so, we're through the second lecture series, now. i'm going to watch a talk on public policy around climate change, and then the third series is on "quantum entanglements", and we might get our talk about bell either after or during it. given what i've seen from susskind so far, i'm expecting a mathematically truncated but theoretically thorough formulation of entanglement, which should once again give me some space to actually learn something.

this is presented as an introduction to classical mechanics, so i assumed the pre-requisite would be very introductory calculus and he'd just work out some basic newtonian equations for engineers. i only decided to watch it as review, really.

in fact, this is an exceedingly abstract course that would more or less need to be presented at the graduate level as almost a kind of philosophy course and, if presented with a more thorough mathematical development, would have third to fourth year mathematical prerequisites. he hints at a lot of pretty esoteric math that i, myself, barely touched upon, but he doesn't actually do any of it, he presents these kind of intuitive, ad hoc approaches that reduce some pretty hefty math to a kind of half-hacked out differential calculus. i can honestly argue that if i had tried to present some of these proofs in a paper in a math program, i'd have received a failing grade; however, very little of the audience for this specific lecture series could have followed these arguments if properly formalized, so he kind of had little choice but to chop his way through it, allowing an audience that is interested in mechanics at this level to follow a series of arguments that they really shouldn't be able to follow. that said, much of the calculus in this course is at a second year level, and i don't really recall working with any kind of abstract algebra until the second part of second year. so, even with the intuitive sloshes through topological spaces and measure theory, amongst other things, you'd still need to be an upper level undergrad to even start to follow this, and i'd imagine few people would have the incentive to relearn classical mechanics, except as a weird and sort of meta elective.

i was hoping that he'd develop some more known physics from these systems, but he didn't have time, and so instead focused strictly on developing the algorithm. he claims that the algorithm will then allow you to derive the equations of motion of any system, and he did manage to convince me of it, but he didn't actually do much of it, like i'd hoped.

i remember taking courses like this near the end of my time studying math, and they have their place, but don't be fooled - this isn't for beginners. what this is is a demonstration of how very advanced physicists do very basic physics, and it's consequently only going to be of interest to the general populace as a point of curiosity, rather than a serious course.

stated differently, if you can follow the math, then you already know all of the physics and it's only interesting as a philosophy course. but, if you can't follow the math, even with it simplified, you're not learning much about physics by following along - you're better off checking out the pre-reqs.

well, they always said alberta was the texas of canada.

in fact, alberta's timing on the curve is maybe closer to that of the deep south than it is to that of eastern canada - they had minimal impacts to start, opened early and are now seeing a spike in cases.

the population of alberta is 4.5 million people, so it's very sparsely populated, largely. if you translate that proportion of cases in the population of alberta to the population of texas, you get to roughly 1500 cases.

29*(230/4.5) = 1482, but i'm underestimating the population of texas and overestimating the population of alberta so a round up to 1500 is a reasonable correction.

that was roughly the number of cases that texas was seeing near the end of may, which actually puts it in line with the rest of canada, surprisingly - but that would then be an example of time variance, and the need to view the curve in terms of being an abstract, malleable shape rather than a fixed, physical thing.

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/230-covid-19-cases-over-weekend-government-urges-albertans-to-use-masks-1.5022039

i can just imagine the wall of blank stares coming back at him, as doug afford announces in front of a packed room of seniors that they'll never be warm again.

and, eventually, after however many seconds of absolute silence, a solitary voice may cry out in the crowd...

i'm cold.

i'm not fucking around. really.

https://training.mmlearn.org/blog/is-grandma-always-cold-heres-why...and-what-you-can-do-about-it

hey, doug.

maybe that old folks home that you broke a sweat in, which pissed you off so much, was hot because....


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wait for it.

keep going.

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ready?

still want to know?

so, maybe the old folks home that doug ford broke a sweat in, which pissed him off so much that he's mandating air conditioning in the homes was hot because....

