Scamperings

Freecycle has just recently launched a new version of their site which has a *lot* of improvements. The big one is that you can search across multiple towns at once. But it seems to have just been totally revamped in general -- improvements in messaging, post creation, filtering, etc. There's a new feature I haven't explored yet where you can register items to offer for lending to friends, which sounds super cool. Go check it out! https://freecycle.org

(I also finally got around to giving them a donation.)

1. The child trailer for my bike can carry over 300 lbs, despite the shitty wheels that sometimes let the tire fall off the rim (but not today!), as long as I balance the weight over the axle and don't let the hitch take all the strain.

2. However, 300 lbs is about the limit of what I can haul up the hills around here, at least without better gear ratios on my bike (although again, better wheels on the trailer would reduce rolling resistance).

3. Concrete blocks are surprisingly heavy.

I got my first COVID-19 vaccine today, which is a relief.

I woke up with a sore muscle on the left side of my neck, something I strained in my sleep. I didn't take anything for it because I didn't want to mess with the immune response. I found some paper showing that acetaminophen didn't interfere with an influenza vaccine, but I try not to keep much around in the house because it's fairly dangerous as far as OTC drugs go, so all we had was a heavy-duty extended-release one. Too much uncertainty, better not.

I put on my Sunday finest mask and walked to the doctor's office, rather than biking (due to the neck thing). I had had a plan to spend the 15 minute observation period outdoors, but my plans to bring an "observer" fell through, so I did the indoor wait. I guess the more important thing is that they did agree to it after some fuss, which means that they don't really have an excuse to say no to the next person who asks.

A few funny things though... when I mentioned the issue to the person giving me the shot, he offered to let me sit in an empty room. I'm not clear whether I would have otherwise been left in the exam room where I got the shot or whether I would have been in the waiting room, but either way I ended up without an observer! I don't think anyone checked in on me. So that was weird and pointless. Also, when I left, there was someone standing around outside with the same little plastic timer I had been given -- and he didn't have an observer either! So many eye-rolls.

It was disconcerting how as soon as I stepped out of the building, I had a sense of accomplishment crossed with invincibility. Immunity won't really start kicking in until at least a week from now, so I'll have to be on guard against a false sense of security.

A few hours later I started to get a sore area around in the injection site in my right deltoid (which is nicely complementing the neck thing). Seems about like my previous flu shot in terms of discomfort. Hopefully that's all it comes to for the first dose. (This one's Moderna, for reference.)

I think that after two weeks I'll start relaxing my precautions a little -- probably just to the extent of going into shops, although still wearing my N95.

A cool bit of local news that I missed until I happened to see an offhand reference in a national newspaper: Somerville has, to the extent it is possible for a city to do so, decriminalized all naturally-occurring psychedelic drugs: https://somervillecityma.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_LegiFile.aspx?MeetingID=3289&ID=24035

- The city can't use "funds or resources" in enforcement of criminal penalties against "use or possession" of these plants (and fungi).
- Changed to be "amongst the lowest law enforcement priority": Cultivation and transactions of entheogenic plants/fungi; use/possession of controlled substances in general

Until the county, state, and federal government are on board there will of course be some risk of having your life ruined by possessing psychedelics, but... for people who were already at risk of having their life ruined by *not* having certain psychedelics, this is a big improvement.

(The city cites the opioid epidemic and the therapeutic uses of these drugs as strong reasons to make this change.)

It has now been about a year since SARS-CoV-2 started affecting my life, so I thought I'd do a retrospective post on the past year.

Overall... it has been an OK year for me.

I live in the lower apartment of a 2-unit house spouse with my spouse and young child. We didn't have any housemates with outside partners or who might go out and make bad decisions and bring COVID-19 back to the house. While in the past I've really appreciated living in community, our current situation did simplify negotiation of risk and procedures. We made some snap judgements and refined them as needed.

I've been working from home. I have my own bedroom, which meant I had my own workspace. It's not as isolated from the rest of the house as I would like sometimes, and I don't have the psychological separation of workspace/homespace, but it has been manageable. We have good internet connectivity. Some things have been harder at work than they would have been. Since I started in mid-January of 2020, I've missed out on some social interaction, and stayed stuck in some projects that wouldn't have been as troublesome if it were easier to chat over lunch or at the puzzle bar.

Financially, we've been fine, since we've both been able to continue work.

Food has been a little different, but surprisingly close to normal. I like browsing the aisles at grocery stores, and I like getting a variety of products and ingredients that aren't all available at the same place. I don't do online grocery stuff. So, I went without some things that would have been nice. I ramped up how much we purchased at the small neighborhood grocery, which was sometimes more expensive but had online ordering; I also ramped up how much I purchased through them in bulk (which is cheaper, if you can front the cash and have storage space.) Our existing practice of buying in bulk (e.g. 25 pound bag of lentils, 40 lb bag of chickpeas) meant that the food supply chain disruptions in the spring of 2020 were somewhat less concerning for us. Our usual CSA still ran, and while we had less choice of what produce we got than we would in other years, I'm OK with having to get creative with produce. That's already a risk we were taking in being members of a CSA.

