riverdweller

Given the way you were able to logically group data so that producers and their consumers are in the same zone, would it not have been simpler to just create three completely independent 3-node clusters, rather than worry about all this at the partition and keying level?

This is an interesting resource. Though the amount of data being displayed is somewhat overwhelming (nature of the game, I suppose!).

I've instead tried to build something that a non-technical user might find very easy to use/understand. My goal was to keep it as simple as possible (as long as it provides value, of course).

Since daily COVID-19 figures in seem to vary wildly (owing to fewer cases counted at weekends, excessive cases counted after weekends, and ongoing corrections/adjustments), I built a tool to graph simple moving averages (e.g. 7-day-SMA, 30-day-SMA) of COVID-19 cases and deaths. This smooths things out and gives a clearer picture of general trends. The tool also allows you to normalize the same data per 100k people (to allow better immediate comparison between countries).

It uses the Johns Hopkins university data and updates automatically with the latest daily figures. I've got it running on an iPad in the corner of the room where it casts a warm, if somewhat miserable, glow on the room in the evenings.

Comments and feature suggestions welcome! Two features I already plan to add are:

- implementing swipe left/right to flip through countries - data for a couple of notable countries is missing - I will of course add them (I need to aggregate the data for those first, as John Hopkins are publishing the figures broken down by region for those)

Well, yes, some parents would. Some simply care about people more than others do. It's a continuum. I know individuals who would gladly take the opportunity of an employer paying them their normal professional salary while volunteering in such places. All these people happen to have their own children (this may be a coincidence, as I am old enough for most of my friends to have had kids by now).

The point is that there is, I expect, a strong inverse relationship between bitterness expressed by childless employees who don't receive paid time off their day job and the desire to volunteer to help others.

Just give the childless employees the same amount of time off on condition that they use that time to go and help out in daycare centers, old people's homes, or institutions for the disabled. They'll be racing to sign up, I'm sure.

That's a good point. I made the mistake of treating the sun as a point light source, which of course it is not! https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/shadows.html explains the difference clearly.

This is plainly untrue.

Hold a finger up in front of a torch, and look at the size of the shadow cast. Move the finger closer to the torch, and watch the shadow area increase.

A shadow is always larger than the light-facing area of the object blocking the light. This is true even of your own shadow in sunlight, even though your distance from the light source means the change is so tiny you don't even notice it.

It was clear from Imperial's models published in mid-March that the lockdowns would need to last for months, not just a few weeks. That governments failed to clearly explain this to their citizens was an explicit political choice.

The models also show that post-lockdown a brief lifting of restrictions for 1-3 weeks would permit the next "small" wave of infections to occur whilst limiting load on health services. And then the lockdown cycle repeats. At best, this continues for 12 to 18 months. Longer, if a vaccine is not developed.

Again, most governments have not clearly informed the public, not only because the immediate political cost too high, but because of fears a significant proportion of citizens may for any number of reasons (disbelief, panic, despair) behave unhelpfully in reaction to this stark reality.