COVID
Victoria is now at 189 active cases. NSW is at 26 active cases.
Not quite there yet to trigger the next step out of lockdown, the average looks to be floating above that second yellow band of < 5 cases. There’s also a high court bid to end Melbourne’s lockdown.
Here’s another chart with numbers. (A reminder that you can check out these charts yourself at covid19data.com.au)
The Andrews government abandons controversial detention laws that allowed you to be imprisoned without due process because they couldn’t get the cross benches to agree and give the government more totalitarian powers. Remember what Melbourne CBD looks like? Here’s some people marching through for the Free Victoria protest.
The world is now at 8,595,110 active cases. 1,078,404 deceased. Paris is in the highest level of alert. People are leaving California. Kiwis are watching rugby in person. Great Wall of China is more crowded than ever. Over 80% of China’s clinical trial data is fraudulent. Donald Trump has discovered the miracle cure for COVID. Trump’s people told the CDC to alter reports to fit the presidents narrative that COVID doesn’t affect children, maybe that’s also influenced how we think here in Australia? Inviting friends/family to your place without telling the government is now illegal in Geneva Switzerland (article in French). Government in Ottawa in Canada, wants to join you in the bed room and are now giving COVID sex advice. And lastly the WHO have back flipped and are saying to world leaders to stop using lock down as your primary control method.
If you were wondering if you’re safe outside from COVID, it would depend on the conditions, like how close you are to people, the environment etc. More on that post viral fatigue syndrome that affects some COVID-19 survivors.
Remote learning isn’t new. It’s been done before in the 1937 polio epidemic when they used radios in Chicago.
The following is how a COVID-19 conspiracy theories thinks.
I’m sure pretty soon we will also be dining in a bubble, much like the following gym in a bubble.
Markets & Economics
Last week the federal government unveiled its budget, and the opposition came up with a response. It’s become a case of who can give out the most freebies. The BankKeeper program will cost $1 trillion dollars, we’re not going to get much out of it, and it will take until 2080 to pay it off. Anyway, here, here and here are some interesting analysis and opinion of the budget that I found interesting.
You have a chance to change super now before the legislation to make you stuck to a single super fund is passed, at which point you are stuck to that super fund for life.
Jack Dorsey the CEO of Twitter and CEO of Square has announced that Square has converted $US50 million of its cash to bitcoin. Here’s a list of other publicly traded companies who have bitcoin in their treasury. BTC is now trading at $11,383 USD.
Petrol is cheap again at 1.07. Even though sweet light crude hasn’t moved since june and has been trading at around $US40. If you want to know how the pump knows to shut itself off, here’s a explanation, which is actually quite technical. Too hard? Just bring the camel next time you need petrol.
State of the world
The Egyptian decided to open some sarcophagus for the first time in 2500 years. I’m not sure that such a great idea in 2020…
Australia to block anyone who doesn’t speak English from getting a visa.
The Future
Often I would come across some interesting futuristic tech that I think is cool.
- Glass that goes opaque when you close the doors.
- Self driving cars.
- Solar Powered self weeding robots.
- More farm bots.
- AR Controls.
- AR Glasses.
- Drones that sanitise sport stadiums.
- Movable barrier machines.
- Deep Fakes.
- Smart warehouse.
Other stuff
Uk will have quadcopter drones that use AI to identify targets, and they are armed with a shotgun. One step closer to slaughterbots.
Need a tax haven? Here’s a list.
Lattice Confinement fusion was interesting.
Triggered the Emergency mode on my iPhone by accident over the weekend. If you haven’t got it setup, you need to do it. To trigger it, you simple hold down the power button and a volume button on the iPhone 11. What happens was basically the emergency services gets called in such a way that you need to pick up, your phone goes into emergency SOS mode, and the people you have on your emergency list gets a text msg saying you are in trouble and this is your last location (or real time location). I can see this would be useful if you are followed home by some creep, that you can just reach into your pocket and press the buttons together. Obviously do it before you are TAKEN! On the older iPhone with a home button, I think you just hold the home button.
What am I reading?
Just finished Conscious By Annaka Harris (Sam Harris’ wife). It was a fascinating read, that goes into a lot of science (easy to understand science) on the hard problem of consciousness, free will, and panpsychism. My main takeaway was maybe consciousness could be an intrinsic part of matter, and not an emergent phenomenon.
When I find the time, I will read Shape up from the team at Basecamp. It’s free to read online.
I’ll leave you with making super noodles. I’m not too sure what to make of it, I was sure that someone was going to a wok to the face.
Have a good week.