I've missed some social stuff. I was never much of one to go to parties or even to visit with friends all that often, but even against that background I did feel some isolation. We've gone on a number of walks with friends, which has been quite pleasant. I think that our kid has actually gotten to know her grandparents *better* than she would have otherwise, having a 2 hour video chat with one set or the other every weekday (partly a way to give my spouse and I some time for work or unwinding). The grandparents are pretty much vaccinated now (3 have 2 doses, 1 has 1) and will be able to visit soon, which will be exciting.

The kiddo's Kindergarten classes have gone surprisingly well. She has a space set up for school and knows how to do some basics on the old Thinkpad I set up for her, including joining class and playing some educational games the school has directed her to. There's not much opportunity for same-age social, but we've managed some outdoor playdates.

Healthwise, I could be better, could be worse. Around March 2020 my spouse and I started the 5BX exercise program to stay in shape given the loss of our bicycle commutes, and I really started to notice some positive changes in my body. (We've also been biking to the CSA farm a couple times per month, which helps as well.) Unfortunately, some time in the autumn of 2020 I developed frozen shoulder in my left arm, and it has been a slow process of physical therapy to get back to something like normal. I still can't wash part of my back properly, but I'm no longer getting horrible jolts of pain when I move my arm the wrong way. This threw a wrench into my exercising, but I think I'm ready to restart that now. On the up side, it has been a year almost entirely free of colds! Exceptions: I got one in late summer when we dropped most of our fomite precautions, and just this week I had a day of cough and fever (tested negative for COVID-19, but still wearing a mask around the house). I think I'll be wearing a mask in some situations in the future, and working from home a bit longer when I have a cold.

For mental health... hard to say. I think there's been some gradual, slow improvement in my irritability. Some bouts of depression, but none of the anxiety some people have been hit so hard with. (Some of that's financial stability, household autonomy, and being low risk for COVID-19 hospitalization. Some is likely personality.) I've been extremely distractible and prone to the donwannas, which isn't great for work.

Spiritually, I've also lost a lot of faith in people in the past year. A good deal of it has to do with politicians, all the way from federal down to local, but I'm also astonished at how badly the medical community has handled things. In spring of 2020 I was strongly focused on community resilience and making sure my own household and neighborhood were protected, not trusting the government to do the right thing. In retrospect I do wish that I had done more to speak up, asking our local and state government to do more, to do the right thing, to act quickly. But also in retrospect, I have a hard time feeling that it would have helped. Part of that is because I've also lost a good deal of faith in people in *general*. So many people acting against their own best interests, failing to contain the pandemic, failing to support each other. Not even isolated troublemakers, but large swathes of the population who either didn't understand or didn't care that their discretionary travel, indoor dining, and loud indoor parties were immiserating and killing people. My heart has been hardened to some extent; I'm just that much less likely to try to do good on the behalf of unknown others, rather than looking inward to protecting myself, protecting my family.

My spouse was hit harder in some ways; given the way childcare breaks down in our household, and the lack of in-person school, she's had a much harder time getting the time she needs for work and unwinding. And as I mentioned, my daughter is missing out on a lot of same-age social (while at the same time getting a ton of make-believe and other play time with grandparents). I don't know how difficult it has been for her, or to what extent she thinks of it as normal.

So, just as our household fared relatively better than others in the pandemic, I suppose I've fared a bit better than some others in my family. It's easy to feel guilty about that, even though that doesn't really help anything; more important to meditate on it and figure out how to improve things. I can also take some time to feel grateful, and take stock of what really matters to me. I can think about how I want to live in the future, what I'm willing to give up and what I'm not, and what changes will be coming our way no matter what. The present crisis isn't over. It will be eventually, but there will be other crises, many entangled with or derived from the rising climate crisis. The disparities in society will grow, and we have some hard decisions to make about where we situate ourselves, and what work we do that is inward vs. outward focused. I have a lot of thinking to do about that.

For some years I've enjoyed the undercabinet lighting that I installed, a very simple arrangement of adhesive LED modules, an adhesive-mounted inline switch, and a 12 volt power supply. But the LEDs reecently started flickering and dying, possibly because the 12v supply has inexplicably turned into a 15v supply. Or it always was, and this is just a cascading failure in the LED modules.

I figure I have to replace more or less the whole setup, and I figured I'd ask if anyone had advice.

The cabinet frontage is about 7 feet, and the front edge of the cabinets are about halfway back above the counter. The bottom is recessed upwards, so long bar lights might be awkward.

