For Movies, I find that Ebert aligns a lot with my taste. If he says it's good, it's really good. I mean, that doesn't help with recent movies, but there's more than enough of the old good stuff. (There's a lot to be said for consuming old media; it gives it time for critical opinion to stabilize. )

I mean, of course, all of these methods will leave out a lot of really good stuff. But... that's kind of the point; there's way more media than I can consume. There are professional reviewers that can give you more really good media than you could consume in a reasonable lifetime. I'm not quite halfway through the 'Pulitzer prizes awarded in my lifetime' list, and I've started a few years back. (I mean, I was 40 or so by the time I started, and so I had read a few of the books just 'cause they were popular books that people recommend. McCarthy's "The Road" is exactly the sort of thing I like, so I read it before on another person's recommendation. But still, like, you see some really great work outside your genre; I'm not normally a romance novel kinda guy, but Lurie's "Foreign Affairs" was absolutely beautiful, and absolutely not a thing I would have read without this project.)

I haven't completely solved the problem for technical books, just 'cause people who have good up to date knowledge of an area have often built up that knowledge over time. they read some books but those books are long out of date, they've brought their skills up to date with mailing lists, which they then vet based on their knowledge of the reputation of the person posting.

I mean, I think it's pretty easy for the non-perishables, "The C Programming Language" is a thing you should read if you work with computers. But which tomb on docker is up to date enough and pretty good? that can be a difficult question to answer, and is often answered based on the author's reputation for other technical work they do, which usually tells me something about the accuracy of the book, but doesn't tell me if it's well written or if it's up to date enough. (On the other hand, if you are well known for writing a big part of the subsystem I wanna learn, eh, I don't feel too bad about giving you money for a book even if I later decide that the book is not written in a way I find engaging, like, you earned it and I'll buy another book.) And... I dunno. often you can get sample chapters, and that gets you a pretty good idea of how engaging the writing is.

I mean, one way to address it is to start at the base... "go read the gang of four design patterns books, and then use your knowledge of object orientedness to make sense of modern object-oriented configuration management systems" - which does make some sense. But still, I should spend the time to find the tech book awards that match up with my taste.

I mean, I think it's less of a problem for projects that are not commands... really my whole complaint is that a lot of the commands in my universe used to be super unique; you aren't going to get a lot of off the wall results for lsof or ifconfig; but ss and ip? yeah, even when you limit it to my work context, you get conflicts on those.

I should try one of those pop-out deals and see if it makes using the iphone 7 with one hand practical.

but that has been true since the first chimp figured out how to shove a stick into an anthill and get more tasty bugs than just picking off the ants on the surface. We use tools, better tools are how productivity advances.

Yes, yes, we have better tools than ever before, to the point where they don't look like tools. We can build a machine to do a thing and then leave, and only come back and tinker with it when it breaks.

Some time in the previous century basically everything switched over to assembly-line type production, where nobody built the whole widget themselves. the current switchover is to, uh, I guess you would call them robots. Tools that do the thing with one time input to guide them (and, of course, lots of ongoing maintenance)

But make no mistake, these "robots" we have are still just tools; tools that give massive leverage to the labor that programs those robots and that maintains those robots.

If the hospitals are overwhelmed, the death rate is going to go way up.

I also think the cuts to the county health department are... normally mitigated by an ample federal response.

I mean, sure, we should lock down now, but my feeling is that it's mostly too late for the urban areas.

The rural areas might have a chance... they need to lock down hard right now. But... from talking to rural family... I'm not sure that's culturally possible.

The stories I hear from medical people I know (and this is just anecdotal) is that they are only given serious PPE when they know there is an infection, but it's less clear if that's just standard policy or if that is due to limited supply.

I do agree that if PPE isn't used early and often here, we're going to be short medical personnel, and I think getting those back online is probably going to take longer than throwing money at manufacturers to build more PAPRs.

If someone is gonna be cutting on me, I want them to have a good night's rest. They tell me to sleep consistently and well quite often. seems like if it's good for me it would be good for them, too.

I think the big problem is medical technicians and doctors. My feeling is that we should be focusing on training up medical people on a massive scale, as that's something that the USA is notoriously bad at. Perhaps the military could provide medical technicians the fastest? lots of healthy young people who are trained in the use of serious PPE? (I wonder how the procedures differ between nuclear, chemical and biological threats like these?)

People talk about beds... but the problem isn't physical beds. I could make you a physical bed. the problem is doctor and medical technician labor to make the bed useful.

(I mean, I... am not going to be angry at someone who works retail at a time like this, short of maybe getting physically attacked. I know I'm feeling bad 'cause I am working from home and have to deal with my own lack of discipline and have to cook for myself now. I have top-shelf medical insurance and unlimited sick time. I can only imagine that those on the front lines, getting sneezed on all day with none of those benefits are in bad shape.)

Dude said "It's not your fault, it's the media" and generally seemed mollified - I mean, if this were facebook, I'd fire back something about how I don't see how his media is any more accurate than mine, considering neither of us are experts... and if you are supposed to wear a mask if you are sick, well, almost none of us actually know if we are sick. But this was a face to face interaction, so I sincerely wished him good health and finished the paperwork (before quarantine, I'd use 'order online, pick up in store' orders to minimize time in store)

It really varies by personality. Some people do a lot better by themselves. But if you hire me? It's worth paying for the office space.

I mean, certainly cleaning is the major cost of provisioning a public bathroom, and that needs to be carefully considered during the design of such things. but I don't think that makes public restrooms impossible, just more expensive.