Seven States?

As the Covid19 spikes continued over the weekend, setting new records for Most Daily in any state, highest percentage increase, etc. I thought that it might be useful to think about the Pareto Principle.  You may know it as the 80-20 rule, wherein 20% of the {places, events, things, people} create 80% of the changes.   This happens in all sorts of arenas--20% of a baseball team's hitters account for 80% of the home-runs; 20% of the touring golf pros win 80% of the tournaments; 20% of your stock picks will have 80% of the gains (or losses, either one).

So it is with Covid, although I used a slightly modified metric.   I used seven states, the TOP SEVEN, for three different test intervals. 

The first interval is the long one--from Day 1 to this weekend, 24 weeks of unremitting bad news. 

The second interval is from when the President first sought to OPEN America, the week of March 21 when just a handful of bad news was already alarming the country.  Recall his statement of March 24, when he said it'd be BEAUTIFUL if we could open the country's churches by Easter, April 12.  For this interval, I selected six weeks, going from March 21 through May 1.   This was the peak time for the Northeast outbreaks, especially in New York and New Jersey, but also Massachusetts, Delaware, and Connecticut.

The third interval is NOW, the five weeks from June 6 through July10.   The big news, of course, are states like Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California.   And now, Florida is surpassing New York for infection rates, and their death-rate continues to climb.

So I thought it'd be worth looking at WHO, HOW MUCH, and WHEN these statistics have amassed.

Chart 1 is for the whole year to date.  Look at these numbers--7 states account for half of the Cases, but 24 states have more than 1,000 deaths, and 43 states have more than 300 per capita cases.  Whew!  In other words, this ha been a WIDESPREAD swath across the entire country.


The "early window" shows an uneven pattern, mostly affecting the Northeast (as was well advertised on the television channels) but on a per capita basis, it afflicted the Great Plains and the upper Midwest (the Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa impacts were never broadly discussed, by comparison with Illinois and Michigan and Pennsylvania).


The most recent time-frame shows also an interesting pattern, if you dig deeper than the TV spots.  Bet you didn't hear much about Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Iowa during this interval, but they were as bad or worse than California or Georgia for example.  Why is it we go for "the big numbers" but not the meaningful statistics, like how many people 'here' are affected.  As a small example, in other posts, I've looked at the local agricultural counties, which in California are 3 of the top four 'killer' counties (out of 58), and 4 of the top 7 in total cases per capita.

Windows in time

Cannot stay away from Analysis of this Covid Data

Statisticians must be in heaven, even though the topic is macabre.

For example, last week I mentioned the surge in cases in our local counties--Fresno, Tulare, and Kern
These might not be "top-of-mind" for you in terms of the national news.   Taken together, they are a big chunk of America's food source.   And they are home to 2,400,000 people, 53% of them Hispanic.

Big towns?   Well, each county has one, and just one, over 100,000 folk
Fresno County has Fresno, with 530,000
Tulare County has Visalia, with 146,000
Kern County has Bakersfield, with 383,000

And, after the Re-Opening of California, Whoopee!!! 
All three counties (which are RED Counties--Tulare and Kern are home to Kevin McCarthy and Devon Nunes, just to give you an idea) are blessed with the idea that wearing masks is "unmanly", that this is all a Hoax, and that if the numbers are going up, it is just because we're testing too much.

See https://www.propublica.org/article/state-coronavirus-data-doesnt-support-trumps-misleading-testing-claims for a great article re testing vs. cases.

Just to keep the string going, here's the graph for our counties for the past seven weeks.   Note that all three counties are still 'gaining'     Deaths have been mostly flat, as is common across the US, but last week's numbers are up 80% vs. two weeks ago.

Today, the governor ordered all bars, indoor restaurants, and sports events locked down again.

Looking for good news?

The weekend here was WARM--two days at 107 degrees Fahrenheit.   Good time to stay indoors and peruse the web.  Except the web stories were mostly about Covid cases, and I for one am weary of this whole scene.   The 'new news' is that New Cases are exploding across the country, so many folk (esp. doctors and nurses and public health officials) are excitedly worried.   Meanwhile, the administration is confident that while cases are exploding, deaths are not, so don't worry.   I've got some insight material for a later post on this, but this is hardly 'good news'.  So, for awhile, I was grasping for something else, something more enjoyable.

Opening (or re-opening) schools was also a hot-button, with Betsy DeVos, probably the worst (in terms of education-issue aware) and certainly the most corrupt, coldly uncaring, and in many respects malignant Secretary of Education in American history, saying "Just open 'em--what's the problem?"   This from the same person who has taken public education money and redirected it to parochial schools and especially Charter schools for which she and her family are major profit-seeking owners.  How do the teachers feel about it?  And how about the parents?   See the last Post.

