cwf

Dive-bombed while de-icing the hummingbird feeder.

Finally got to see Warren Zevon's last appearance on Letterman. http://tinyurl.com/6aol5d

Snow all the way down to the base of the Olympics this morning.

Shoveled snow for the third time in 24 hours. The thrill is gone.

More snow this morning, then rain and partial thaw. Meltwater to freeze tonight.

Only one hummingbird yesterday and none today. With Warren Zevon's Worrier King, "I worry about my bird."

Favorite word from Ammon Shea's "Reading the OED": Paracme (n.) The point at which one's prime is past.

One or two hummingbirds are back, but I fear that the Dec cold and snow lasted too long for the rest.

Reading Richard Lange's Dead Boys. Yikes.

William Zantinger obit at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/10/us/10zantzinger.html

“Models show that if 80 percent of people wear masks that are 60 percent effective, easily achievable with cloth, we can get to an effective R0 of less than one. That’s enough to halt the spread of the disease.” theatlantic.com/health/archive…

Humankind has never had a more urgent task than creating broad immunity for coronavirus. It’s going to require a global cooperative effort like the world has never seen. But I know we’ll get it done. There’s simply no alternative. gatesnot.es/3d06cC2

In 1939, George Dantzig, a graduate student at UC Berkeley, solved two open problems in statistical theory, which he had mistaken for homework after arriving late to a lecture by Jerzy Neyman. The two problems ended up being his entire PhD thesis.

We don't yet have all the tools we need to stop the novel coronavirus and safely re-open the economy. But they are on the horizon. gatesnot.es/2S2v7g9