If the stated reason for facemasks working is correct, then tiny amounts of the virus could be used as its own vaccine. They are literally saying that if you get a tiny amount of the virus, you are far more likely to get COVID19 in a weak and asymptomatic form, but if you get a lot of the virus all at once, you are more likely to get very sick.

So - is it better to wait about half a year to have a large-scale vaccine roll-out - probably over a year for less developed nations - with hundreds of thousands dying globally, or to begin a controlled program of deliberate weak infection, starting with those least likely to get critically ill or be injured or killed if they do get critically ill?

I was wondering when this would hit - it's an obvious outcome of partially shutting down the economy, reducing the value of ads.

Another bit of obvious logic - if we're keeping people safe with social distancing, we're NOT keeping essential workers as safe. This will hit health care for COVID19 victims hardest, as they get sick despite the best precautions and stay out sick for weeks. Unlike the rest of us, the 'curve' for workers in hospitals won't 'flatten' any time soon, as our avoided risk accumulates there. A 38000 employee hospital health system in Detroit has about 1500 workers sick with COVID19 symptoms. 4% out now - 40% in another month? Even if it only hits 10%, it'll be a crisis on top of a crisis.

Also starting to get hit - fast food places that pay too little to make it worth the risk - starting with any 'kids' who go home to Mom&Dad, who won't want to risk COVID19 getting in the house. One place near me had previously shut down their indoor order area for renovations, and foolishly re-opened it. Next day, 4 workers simply didn't show up. Also, their workers will soon realize better paying options are opening up to those willing to take the risks, as more important essential services lose workers or need more (e.g. for delivery).

Until we get a vaccine, we need new social rules and economic practices to ease economy back open. Possible examples:
- Seniors (retirees) stay social distanced. Only they are allowed out for exercise 9-11am and 9-11pm. One day a week is seniors-only shopping. A different day is seniors-only doctors.
- Sidewalks are made one-way (opposite of vehicular traffic for safety where there are no sidewalks).
- Office workers do 3 shifts of 3 days work at home, 2 days in office - MonThu, TueFri, WedSat. [Separated by 2 days so if get sick in office, may know before come back.] Managers in MWF but required to take strong precautions. Masks for in-person interactions closer than 10' or in a small room. Not allowed in office if sick. First/last 15 min each day spent disinfecting.
- School kids match parents' office schedule - school is day care. Hire aides to monitor classrooms of 10 or fewer kids. Teachers mostly online conference or work alone - occasional in-school lectures (recorded for other kids) for social contact with kids. No moving between classsrooms/desks. National effort to make and share best ed-videos, assignments, work-plans, etc - not just Youtubes. As needed, provide decent netbooks/subsidized home internet.
- Bars/restaurants stay delivery and outdoor pick up only - no customers indoors where food is prepared. Minimize contact between kitchen and customer-contact workers.

The current disruption and the coming recession/depression offer the opportunity to finally update our work week and slash the time/pollution of commuting.

Make the 'new normal' something like "2 days in, 2 days out = 4 day week".

The service economy could really use an added leisure day for a faster recovery.

Note to self: Replace obsolete Samsung device with NON-Samsung device after Dec 1st.

EPA assigned perchlorate a chronic oral reference dose (RfD) of 0.0007 milligrams per kilogram per day (mg/kg/day). The RfD is an estimate of a daily
exposure level that is likely to be without noncancer health effects over a lifetime (EPA IRIS 2005).

Assuming 80kg crew-members, the chronic oral dose would be 0.056mg/crew. Perchlorates are estimated at 0.5% of Mars dust by weight, so that dose would be the equivalent of injesting or breathing 10mg of Mars dust a day. Assuming indoor air and water filters keep dust exposure in the hab to 10% (conservatively) of that entering the hab, for a crew of 5 that'd mean 500mg of dust has to get into the hab each day. That's about 1/4 the weight of a 2L soda bottle cap - quite a bit if there are good counter-measures in place to keep the dust out in the first place. Simple things like blowing dust off 'outside' before entering the airlock, and putting on a clean suit liner inside the hab before entering a 'mud room' to put on a Mars suit, and taking that liner off only after removing and wet-cleaning the suit and the mud room before entering the Hab.

Also, a healthy human body clears perchlorates out of the bloodstream in about 10 minutes, so the amount in the bloodstream at any time should be about 1/144th of the daily dose - down in the parts per billion. It seems likely other components of the Mars dust might be more problematic than the perchlorates.

If a car is programmed to kill its passengers to save pedestrians under some rare circumstances, it will far more commonly kill passengers pointlessly, due to false positives.

The next innovation will be a set of ribbons - possibly made of stylish leather - leading from the sides of the blinders to the boss' desk, allowing him/her to pull your head left or right to direct you to different work, depending on what direction s/he wishes you to go in next.

Step 2: due to scarcity of films, local film makers demand premiums from NetFlix so NetFlix can make its quotas.
Step 3: To break that stranglehold, NetFlix opens (or subsidizes) studios in each country, churning out cheap, abundant schlock that meets the 30% local criteria.
Step 4: European commission updates standards qualifying what is and is not artistic and local enough.
Step 5: Local film innovation gets squeezed out by formulaic film makers, OR local film makers have to (discretely) bribe commission members to approve their films by offering 'film debut trips' to exotic locations, 'film opening galas' with lots of free booze and schmoozing with glamorous actors who are told they need to be 'friendly', etc.

"We made this display screen so thin and flexible it can actually be rolled up - and thought that was so cool that we convinced ourselves that people would like storing it rolled up. And since it fails if bent sharply, we figured people would like it stored in a protective scroll case 10x fatter than a normal tablet or phone. When someone with common sense pointed out this was stupid, we desperately looked for some sort of use cases that might convince other people that this really is a good idea.

"And because it's so darn cool to roll it up, it never occurred to us to just use two or 4 smaller screens that fold together on thin flexible hinges designed to edges fit precisely together when open. Not even after we had to add a seam between two displays to get an area bigger than a regular phone."

Maybe the systemic problems of the 'web' could be ameliorated by
(a) charging based on one's net data consumption - i.e. if you run a server to host content you get paid when people pull it, if you pull content you pay for it; and
(b) changing web protocols so the content receiver can query the size (and other characteristics) each component before bringing it down (or streaming it) to decide whether to pull it or not.
Maybe also -
(c) changing to decentralized protocols that somewhat protect against content ripping. (Hard - if not possible, maybe a blockchain based reputation tracking and content time-stamping system would help).

- If you post data to someone else's server, you get paid once and they get paid over and over for your content.
Most content creators and maybe most everyone would keep their own server - support for running personal servers would be much better. The 'no personal servers allowed' ISPs would quickly go broke.
- If your content is so good that your server is getting overloaded with requests, pre-negotiated contracts might shift the load to a commercial server that gets a percentage. Or maybe the web protocols inherently distribute popular content by making every server cache content for a cut of the income. That would require secure automated contracts and accounting.

Clearly this was a "Trolley Car Problem" situation; and we now know that self-driving cars - will choose to hit a pedestrian to minimize risk to passenger. Amateur philosophers have been debating this problem in the context of SD cars for some time now. Now, at last, we can put an end to any further discussion of Trolley Cars by telling them: "Problem Solved".

Yep. And it'll make sense to have a crew in orbit even after starting colonization of Mars, to continue robotic exploration and prospecting, planet-wide science, etc.

Just curious - how secure do you suppose the IRS computers are against eFiled tax returns using buffer overflow attacks?