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Ideas for building structures for cabins at Renaissance Faires

There is a strong market for lodging before a faire, be it die hard rennies, families, or handicap attendees.

But what structures works? Balance of cost, speed of construction, labor input, materials, and cooling costs for summer.

For housing for groups, you need 55sq ft per bunk bed. So 200sq ft for 6 people, 800sq ft for 26 people.

Grubenhause that is sunken into the earth provides some cooling, resistance to high winds, and look authentic.
Another Grubenhaus.
A Saxon house, but the thatch is too dangerous.

Masonry structures are more expensive, but cool, quiet, stormproof, and low maintenance

My shed of requirement. about $9k including an overkill foundation for $2,500

Earthbag houses are cost effective but more labor.

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Grotesques added to Shed of Requirement

The ‘Gargoyles’ are added. But they are really called grotesques given that they do not channel rain water. I’ve used oxide paint for the bases to match. There are 4 Grotesques, each is different from the others. The smallest is in the back where there is little light. I tell people they all were the same size when I installed them.

In other good news, the water that was getting into the shed has been fixed. It was mainly splash water hitting the door and running down and trapped inside instead off away from the structure. The next heavy rain should confirm that.

Catalan vaulted stone shed.
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Current TEXAS SEIR forecast. 90 days to peak.

Rt=1.2 iCFR=0.7 SEIR model
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Updates on the Shed of Requirement

So the wife said I could build a shed. I began in 2016. I’ve added a vent and used a Dubrovnik style chimney in order to let moisture out when it rains. Plus, I’ve restained the door and strengthened the Attic flooring.

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Building Covid 19 tool to help forecast hospital beds

What a frilling week. Market turmoil, oil crashes, and Covid arrived to come kick our asses. I chose to not sit idly by as a spectator, and instead forge a weapon (web app) that will help hospitals around the world predict the wave IN THEIR AREA and tell them how many beds they need and if they will be swamped.

It needs to predict when the wave arrives, and how many of each type of beds will be needed. Standard, ICU, and Critical. Plus, as the data for Covid gets better, the user can change the inputs easily on the webpage.

I haven’t named it officially yet, maybe call it COBE Tool – COvid Bed Estimator Tool. I will put in in Shiny at shiny.io hosted.

Early results show what will happen if Covid19 burns without social distancing. 72% of America catches it.

Tools used : R, with packages Epimdr, Desolve, Shiny. The core code for generating the S E I R table is below.

require(deSolve)
times = seq(0, 450, by=1)
#paras = c(mu = 0, N = 1, beta = 1000, sigma = 365/15, gamma = 365/5)
sigma<- 1/5 # this is     The rate at which an exposed person becomes infective. Inverse of 
gamma<-1/15 #  The rate at which an exposed person becomes resistant (recovers)
paras = c(mu = 0, N = 1, beta = .1173, sigma = sigma, gamma = gamma)
start = c(S=(.999) , E=0, I=.001, R = 0.0)
#start = c(S=0.06, E=0, I=0.001, R = 0.939)
out=ode(y=start, times=times, func=seirmod, parms=paras)
#init       <- c(S = 1-1e-6, I = 1e-6, R = 0.0)
#parameters <- c(beta = 1.4247, gamma = 0.14286)
#out <- ode(y = init, times = times, func = sir, parms = parameters)
out <- as.data.frame(out)
head(out)
tail(out)
plot(out$time,out$R)
plot(out$time,out$I)
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CoVid19 forecasting cumulative cases

I do a bit of competition forecasting. Almanis, Good Judgement Open, and the Hybrid Forecasting Challenge. Some are open, some you must be invited. I’ve found that I’m good at battlefield casualties and epidemiology. Here are my thoughts on CoVid19, and the chances of having greater than 100k cumulative cases by 20MAR20

Finally the Markets are realizing CoVid19 will affect the economy.

Instantaneous forecast from yesterdays increase is 20 days left *1753 new yesterday +85403=~ 120,000 cases.

The instantaneous estimate is no longer trending down, Containment is generally working in China, but CoVid19 has now gone into the wild in other countries. I think there will be no hope of <100k by 20MAR20
But the numbers are increasing more linearly than geometrically.

The real numbers for WHO cases over the last 4 weeks are:

85403 (SitRep Day 40) – not a full week
80239 (SitRep Day 36),
73332 (SitRep Day 29)
43103 (SitRep 22),
20630 (SitRep 15)

Extrapolated weekly estimate is 85403-77794 * 3 weeks left = ~108,000
This shows signs of slowing that the Chinese fight to drop Ro is working. From the model below, I show Ro to be ~1.1 to 1.2 where last week I thought it to be 1.7 roughly.

However, now that is is wild in other countries who aren’t prepared for the Draconian methods China executed. I expect the Ro to begin to rise again.

There is a slim chance to think CoVid-19 will stay below 100k cases as I’m beginning to believe the virus is currently ‘contained’ in China. Also possible is if you believe other countries will systemically under report for political ends. Iran clearly is not reporting real numbers at this time.

Of new concern is the finding previously unknown clusters, even in the USA. Of note is this is a secondary infection not primary from travelers from China. That reinforces my thinking that many second and third world countries have wild clusters established and will begin to spread fast. They may not detect them in time to add to 20MAR WHO report.

I recommend folks follow Dr Campbell on Youtube to get his input, as he has foreign health workers with first hand accounts in Iran emailing him. Those accounts reveal hundreds to thousands infected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL7oGRKETZM

Another great resource is https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 or their mobile friendly version https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/85320e2ea5424dfaaa75ae62e5c06e61

The quarantine’s goal is to drop the Ro number from ~2.3 down to less than 1 hopefully, but more likely 1.2 IMHO so we need to adapt that to our numbers.

