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    1. What are some good books about pandemics, epidemiology, and/or infectious diseases?

      Understandably, my interest has piqued on this topic cluster (as I'm sure it has for many others), and I should have more time than usual to read in the coming weeks. I also am spending far too...

      Understandably, my interest has piqued on this topic cluster (as I'm sure it has for many others), and I should have more time than usual to read in the coming weeks. I also am spending far too long jumping around aimlessly to assorted news articles and would like to tame that nervous energy into a more focused approach on longer writings.

      While I'm interested in non-fiction primarily, I'm also open to fiction suggestions. Also, anything that lands in the ballpark of what we're dealing right now with the novel coronavirus fits (though it certainly doesn't have to be specific to coronavirus, nor COVID-19).

      7 votes
    2. More coronavirus-related updates: specialized views, and a daily topic. Anything else we should do?

      After adding the ~health.coronavirus group the other day, I've just made a couple more updates to try and keep the site more usable as the flood of news and information keeps coming in. First, I...

      After adding the ~health.coronavirus group the other day, I've just made a couple more updates to try and keep the site more usable as the flood of news and information keeps coming in.

      First, I just added a bar in the header when you're on the home page that has links to two "specialized views" in it. One of these views will show only coronavirus topics, and the other one will filter out all the coronavirus topics. These should be helpful for both logged-in users as well as logged-out ones (who previously didn't have the option of unsubscribing from ~health.coronavirus to hide those topics more easily).

      For the purposes of these views, a "coronavirus topic" is one that's either inside ~health.coronavirus or has the "coronaviruses.covid19" tag on it (in any group).

      The way I did this was definitely pretty hacky and isn't intended to stay around over the long term, so please let me know if you notice any strange behavior with them.

      Second, earlier today I set up a scheduled post in ~health.coronavirus for general chat, questions, minor updates, and so on. The first one is here, and that will continue posting every day for now. If the activity in it starts dropping I'll probably reduce the frequency, but I think it should be good as a general spot for discussion for now.

      It's looking like we might be living in this situation for weeks or months, so I'm definitely open to making other changes that will help keep the site usable and enjoyable during it. Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions, thanks!

      48 votes
    3. Call for volunteers: Techies against COVID-19

      Hi tilders. I'll keep it brief: I'm looking for people of various technical skills (devs, sysadmins, etc) willing to volunteer their skills at labs, hospitals and other establishments in the fight...

      Hi tilders. I'll keep it brief: I'm looking for people of various technical skills (devs, sysadmins, etc) willing to volunteer their skills at labs, hospitals and other establishments in the fight against COVID-19.

      A lot of us are lucky to be some of the least-affected by the virus. Not only is the technical field generally young and low-risk, but it's one of the most compatible with work-from-home professions.

      So I'm trying to use some of the free time during this lockdown to set up a volunteer network, focused on tech.

      I'm looking for two types of people specifically:

      • Anyone with tech experience: programmers, web devs, devops/sysadmins, etc; who has time they want to spend on this.
      • Anyone who works in or adjacent-to the medical field, who can help with identifying high-priority and impactful needs (who needs help the most, and how to reach them most efficiently)

      Note: The immediate goal is to build up a network of potential volunteers. I've been doing this on my own for a bit and there's clearly lots of needs, but it's hard to convince labs and hospitals to onboard a single person, so I'm hoping to get more people on board before continuing the search.

      Stay safe.

      10 votes
    4. Suggestions for free video editing software

      I'm using OBS Studio to create some video tutorials. Nothing complicated, just me talking and demonstrating the steps on my screen. I essentially just need to slice up these recordings into clips,...

      I'm using OBS Studio to create some video tutorials. Nothing complicated, just me talking and demonstrating the steps on my screen.

      I essentially just need to slice up these recordings into clips, delete portions of the recordings where I mess up or there are long pauses, and export it all as one video.

      I've used Premier in the past but I no longer have it. While I am pretty capable of learning how to use software, I would prefer something that doesn't have a huge learning curve.

      I need something that runs on either Windows or Linux and is free. Not "free trial" free, but actually free. Open source would be a plus but not a requirement.

      Feel free to recommend your favorite free video editor even if it doesn't meet all of my requirements, as maybe it will help someone else in the future.

      8 votes
    5. Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.

      Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:

      Here is my schema:
      
      ```sql
      CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse (
        article_id   INTEGER
      , warehouse_id INTEGER
      )
      ;
      ```
      
      How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
      
      7 votes
    6. TV Tuesdays Free Talk

      Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here. Please just try to provide fair warning of...

      Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

      Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

      7 votes
    7. Daily coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - March 17

      This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the...

      This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

      15 votes