In this prophetic science fiction story from 2015, a cooking blogger keeps up a cheerful attitude and makes do while self-quarantining with her family during a global pandemic. Excellent story and a fast read: “So Much Cooking,", by Naomi Kritzer on Clarkesworld.
And from a few days ago, Kritzer follows up: “Didn’t I Write This Story Already? When Your Fictional Pandemic Becomes Reality. Some interesting discussion by Kritzer about the themes she explores in the story, how fans and friends are reacting today, what the author got right and wrong about the pandemic, and how the fictional characters' quarantine struggles maps to reality.
Inspired by “So Much Cooking,” on my next grocery run, I’m going to go out and buy a couple of vacuum-sealed cans of Maxwell House or Chock Full o' Nuts coffee. Just in case the good stuff gets hard to find.
I’m also going to think about what more I can be doing to help neighbors and the community. Confession: So far, not much.
Carnival kept sending out cruise ships while knowing it was risky. And the chairman of Carnival is on Trump’s back-to-work council. Rearranging dreck chairs - David Pell on Nextdraft
Armed far-right groups are behind anti-lockdown protests in Michigan and elsewhere. They love Trump and Trump is cheering them on. Martyrdom and dumber - David Pell at Nextdraft.
Siobhan Roberts writes The New York Times’s obit for mathematician and “Magical Genius” John Conway, most famous for inventing the computer Game of Life. Cause of death: COVID-19
Martin Gardner, the longtime mathematical games columnist for Scientific American, said that when the game went viral on the internet, “with addicts programming it at home and at work — one quarter of the world’s computers were playing it.”
Conway’s colleague, Princeton mathematician Simon Kochen, said there are two kinds of geniuses in mathematics and physics, ordinary geniuses. Ordinary geniuses just seem to be people who work hard.
“But then there are the magical geniuses,” he added. “Richard Feynman was a magical genius. And the same always struck me about John — he was a magical mathematician. He was a magical genius rather than an ordinary genius.”
Also:
Math, Dr. Conway believed, should be fun. “He often thought that the math we were teaching was too serious,” said Mira Bernstein, a mathematician and a former executive director of Canada/USA Mathcamp, an international summer program for high-school students. “And he didn’t mean that we should be teaching them silly math — to him, fun was deep. But he wanted to make sure that the playfulness was always, always there.”
People like Conway seem to be to be the truly blessed people in the world. They work hard at what they do, they excel at it, and the work is pure joy to them. We’re all advised to do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life – it will all be play to you – but very few people can achieve that.
I became fascinated by Conway’s game around 1983-84 or so, and wrote a program in the computer language Basic to play it on an early IBM PC. Each turn took a half-hour!
Some people say we need to open the economy soon and if a few thousand people – or hundred thousand people – die because of it, well, that’s a small price to pay.
People who espouse this view should be asked whether they themselves are taking greater risk to help others. Are they volunteering at a food bank, blood bank, or working front lines in essential retail service?
If not, they should be invited to shut the fuck up.
In any war, there are always chickenhawks – people who, from a place of safety, advocate ruthless sacrifice BY OTHER PEOPLE. I’ve noticed over the decades that these people are never themselves combat veterans. Somehow when it was their turn to stand in front of unfriendly strangers with guns, these brave warriors had other things to do.
Donald Trump, aka “Captain Bonespurs,” is of course the chickenhawk-in-chief.
As the pandemic spread, China expelled Western journalists, including New York Times reporter Paul Mozur, as well as reporters for the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Mozur talks about the experience, and heightening tensions between China and the West.
Foreigners in China are facing increase xenophobia as the Communist Party spreads rumors that foreigners brought coronavirus in China. Some rumors say it was a deliberate act of biowar by the US Army.
This is an old trick for the Chinese Communist Party. Whenever they fear the legitimacy of their rule threatened, they stir up hostility toward foreigners, particularly the West, particularly the US. And of course Republicans in the US are now borrowing the same playbook.
The Chinese government wants to tell a story to the world that they have gotten the coronavirus under control, through their variety of enlightened autocracy, while democracies are flailing. They are expelling western journalists, who might tell the truth and undermine that story.
Mozur also discusses his grief at leaving China - probably never to return - which has been his home for 13 years.
All praise, no pay - Today, Explained: Essential workers in the food, transportation, and retail industries are being called American heroes. They want to be paid that way.
We had drama. Julie commented at bedtime that she hadn’t seen Vivvie, our slate-gray cat, for about 24 hours. So we spent some time looking around the house for her. I went down in the courtyard, though Vivvie never, ever shows any interest in leaving the house. She’s a timid cat and runs away at any sign of busyness. No sign of Vivvie. I kept my eyes peeled around the yard when I was putting Minnie to bed. No sign of Vivvie. I looked in the spare room and closets. Nothing.
Vivvie did not come to bed with Julie during the night either.
This morning, we looked around some more. Still no sign of Vivvie. Julie was distraught. I was concerned and also puzzled. Sammy is an escape cat. If Sammy was missing that amount of time I’d be sure she’d gotten out. But Vivvie stays put.
Then Julie had an idea: My recliner in the living room. I’d been sitting in it yesterday. What if Vivvie climbed up in there when it was open, then couldn’t get out when I shut it and got up?
And we went to the living room and opened it up and Vivvie SHOT OUT AT TOP SPEED.
We are often in the living room with the dog and Vivvie is wary about the dog so when she got stuck in there she didn’t complain the whole time we were in the room. Or I don’t know maybe she liked it. Cats are weird. 📓