Actually, weather itself was a topic for many--not only was it warm at our place, there seemed to be an attempt to export hot air across the nation.   Palm Springs was a torrid 120 degrees yesterday, whew!   Phoenix's high was 115 degrees; Las Vegas 114; Houston 96 ("feel" is 106) with 50% humidity; El Paso, 103.   Also, Shreveport (95, feels like 108): New Orleans (97, feels like 111 with 70% humidity); Biloxi, 95, feels like 113 w 76% humidity.  So, no, the weather wasn't particularly good news either. 

Over on the golf channel, Corin Morikawa edged Justin Thomas on the WorkDay(?) playoff hole, the winner garnering $450,000 more than the runner-up.  New basically to the tour, Morikawa was a bit erratic, 9 bogeys and 2 eagles to join 24 birdies in 72 holes;  Thomas by comparison was 4 bogeys, 1 eagle, and 21 birdies.   When is the last time the winner had as many holes NOT par as PAR?    Fun to see these 'kids' starting to soar. 

Golfer Bryson DeChambeau won a week ago at the Rocket Mortgage Classic; he is a "LOCAL" from Clovis, a suburb of Fresno about fifty miles from us.   He's been getting better and better the past couple of years.   And a nice kid, to boot.   At age 16, he won the CA State Juniors; In 2015, he became the fifth player in history to win both the NCAA Division I championship and the U.S. Amateur in the same year.

Not much else going on around the loop.   We did get some wonderful clips of the youngsters in Seattle--Jordan (yep, named for the golfer) is now 18 months, and FAST.    His twin sisters, just three, are nearly as fast, and much louder.    His uncle, whose middle name is Nicklaus, lives just down the road, and loves to entertain them.    His aunt, on the college golf team as a graduate student,  works at a golf pro shop in Shreveport (why else would I know or care about the temperature there?).   His cousins, especially Sam Nooney, are 'into golf' in their senior year of high school.   I haven't said much recently, but I did letter in golf in college myself (okay, a 3rd rate sports college, admittedly).

Excuse me, DID YOU SAY "OPEN THE SCHOOLS?"

Our grand-daughter is a middle-school science teacher in Louisiana.   She has been keeping us posted with "gallows humor" from teacher-friends.   Two of them in particular stood out for Jenny and me:

1. From a Utah School Administration group, here is their 'Care Package' for Re-Opening.  Shannon's cryptic comment to her family: "How comforting"

2. From a 30-year veteran teacher:

Questions for School Openings:

• If a teacher tests positive for COVID-19 are they required to quarantine for 2-3 weeks? Is their sick leave covered, paid?

• If that teacher has 5 classes a day with 30 students each, do all 150 of those students need to then stay home and quarantine for 14 days?

• Do all 150 of those students now have to get tested? Who pays for those tests? Are they happening at school? How are the parents being notified? Does everyone in each of those kids' families need to get tested? Who pays for that?

• What if someone who lives in the same house as a teacher tests positive? Does that teacher now need to take 14 days off of work to quarantine? Is that time off covered? Paid?

• Where is the district going to find a substitute teacher who will work in a classroom full of exposed, possibly infected students for substitute pay?

• Substitutes teach in multiple schools. What if they are diagnosed with COVID-19? Do all the kids in each school now have to quarantine and get tested? Who is going to pay for that?

• What if a student in your kid's class tests positive? What if your kid tests positive? Does every other student and teacher they have been around quarantine? Do we all get notified who is infected and when? Or because of HIPAA regulations are parents and teachers just going to get mysterious “may have been in contact” emails all year long?

• What is this stress going to do to our teachers? How does it affect their health and well-being? How does it affect their ability to teach? How does it affect the quality of education they are able to provide? What is it going to do to our kids? What are the long-term effects of consistently being stressed out?

• How will it affect students and faculty when the first teacher in their school dies from this? The first parent of a student who brought it home? The first kid?

• How many more people are going to die, that otherwise would not have if we had stayed home longer?

30% of the teachers in the US are over 50. About 16% of the total deaths in the US are people between the ages of 45-65.

We are choosing to put our teachers in danger.

Sad statistics

Wow, it's almost mind-boggling.   Actually, two things are mind-boggling.   First, the numbers are 'going through the roof' for some areas.    Second, the prevailing attitudes in some (many?) of those areas are a collective yawn, almost a nonchalance of "it's really over, and I don't need to worry".

So, firstly, here's the plot for Tulare County where I live, and the surrounding two counties, Fresno and Kern.   Kern's 'big town' is Bakersfield, ours is Visalia, and of course Fresno in in Fresco county.



Then I used our "time-slider" on the Dashboard https://anywhereanytime.io/covid19/
to look at the "peak" of the April outbreaks (recall those in New York and New Jersey especially) vs. the June activity.   The top fourteen states are listed for each period, as are the total Cases.  Note that there is only one state on both the April and the June lists; also note that the total cases are similar.

