Hacker News Reader

forkexecon New coronavirus stable for hours on surfaces

That's probably not long enough unless you live someplace hot and dry like Kuwait. Previous viability studies have found it stable up to 9 days. Furthermore, low temperatures and high humidity greatly increase viability for additional days. Also, fomite materials such as stainless steel extend the viability of it further.

Given the lack of specific data, two week quarantine is the practice we're using at home. Unboxing things isn't as important as mitigating the threat of insufficiently-characterized, novel pathogens that our immune systems have basically no experience with.

forkexecon Senate leadership pushing a surveillance bill as Americans focused on Covid-19

The majority of the US Senate is a threat to the world, peace, liberties, and people.

forkexecon Ask HN: How are you coping with all the (mostly bad) news around you?

Stop looking at or obsessing about news except to gather details. Odds are, you'll be perfectly fine if you prepare and act sensibly, because in reality, all you have or need is you to save yourself.

Keep busy and use time effectively. Practice a skill, write a novel, make something, finish some projects.

I've been through:

- storms with 100 mph/160 kph winds blowing down 200-year-old oak trees, concrete-anchored redwood fences flying through the air like kites and bowing-in glass windows several inches / 10 cm nearly to the point of failure

- Loma Prieta and a myriad of earthquakes too numerous and forgettable

- Enron rolling blackouts

- the Camp Fire

- week-long and longer power outages

- and now a pandemic

I'm probably forgetting some events. All I'm missing on my disaster bucket list T-shirt are volcano, hypercane, locust, GRB, asteroid and tsunami. :)

The current situation is a necessary but major inconvenience is all. Things and life will be better in 6-18 months. It will be OK. There's no point to worrying about things that are absolutely beyond one's own control, while addressing and preparing for things within one's control to eliminate sources of worry.

forkexecon Ask HN: How do I cook at home?

Practice makes perfect.

No one can learn to cook well instantly. I've been cooking for 30 years and coding for 25. There are no shortcuts. Maybe watch Alex of French Guy Cooking, get a book on the science of cooking, and then a translated series of books on classical French techniques that start from the beginning. Don't expect to make a soufflé or merengue before boiling an egg. Start at the beginning.

And for god's sake, don't use powdered garlic. Start with reasonable quality, fresh ingredients or cooking will be utterly pointless and frustrating. I wouldn't waste money on very high quality ingredients for practice, but gets some basic staples like good onions, peppers, carrots, celery and make some soups, chili or stews in a crockpot. Those are hard to ruin. One of my grandmothers just took some random leftover vegetables from her fridge to make chicken noodle soup.

I have boxes and boxes of heirloom recipes that my grandmothers made and collected over the years... they're handwritten and I can't decipher some of them. For most people, it's easiest to just go on allrecipes or similar sites, pick a dish and sort by highest user review because there are hundreds of thousands of recipes online now and statistically thousands of good recipes.

forkexecon The Groceries That No One Wants to Panic-Buy

First thought: "more chickpea pasta for me! Yum."

forkexecon Please wear a mask.

Moral panicking without fundamental knowledge doesn't mean anything. I hate to break it to you, but retail and medical supply chains doesn't have much overlap. Nurses and surgeons relying on scant mid-pandemic retail pharmacy supplies already indicates systemic failure and desperation. You're not going to solve any tragedies of the commons by lying to people or wagging your "think of the children" finger at people to push your misinformed agenda.

forkexecon Please wear a mask.

Pearl-clutching much?

I guess you need to up your dose of Lenny Bruce and George Carlin before your snowflakes wilt.

forkexecon Low-Cost Arduino-Based Ventilator

Untested equals unsafe. Amateurism doesn't help anyone except the virtue-signaler.

forkexecon What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

Shame on you. Your hateful and ignorant stereotypes are defective victim blaming and based on myths. The US has almost no mental healthcare system because JFK was assassinated before the transition to community-based residential treatment centers could be stood-up. Reagan destroyed what remained and condemned the mentally-unwell to neglect and misery.

forkexecon Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?

A rational move would be to lock everyone down until a vaccine is proven safe and efficacious can be delivered to enough people. Since no one other than indigenous people living near bats have any immunity to beta-coronaviruses, it doesn't make sense to expose billions of people to unnecessary risks when we can pause nearly all social- economic activity until immune defense is possible or supplies run low.

The vaccine, once developed, should be free for everyone to encourage high uptake herd immunity.

forkexecon Chloroquine has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of Covid-19

When administering chloroquine, the hydroxy- form is a very long-lasting metabolite.

forkexecon Chloroquine has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of Covid-19

Watch out for Chloroquine retinopathy

forkexecon LA Mayor closes movie theaters, bars, nightclubs, entertainment venues, gyms

Offensive? Gimme a break. Necessary? Absolutely. It's a whole lot easier to reduce risks of catching a pandemic to zero than listen to obnoxious bullshit FUD suggesting not wearing masks and continue being blissfully reckless as the authorities have no plans and continue to display their complete unpreparedness.

