Learning From Others

One Typed Page

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“It all begins with one typed page.” So starts One Typed Page. You can see a link to it at the top of this page. It will take you to a page of images of One Typed Pages. People have submitted their pages and the editor puts them up early in the day. For example

A post from Kent Peterson.
You can find him there on nearly any day.

In explaining the purpose of the page the editor refers to Cold Hard Type series. That’s a series of books from people who write on typewriters. But it’s not for everyone. And for those that it’s not there is One Typed Page. As he puts it:

We need people who can structure thoughts and ideas, then write a compelling story so others can make sense of the world. It’s easy to stop writing when the seams are coming apart and the world’s supply of toilet paper seems to have dried up. Don’t! Get a clean hanky, wipe away your tears and write. Write like the world depends on your words. Write like a warrior who is fighting for their survival. Write, because if you don’t, you’ll end up in a dark corner, balled up and sobbing.

But that won’t happen, because you’re the typewriter type who punches keys and makes the hammer strike. The force of your fingers is the force of will that conquers the page. Close your web browser, turn off the news, mute your feeds and get on the typewriter.

~ Daniel Marleau, Editor of One Typed Page

You can and are encouraged to contribute. Or you can, like me, drop by the page and read up on what people with typewriters are up to.

US State Covid Stats

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A friend of mine from Ohio asked “What are infection rates like in Oregon these days?” And immediately I thought of “What’s it like in Ohio?” I could say it was OK here. But is it? And how much better or worse is it? I DuckDuckGo‘d it to see what I could find out. Their response at the top of the list was CDC. And they had it.

What was found in early August 2020
(Images were joined together for this post.)

Looking at the last two lines, Cases and Deaths / 100k, we see that it is almost twice as high in people with Covid. And their death rate is almost four times higher. Ouch. No wonder he went on to write “‘m fairly disappointed that there’s so many people who, for whatever reasons, are not acting in the best interests of public health and safety.” Boy oh boy, I can only hope for him.

If you’d like to compare the states in US, visit this CDC site. You’ll have a map like this one.

Covid cases per 100k people

You can compare Total Cases, Cases in Last 7 Days, Cases per 100,000, Total Deaths, or Death per 100,000. Move your mouse over the map to check on different states. You’ll get something like what I used in the beginning.

As a last word: Wear A Mask. It really isn’t that hard. Make more states like Maine or Vermont and less like Arizona or Mississippi.

Anthropocene Reviewed

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It only happens once a month. It is John Green speaking about things he finds interesting. (Read more about him here.) Anthropocene Reviewed describes and rates the topic of the moment.

My favorite was Tetris and The Seed Potatoes of Leningrad. Though Hot Dog Eating Contest and Chemotherapy and You’ll Never Walk Alone and Jerzy Dudek are close contenders.

You can listed to my favorite here at this WNYC Site. Or listed to it here:

You can listed to it there on on your favorite Podcasting App.

Pick Your Sources

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Without naming names, consider these two descriptions:

Overall, we rate [redacted] Right-Center biased based on international reporting that slightly leans left and Right biased for Indian national news reporting. Therefore, on the whole, we place them Right-Center. We also rate this source mixed for factual reporting based on poor sourcing.

verses

Overall, we rate [redacted] on the left side of Least Biased based on infrequent stories that favor the left. We also rate them High for factual reporting based on transparency and proper sourcing of information.

Which would you rely on? Which do you trust?

This is, for the record, writing from Media Bias Fact Check. I understand that some readers may consider that source in itself biased. It is widely cited by people who need to know. However, they are described as “amateurish”. (I am troubled by them describing the source as amateurish, without looking at the work they produce.) Compare this site with Ad Fonts Media, source of The Media Bias Chart. That chart is analyzed by a team of people from a wide range of the spectrum. It is also praised. For better or worse the Media Bias Fact Check site and the two places I referred to are not rated.

If you want to know about something, look it up with a news source listed in The Media Bias Chart. There is plenty of reliable, and biased, places that cite unreliable sources.

It is the best you can do.

Hot Dog SQLite is Here

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For the geeks here, you know that this blog runs on WordPress. And that WordPress requires MySQL/MariaDB. Which I don’t like. It’s too much stuff for a database driver. It can handle lots of traffic and more. But for something like this – a small blog, with hits counted, on most days, by counting without taking your shoes off. So I heard a rumor that you could run WordPress on SQLite. In short, it is a file-based SQL compliant database driver. I’d look for something even lighter. But, in truth, SQLite is light enough. I’ve used SQLite for projects over the years. I know it. So Yay.

I tracked down a guy in Brazil who uses SQLite today. He also is working on reviving the SQLite plugin for WordPress. (He does a lot of other software too.) You can see his work here. Or his how to install SQLite today.

If you want to use it – go ahead, It Works.