Some of the pertinent facts are shown on the first slide; the maps and the state lists are on the second.

Whither College Towns?

The Seattle Times today ran a story, a very concerning story, about the 117 college students who just tested positive at 15 Greek fraternities weeks after returning to the U of Washington campus near Seattle.   https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/a-covid-19-outbreak-on-uws-greek-row-hints-at-how-hard-it-may-be-to-open-colleges-this-fall/?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=mobile-app&utm_campaign=ios

Consider just one part of the story:

College students are especially difficult to rein in because 18- to 24-year-olds are in a phase of life where they’re intensively exploring and defining social-emotional connections with others, said Kira Mauseth, a clinical psychologist and senior instructor at Seattle University. And after living through months of lockdowns and physical distancing, “they’re desperate for connection,” she said.

What’s more, the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which is involved in complex decision-making and planning, isn’t fully developed until we reach our mid-20s, Mauseth said. College-age adults tend to be risk-takers, not fully recognizing danger. And they also maintain a belief — as people of any age often do — that the illness will happen to other people, not to them, she said.

Wow!   "Boys will be boys?" How about that point of view? 

To be politically correct (a term that is increasingly suspect in its own right), maybe it should be "boys and girls will be boys and girls"--but note that ALL of the 117 (except 4 not named for gender) are members of fraternaties, ergo = boys.   By contrast, of course, the reputed (and disputed) Tuscaloosa Covid parties (invite known Covid positives and create a pool for the first Negative after the party who tests positive, who wins the "pot") were reportedly fully co-ed affairs.

Now, consider a number of 'college towns' in the US   (city population sans students, Students)

San Luis Obispo; CalPoly     47,500 / 23,000

Santa Barbara (and Goleta and Isla Vista)   UC Santa Barbara    117,000 / 26,500

Corvallis, OR      Oregon State University      58,600 / 32,800
South Hadley, MA    Mt. Holyoke College      17,806 / 2,200
College Station, TX    Texas A & M          93.900 / 69,600
Grinnell, IA      Grinnell College         9,300 / 1,660

And think about it.   Do you want these kids returning from all parts of the world?   What safety measures should be put in place for their return to YOUR TOWN?   And what safety measures once they've arrived?    How do you avoid reputed "Tuscaloosa Covid parties," where the first one to get the virus after the party 'wins the pay-out' -- hard to imagine such craziness, but it's happening.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/02/alabama-students-are-having-covid-parties-with-payout-for-the-first-infected/  

But as important, think about how much that town depends on the students for local businesses.  Without them, "Main Street USA" in many of America's 3,000 college towns will clearly suffer.

And then there are the college presidents and administrators, who more likely than not, are dependent upon tuition to cover their costs.   The most recent estimates are that one-third--YES, one of three--colleges will go bankrupt in this crisis.   Don't you want to open your school as quickly as possible?

Forty percent of America's colleges have student bodies that are half international.  Are these students a bigger risk, or a smaller risk than students from the USA? 

And if you're a parent,  how do you feel about sending your nineteen-year-old back to the university?

Big questions!  

He was great in his heyday

The feedback from several viewers who recently watched the ACM video I mentioned in yesterday's post  https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102695114  has been fascinating.    Some comments were of the form, "mygawd, you were impertinent" or "talk about commenting 'on the edge' ".   Some were a bit more lurid in their description.

Others were taken by the dual message--humor is helpful in conference plenary sessions, but having a true point of view is maybe even more important.   A couple said, "you were absolutely insouciant about the primal importance of the meeting, and about HP--how did you 'get away with it'?"

And then, the heavens bestowed another gift upon me about my past.   John Averill, the venerable marketeer for a small Security Encryption company, 7Tunnels https://www.7tunnels.com/  woke me from my afternoon nap (yes, I do these more regularly now, especially after my Covid bout) with the phrase "were your ears burning?" 

Burning?  What about?

Well, John had just  gotten off the phone with a key investment banker working with 7Tunnels.  And the guy had said, "HOW did you get Chuck House to be on your Board?"

Now, John and I have been together in a room exactly once, for a Board meeting a year or so ago, and I don't know about you, but I don't generally spend a lot of time on the sociology or personal history of most associates that I come in contact with.    And he certainly had no idea about my background, other than the perfunctory comments on the bio page.

So he asked the guy, "how do you know him?"   And the answer was, "he gave a talk at a company I represented about 22 years ago, and I recall it vividly."

Now, I don't know about you, but I cannot recall most speakers from last year, let alone 22 years ago.

So, now fully awake, I asked John for his name, which he gave me--Todd McMahon.   I quickly found him on the web, and promptly sent him a note:

John Averill, with 7Tunnels, apparently met with you today, and his words were to the effect that you and I had met at some point.    My apologies, for not realizing it.    Could you perhaps fill me in?

