Links

Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.

Coronavirus: Don’t Panic!

by

Liberally adapted from this Washington Post article, a list of best practices for dealing with the coronavirus:

  • Don’t Panic!
  • The basics: Wash your hands regularly. Cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze. And when you’re sick, stay home from work or school and drink lots of fluids.
  • Keep the shopping cart light: Surgical masks? If you’re not sick, you don’t need to wear them. The main point of the mask is to keep someone who is infected with the virus from spreading it to others. If you’re itching to buy something, you can stick to the typical respiratory-virus medicine: decongestants, anti-inflammatory drugs and acetaminophen for fevers.
  • Practice makes permanent: One of the best things you can do to prepare for any emergency, including a coronavirus outbreak, is put together an emergency kit. It’s also important to have plans in place in case the outbreak disrupts your daily routines.
  • Be mindful of where you are: Health officials have stressed keeping your distance from people who are sick, especially when it comes to respiratory viruses. It is worth considering limiting exposure to large groups, especially during flu season. In confined spaces, such as mass transit, it’s important to look around and see what’s going on, see where everyone’s hands are going and make a mental note to wash up later. But awareness cuts both ways—just because someone has the sniffles or has a cough, it doesn’t mean they have the coronavirus.
  • Watch what you read: Hoaxes, lies and junk science about coronavirus have swirled online since the earliest cases were reported, mostly through social media. Look to trustworthy sources, such as the CDC, the World Health Organization and local health departments, to stay informed.
  • Be kind: As coronavirus has spread, so, too, has anti-Asian prejudice. The WHO has urged government agencies to do what they can to prevent discrimination against specific populations, since stigmatization can fuel the spread of the outbreak by driving marginalized individuals to hide infection and avoid seeking treatment. Remember to not let fear override your common humanity about how you treat other people.

Saint Expedite

by

From Julie McGalliard, the story of how she discovered “St. Expedite”, the “patron saint of getting things done in a hurry”.

Saint Expedite and me: Part 1:

Our guide took us through Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is the oldest church building in New Orleans. It’s Catholic, of course, but it also has — according to our tour guide — the only genuine Voodoo saint in the US. He showed us the statue of “St. Expedite” (yes, his placard has the quotes) and told us the following story:

This Italian-made statue of a young Roman Centurion is from the 19th century. It was secular, intended for a Garden District mansion. But it was delivered to the cathedral by mistake. The French-speaking nuns opened it and, seeing that it was similar in size and style to the statues of saints in the Cathedral, they assumed it was a saint they were unfamiliar with and put him on display, using the name stamped on the outside of the crate: Expedite.

Some time later they discovered their mistake and tried to remove the statue, but after much public outcry, they put him back up again. See, the local Voodoos had already taken Saint Expedite to heart as the patron saint of getting things done in a hurry.

[…]

It wasn’t until then that I made the connection between things I wanted being offered to me, on the contingency that I accept them RIGHT NOW, and having earlier asked for a blessing from the mysterious entity known as Saint Expedite.

And be sure to continue on to the next post, Saint Expedite and me: Part 2

“You know that statue that’s been in the crawlspace forever? I think it’s Saint Expedite.”

We thought this unlikely, to say the least. Because there aren’t statues of Saint Expedite — not in this country, anyway. The one in New Orleans was the only one, as far as we knew. As far as anyone knew. That’s why the tour guide could tell that story about the nuns and the mis-delivered statue, because he could be confident that nobody taking the tour had ever seen or heard of Saint Expedite before.

Still, we had to go to Port Townsend and check it out.

Fascinating story, and you know? It never hurts to keep things like this in mind when you’re in need of a little extra assistance.

by

Magic Debug Values: “…are specific values written to memory…so that it will later be possible to tell whether or not they have become corrupted…. Memory is usually viewed in hexadecimal, so memorable repeating or hexspeak values are common.” Though not a programmer, I’d seen some of these in various other contexts. Particularly fond of 8BADF00D, BADC0FFEE0DDF00D, D15EA5E, DEFEC8ED, and FEE1DEAD.