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voyager2on Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

We lived on the line of Leech Lake Reservation (near Cass Lake, MN) but except for that and the Crow Reservation, the rest of our reservation experiences were in the southwest. (IHS hospital/clinics)

Yes, they're all different; laws, customs, landscape, tribal government, etc; more than most people might imagine.

voyager2on Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

Some tribes (Navajo Nation included) are still receiving direct health care. There's a huge hospital in Gallup, NM, as well as another in Shiprock. Health care is supplied by the federal Indian Health Services (of HHS). In no way should this be construed as "far below" most US Standards. Other tribes have opted out of direct health care preferring to receive Title 638 funds to administer for their health care. These tribes' health care naturally varies with the way the individual tribes administer their programs. The Navajo Nation is larger than the state of West Virginia, so the analogy of town-level government wouldn't seem to apply.

voyager2on Navajo Nation and Other Native American Reservations Hit Hard by Covid-19

Having lived on reservations, Navajo Nation being one of them, I'd opine that the co-morbidities are the main contributing factor. The diabetes rates on the rez are many times that of the US population as are the rates of alcoholism. Also households are very often multi-generational and more crowded than in the US.

Yes, they do have their own lockdown policies. On a drive in western NC this past month, we had to turn around as the Qualla Boundary was blocked by tribal police.

voyager2on In Italy, Going Back to Work May Depend on Having the Right Antibodies

In the US, the right to travel is one of the most basic. The right to work comes along somewhere close to that. I couldn't have imagined Americans would ever stand for such a thing, but current attitudes seem poised to easily fall over to that.

voyager2on Germany to issue antibody certificates to allow quarantined to re-enter society

Basically, it's a "license" for freedom. What a convoluted and contradictory concept. Given the past, and Germany's "Never Again" sentiment, I'm surprised this can even be considered.

voyager2on Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

Bout time this started happening. Now, the rest of the industry just needs to follow suit.

voyager2on Coronavirus is that bad and you should work from home

It's not the rate that matters. It's the actual number of deaths.

SO FAR, this flu season, the CDC attributes 20,000 to 52,000 deaths to the flu in the US alone. Coronavirus has killed a tenth of that worldwide. So, no. Coronavirus is NOT anywhere near as bad as the regular flu.

voyager2on Ask HN: How worried are you about coronavirus?

I feel zero stress. CDC estimates 16,000-41,000 flu deaths for the 2019-2020 season (through 15 Feb) in the US alone.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e...

Look at US coronavirus deaths. Do the math. Sleep easy.

If not in the US, substitute $YOURCOUNTRY. Do the math. Sleep easy.

voyager2on Ask HN: Is Anything Made in the USA?

Not exactly consumer goods but glassblowers love the glass made by https://moltenaura.com/glass

voyager2on $15 minimum wage didn’t hurt NYC restaurants

As I look at http://www.thedigeratilife.com/blog/federal-minimum-wage-his... I see the minimum wage was actually $1.60 at the time, but I was paid $1.50. Might have had to do with the fact that I was 15.

voyager2on $15 minimum wage didn’t hurt NYC restaurants

When I started washing dishes, minimum wage was $1.50. Hard to get used to inflation of 1000%.

voyager2on Global Climate Intelligence Group: 'There is no climate emergency' [pdf]

As more of the actual science comes out, the politicization of the IPCC becomes more evident.

voyager2on Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

The thumbnail (1 min.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuCqRqzvXkM

The more detailed (48 min.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuQB3x4ZNeA

voyager2on Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

CEB has been used for centuries in Britain. Arid is obviously not a factor. It's also been used for multi-story buildings. I'm not sure how dense housing reduces pollution though. Some of the least polluting housing in the world is rural, e.g. the Amish.

edit: I should have said "earthen" construction has been used in Britain. Cob rather than CEB.

voyager2on Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_earth_block

Concrete can be replaced in part through the use of CEB/CSEB and/or rammed earth.

voyager2on Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

Greenhouse operators often provide their plants with an atmosphere of 1200-1500 ppm CO2, which would fall into the economically advantageous range. No idea where the "too much" range starts though.

voyager2on Vaccine U-turn: Measles surges as campaigners ride populist wave of distrust

I remember the mumps as being fairly painful. I recall the chicken pox as being extremely itchy. What do I recall about measles? Not much at all really except that they forced me to stay home from school.

