skybrian's recent activity

  1. Comment on Fires linked to fireworks erupt across SF, Bay Area in ~news

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article:

    From the article:

    San Francisco saw at least 100 fires between 3 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Saturday. At dusk, a blaze chewed through 4 acres at McLaren Park, and crews scrambled to fight another fire at 50 Cargo Way in Hunters Point. The fire department tweeted about roughly 15 blazes in a single hour.

    Across the bay in Contra Costa County firefighters responded to 50 fires between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. alone, a volume so extreme that by 10 p.m., they could only provide one engine for each response.

    “It’s unbelievable, they’re coming so fast,” said Steve Hill, spokesman for the Contra Costa Fire Protection District. Sitting in a command vehicle on Loveridge Road in Pittsburg, he heard fireworks explode outside as more fires flared up — by 11:00 p.m., another 18 had started.

    A major fire burned in Oak Hills Park in Pittsburg, at 10:41 p.m., threatening homes on nearby Clearwood Street.

  6. Comment on Kanye West declares he will run for US president in 2020 in ~news

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    It sounds like another case of celebrity-level trolling, which of course is what Musk does all the time. But if ordinary trolls deem it a worthy troll then who knows, there are a lot of them.

    It sounds like another case of celebrity-level trolling, which of course is what Musk does all the time. But if ordinary trolls deem it a worthy troll then who knows, there are a lot of them.

    8 votes

  7. Comment on Trump erodes America's foundation. This Fourth of July, I pledge to rebuild it in ~misc

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    It does take time, but how much depends on your perspective and doesn't seem predictable. Obama was a surprise. And I thought the country changed its mind about gay marriage pretty quickly, but...

    It does take time, but how much depends on your perspective and doesn't seem predictable. Obama was a surprise. And I thought the country changed its mind about gay marriage pretty quickly, but maybe it wouldn't seem so to someone who had been waiting a long time for it?

    I'm reminded of the story about an overnight success taking twenty years. Also the story about a failure that happened slowly, and then suddenly.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on Trump erodes America's foundation. This Fourth of July, I pledge to rebuild it in ~misc

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I thought that long-term, demographics favored Democrats? Virginia turned blue recently.

    I thought that long-term, demographics favored Democrats? Virginia turned blue recently.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on Dominguinhos, Sivuca e Oswaldinho - Feira de Mangaio (Mango Fair) in ~music

    skybrian
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    New obsession; I think I'm going to have to learn to play this. I'm wondering how to tag it? I know very little about Brazilian musical genres.

    New obsession; I think I'm going to have to learn to play this. I'm wondering how to tag it? I know very little about Brazilian musical genres.

  11. Comment on De-escalating social media conflict: admitting mistakes in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Yes, good point, it's certainly less urgent here. But sometimes we talk about what to do as things scale up. Having something like this in the UI for corrections might encourage corrections? I...

    Yes, good point, it's certainly less urgent here. But sometimes we talk about what to do as things scale up. Having something like this in the UI for corrections might encourage corrections?

    I have a bad habit of continuing to edit after posting. I'm not always as careful as I should to call out edits and sometimes that leads to confusion. There might be something else that could be done, like saving the original.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on De-escalating social media conflict: admitting mistakes in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link
    The blog post imagines a change to Twitter: It seems like this might be a good addition to Tildes?

    The blog post imagines a change to Twitter:

    Twitter Mea Culpa is a way for a poster to flag their tweet as a mistake and de-escalate a situation, using the same action menu that deleting a post uses, and the same visual design as flagged tweets.

    It seems like this might be a good addition to Tildes?

    4 votes

  14. Comment on Trump erodes America's foundation. This Fourth of July, I pledge to rebuild it in ~misc

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    The Republicans aren't going to go away, but elections are won based on numbers and the numbers are looking good. It's no reason to get complacent, but not seeing the possibility of change for the...

    The Republicans aren't going to go away, but elections are won based on numbers and the numbers are looking good. It's no reason to get complacent, but not seeing the possibility of change for the better seems unduly pessimistic?

    3 votes

  15. Comment on What are the best games you've played so far this year? in ~games

    skybrian
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    This is more of a mini-game than a game, but I'm glad I discovered Compact Conflict. It's great if you want to play a strategy game in 15 minutes.

    This is more of a mini-game than a game, but I'm glad I discovered Compact Conflict. It's great if you want to play a strategy game in 15 minutes.

    1 vote

  16. Comment on The science of mask-wearing hasn’t changed. So why have our expectations? in ~health.coronavirus

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I think you're either not reading that page very carefully or wrote something stronger than you intended, since it doesn't seem to support "masks do not protect members of the public from getting...

    I think you're either not reading that page very carefully or wrote something stronger than you intended, since it doesn't seem to support "masks do not protect members of the public from getting nor transmitting respiratory disease."

    Cloth face coverings may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others. Wearing a cloth face covering will help protect people around you, including those at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 and workers who frequently come into close contact with other people (e.g., in stores and restaurants). Cloth face coverings are most likely to reduce the spread of COVID-19 when they are widely used by people in public settings.

    But part of this might hinge on what you mean by "protect?" If you mean "prevent transmission entirely" then cloth masks don't do that, which is why social distancing and handwashing also help. But the bar for recommending a public health measure isn't that high. Anything that lowers transmission on average can have a significant effect on public health due to how exponential growth compounds - it can change the growth rate or reverse the trend (if it drops below 1.0.) For an individual it can lower probability of transmission when combined with other imperfect methods of prevention.

    5 votes

  18. Comment on The science of mask-wearing hasn’t changed. So why have our expectations? in ~health.coronavirus

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article:

    From the article:

    Do cloth face coverings work? Probably, to some extent. But just how much they work depends on the material, how they’re used, and what you’re expecting them to accomplish. And — regardless of what you’ve seen in highly shareable memes — we definitely don’t know enough to say that wearing these kinds of coverings will reduce risk of transmission by a specific percentage, let alone a high percentage. Those were the conclusions of an expert report published by the National Academies of Sciences on April 8, and two of the lead authors of that paper recently told me the science hasn’t significantly changed since then. Some studies have come out showing a correlation in certain regions between mask mandates and reduced spread of the coronavirus, but several of those not-yet-peer-reviewed studies have turned out to have important flaws — such as failing to account for factors like other behaviors (such as higher rates of social distancing) that went along with wearing masks in those places.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on Announcing a new Wikimedia project: Abstract Wikipedia in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    That seems overly cynical? It might not succeed but there is a pretty detailed design doc that includes a section about why alternatives don't do what they want. It also doesn't have to work for...

    That seems overly cynical? It might not succeed but there is a pretty detailed design doc that includes a section about why alternatives don't do what they want. It also doesn't have to work for anyone other than Wikipedia.

    2 votes