.....the residents like it that way.

fyi.

https://caregiver.com/articles/why-seniors-cold/

i am happy to see the creation of new care facilities, and hope that there is enough capacity in the end to prevent overcrowding.

and, i hope that tenants are, in the end, given control over their own thermostats - and allowed to vote on their preferred temperatures in common areas.

maybe we should just hire a train of slaves to follow doug around, and toss rose petals in front of him when he walks, like an emperor, or at least a petty tyrant.

that way, he'll never break a sweat ever again.

like, ever.

i bet this guy hasn't exercised for more than five minutes since high school.

i think maybe doug ford often gets a little sweaty, and maybe he's mandating what he would like, rather than what the people that live in these facilities would actually want.

that way, when doug goes into the facilities, he won't be uncomfortable, himself.

have you ever heard an old person say "it's too hot in here."

no, really. have you?

all i've ever heard old people say is "it's freezing in here, turn the heat up".

the sad reality is that if you mandate air conditioning in these facilities, what you're going to end up with is a lot of old people complaining that it's too cold.

because old people love to complain that it's too cold. if you've ever known any...

but, what if a resident doesn't want air conditioning in their unit?

in fact, older people tend to like it warmer. that's one of the ways that your body changes, as you age.

but, it's a good example of the kind of warped mindset that this fat, privileged piece of shit really has.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-makes-air-conditioning-mandatory-in-nursing-homes-announces-indoor-visits-to-restart-soon-1.5024837

see, this guy should be getting meals on wheels or something. i know i'm completely avoiding the debate, but that is the truth of it - this person should not be in public, right now, for much of any reason, and he should have access to a service that delivers him the necessities, while that's happening. that's the safest thing for him to do...

my experience is that these cards are not necessary, and while i wouldn't advise using them, i think it's kind of harmless, if it makes people feel less anxiety about being judged for going out without a mask. i think that the real reflection, here, ought to be about the unnecessary stress that this is clearly causing people.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anti-masking-rules-1.5649288

so, i'm vegging today. and we'll get back to work tomorrow, or perhaps tonight.

so, if you want to understand how to transform the canadian epidemiology into the american, and back, the formula should be something like this:

u(f(t)) = 10*c(t)

where,

u(t) = american deaths at time t
c(t) = canadian deaths at time t
f(t) is an equation that relates the domains of the two functions.

if we measure t in weeks and allow it to be linear, even though we know it isn't, and f(t) is roughly t-6 then,

u(t - 6) = 10*c(t),

so,

c(t) = 0.1*u(t-6)

to be a little more complicated, you'd need to derive a fourth order differential equation for t and solve it. you'd want it to be fourth order so that the derivative of the acceleration is still a non-scalar function of t. that is, the acceleration is not constant. and, this is an empirical question, so you could fit this, if you sat down and did it...

stop.

these are the two key observations in comparing the american and canadian responses to the pandemic, right now.

1) the united states has about ten times the population of canada, so should be expected to have about 10 times the number of deaths.
2) canada appears to be experiencing a very similar epidemiology to what's happening in the united states, except that we're lagging behind them by a few months. i don't want to be too precise because i wouldn't expect this transformation to be time-invariant, in the end - it's not like you can pick up one graph and drop it on the other, you're going to have to think more abstractly than that and look at the general shape of the curve, and transform it around where the inflection points are. the field of mathematics that deals with these kinds of transformations is called topology; we're not going to be converting coffee cups into donuts and back, but we're dealing with classes of curves that we can stretch and condense, and expand and contract, and stuff.

so, we've seen a huge spike of cases recently down there. but, the states that are getting nailed right now didn't reopen last week - they reopened months ago. texas reopened at the end of april; it took two months for cases to build quietly amongst the young and healthy before it flipped over. cases in the united states actually decreased for weeks after the economy started going again, about 10 weeks ago or so.

as reopening in canada started happening about 4 weeks ago, that would suggest that we have another 6 weeks or so to wait before the build-up of cases via community spread flips over, if we continue to follow the americans via a time lag. but, as mentioned, time is variable, here - that 6 weeks could be 4 weeks, or it could be 10 weeks.