The alarmism surrounding the measles is exactly the kind of misinformation that should be avoided, yet all I see are articles from authors that keep talking about the number of cases of measles as if the number itself is some kind of horror. Please people. Childhood diseases were always just a normal part of growing up. Don't run around like chicken pox with your heads cut off hysterically calling .00003% of the population a "pandemic."

voyager2on The Senate just passed the decade’s biggest public lands package

"The package is crammed full of provisions for nearly every senator who cast a vote"

  Funny, that.

voyager2on Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

If I move my forecast location a few hundred yards, my elevation changes rather drastically, changing the forecast. Elevation isn't a factor most forecasts even consider. Is it false precision to use elevation to tailor the forecast?

voyager2on Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

"chance of precipitation is 80%, less than an inch possible"

How would you determine, in a scientifically rigid manner, the limits on conditions which would validate that forecast as "right?" Or the inverse. What conditions would invalidate it as "not right?"

voyager2on Modern Weather Forecasts Are Stunningly Accurate

  I use the forecast put out by weather.gov that's supposedly tailored

to the square mile because it gets the 12 hour forecast right about 40% of the time. The others are worse.

  Of course, when they say "chance of precipitation is 80%, less than an
  inch possible" and it doesn't rain, the forecast is semantically
  "correct."

  Like the El Nino impact on the SE US, where they forecast a 50% chance

of drier colder weather and a 50% chance of warmer wetter weather, it's nearly impossible to be wrong.

  Maybe this is the sort of obfuscatory probabilistic forecast Mr. Meyer

is counting as "accurate."

voyager2on Open source, privacy-enabled smartphone operating systems

"It's the current project codename, we will probably introduce a new and more convenient name for our mobile ROM in a few months."

voyager2on Blocking website ads with a hosts file

"0.0.0.0 is the invalid, un-routable address."

  That's apparently a windows-centric statement.  In Linux,

0.0.0.0 is the same as 127.0.0.1, whereas 0.0.0.1 works as your invalid address.

voyager2on Tell HN: Simple ransom spam results in success

  I got a couple of those, both demanding $800.  Maybe the $650 threshold gets a few more hits.

voyager2on Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

  You can't delete something you never had.

voyager2on Estimating Value of Facebook by Paying Users to Stop Using It

  Hey, do they pay that retroactively?  I'd like to get

$1000 for every year facebook has existed.

voyager2on Facebook has a 'black people problem,' says former employee who quit this month

“In some buildings, there are more ‘Black Lives Matter’ posters than there are actual black people...”

  Those posters are divisive in and of themselves.

Best to have no racially themed posters at all.

voyager2on Fearful of bias, Google blocks gender-based pronouns from new AI tool

  Please do not refer to madness as "your."  "This" would

be preferable. Also, I do not recognize that "our" language should change to address a tiny minority wishing to be referred to in a non-binary sense.

The analog between using computers and non-binary self-identification is a strawman/woman/person/thing. Which straw<something> will be acceptable?

voyager2on Fearful of bias, Google blocks gender-based pronouns from new AI tool

Asking people to refer to you how you want to be addressed IS madness. You must then ask every person how to refer to him/her/them/it/cis/trans/pan before you assume standard English is good enough.

voyager2on You’re Descended from Royalty and So Is Everybody Else

"Charlemagne marked it by giving Leo one of the great medieval relics as a thank you—the Holy Prepuce, better known as Jesus’ foreskin."

  Not unless he had a time machine.