Wednesday, October 14, 2020
I learned that our closest IKEA store was nearly totally devoid of inventory. EKTORP sofas to GRUNKA kitchen utensils seem to be in high demand during a pandemic. It makes sense but was unexpected. At least we have plenty of toilet paper now; I just can't put it on the wall at my new house since BROGRUND, VOXNAN, AND SKOGSVIKEN (IKEA's toilet roll holders) are out of stock. I guess we will settle for less aggressively named paper-holding hardware.
IKEA seems to be all in on this newfound demand for home goods:
https://www.furnituretoday.com/furniture-retailer/ikea-plans-expansion-into-several-u-s-cities/
And the ever-entertaining background on IKEA naming conventions:
https://stickybranding.com/how-ikea-names-its-products-its-a-surprisingly-brilliant-naming-system/
-----Latest Data---
Case rates trending up in many states and parts of the world
Death rates still stable - remember it is often a 2+ week lagging indicator. The U.S. is rising back toward 50,000 new cases per day (7-day rolling average) and is stable at 675 deaths per day (7-day rolling average).
Global-View:
https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938
Nationally:
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=usa&areas=gbr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=ustx&areasRegional=usco&cumulative=0&logScale=0&perMillion=1&values=cases
Also, look at https://covidtracking.com/data
The U.S. Regionally:
The NY Times state-level data visualization:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
About the data:
https://covidtracking.com/about-data/visualization-guide is the best resource to understand data visualization and data integrity.
----
It is worth spending a little time with https://rt.live/ to play with the updated data on the effective reproduction rate. Very few U.S. states have an R0 below 1, and all of them have confidence bands that put them in a range above 1.
https://rt.live/
An article relooking at excess mortality in March through July 2020 offers many interesting insights. Interestingly, the data indicate that non-COVID 19 related deaths spiked markedly in states with the greatest COVID-19 death rates. There are several excellent infographics in this article.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771761
A second article looking at the U.S. death rates compared to other nations is also very sobering.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771841
Medscape offered an analysis of these two articles.
https://www.mdedge.com/cardiology/article/229937/coronavirus-updates/profound-human-toll-excess-deaths-covid-19-calculated
Here are some interesting COVID animated infographics from a freelance multimedia producer using N.Y. Times data.
https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/
Check out his animated bar chart looking at case rates and state political alignment from June through October. It is striking.
https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june
I'm sure there are other ways to look at this data, but what is clear is some states where the new case rate rose above the North East's early peak and have been continually high since then.
https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june
To be clear, how you define a state as "red" or "blue" does play a role. Another commenter on these charts put together a plot of deaths and case rates by the state's governor's political affiliation.
https://twitter.com/CharlesRenPara1/status/1316138622098251777/photo/1
The case reports of COVID re-infections spawned some interesting discussions on Twitter. Here is one worthy of a read:
https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1315916228825952257
Related to re-infections, the Washington Post published an outstanding article from yesterday on Genetic Epidemiology. It is your coffee read of the day
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/coronavirus-genetic-code/
Infographic of the Day: Woman in Science compilation from compound chemistry -
https://www.compoundchem.com/category/women-in-chemistry/
----Bonus Round -- Early computers and Ada Lovelace
October 13 was Ada Lovelace Day, a celebration of women in STEM careers. I found several articles marking the day, but they drowned in the media cacophony of other news.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54438143
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alainapercival/2020/10/11/the-legacy-of-ada-lovelace-the-worlds-first-coder/
https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/ada-lovelace-day-2020-who-was-mathematician-and-writer-and-why-do-we-commemorate-her-3001404
And a 2015 Article about the inception of the day:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/sifting-the-evidence/2015/oct/13/why-ada-lovelace-day-matters
Ada's story is fascinating and worthy of review:
She was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron and demonstrated remarkable mathematical skills early in life. She developed a long working relationship with Charles Babbage, father of the Analytical Engine. She wrote the algorithm for Babbage's Analytical Engine to calculate Bernoulli numbers, making her the first computer programmer - in 1840. Moreover, it appears she was the first person to understand the Analytical Engine's potential as a tool not just to calculate numbers but have those numbers represent symbols - such as colors, letters, or other data - the intellectual foundation of modern computing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace#First_computer_program
and don't forget to look at the Analytical Engine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
I learned that our closest IKEA store was nearly totally devoid of inventory. EKTORP sofas to GRUNKA kitchen utensils seem to be in high demand during a pandemic. It makes sense but was unexpected. At least we have plenty of toilet paper now; I just can't put it on the wall at my new house since BROGRUND, VOXNAN, AND SKOGSVIKEN (IKEA's toilet roll holders) are out of stock. I guess we will settle for less aggressively named paper-holding hardware.