you'll note that the weather also flipped over late in most of canada, especially relative to the american deep south, and that may contribute to the time lag, as well.

now, let's see what kind of time lag we get with total deaths, and how close it is to the time lag i just pointed out.

first, we have to multiply the total number of deaths in canada to get a good comparison. so, to see how far behind the united states we are on the curve, we need to ask when it is that the united states had not 9,000 deaths but 90,000 deaths, and the answer to that question is around the may 15th-20th period, which is a bit more than six weeks ago, but not much more.

is that inevitable? is there anything we can do to prevent this? well, you could put the military on the street, distribute food door-to-door and order anybody who leaves their house shot dead. that would work. so, no - it's not unpreventable.

but, with the rules we have in place (and with the rules we are willing to follow), it is, indeed, inevitable.

and, your mask won't save you, or the people around you.

"but, we're trying to stop the spread of the virus. we can't wait."

then argue your abuse of power is justified, don't pretend it's not an abuse of power.

i don't agree, myself. and, i don't expect that mask laws will help much, in the end.

so, i think this summarizes where actual, really existing science is right now with the whole mask thing:
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/06/controversy-covid-19-mask-study-spotlights-messiness-science-during

what the article says is that we don't really have any useful science that demonstrates the effectiveness of mask wearing, but it seems like it makes sense (hrmmn.), so we should probably all do it, under the assumption that eventually the science will work itself out.

see, i'm not even going to really argue with my own summary of the article; i may have been a little snide, but i don't think i've constructed a strawman or otherwise misattributed, and it's almost tautological in terms of presentation - who is going to argue that mask use doesn't make sense in principle, if everybody does it right?

but, that's a suggestion. it's a hunch. it's the articulation of an idea that seems reasonable - but also a mea culpa that we don't actually know if it's actually true or not. it's certainly not a law, or an order, or a decree.

hey, let's be current and trendy in our thinking, in a way that is unusually substantive. this is a scenario where policymakers should be carefully seeking out the intersection of science and law, which i'm actually unusually qualified to talk about. seeking out true intersectionality here requires the ability to interpret the evidence from both components of the intersection, and erect them in a way that is unique to the intersection area.

understanding the legal area means realizing that science needs to be understood in terms of uncertainty, that sometimes scientists will tell you something is certainly true (such as evolution, or anthropogenically induced climate change) and sometimes scientists will tell you something is probably true (like genetic determinants for sexual identity, or the masslessness of specific particles) and sometimes scientists will tell you that they just imagine that something is true without having any evidence to back it up (like the existence of life outside of the solar system, or the idea that mask use stops the spread of viruses in a pandemic). the legal side of the equation needs to understand where the science is on any specific point before legislating, if it seeks to consult it properly. if something is certainly true, specific legal legislation is absolutely required to address it, and so forth, whereas if something really only exists in the mind of the imaginer then the issue is generally best left to whatever research departments, and the legal question reduces to what kind of funding seems reasonable, relative to the magnitude of any social or capital accruement that may come from the thought developing itself into actual science.

understanding the science area means realizing the need to be clear to policy makers about the nature of the reports being presented, under the realization that the issue is going to policy makers that ought to judge it as previously stated. it means being able to understand the science well enough to make that determination, and understanding what that determination actually means, in terms of what kind of funding or specific action is required.

so, then what to say about the quebec mask law and the backlash to it?
https://globalnews.ca/news/7178624/quebec-ombudsman-masks-coronavirus/

i don't have a general concern with the ombudsman, or any other government official, articulating a suggestion to wear masks. that is indeed in line with the science, which is currently at exactly that point, of suggesting that it is probably a good idea.

but, as the science is nether at the probably stage nor the certainty stage, there would not appear to be a sufficient scientific justification at this point for the mandating of masks, and the government of quebec is consequently jumping ahead of itself in implementation. this law is not informed by the science, as it exists, and should be overturned for that reason. there must be clear evidence to infringe on an individual's right to the "security of the person" in such an invasive manner, and the current evidence simply doesn't fit the bar to do so.