Thanks, and best regards

The answer arrived almost immediately.   He was representing a small company in Burlington, MA doing DSP (Digital Signal Processing) work in 1998/99, and I was with Dialogic out of New Jersey, as the head of engineering.    Here's the gist of it:

Do you remember looking at a DSP engineering company called DSPse in Burlington, MA in late 90s?

I was representing them – Joe and John Della Morte, and Jason Macres were main shareholders.   They may have been a vendor to you Dialogic but not sure – they had echo cancellation and other DSP related algorithms and toys. 

Chuck, not blowing smoke here but you were masterful.  That meeting has stayed with me to this day.   

My guys were very excited that you were coming as your reputation preceded you.  They were all obviously software engineers and instead of getting into “why you should go with us” (which is pretty much what Lucent, Motorola and bunch of other folks did), you took a different angle.  You started with something along the lines of “voicemail sucks” and then went on about how communication was changing, needed to change, and you had a vision for how you wanted to position Dialogic given the same.  You basically laid out a vision of how you wanted to create a Xerox Parc for audio communications.  You had a grand vision and my guys were totally jazzed by it and swept up into that vision – I think by the end of the meeting they would have run through the wall if you had asked them. 

I distinctly remember thinking to myself “this guy really knows how to speak to engineers.”  You laid out a really hard problem before them and said they could be part of the solution.  It was fantastic.  

Can’t remember if Dialogic ever put in a bid or not but eventually they sold to Tellabs for all cash deal at an aggressive multiple of revenue.  I’ve stayed close with Joe Della Morte and to this day  he still recalls that meeting fondly. 

 Todd McMahon

Managing Director

Capstone Headwaters | Investment Banking Advisors

So, NOT TO BRAG, but mygawd, someone remembers you from 20+ years ago--Wow!   I told Jenny, and we toasted "the old me" over dinner.   Gawd, that was a while back.   Wonder what they'd say now?

Historical relic

Once in awhile, something arises that triggers an old thought.   In this case, an inquiry from a SIGCIS (Special Interest Group for Computers In Society) member, Matthew Kirschenbaum, an English and Digital Studies professor at University of Maryland :

Hello all,

I am interested in a better understanding of the nature of computational error. My sense is that actual, literal (mathematical) mistakes in modern computers are quite rare; the notorious Pentium bug of the early 1990s is the exception that proves the rule. Most bugs are, rather, code proceeding to a perfectly correct logical outcome that just so happens to be inimical or intractable to the user and/or other dependent elements of the system. The Y2K "bug," for instance, was actually code executing in ways that were entirely internally self-consistent, however much havoc the code would wreak (or was expected to wreak).

Can anyone recommend reading that will help me formulate such thoughts with greater confidence and accuracy? Or serve as a corrective? I'd like to read something fundamental and even philosophical about, as my subject line has it, the nature of computational error. I'd also be interested in collecting other instances comparable to the Pentium bug--bugs that were actual flaws and mistakes hardwired at the deepest levels of a system.

Thank you-- Matt

I couldn't resist, sending a note as follows: 

the ‘famous’ error before the Pentium bug was the “Inverse Log of 2.02” error in the original HP35 handheld calculator.    We wound up replacing a lot of firmware as a result.

The bug is described well down in this article http://www.hpcc.org/calculators/wmjarts.html

For my talk at the ACM History of Personal Computing January 1986, here is the video https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102695114

In it at minute 51:00, Tom Osborne, the key creator of HP’s 9100 and HP 35 describes the issue surrounding this “Inverse log of 2.02” error.   This is the only description I’ve ever heard

Well, that generated quite a response, from far and wide.

Here's an English teacher, Tara Fickle at U of Oregon (imagine that, an English teacher watching an engineer give a talk....)

Thanks for sharing this fantastic artifact. I’m only a few minutes in but I can already tell it’s going to be a good ride — your sense of humor combined with your knowledge is admirable. Sounds like the audience enjoyed it, too. Thanks again for sharing!

Julie Cohn, research historian in the Center for Public History at the University of Houston responded: 

Greetings from Houston. What was the “Inverse Log of 2.02” error? I believe that my father was the proud owner of one of those calculators - which he received as a gift in 1972 when he retired from Leeds & Northrup Company. My brother still has it. There was something about duplicate keys or two different keys doing the same function? If this is the same error, and if my memory is correct, my father refused to have it fixed because he believed it was more valuable with the error. My dad (Nathan Cohn) was a friend and colleague of Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett.

Subsequent discussion--Julie's brother still has the calculator, and he sent this picture --apparently the "inverse log of 2.02" created a recall for HP, and we changed something like 100,000 ROMs.   In this case, not only was the ROM changed, but they changed a key cap (incorrectly) for some reason.   THAT made Cohn's calculator MUCH more valuable in his eyes (and I think, in ours as well).