Cheetah Mode

It really is amazing how much better Tesla can keep on rewriting and reprogramming their software for its current fleet of awesome vehicles. I’m continuously impressed but at the same time also feeling left out as my already, and aging quickly, 2017 Tesla Model X 75D (friends don’t let friend buy short range versions FYI), will not be having any of the cooler features that are lined up. That is, of course, if I don’t end up paying an additional $2,500 for the upgraded MCU1 to MCU2 upgrade. I have already paid for Full Self Driving which should show up in some manner or another before the end of the year, but how much do you pour into an older car?

And remember, if you use my referral link, you can earn 1,000 miles of free Supercharging!

DragTimes now finds that with the new launch mode, he is seeing a peak power increase from 580kW to 614kW, which is the equivalent of about 45 more horsepower.

As for the times, the results are going down from 2.47 to 2.41 seconds for the 0 to 60 mph acceleration, 6.77 seconds at 102.23 mph to 6.71 seconds at 103.55 mph for 1/8 of a mile, and 10.67 seconds at 124.70 mph to 10.54 seconds at 127.5 mph for the quarter-mile. --via electrek.co

Airplanes Parked Around the World

My industry is seeing the likes of airplanes being parked all over the world with airlines cancelling flights, consolidating routes and closing cities. I'm hoping for the best but the reality is that these lost flights comes with many job losses.

This is definitely not a sight I want to see but it in a way it is beautifully composed. Each of these aircraft were moved to their respective locations over the past few weeks since the COVID-19 outbreak by pilots and ground crew from all over. My own company is currently parking 100 aircraft around the country but most of the US Carriers stage in Arizona at an airport called Pinal Airpark : KMZJ. Today alone, there are over 9 aircraft arriving with one carrying out the crew. I can only hope and pray that my industry recovers quickly.

How Many Days is Enough? →

The 14-day quarantine period put forward by WHO and the CDC was based on smaller studies of sicker hospitalized patients. But an estimated 80% of adult COVID-19 patients are not sick enough to be hospitalized, and people can be infectious with the new coronavirus well before they develop symptoms. The new study found that the median incubation period was seven days for adults and nine days for children, far longer than the mean of 5.2 days from an earlier study out of Wuhan.

So hopefully, 8 days is enough for me? But…

For that study, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and two other universities analyzed 181 cases of COVID-19 in 25 countries, from early January to late February. They found that 97.5% of people who developed symptoms did so within 11.5 days of exposure.

However, the researchers extrapolated that for every 10,000 exposed individuals, 101 would develop symptoms after a 14-day quarantine. Reuters reported on one such case in late February, that of a 70-year-old man in China’s Hubei Province who did not show symptoms until 27 days after he was infected.

Maybe 11.5 days is better? I haven’t been around any known cases that I know of but like I mentioned, I did traverse quite a few areas while being out on Captain training and the journey back to where I am today.

Possible Herd Immunity in California →

As of Tuesday, the state had 374 reported COVID-19 fatalities in a state of 40 million people, compared to New York which has seen 14 times as many fatalities and has a population half that of California. Social distancing could be playing a role but New York's stay-at-home order went into effect on March 22, three days after California implemented its order.

"Something is going on that we haven't quite found out yet," said Victor Davis Hanson a senior fellow with Stanford's Hoover Institute.

Hanson said he thinks it is possible COVID-19 has been spreading among Californians since the fall when doctors reported an early flu season in the state. During that same time, California was welcoming as many as 8,000 Chinese nationals daily into our airports. Some of those visitors even arriving on direct flights from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in China.

This would be great if this were true and we’ll know in a few weeks. For the sake of safety, science, and medicine, I hope that these serology and anti-body tests get carried out more rapidly as well as general testing for COVID-19. It’s great to see that ALL RESIDENTS of Los Angeles with symptoms can get tested now.

Hanson said through all of this the Chinese have been disingenuous about the timing of the initial outbreak of COVID-19.

"They originally said it was in early January, then it got backdated to December and then early December and now they are saying as early as November 17," said Hanson.

China’s continuance of hiding the truth from the world has only hurt us as a human race. I really hope that when this is all over that something gets done about this. Victor Davis Hanson points out that with 8,000 Chinese Nationals / passengers landing at San Francisco Airport and Los Angeles Airport daily as well as direct flights from Wuhan that it would be naïve to think that we weren’t already being exposed to it back in late 2019.

How It Spread Early and Quickly →

While the flight was in midair, the results of some American passengers who'd been tested in Marseille came back. Three had tested positive for coronavirus and 13 others had symptoms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CNN.

Over 350 people who'd been in the confined space of a cruise ship continued with their journey in the even more confined space of a transatlantic flight.

"We were covered with virus from head to toe. We should not have been in the airport," said Harrell Catron.

There was no mitigation and complete disregard for how dangerous and quiet this virus could be. Now with reports saying that some were asymptomatic for up to 40 days… this is not looking good for any type of “shelter in home” / self quarantining.