that said, i think that most people are interpreting the law as a suggestion. i live in a mask-mandated region, and mask use is not at all widespread, here. i highly doubt that the police are enforcing the law, or doing much of anything at all to uphold it. if you pass a law and the only people that follow it would have followed it without the law existing, and don't enforce it, then it's not really a law, is it? it's just a suggestion...

so, i'm going to wait until they start dragging people away before i get particularly concerned.

science, in general, is the opposite of what conservatives call "common sense".

i will usually strenuously oppose "common sense" policies because i'm in solidarity with science.

and, these trumpist border closures - which make intuitive sense to the uneducated, but are not backed by science - are a perfect example of this.

again: i would expect this kind of stupidity from a conservative government, but the liberals are supposed to argue that science > "common science". and, they're not.

there's some things that a government can do that are disappointing, and there are others that indicate a fundamental shift in governing philosophy. this is the latter.

i don't think there's any other liberal government in canadian history that would have tossed the science in the trash and caved into populist ignorance, like this. it's in line with my analysis over many years now, but it's really historic - this is an ideological shift in the ruling party, and one that is going to dramatically alter my view of the liberals as a science-based party for many years into the future.

and, they can't win without people like me, even if i'm currently in a dead riding.

https://theconversation.com/we-cant-trust-common-sense-but-we-can-trust-science-53042

so, that's what i did yesterday. the map cuts off, but the town i ended up in was tilbury....for a few minutes, anyways - enough to buy the pills and smoke a joint in a farmer's field and get out.

while it's about the same distance to leamington as it is to tilbury (my route is about 5 km's shorter than google's in either direction), this was a slightly longer ride, because a large part of it was through a residential area, and there were a lot more lights. i left at about 13:00, i got to the store about 17:30, i left about 18:30 and i was home before 23:00. so, i got the space covered in around 4.5 hours in either direction. considering that i stopped for at least five smoke & mt dew breaks in both directions, 3-3.5 hours of actual biking is about right. hey, if you can do that without stopping, then sign up for the olympics; in reality, you actually take the car to the corner store to get milk, don't you? ugh.

i got home, took a shower and slept for quite a while. i haven't even eaten yet...

how big is windsor, really? it's a weird layout for a city, and i suspect it's the same thing all around the peninsula - i don't feel like i left fully urban civilization until i got out of saint joachim., but it's only because i took the lakeshore drive, and i got some pictures of lac st clair (something i hadn't seen before). it's probably the same thing around the detroit river into lake erie, but i haven't done the trek, yet.

i'm not exaggerating - it's just a string of houses up the road along the lake for miles, of varying composition. some of these houses i drove by were legit 30 room mansions, while there was one section of particularly old and dilapidated housing that seemed like it might have been a small indigenous reserve (i don't know if that's true). i'm sure that the wealth disparity has a lot to do with which areas are more flood prone, but for the purposes of biking, that's not all that important. i'm just pointing out the long string of housing up the coast of the lake that makes it seem like you're still in the city, after you've left it behind miles and miles ago. there's small communities on the main road, county road 2, but if i had taken that route, i'd have been taking an old highway with no shoulders through much of it, and often driving through fields, making it seem more like a ride through the country. indeed, you'll note that i ended up back on a road that runs directly from windsor  (where it is called cabana road) to tilbury (where it is called mill street) and that i may have saved some time by just staying on it, but the trade-off is that cabana switches to rural almost right off the 401, so almost the entire road would have been through farmland and old roads. they actually announced a project to uplift the road recently, and if i could put in a request to mayor dilbert to just extend the bike line all the way to tilbury...

i got 40 days worth, though!

how much further can i go than tilbury? i felt this ride, near the end, more than i felt the last one, even if the distance was about the same. so, i don't know. i know that if i have to go to chatham-kent, or to some other small town on the way to london and/or hamilton (and/or niagara) then i'm going to need to leave earlier.

keeping the windows closed overnight actually seems to have resolved the issue i was dealing with yesterday, but only because i've got some latent heat built up in the floors, now, i think. it's about time to open them for the day...

this border closure is not a way to stick-it to the americans. it hurts us far more than it hurts them.

and, the liberals right now are run by sophomoric idiots that should go back to school, so nobody should be surprised that they threw away what will probably be their best, last chance at a majority, before justin trudeau ends up in the dung-heap of history, where he belongs.

no.

the closed border is a symbol of the triumph of trumpism. you're all trumpists, now.

and, you're all too stupid to understand it.