My assumptions are :
1) too late for containment
2) Wild clusters are undetected in many other countries
3) Iran’s clusters are far worse than feared.
4) The reported cases will increase quasi-geometrically perhaps linearly but not exponential until 20MAR20
5) The new post quarantine Ro is still above 1.1 and below 1.5

Raw data collected via Tencent on the official numbers is https://news.qq.com/zt2020/page/feiyan.htm
yea, its in Simplified Chinese.
-edit- English translate https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.qq.com%2Fzt2020%2Fpage%2Ffeiyan.htm

An excellent model that lets you adjust inputs is here:
https://art-bd.shinyapps.io/nCov_control/
(using Ro ~ 1.2 ‘ Effective reproductive number with control’ fits the data best)

I encourage all to play with that model, as it shows the case load with default Ro vs post quarantine Ro and the real cases reported. More on that model here: https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2760912/reporting-epidemic-growth-reproduction-numbers-2019-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov

In all, the infections are showing to grow steadily. If CoVid-19 establishes in South America we may get to 200k quickly, not so sure if it is just the Middle East. The model now shows we’ll hit 100k, but it looks like more likely end at 120k by 20MAR.

I still think we’ll hit 100k cases by March 10.

Probability of <100k by 20MAR20 is 5%. Probability of 100k-200k by 20MAR20 is 92%, Over 200k is 3%

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An Atlatl

So I’m an archer not an Atlatl guy. But since it is just a stick that throws a stick, I cut a branch, carved it up, then promptly obsessed about finding good dart material. For Texas, broad leaf ligustrum is the solution. It grows straight after copicing. I have a mott of Ligustrum in my yard so I harvested some 1/2″ poles 5 feet long and made the darts.

Atlatl v1.0
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Alaskan Native American Archery

Having traveled a bit this year thru Alaska, I’ve taken note to photograph all archery equipment I see in the museums. I release these photos under Creative Commons 3.0 license.

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Best Practices creating PAO number system for memory training

So it has been a few weeks since finishing my PAO, many hours later I’ve got it up and running well. Speed is coming along. But now that I’m using it effectively, here are few things I’d wish I’d done differently.

To those coming behind me, who want to build their PAO, here is my advice:

  1. It is normal to struggle to build your 2 digit PAO. I had real trouble finding 100 people who were memorable and I had connection too. In the end when I was about 10 short, I just crammed 10 people that I kinda knew about into the PAO. That was a bad idea, connection seems to be key. You will be using this the rest of your life, take time to build out your PAO people.
  2. Using the Major system to pick the people was just…a waste. Now that I’m using it, I don’t pronounce anything in my head, I just image the PAO. The Major system did nothing for me but handicap the order that I put in people to the PAO. (I even saw someone using Major system for actions and object, which is an aweful idea, adding another burden to remember WHAT the P does and what O it does with with. Go with logical AO for the P) It does nothing for speed or recall. It kinda helped on memorizing it, but that was slow and ultimately overridden but another method, and I’ll address that in #3.
  3. I struggled for days memorizing it. But an hour after I read someone recommended putting it into a dedicated memory palace I did. But I had to make a big palace, 100 loci. I used a video game map, Once I walked thru it, BAM! They they all were, settled into their places within the hour. I’ll address optimizing this in #5.
  4. But I get ahead of myself. The P of PAO are going to be key for speed. I now wish I’d grouped them by decade. 0-10 should have been generics, ie. Astronaut, Doctor, Baker, Butler, Soldier. 10-19 Sports figures, 20-29 Ex girlfriends, 30-39 Star Wars people, 40-49 Harry Potter folks, 50-59 old college professors, etc… This should increase speed in using it. And also make it easier to use 1-40 for Cards, with 4 suits, Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades (by alpha) all clubs are generics, Diamonds sports figures, ex girlfriends are Hearts, etc. To make it extra fast take care on your memory palace layout.
  5. So when I’m recalling cards now, it is sometimes faster to pull by location. So if you make sure your first 41 locations (remember there is a 00 that goes before 01 where the card deck starts at Ace of Clubs) are grouped with each decade (suit) in a common area. Like 1 big room or 2 rooms with 5. Don’t put 21-23 in the same room with 18-20. Keep the breaks clean, isolate the decades (1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40) cleanly in their own areas. Speed is key on cards and helps with numbers.
  6. Dedicate this memory palace to your PAO. Never reuse it. That will keep it clear of interference.
  7. Be logical on the AO. If you have a P of a Juggler (06), and you are remembering Bill Gates (King of Diamonds) juggling Han Solo’s Blaster, then you quickly remember the ‘A’ is the Juggler 06 and the ‘O’ is Han Solo. Don’t do something weird and have Juggler flying spaceship and Han solo tunneling in minecraft. You will have to do extra cross-tabling recall if you abandon logical actions.

And with that I’m done. I wish someone had given me this advice a month ago.

-mt

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Improved Celeste ripening. Jujube’s has fruit set.

July 4th – All the figs are doing well but the Violette de Bordeaux which is barely growing. At last count, I have 5 fig trees in the front, 4 in the backyard, 2 in pots, and 2 at work.

The Honey Jar Jujube finally set fruit this year, it has been in ground 2 winters. The Shanx Li and the Chico did not set fruit although they bloomed.

Violette de Bordeaux has been a slow grower for 3 years, even with irrigation.