I was thinking about how my step count is waaaaay down just from staying home, but I’m still wearing the tracker for heart rate. So I wondered what else it might be able to infer and went looking…
It turns out some newer fitness trackers can measure oxygen saturation. Imagine hooking that up to an alert for someone who’s been treating at home to catch worsening symptoms early!
App and website developers: please do not disable paste on your login forms.
Let people use password managers so they can keep a unique password for your site that’s resistant to both password-guessing and password-sharing attacks.
Thank you.
Update: Someone on Flickr blamed this effect on aircraft emissions. No, these have been around long before aircraft. They’re caused by light refracting through ice crystals, which can be near the surface or high in the upper atmosphere. They get even more elaborate in places where it’s colder near the surface and more ice crystals can be suspended in the air – diamond dust in places where people are skiing, for instance – and super-elaborate in places like the arctic and Antarctica, which can support lots of ice crystals (and the south pole doesn’t have a lot of airplanes flying over it). More info: Atmospheric Optics: Ice Halos
There haven’t exactly been a lot of airplanes flying around here over the last few weeks, either – including the day I took this photo.
There’s a difference between “going out” to a destination or event, and “going outside” for fresh air or exercise. The first is more likely to land you in the kind of crowds that can help spread the pandemic. The second can usually be done while still keeping your distance from people. Depending on how easy that last part is, some regions have locked down “going outside” much further than others.
Here in the South Bay suburbs of Los Angeles, it’s a patchwork. Everyone’s closed the beaches and piers. Manhattan Beach has closed all its parks outright. Torrance and Redondo Beach have closed playgrounds, fitness equipment, and sports facilities, but have kept most city parks and fields open for now — with reminders everywhere to stay six feet apart and wash your hands.
Not that I would count on the bathrooms actually having soap.
And I certainly wasn’t going to check if I didn’t have to. I’ve been trying to avoid touching anything on these walks, even walk signal buttons if I can plan a route that bypasses them.
They wrapped caution tape around the playground. Just imagine one asymptomatic kid shedding viruses all over the playground equipment, while a bunch of other kids climb on that same equipment and forget they’re not supposed to touch their faces, then take that virus home and pass it along to everyone in their family.
The park wasn’t totally deserted, though these photos certainly give that impression. There was a couple playing catch near one corner of the field, a family with kids doing batting practice over at another corner, an older man sitting on a bench while his dog explored the grass, a family with kids on bikes and scooters (at least one of the kids was wearing a face mask), and so on. People walking or biking past, either solo or in pairs. And me, pausing every minute or so to take pictures for iNaturalist, catch Pokémon, or fight Team Rocket.
But we were all keeping our distance from each other.
Even the kids on scooters.
Pandemic analogy overheard while out for a walk:
“It’s not a blizzard, it’s a very long winter. It’s a Game of Thrones winter.”
Most people panic-buying supplies went to the supermarkets, not to smaller local groceries.
This bike path was closed in response to too many people going outdoors to the same places, creating the crowds that the closures of bars, restaurants and retail stores were trying to avoid in an effort to slow the virus spread.
I’m kind of surprised at this one. Unlike the paths near the beach, it doesn’t seem like it would be that hard to keep six feet apart along most of it. It runs through a fairly wide greenbelt under those transmission towers. Only two short sections have fences along the sides (as seen here) to block off a landscaping project. Which is probably on hold now. But they closed the entire length of the path.
That said, I haven’t been out much the last few weeks, so for all I know it might have looked like a marathon last weekend. 🤷
Update: Here’s the barrier across another section. Totally wide, lots of space, and the barriers only block the concrete path. So far everyone seems to be following directions and not just walking around, though.
Also, I saw some landscapers testing out the sprinklers in the fenced-off area, so I guess the project isn’t totally paused.
