Anti-vaxx Movement

This is meant as a set of resources regarding the Anti-vaxx movement, in general and specifically in the light of Covid-19. Studies and Findings regarding the Anti-vaxx movement > Widespread acceptance of a vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) will be the next major step in fighting the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) ... Read more

Covid-19 Updates

See all Covid-19 articles: Covid-19 Updates Covid-19 Vaccines Facemasks and Covid-19 Herd Immunity and Covid-19 Why People won't get Vaccinated Most recent updates This is meant to show latest news and updates to Covid-19. It is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather suggestive and providing some recent information that might not fit elsewhere or ... Read more

Why people won’t get vaccinated

See all Covid-19 articles: Covid-19 Updates Covid-19 Vaccines Facemasks and Covid-19 Herd Immunity and Covid-19 Why People won't get Vaccinated This is by no means exhaustive, and is currently incomplete, but is meant to help me better understand those who are vaccine-hesitant and vaccine-rejectors in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. In some cases a ... Read more

Install Linode Longview on Debian

Linode Longview is a nice web GUI to see instance resource utilization for the last 12 hours (or more if paid). Unfortunately it is easy to get an error installing Linode Longview with their script. Below is how to perform a manual installation. For troubleshooting once it is up and running, see this guide Linode ... Read more

Inkscape Image Export

Exporting Images with Inkscape 1.1 The image export functions of Inkscape have improved significantly with the release of Inkscape 1.1. The menus for this feature are not elegant, and even image export is still labeled Export PNG Images. However, the functionality for a variety of export filetypes and settings are now in Inkscape, and there ... Read more

SanDisk Clip Jam

Silly name, a bit bulky, but overall a functional mp3 music player. The venerable ipod shuffle is sorely missed. Note 2024-10-08 This item appears to be no longer manufactured (prices on Amazon are crazy). What appears to be the best successor (for better or worse) is the Ruizu x52. SanDisk Clip Jam features MP3 player ... Read more

Astronomy for Children

My five-year-old is obsessed with size comparisons of planets, stars, and larger and smaller astronomical objects (as well as structures on earth). His interests have expanded greatly my own knowledge of astronomy. At first I thought it would be interesting to buy a telescope and play with that, but there isn't much to see with ... Read more

Expatriate Family

The needs of an expatriate family, especially one with small children, are dramatically different from that of a single expat or a couple. The same could be send for the differences between female and male expats, though they are not as numerous. There are so many areas that are impacted: Healthcare Schooling Visas and Residency ... Read more

Herd Immunity and Covid-19

See all Covid-19 articles: Covid-19 Updates Covid-19 Vaccines Facemasks and Covid-19 Herd Immunity and Covid-19 Why People won't get Vaccinated Herd Immunity is when a population has enough of its members immune from infection (either through the presence of antibodies due to previous infection or vaccination. Depending on the disease, the percentage of the population ... Read more

Pelican – Python-based Static Site Generator

Pelican is a python-powered static site generator that is likely the most popular and mature of its kind. It has extensive documentation. Pelican quickstart (docs) Pelican features Articles (e.g., blog posts) and pages (e.g., “About”, “Projects”, “Contact”) Integration with external services Site themes (created using Jinja2 templates) Publication of articles in multiple languages Generation of ... Read more

The Fourth Millennium BCE

This was a time of innovation. Somewhere between 4,000 and 3,001 BCE (6,000-5000 years ago): Beginning of the Bronze Age Writing systems emerged (Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics), proto-writing may have emerged earlier Probable first domestication of the horse (Ukraine) Earliest known numerals (Egypt) Lyres, harps, flutes and clarinets (Egypt) Desertification of Northern Africa begins ... Read more

Salt – Ingredient

Salt aka NaCL, Sodium Choride, is 40% sodium and 60% cloride. This is a trace mineral that is essential to our bodies. Apparently we need about 200-500mg per day for daily body function. However, it is common to oversalt food, and processed foods are heavily oversalted (to add taste to tasteless products). Excess salt increases ... Read more

Covid-19 Vaccines

See all Covid-19 articles: Covid-19 Updates Covid-19 Vaccines Facemasks and Covid-19 Herd Immunity and Covid-19 Why People won't get Vaccinated This is meant to try and keep up with the latest science on the Covid-19 vaccines, some of which are appearing to be quite effective, and others not as much. Vaccination Procedure Most Covid-19 vaccines ... Read more

Dairy and Inflammation

It turns out dairy is an anti-inflammatory as well as an inflammatory depending on product and consumer. Those who claim cheese is bad for you or all dairy is inflammatory ignore the science. Dairy products and inflammation: A review of the clinical evidence