...and, guess what, you fucking idiots?

if you've fallen for this?

if you're all gung-ho about closing borders to keep the diseased americans out, based on nothing but debunked science and xenophobic rhetoric?

you've bought into trumpism. you're a trumpist. and, trump has now won. congratulations.

we need a government that's going to look at the science soberly with an analytic mind and apply it rigorously, not one that's happy to throw the science under the bus for all of this right-wing, xenophobic, populist rhetoric about "common sense".

stop.

do you think this is the only example in history where border closures actually worked?

that it's the one, magical counter-example to the mountains of peer-reviewed science that reject border closures as pseudo-science?

grow up. we need real world solutions to real world problems, not magical thinking based on pseudo-science.

i repeat: closing the border is not about science. the science is crystal clear: closing borders does nothing to stop the spread of diseases, at all. no, it is not working. we're just behind them on the curve.

what closing borders as a result of this is about is the government pushing a xenophobic, populist agenda to try to create enough of a distraction for them to avoid an election that they are unlikely to do well in.

and, here's the sneaky part: they'd actually be better off to dissolve parliament, while the opposition is in disarray. if you had an election tomorrow, the liberals might win back a majority. their chances of such a thing will decrease daily, as we continue to catch up to the americans on the curve.

...and, as much as i'm frustrated by the government's unscientific handling of the situation, if we go through all of this twitter-feed pseudo-science and come off no better than the united states in the end, except now with a 90% debt-to-gdp ratio, which we could have avoided by following the science, will that lead to some clearer thinking in the population about putting people with guns on the streets and telling people where they can or can't go?

and, why am i cheering on the spread of the virus?

because i want the border to reopen to commercial traffic asap, meaning i want the policy to fail asap, and for a public backlash to develop against it.

so, with the most recent border extension, i'm now in the awkward position of actively cheering on the spread of this virus in canada....

there is no science underlying the border "closures", which are truly no such thing, and no meaningful reason at all (except the logical fallacy of "common sense", which almost always leads to faulty deductions) to think they're having any effect whatsoever on the spread of the virus in canada. there is no reason, at all, right now, to expect that canada will not follow the united states into a major outbreak within the next two-three months, as it has had roughly similar infection rates, relative to population numbers, once you control for the fact that we are about 2-3 months behind the united states on the pandemic curve.

so, i don't think the canadian response to this virus has been very impressive, at all, actually.

i don't think we're doing a better job in containing the virus than they are - the data doesn't support that deduction, remotely.

i don't think that the border closures will stop the upcoming outbreak, which is likely currently in a process of development. wait for it.

and, i don't expect that the outbreak will be any different here when it happens, after you've given it some time to build roots in various communities and maybe even get into some local animals as reservoirs. i saw a shallow grave on somebody's lawn yesterday, and it got me to thinking about this thing getting into the raccoon or fox population, in which case we should expect periodic zoonotic transmission effects, like rabies.

so, what is this utter stupidity that we continue to be subjected to by this backwards, hard-right, populist-nationalist (the word for this is fascist) government?

well, i just described it didn't i?

the border is not closed because of the virus, the border is closed because a very weak liberal minority government is attempting to co-opt a trumpist foreign policy to maintain it's hold on power. not only have they managed to avoid elections (it's very likely that this government would have fallen this month, otherwise), but they haven't even passed a budget. it's a godsend for them, really.

all i can do is request that you don't fall for it.

but, you probably will.

because you're not very smart.