IKEA seems to be all in on this newfound demand for home goods:
https://www.furnituretoday.com/furniture-retailer/ikea-plans-expansion-into-several-u-s-cities/
And the ever-entertaining background on IKEA naming conventions:
https://stickybranding.com/how-ikea-names-its-products-its-a-surprisingly-brilliant-naming-system/
-----Latest Data---
Case rates trending up in many states and parts of the world
Death rates still stable - remember it is often a 2+ week lagging indicator. The U.S. is rising back toward 50,000 new cases per day (7-day rolling average) and is stable at 675 deaths per day (7-day rolling average).
Global-View:
https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938
Nationally:
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=usa&areas=gbr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=ustx&areasRegional=usco&cumulative=0&logScale=0&perMillion=1&values=cases
Also, look at https://covidtracking.com/data
The U.S. Regionally:
The NY Times state-level data visualization:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
About the data:
https://covidtracking.com/about-data/visualization-guide is the best resource to understand data visualization and data integrity.
----
It is worth spending a little time with https://rt.live/ to play with the updated data on the effective reproduction rate. Very few U.S. states have an R0 below 1, and all of them have confidence bands that put them in a range above 1.
https://rt.live/
An article relooking at excess mortality in March through July 2020 offers many interesting insights. Interestingly, the data indicate that non-COVID 19 related deaths spiked markedly in states with the greatest COVID-19 death rates. There are several excellent infographics in this article.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771761
A second article looking at the U.S. death rates compared to other nations is also very sobering.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771841
Medscape offered an analysis of these two articles.
https://www.mdedge.com/cardiology/article/229937/coronavirus-updates/profound-human-toll-excess-deaths-covid-19-calculated
Here are some interesting COVID animated infographics from a freelance multimedia producer using N.Y. Times data.
https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/
Check out his animated bar chart looking at case rates and state political alignment from June through October. It is striking.
https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june
I'm sure there are other ways to look at this data, but what is clear is some states where the new case rate rose above the North East's early peak and have been continually high since then.
https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june
To be clear, how you define a state as "red" or "blue" does play a role. Another commenter on these charts put together a plot of deaths and case rates by the state's governor's political affiliation.
https://twitter.com/CharlesRenPara1/status/1316138622098251777/photo/1
The case reports of COVID re-infections spawned some interesting discussions on Twitter. Here is one worthy of a read:
https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1315916228825952257
Related to re-infections, the Washington Post published an outstanding article from yesterday on Genetic Epidemiology. It is your coffee read of the day
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/coronavirus-genetic-code/
Infographic of the Day: Woman in Science compilation from compound chemistry -
https://www.compoundchem.com/category/women-in-chemistry/
----Bonus Round -- Early computers and Ada Lovelace
October 13 was Ada Lovelace Day, a celebration of women in STEM careers. I found several articles marking the day, but they drowned in the media cacophony of other news.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54438143
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alainapercival/2020/10/11/the-legacy-of-ada-lovelace-the-worlds-first-coder/
https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/ada-lovelace-day-2020-who-was-mathematician-and-writer-and-why-do-we-commemorate-her-3001404
And a 2015 Article about the inception of the day:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/sifting-the-evidence/2015/oct/13/why-ada-lovelace-day-matters
Ada's story is fascinating and worthy of review:
She was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron and demonstrated remarkable mathematical skills early in life. She developed a long working relationship with Charles Babbage, father of the Analytical Engine. She wrote the algorithm for Babbage's Analytical Engine to calculate Bernoulli numbers, making her the first computer programmer - in 1840. Moreover, it appears she was the first person to understand the Analytical Engine's potential as a tool not just to calculate numbers but have those numbers represent symbols - such as colors, letters, or other data - the intellectual foundation of modern computing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace#First_computer_program
and don't forget to look at the Analytical Engine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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