For the sake of self contact tracing and history, I boarded a plane from SAN-MCO direct with only 8 people on Alaska Airlines 760 on Monday the 30th of March. I took the shuttle to our training center in Orlando, and stayed there until we received our cancellation notice on Thursday night. I did one more session to finish up our current “phase” of training on Friday night and then charted my way back to San Diego on Saturday the 4th of April via MCO-ATL-SAN.

Shuttle, train to plane DL 418 MCO-ATL, then terminal to train to terminal, Willie’s for a naked burrito then plane DL 1951 ATL-SAN, then terminal to Uber to Hilton Torrey Pines and have stayed in the room mostly except for the coffee grab in the morning. I have been here since Saturday night at around 20:30 when I checked it.

There were hardly any persons in the airports as noted on my instagram story, and I only had to use the facilities once at each airport. Maybe once on the plane too if I think about it. I was spaced out on all my flights but did have a cat that was taken out of its carrier on the ATL-SAN leg and I could see hairs flying around in front of me. I did use my mask the entire way while walking around everywhere even on the entire flight.

Originally, I was going to stay until Monday or Tuesday, but then my wife and I felt like 5 days or more just in case would be smarter, so that brings us to Friday, and now, with newer reports saying 14 days isn’t enough, we’re thinking at least until Sunday which would bring it to just over 7 days + 14 hours. I’ll be pissed if I get sick and it was all for naught. Follow the thread below from twitter user Eric Feigl-Ding who is currently the #1 CoronaVirus Authority on twitter and Harvard Epidemiologist / Health Economist and John Hopkins alumni.

Thread 🧵- INCUBATION TIME LONGER THAN 14 days. ⚠️This is a serious problem that I can’t stress enough because we based all our quarantine on this magical 14 day number. But many people have longer incubation periods than 14 days- this is problem. #COVID19 https://t.co/ZhyJW3Ywxg

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) April 6, 2020

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Just Because It's Been 17 Days in Cali →

And the problem is, the data shows that there can be presymptomatic or asymptomatic transmission. I don’t want to be exposed to someone who may not be having symptoms but can get me sick.

-Krutika Kuppalli, infectious diseases physician, Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security

Trusting your friends is fine and all but trusting everyone else who's circle could be much larger... and the fact that you don't know where they have been in the previous 14-days, it gives you pause. Unless you are fully quarantined for the two weeks which is being at home w/ 0 exposure e.g. not going to the grocery store or anyone at the home going out, you’ll never know.

But [if you’re going to interact with one other person], be very explicit about what the agreement is, and try to choose someone who’s got [a similar level of risk]. If you’re a writer and can work from home, ideally your friend would also be somebody who’s able to work from home, not an emergency medicine physician.

Let me give you an example of something else a student of mine decided to do. She lives alone in Philadelphia and her best friend also lives alone in Philadelphia. They each isolated themselves for two weeks and then moved in together for the duration [of the pandemic].

I like that plan so much more than the other plans I’ve heard of, because then you’re in constant communication with the other person and you’re aware of anything they need to do to break the protective bond. It’s easier to have an ongoing conversation about preventative strategies when you’re living with the person. If people are living separately, one person might forget to update the other.

-Carolyn Cannuscio, social epidemiologist, University of Pennsylvania

If you are going to isolate together, that’s great, but first you have to be 0 percent exposed for 14 days.

That being said, at its crux, social distancing doesn’t mean you need to stay home by yourself in a dark room. Really it’s about keeping to small, small groups of people. So if you have dinner with a friend, that makes sense as long as it’s just you and them.

For people who are going to have those one-on-one friend hangout sessions, it shouldn’t be, “I’m going to have five one-on-one sessions with five different people” — that defeats the purpose. Really limit it to just one friend.

If you want to be an awesome coronavirus epidemiology buddy, do it every 14 days, because that’s the incubation period. You’d want to do that from the last known date of exposure. That includes going to the grocery store, because theoretically anytime you go into an environment with a lot of people, there’s more potential for exposure to the disease. Then you want to ask each other, “Have you been symptom-free for 14 days? Have I? Yes? Okay.”

-Saskia Popescu, senior infection prevention epidemiologist, Honor Health hospital system in Arizona

I see too many friends still violating this. And damn if I don’t continue to quarantine for 14-days after coming back from Orlando, Florida where our training center is to which I went to the Orlando Airport via local shuttle, train, plane, Atlanta Airport, train, plane to San Diego Airport, Uber to hotel. Now what…

Collaboration is Key →

In interviews with a dozen of the world’s leading experts on fighting epidemics, there was wide agreement on the steps that must be taken immediately.

Those experts included international public health officials who have fought AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, flu and Ebola; scientists and epidemiologists; and former health officials who led major American global health programs in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Americans must be persuaded to stay home, they said, and a system put in place to isolate the infected and care for them outside the home. Travel restrictions should be extended, they said; productions of masks and ventilators must be accelerated, and testing problems must be resolved.

For some reason, Americans are still being complacent, denialist and love ignoring the specialists. We need to work together and nip this NOW! Besides it being already a bit late, it is ever too lat to save yourself and friends.