Here are my needs and wants:

- About 7 feet of lights under front edge of cabinets (and maybe a little extra to fill in the corner)
- 12 volt DC, although I could be convinced of 24 volt
- Hardwired; prefer something I can link together with barrel connectors or wire nuts/snap-down butt connectors, but will solder wires to pads if needed (now that I know where my soldering iron is)
- 1000 to 1500 lumens, I think?
- Color temperature vaguely around 3000–3500K -- not too glaringly blue for evening use
- High CRI would be nice for being able to evaluate food and ingredient colors properly (would pay a bit extra)
- Dimmable would be nice -- again, would be nice for evening use
- 80+ lumens/watt, ideally 100+ lm/W
- Adhesive mounting preferred, since we rent (does not need to come with adhesive; I can apply something removable)
- Maybe resistant to moisture; we don't currently own an electric kettle or a rice cooker, but I've previously seen the undercabinet lighting subjected to a prolonged steaming from such appliances.
- I'd very much prefer to avoid Amazon, and will pay up to 20% more to avoid it. (For several reasons, including their monopsony status, their treatment of workers, and the high rate of fraudulent sellers.)

Here's what I'm considering so far:

- Ribbon Star 2835 (3 meter roll for $40): LED strip, CRI 90+, 2900-3200K, 1500 lumens and 14.4 W total (105 lm/W), PWM dimmable. I'd have to solder jumper wires from segment to segment or buy connectors. No water resistance.
- Hardwired PWM dimmer with clamps and higher max watts or inline PWM dimmer with barrel connectors and 24 W rating, both $10
- ES4 4-chip Modules (20 modules for $50): 8.4 ft of modules, unknown CRI, 3000–3500K, 1600 lumens and 19.2 W total (83 lm/W), PWM dimmable. IP65 water resistance.
- I guess some kinda 12 VDC power supply!

Anything else I should be looking at? Other sites, other products? How much should I worry about water resistance?

I braved a CVS to pick up a prescription for someone in isolation, and while I was there decided to get a flu shot. I had to tick some boxes and hand over my insurance card, then wait a couple minutes for the nurse to come out, but it only took a few minutes -- my total indoor exposure time (including the prescription pickup) was less than 15 minutes.

I thought I was lucky that the nurses were still there that late in the evening, but it turns out that location is open 24 hours/day, apparently including for flu shots. You can schedule in advance, including doing the paperwork online, which is great if you want to do it at like 23:30 when hardly anyone's there.

Good experience, recommended. Just remember to wear a short-sleeved shirt. :-P

"Aerosol Transmission of Rhinovirus Colds" in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, 1987.

The authors had people infected with a rhinovirus strain play cards for 12 hours with uninfected people, with or without the opportunity for aerosol and/or fomite transmission. No evidence for fomite transmission at all. Contact transmission likely only possible when you rub someone's actual snot in your nose.

Sci-hub paper download: https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/infdis/156.3.442

One interesting thing here is that they weren't able to culture any virus off of the cards, pencils, and poker chips that ended up "literally gummy from the donors' secretions". So now I wonder, has anyone done a study on whether SARS-CoV-2 can be cultured from shopping carts and door handles? RNA, sure, but what about infectious virus?

- The Competitive Spectrum Pattern - Design Pattern Library - YDN: Also known as the Caring-to-Combative Community Spectrum. Focused on designing reputation systems in online communities but applicable to in-person. « The degree of competitiveness of a community depends on the individual goals of community members, the actions they engage in, and to what degree inter-person comparisons or contests are desired. »

- Types of Lawyers: Family tree and terminology: « Nothing emphasizes how complicated the “family tree” of lawyerdom has become like trying to explain it to intelligent people who don’t know already. So I can link to it later, and on the odd chance it might help some Internet passersby, I’ve published a new page with an outline of types of lawyers, as well as some other common ways we slice and dice the legal practice community. » [intro]

- Norms of Membership for Voluntary Groups: « One feature of the internet that we haven’t fully adapted to yet is that it’s trivial to create voluntary groups for discussion. [...] What we don’t seem to have is a good practical language for talking about norms on these mini-groups — what kind of moderation do we use, how do we admit and expel members, what kinds of governance structures do we create. »

- mtime comparison considered harmful: Technical piece on why build tools like Make need to do better than just looking at file modification times. Builds a very convincing case for...

- redo: a recursive, general-purpose build system: A replacement for make that is *vastly superior* along a variety of axes. My favorite part is that there's no weird syntax to learn. There are a bunch of implementations that should all be generally compatible with each other.

In the past few weeks, I've noticed that the "disable auto-formatting" checkbox is checked every time I go to compose a Dreamwidth post, which means I frequently have to go back and uncheck it after posting. (This is in the HTML compose view.)

Anyone else seeing this?