Caneles – Recipe

Favorite french baked good. Need a canele mould. Use a silicone mould to obviate need for wax or butter coating on the mould. Ingredients 400 ml milk 50 g butter 4 eggs (2 egg yolks, 2 whole eggs) 100 g sugar 100 g flour Procedure Scald milk mix in butter remove and cool combine two ... Read more

Leveled Reading vs. Scaffolding

How to teach students who read below expectations The basic arguement is: what to do with students who read beneath their age-indicated reading level? Two approaches: Read less challenging material (that is, if 3rd grade with 1st grade reading skills, read 1st grade material), this is the Guided Reading with Leveled Texts and a cueing ... Read more

Scones – Recipe

Description Scones are a great breakfast or anytime snack. Great warm with butter and jam, or by themselves. They can be a bit dry even with all the butter. The quality of a scone is based on the ingredients, which means quality flour, butter, eggs, and if desired, vanilla, and cashews. Total time about 25 ... Read more

Chia Seeds – Ingredient

Personally, I see the chia seeds fad as just that. However, there is some science to the purported benefits of chia seeds. One thing to note is that human studies do not show benefits when adding chia seeds as a supplement, but only as a part of a diverse plant-based diet (that is, adding chia ... Read more

Notion – Software

Notion is a flexible cross-platform SAAS application that combines wikis, tasks, kanban boards, and tables (databases). The only problem with it is security and self-hosting (not available), and some things are not easy to do (recurring tasks). It has a pretty good look and feel, and does decent collaboration. For small to medium-sized teams it ... Read more

Standard General American English

Written American English Standard English is most related to written form and is standardized for a given English-speaking country. Therefore, Standard American English is the standardized form of English in the United States. Spoken American English General American English is the more or less standardized or common spoken American English. Written Standard American English and ... Read more

Bananas – Ingredient

> People have been eating bananas for a long time. The first written references to them come from 500BCE, but were most likely consumed long before then. > > Today, 100 billion bananas are consumed globally each year. There are more than one thousand varieties of bananas. -- Source In North America and Europe there ... Read more

Learning a Language

Learning second, foreign, or other language as adult is not uncomplicated. First, we need to review what we actually know about learning languages, and learning them as an adult (as there is a significant difference between how children and adults learn languages). What we don't know about l;earning a language First off, we need to ... Read more

Debian + LXDE Installation

Debian 11 Bullseye Alpha 1 / 3 These are notes from an initial installation of Debian 11 (Bullseye) Alpha 1 from 2019-11-30, and A new reinstall using Alpha 3 from 2020-12-20. This is meant as the daily driver on an Intel NUC6CAYH, which is a four core celeron with 8gb of ram and a 256gb ... Read more

Install Debian from USB

One of the easiest and most straightforward ways of installing Debian linux is by a USB drive that has a bootable ISO installed on it. To prepare this, one needs three things and four steps: USB drive Any USB drive over a certain size should work. The current Bullseye Alpha 3 is 3.7gb so a ... Read more

2023 will be normal

Yes, it will take that long, but also yes, we will achieve normalcy once again. Repurcussions of this crisis precipitated by disgraced former president Trump will echo long into the 2020s and beyond, as a scar. Yes it will take that long. 2021? forget about it. 2022? Still reeling from the pandemic, and maybe everyone ... Read more

Intel NUC – Hardware

The Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) is a 4" x 4" board (4.5" x 4.5" x 2.0" case) integrated computer. It comes in kit (without ram or storage) or as assembled computers. With the ATX form factor going away, the NUC form factor is increasingly viable as a general purpose replacement. There are even ... Read more

Kamancheh – Musical Instrument

A middle eastern string instrument played with a bow (and also can be plucked), this is a gorgeous sound. I see Kamancheh (and Daf, a middle eastern drum) played along with hang drums, and also the oud (a plucked string instrument similar to a lute).