Debunking More Anti-EV Fake News →

In a recent conversation with Tagesspiegel Background, the battery researcher stated that the production of electric car batteries is not as extreme as what EV critics would suggest. To produce the lithium needed for a 64 kWh battery pack, for example, Fichtner stated that about 3840 liters of water are evaporated according to usual calculation methods. This is roughly comparable to the production of 250 grams of beef, 30 cups of coffee, or half a pair of jeans, according to the researcher.

It’s about time that more scientists and researchers start putting out more publications and papers to quell the anti-ev adopters / pro-oil guzzlers. Also of note, Elon has already suggested that Tesla is on track to use 0% Cobalt in their battery packs with researchers predicting 2025 as the target date. So, besides being on solar and using 100% renewable energy, what say you?

BMW Backtracks on Charging for Apple CarPlay →

According to the British specialized AutoCar website, BMW has reversed its decision to charge for the use of CarPlay. Until now, customers could try the service free for 12 months when buying a new BMW car. After that, they would pay $80 a year in the US or £85 in the UK. A BMW spokesman said that the fee will no longer be charged for all cars that run the latest version of the ConnectedDrive infotainment system.

It was completely foolish in my mind for BMW to even charge for Apple CarPlay when other vehicle manufacturers that are much lower in cost don’t even think about charging their customers. As I have stated in the past, this is one of the reasons why my family will no longer own a BMW; aside from the multitude of mechanical failures.

It’s important to note that Apple claims not to charge manufacturers any fees for using CarPlay, as the system only depends on a paired iPhone to work. The decision to charge customers for this feature is taken by the car companies itself, and BMW was the first to do so.

Shameful…

Lasers Can Talk →

Be careful out there.

“Smart speakers like the Echo and Google Home, however, have none of that voice authentication. And given the physical nature of the vulnerability, no software update may be able to fix it. But the researchers do suggest some less-than-ideal patches, such as requiring a spoken PIN number before voice assistants carry out the most sensitive commands. They also suggest future tweaks to the devices designs to protect them from their attack, such as building light shielding around the microphone, or listening for voice commands from two different microphones on opposite sides of the device, which might be tough to hit simultaneously with a laser.

Until those fixes or design changes arrive, Michigan’s Genkin suggests a simple if counterintuitive rule of thumb for anyone concerned by the attack’s implications: “Don’t put a voice-activated device in line of sight of your adversary,” he says. If they can so much as see your Echo or Google Home through a window, they can talk to it too.”

— https://www.wired.com/story/lasers-hack-amazon-echo-google-home/

Mac Powers Higher Employee Satisfaction and Productivity →

As I’ve been trying to tell people, my job in helping you manage your systems or in other words, get paid for IT troubleshooting goes down when you convert. Also, 16% higher sales should bode well for those in the industry. Time to migrate!

This year, Previn announced first-of-its-kind research that shows how Mac enables IBM employees to be more productive, along with improving employee satisfaction and retention.

• Improved employee performance – There are 22% more macOS users who exceeded expectations in performance reviews, compared to Windows users. Also, high value sales deals tend to be 16% larger for macOS users, compared to Windows users.

• Greater employee satisfaction and retention – IBM’s research shows that employees using Mac have a higher net promoter score than Windows users, 47.5 compared to 15 respectively, and are also 17% less likely to leave IBM compared to those who use Windows. Mac users are happier with the third-party software availability within IBM. Only 5% of macOS users ask for additional software, compared to 11% of Windows users.

Previn also announced research on how macOS users and devices require less support, as seven engineers support 200,000 macOS devices versus 20 engineers required to support 200,000 Windows devices. That is a 186% increase in support engineering needed for Windows devices.

40 Push-Ups in a Minute →

Data suggest that, at least for Data suggest that, at least for men, the ability to do push-ups in large quantities is correlated with good cardiovascular health, according to a new study led by researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and published in JAMA Network Open, a journal of the American Medical Association.

Men in the study who could complete more than 40 push-ups had 96 percent fewer issues related to cardiovascular disease, compared with those who finished fewer than 10.

There’s also an awesome app on iOS called Hundred Push-ups but that one is no longer available so, just search “100 push-ups” and there are many to try out.

Klarman on Our State of the Economy →

Klarman’s critiques of Washington and of irresponsible business practices share a common target: the selfish disregard for the future. “If we think of free enterprise and democracy as games, a lot of people are breaking the rules and disrespecting the other players and even the game itself. Mitch McConnell is disrespecting the game. Donald Trump doesn’t even know what the rules are. Free enterprise has been good for me and for the world. It has been good for my two-hundred and eighty employees. It has been good for my clients. Let’s honor the system. Let’s make sure that we leave and improve it for the next generation to benefit just as much as we did and with as much respect as we showed.” Otherwise, he said, “What kind of scorched-earth cost might we have to pay for that?”

I wish I had the whole paper from the Davos summit or even Seth Klarman’s out of print book, “Margin of Safety,” that goes for $1000 or so. We must evolve.