are now seven documented Downing Street boozy
work events, and possibly more to come. OOOOOh!
The March 20, 2020 garden party got me thinking. Didn't Mr Johnson get
Covid himself in March. As I recalled, he had shown great bravado in carrying
on with public engagements in the days up to his symptoms. Turns out that
he started isolating one week after the party, and ended up in hospital
- and eventually on a respirator - one week after that. So how did the other
party goers fare!?
To be fair, our understanding of Covid was murky in those early days. Particularly
on the concept of 'getting it'. By now I would guess the virus is everywhere and we
are all dealing with it all the time; the test picks up when we become capable of infecting
others from the virus we reproduce ourselves.
But still, March 20 was also the date the British government closed all schools in
England.
So what was going on there: hanging on to normalcy, accepting the inevitable, going
down with the ship in style?? A bit of all that, I would think. The really bad numbers had yet
to come; but come they did.
The above list shows some of the tasks related to language
that AI has come to deal with. All require a consideration of
both syntax(the word order aspect of grammar) and semantics (meaning).
The cornerstone to how computers will approach things is Chomsky's
notion of context-free grammar and normal form ((CNF). One builds things up
from the simplest - a noun verb combination - to more complex.
Using Python's natural language tool kit, the program is able to parse
sentences constructed from the given vocabulary. (News to me, French
now has the verb 'parser' to describe how computers propose syntactic
analysis). A terminal symbol is a word, a non-terminal symbol is a word species
such as noun, verb, determinative..., verbal phrase.
Program 0 reads simple sentences; program1 more complex but still has limits...
Beautiful sunny day today, but at -20° C and slightly windy, not
a day for a stroll. Looked up the relationship between windchill and frostbite,
and here is the story.
source: National Weather Service, US.
Did seem to me odd at the time that experts were dismissing the Wuhan leak
explanation out of hand. 'Doing harm to science' is the kind of immature response
one does not expect from adult professionals. I'm dumbfounded.
There is such a thing as public health policy, and it has to rest on total transparency
from all concerned 😒
* * *
The US is coming off as the dult on the room on this one: they are
introducing sanctions on individuals and organizations that are facilitating
North Korea's continuing development of ballistic missiles:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/12/politics/north-korea-sanctions-missile-test/index.html
My Covid booster shot - first time with Moderna - hit pretty hard.
I fell asleep during the day with my clothes on, it was so powerful. Feeling
fine today, but now the weather is so cold I shouldn't leave the house until
tomorrow...Brrr
Watching some YoutTube by periodically erasing my watch history, so I
am essentially watching what is trending. Below, two right interesting pieces
on Ancient Rome from yesterday. A moving crowd is a thing!!!
Not sure how I feel about this. Nobody wants to live in an
endless emergency but social conditions have changed. the world
population is currently in billions, and the economy globalized.
I am also leery of the argument that vaccines are ineffective because
there are always new variants. Consider: we are seeing new variants in
hospitals but not the original virus. That tells me vaccination has been
successful in controlling it 😉
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/us/politics/former-biden-advisers-pandemic-strategy.html
Once and for all, the lowdown on obesity:
I must admit that starting off the new year back in lockdown
sent me in a bit of a spin. It's cold as heck, and waiting outside
to get into the grocery store is just that element of annoyance which
seems all too much. Plowing through, here.
In the spirit of this situation, I did make a resolution for the New Year:
that of not gaining any weight - ever - over the next year. Because all that
means is that one needs to take it off.
Been binge-watching YouTube videos about cruises. They're poignant, really.
Showing people having a grand old time before the corona. I was never much
drawn to them in the past because I am very sensitive to motion sickness.
All that free liquor and food in a moving ship. Why!?
On the up side, Rice Krispies are back on offer at a local store. During the
great shortage of said, discovered Crispix, which has half corn, half rice puffed
nuggets. Quite acceptabe, really🕵️♀️
