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Craig Arko

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Everything posted by Craig Arko

  1. Craig Arko
    Were I to look for a place to begin making reforms to the Mpls. LE agencies I might choose to start here. http://www.citypages.com/news/bob-kroll-plans-to-fight-for-jobs-of-cops-who-killed-george-floyd/570922481
  2. Craig Arko
    FWIW, I think Kepler is good if he learned something from this. I despise politics and resent every minute it takes from my life. But I have learned that I ignored it at my own peril, and the peril of those I care about. So I swallow the resentment and try to do what I can to help. I believe that is the responsibility of being a citizen and enjoying the rights and privileges thereof.
  3. Craig Arko
    And of course while this is happening we still have a global pandemic and a wild and woolly Summer heat and storm season to contend with. But let’s not talk about that either, because not talking about problems is such an effective way of dealing with them.
  4. Craig Arko
    I have to think about this idea for a while longer before making a decision about it. But it’s a notion to consider. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/31/the-answer-to-police-violence-is-not-reform-its-defunding-heres-why
  5. Craig Arko
    This is what humanity looks like.
  6. Craig Arko
    Indeed. And those unwilling to make the distinction remain part of the problem.
  7. Craig Arko
    Commentary in the journal Nature about the other virus - disinformation. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01452-z
  8. Craig Arko
    Brief interview with Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
  9. Craig Arko
    Kim Stanley Robinson. Always a great read. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-coronavirus-and-our-future
  10. Craig Arko
    Jim Lovell.
  11. Craig Arko
    Yes, I've always found the notion of measuring the value of a life in money to be morally repugnant. However, it seems to be a talking point for many people. Here's some more thinking to be considered: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/economics-age-covid-19 I've looked at the Open Access version of this book; Gans raises some good points, which I won't summarize here and now.
  12. Craig Arko
    And the collateral damage continues. https://www.startribune.com/top-er-doctor-who-treated-virus-patients-dies-by-suicide/569992492/
  13. Craig Arko
    A little cost modeling. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/the-value-of-lives-saved-by-social-distancing-outweighs-the-costs/
  14. Craig Arko
    "In Georgia, funeral homes are struggling to keep up with the pace of death - physically and emotionally. As bodies fill over-crowded morgues, coroners are having to change the way they console grieving families, many of which they know personally." https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/04/24/georgia-coroner-coronavirus-deaths
  15. Craig Arko
    "The number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Minnesota climbed by 28 on Sunday — the largest single-day increase on record in the state since the pandemic began. The confirmed death toll in Minnesota is now 272, the state Department of Health reported. Officials said 23 of the 28 deaths reported Saturday were residents of long-term care facilities — including a 44-year-old resident of Hennepin County, the youngest confirmed COVID-19 fatality in Minnesota to date." https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/04/26/latest-on-covid19-in-mn
  16. Craig Arko
    I just know I'd advise people not to drink or inject lysol, or other disinfectants, into their bodies. Seems like a generally bad idea.
  17. Craig Arko
    The basic problem regarding optimization in general is choosing the correct objective function to optimize and then considering the constraints to be applied. There's a lot of 'garbage in -> garbage out' that goes on in that process. Too much of that is driven by ideology and other forms of cognitive bias, instead of careful consideration of the problem(s). Algorithms and machine learning are only as good as the data they are crunching on. And who chooses what that data is, and is not? There's a damn fine reason that a book called "Weapons of Math Destruction" exists, and needs to exist. I'd also take a look at Bergstrom and West while there's downtime.
  18. Craig Arko
    So there is also this to consider. '26 million jobs lost in 5 weeks...' https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/23/841876464/26-million-jobs-lost-in-just-5-weeks One thing this says to me in my own limited worldview is that the existing economic systems/models lack a great deal in terms of robustness and antifragility. Massive growth and massive centralization reveal their strong vulnerability to a vector that attacks growing, centralized societies. What things can we take away from this in preparing for the next (inevitable) recurrence of this kind of event? I'm sorting out my ideas about this; I'd encourage everyone to do the same. Especially the younger people who will have to get through maybe multiple such occurrences.
  19. Craig Arko
    I'm happy to be a native Minnesotan who has managed to remain here most of my life. Which seems a bit more likely to continue (life, not necessarily remaining, although the University has my attention for the next few years). https://www.startribune.com/gov-tim-walz-announces-increased-covid-19-testing/569860492/
  20. Craig Arko
    So as we think about the underreported cases in the denominator of the morbidity ratio, let us also consider the number of underreported cases in the numerator. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html
  21. Craig Arko
    Well, if we go like Italy, there will probably be many bodies discovered in peoples' homes in the aftermath.
  22. Craig Arko
    Hey, go for it. The investments in funeral homes and cemeteries should do well. Please stay out of Minnesota. Oh, the link to the thought provoking article is absent. It probably went off to the spa or the golf course.
  23. Craig Arko
    If there is real-time monitoring taking place, it's not going to be made public for some time, given the current leadership's valuation and oversight of science. Maybe these blocs of states joining together in regional alliances will produce a better picture. I don't know. In my opinion.
  24. Craig Arko
    Ah, well. Good luck with that.
  25. Craig Arko
    Here's the data compilation from 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm This talks about the delta for 2018. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm This talks about decline in cancer death rates entering 2020: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/annual-report-nation-cancer-death-rates-continue-decline-2020 More from the NIH, circa 2017. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/study-finds-premature-death-rates-diverge-united-states-race-ethnicity So the tendencies seem to indicate most other disease-related deaths are about the same; perhaps declining slightly. COVID-19 co-morbidities probably account for some (maybe a lot) of the current growth; but that also correlates with the supersaturation of the ICU's and ER's, plus the number of victims who don't get any care at all, perhaps dying in their homes. I will make a value judgement; the ball has been seriously dropped here. We'll be living and dying with the fallout from this for a long time.
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