Disavow Links and Toxic Domains

Google says they don't have a concept of toxic domains. Yet they have a disavow links tool. And in particular there are situations where manual actions are accomplished based on paid links. So, if the domains aren't toxic, certainly links from certain domains might be. The idea that domains or links might not be toxic, ... Read more

Cacao / Cocoa Powder and Uses

Cacao or Raw Cocoa Powder This stuff is great. I imported it from the US and it in turn comes from Peru. There are two things I do with this: hot chocolate and cacao (cocoa) pancakes. Cocoa Pancakes Two teaspoons go into each pancake batter (also made from scratch with honey), making it a mocha-colored ... Read more

Children Snacking Behavior

Several research studies and a report by the American Association of Pediatrics on Preschoolers and Snacking focuses on parental behavior and child behavior objectives. It is worthwhile reviewing these findings and recommendations, as modern parents tend to fall into problem behaviors due to the convenience of poor eating habits as well as a lack of ... Read more

The Theramin (Musical Instrument)

The Theramin was invented in 1920 by Leon Theremin (Lev Sergeyevich Termen). Introduction to the Theramin The Ecstacy of Gold Introduction to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Moog Theremins Moog Theremins Moog Theremini Open Theremin Open Theramin Open Theramin kit on Ebay

Markdown Extra Unofficial

Markdown Extra Unofficial is a WordPress plugin supporting Markdown Extra the parser by Michel Fortin. There are several markdown plugins for WordPress, however most require that markdown be put in a block or a shortcode. This plugin is meant to be used with the Classic Editor and parse all text in pages and posts, excerpts, ... Read more

Nurtureshock

Nurtureshock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman is an amazing read that challenges so many preconceptions we have about children and child-raising. As the parent of a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old I can say that this book has had a big impact on my thinking. There are so many insights across the chapters, that for ... Read more

Your Baby is not Einstein

It is obvious that nearly all babies are not Einstein, the archetypal genius and polymath. Einstein is famously not created but arrived sui generis, emerged out of himself. As a child he didn't speak in full sentences until the age of five. This would be considered severely problematic, though it was obviously not due to ... Read more

Mothering Our Boys

Mothering our Boys by Maggie Dent Janet Lansbury spoke on her podcast with Maggie Dent who wrote the book Mothering Our Boys. Several interesting points came out of the discussion. Many people see gender differences in raising children as being purely cultural, and cross-cultural studies definitely bear this out. However, there are as well biological ... Read more

Daily Habit Tracker for Notion

Daily habit tracking is something useful, but can clutter up a calendar view. Also, not every day is each habit necessarily completed, for example if the target is 5 workouts per week, then missing two days per week is not terrible, but expected. Therefore it can be useful to have a separate widget that helps provide the overview of habits and to quickly check off the habit completion.

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Recurring Tasks in Notion

Notion Recurring Tasks

As of early 2021, Notion does not have recurring tasks. There are several workarounds for this, with various tradeoffs. Which approach to use has to do most with what kind of recurring tasks are being supported: daily habits, weekly or monthly tasks, ongoing tasks such as shopping lists, etc.

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WordPress Adminbar Sticky

WordPress Adminbar

In the attempt to remove as much of javascript as possible, certainly not relying on jquery and its ilk, we need a CSS-only sticky header and/or footer.

This is normally quite straightforward. However, the trick comes when logged into WordPress and the Adminbar is present.

If only the #mobile-header, .site-header, #site-navigation, or #masthead is needed for sticky, then voila:

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Sibilant whispers

Sibilant whispers Far afield the breeze beckons Rustling smiles sing Cold promises of seasons' Sussuration of sorrows

News Sources

Where I get my news, besides the usual suspects such as Twitter, Bloomberg, NYTimes, Washington Post, etc. Cooking & Food Hngry Once upon a chef Stained page news Economics The Atlantic Council Marketing and Product Demand Curve Directive Consulting SASSmarketer The Beautiful Mess (product development) Parenting Janet Lansbury Kavanaugh Report Screen Free Parenting The Montessori ... Read more

Thin Content – What to Do

Thin Content - What to Do

Thin content that Google clearly does not value (indexed but few impressions and clicks) is a problem for SEO and not only for that page, but for other pages on the site. The idea is that thin content detracts from higher quality content that Google does prize.

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Markdown Syntax Cheatsheet

Markdown makes editing easier and faster. It is faster to use markdown than having to reach for the mouse to format things, and even if one wants to use the mouse there are markdown editors that provide. Markdown is very portable and since it is in plain text can be used across a plethora of devices and interfaces. It is highly readable without hiding any detail.

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Google PageSpeed, SEO, UX

Google Pagespeed

Google PageSpeed and web vitals are clear: a relevant site must load fast and not messily. The should be a speedy first contentful paint (FCP), and there should be little cumulative layout shift (CLS). A better user experience means a better search engine optimization.

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WordPress to Pelican

WordPress is highly functional, yet expensive to run in terms of resources (ram, processor), and maintain (time). Static site generators are meant to reduce this by a factor of 5 or more. However, there is a lot of functionality to support with the new system as well as a basic learning curve. Let's begin. Requirements ... Read more