"Klatchian coffee has an even bigger sobering effect than an unexpected brown envelope from the tax man. In fact, coffee enthusiasts take the precaution of getting thoroughly drunk before touching the stuff, because Klatchian coffee takes you back through sobriety and, if you're not careful, out the other side, where the mind of man should not go."

-- Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett #coffee #humor #reading

Welded up a bird-feeder stand for my parents this morning

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No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad. #reading #reading2020 #fantasy

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Repaired some stuff in #goldfrog around #webmention handling on weird responses (hello amzn redirects)

Another Discworld book I hadn't read yet! Yes, a pyramid can be too big. And woe be to the cosmological architects who build it!

Yeah, on a Terry Pratchett tear; this was a new one to me and a lovely read #reading #reading2020 #fantasy

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This Standford daily #covid19 health survey should be an app available for all platforms, promoted by the Whitehouse and CDC, with all responses anonymized and aggregated.

https://med.stanford.edu/covid19/covid-counter.html

Jared Marcotte on Turnout.rocks: Los Angeles County Primary: Observations in Election Redesign

Some may also advocate for all-mail voting, pointing to states like Colorado and Washington that enjoy higher rates of participation. There are highly migratory populations that have participation problems if mailed ballots are the only option. There’s another concern around mail ballots: with so many jurisdictions looking to quickly switch to this model, no one knows what kind of strain this will put on the postal system.

So yeah, there are going to be issues with mail-in #voting for voters - while eligible - who do not have a permanent address, something many of us take for granted. Ultimately, solutions to fair and free #elections are going to have to be multi-modal.

Seeing calls for national mail-in voting based on success in WA/OR, which seems like a good idea on its face. However I believe those two states are majority white (78%/86% respectively)... anyone looked into how that’s working for poorer and underprivileged communities in those states #voting

None#COVID19 tips from @lhl

https://www.notion.so/COVID-19-Practical-Advice-a02f06d9b2be485f93dcbdddd4cc7942None#57dc5503e06145609ae5e625f2256600

None#covid19 -world problems: dry, raw, scaly skin on my wrists from so much handwashing 💧🧼🦠

Eryk Salvaggio created a terribly creative #data "auralization" of the market v #covid19 cases made up of overlapping musical tracks. It's at first interesting, then emotional. I do and don't want to "hear how it ends"

https://twitter.com/e_salvaggio/status/1245296511581212673

Been thinking a lot the last few days about how privileged my family is to be able to effectively shelter in place here in the suburbs, with most everything we need at hand. And I don't expect even this to completely protect us. Thinking about those who don't have physical, economic, societal access to safe environments #covid19

Not much I can say about Terry Pratchett that hasn't been said better already. A literary Wizard. (I'm re-reading the Discworld series because why the hell not #reading #fantasy #reading2020

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"Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of fabric?" (not me really #diy #covid19

http://monkinetic.blog/2020/03/31/home-engineering

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I'm no tailor, but I spent last night learning how to measure, cut, and yes, sew #diy face masks. We're working from this series of videos on The Fabric Patch, a quilting site.

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We acquired cotton fabric and some featherweight non-woven fabric (Pellon) from Joanne's before the stay-at-home order came out in Arizona yesterday, so we're working with that. I'm able to sew a straight stitch well enough, but struggling some with getting the fits right on family members, and we're still experimenting with nosepieces (pipe cleaners are too soft, some 20g electrical wire might work)

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I have always had huge respect for those who were wise in the ways of fabric, even more so now.

Picked up this omnibus edition of Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey (Wool, Sand). Apparently it was original released in serialized form, which would have been really fun to read.

What would life in a space lighthouse be like? Why would you need one? What if there were empathic alien dog/cat/lynx beasts? What if you could get a high from a gravity wave generator?

Read to find out. 😀

Yeah, I powered through this series due to #stayhomestaysafe, and happy I did. A really fun story, and enjoyed seeing many characters in the_Io_ books introduced here in some more depth.

Between the two Io books and the three Tao books, I really want to read Io 3 (write faster, Wesley #scifi #reading #quasingwars

Book 2 of the Tao books by Wesley Chu. This series has gotten some guff due to The Lives of Tao being written as a National Novel Writing Month project, and perhaps I was more invested having read the Io books first, but dammit I really like these books.

Also, knowing that there was a third book in the queue, the ending of this one was a big WHAAaaa? (but it was worth it in book 3 #scifi #reading #quasingwars

Having first read the Io books, I finally realized that the Tao books (which I had been skipping in the library list of scifi books for a couple of years, why I do not know) were set 20 years earlier in the same universe and introduced about half the characters.

The Quasing Wars world is really fun to read, and the relationships that Tao and Io have with their hosts are both similar and entirely different.

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