I'm buying several months of dry goods tomorrow that won't be touched for several weeks, quarantining myself outside of my mom's home for two weeks, and will stick it out 3-6 months or however long it takes.

forkexecon LA Mayor closes movie theaters, bars, nightclubs, entertainment venues, gyms

You're talking out of your ass in hyperbolic absolutes that you know nothing about. Many elderly, like my mother, depend on caregivers. Caregivers get infected because it's so contagious, don't know they have it, and pass it along to their cared. That's the end of that so-called "isolation." One small foul-up and an elderly person is infected. That's all it takes.

forkexecon The domino effect Covid-19 on our financial market

Some rich jerk who's paying people in hand-sanitizer instead of money.

forkexecon The domino effect Covid-19 on our financial market

There is a better solution: taking care of people, isolating the vulnerable and not allowing others to get sick unnecessarily rather than letting 120-170 million die.

forkexecon California Orders All Bars and Nightclubs in CA to Close, and Restaurants to 50%

If it doesn't work, it'll be mandatory soon.

forkexecon LA Mayor closes movie theaters, bars, nightclubs, entertainment venues, gyms

That's not how herd immunity works... there is zero immunity. Caregivers cannot risk infection because their risk to their cared is too great and getting everyone infected isn't a strategy for anything other than mass death.

forkexecon Covid-19: Doctors report from Italy

I'm going into total isolation from people for 3-6 months tomorrow in the US after a final dry goods grocery run. I have to go to a federal building tomorrow, but I will be wearing indirect venting goggles and a surgical mask. If they don't like that, they can reschedule, although I've been waiting 7 years for this meeting.

Don't take risks and don't need healthcare for the next 6 months in the US, or your risk of dying will be significant. Assume the medical system will cease operation during this time.

forkexecon 2009 flu pandemic in the United States

Without quarantines, COVID-19 will be 280 million infected and 6 million deaths in the US alone.

forkexecon The Airport Chaos Is the Product of Negligence

Flying right now is a monumentally stupid idea. All passenger flights except repatriation and medical airlift should've been grounded in January. Checking people's temperature is safety theater accomplishing F-all.

forkexecon [dead]

No, that doesn't solve any problem. Only limited quantities can prevent one jerk from buying everything.

forkexecon Man who stockpiled hand sanitizer donates it all ahead of investigation

Mens rea

They should still throw the book at him for trying to profiteer off the misery of others.

forkexecon Two Emergency Room Doctors Are in Critical Condition with Coronavirus

I don't want to sound alarmist, but ER docs tend to be 30-40-something's in fantastic health. I'm curious if there is cytokine storm involvement that further degrades lung capacity. Finally, there's a real risk they may never be well enough to return to duty after 6-8 weeks due to severe (and permanent) lung injury. ER docs, respiratory therapists and perfusionists don't grow on trees... taking just one out is a huge minus for a crashing tsunami of critical cases poised to break simultaneously.

forkexecon U.S. Government official: Coronavirus vaccine trial starts Monday

The rationale against mass inoculation with an untested vaccine stems partially from the botched 1976 Fort Dix swine flu H1N1 outbreak and vaccine. The volunteers of successive regular clinical trial phases play Russian roulette on our behalf, and this takes time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak

forkexecon Funding for Covid-19 Projects

I'll take not contracting the pandemic for $1000, Alex.

forkexecon Funding for Covid-19 Projects

There aren't enough ICU beds or nurses to go around by several orders of magnitude, so 3D printing isn't a panacea to anything. It doesn't matter if there were an unlimited supply of FDA-approved ventilators and ECMOs, there aren't enough respiratory therapists, ICU nurses or perfusionists to go around.

My strategy is far simpler. I have one elder to take care of who will be self-isolating for 3-6 months. Not getting sick is superior to relying on a nonexistent, failing medical system on the verge of collapse.

forkexecon Funding for Covid-19 Projects

"Denied?" There aren't enough ICU beds or staff to worry about using a Home Depot shop vac as a ventilator yet. A million more beds are needed in US but they won't be built because the ACoE doesn't have a mandate, manpower or the resources to get it done in a few weeks.

forkexecon CDC says U.S. gatherings of over 50 people should be put off

There's only 2^8 days until Black Friday, where people can get back to murdering each other for cheap TVs.

forkexecon CDC says U.S. gatherings of over 50 people should be put off

Poe's law entered the chat

I'm not worried about a hypothetical, I'm worried more about the lack of a sense of humor. I just hope stress kills more humorless people who take everything way too literally.