August 25, 2020 Morning

Good morning! Happy Tuesday. Next Tuesday is September 🍎. Cloudy and 72 degrees in Delmar, NY. β˜” There is a southwest breeze at 5 mph. πŸƒ. The dew point is 67 degrees. The skies will clear around 1 pm.

I am glad I ended up getting a new hair trimmer. βœ‚οΈ The old one was missing the shorter blades and wasn’t cutting smoothly so my hair got long. πŸ’ˆ The replacement $25 tool did such a great job trimming my hair I just can’t imagine needing to go to the barber shop anytime soon again. Why pay for something you can do yourself. Even with my inexpensive barber it was like $14 a visit when you throw in a generous tip as I did because I felt bad for the old man who cut my hair πŸ’‡πŸ». I can keep it a lot shorter now. Hate to replace the old trimmers but I needed a shorter cutting guide and the old one was super dull and cutting very uneven. πŸ—‘ I am much happier with the nice short hair that is evenly cut. The nice thing is that I can now do it as regularly as I want to keep it trimmed more near an even length. I’m learning a lot thanks to Coronavirus. πŸ‘Ύ

Today will have a chance of showers, with thunderstorms also possible after 2pm. Partly sunny 🌦, with a high of 84 degrees at 3pm. Five degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 69 at 10am. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming west 12 to 17 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 29 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. The high last year was 77 degrees. The record high of 99 was set in 1947.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:58 pm with sun having an altitude of 57.9Β° from the due south horizon (-12.9Β° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 3.8 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour πŸ… starts at 7:05 pm with the sun in the west (279Β°). πŸ“Έ The sunset is in the west-northwest (285Β°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:43 pm after setting for 3 minutes with dusk around 8:10 pm, which is one minute and 37 seconds earlier than yesterday. πŸŒ‡ At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter πŸŒ“ Moon in the south-southwest (201Β°) at an altitude of 26Β° from the horizon, 229,012 miles away. πŸš€ The best time to look at the stars is after 8:48 pm. At sunset, look for mostly clear skies πŸŒ„ and temperatures around 77 degrees. The dew point will be 60 degrees. Breezy, 16 mph breeze β›… from the northwest with gusts up to 26mph. Today will have 13 hours and 27 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 41 seconds over yesterday.

Today is going to be a pretty hot one. 😰 I have a lot of online meetings today that I’m hoping if the weather 🌻is nice I’m going to head down to the park 🏞 and do the meetings from there in the lawn chair. It was nice doing that yesterday. I just have to make sure my work laptop is well charged πŸ’» as I expect to be in meetings all afternoon.

Tonight will be mostly clear πŸŒƒ, with a low of 54 degrees at 5am. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 9th. Maximum dew point of 62 at 6pm. Northwest wind 7 to 15 mph. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 52 degrees. The record low of 40 occurred back in 1942.

By evening it should be quite nice πŸ“š and I might go down to the park to read for a while, noting how early the sun sets this time of year.

On this day in 1950, President Harry Truman orders the U.S. Army to seize control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike. πŸš‚ So much for the boy from Missouri being a socialist.

Right now, a split verdict on the weekend. πŸ˜• Saturday, showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 77. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Maximum dew point of 67 at 12pm. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 75. Maximum dew point of 59 at 10am. Typical average high for the weekend is 78 degrees.

I am going to probably stay in town this weekend. 🏑 It doesn’t seem like we are going to have particularly nice weather. The following weekend is Labor Day Weekend and I’m not crazy πŸ€ͺ about going out of town that weekend with the crowds. πŸ‘©β€πŸ‘©β€πŸ‘§β€πŸ‘§ Sunday might be nice for a hike somewhere though.

Looking ahead, there are 4 weeks until Autumn πŸ‚ when the sun will be setting at 6:52 pm with dusk at 7:20 pm. On that day in 2019, we had a real hot day that was mostly sunny skies , shallow fog 🌫 in the morning and temperatures between 87 and 51 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 70 degrees. We hit a record high of 95 back in 1895.

Jones Pond in Shadow

Does convalescent plasma work against COVID-19? Who knows? – Science-Based Medicine

Does convalescent plasma work against COVID-19? Who knows? – Science-Based Medicine

So what do we know about the use of convalescent plasma versus COVID-19? Sadly, the answer is: Not much. We have some small case series, such as this one of five critically ill patients, all of whom recovered, but they’re not that useful other than as preliminary studies. We have a small randomized clinical trial of 103 patients in Wuhan, China with severe or life-threatening COVID-19, which was a negative trial. That’s not surprising, though, given that plasma therapy is usually less effective or actually ineffective in advanced, severe disease.

1️⃣0️⃣ weeks until Election Day πŸ—³οΈ

1️⃣0️⃣ weeks until Election Day πŸ—³οΈ

Now rather than obsessing over a multi-billion dollar election that you are largely powerless to change, why don’t you focus on ways you can make your own life better.

  • How can you save and invest more money in a responsible fashion?
  • How can you work harder and better to advance your business and career?
  • How can you set realistic goals and plan to build a better life for yourself?

Honestly, I think many times elections are just distractions from people bettering their own lives. Politics becomes an excuse for hopelessness and inaction. Rather than believing politicians will make your life better, take action yourself for yourself.

How the word β€˜woke’ was weaponised by the right | Social trends | The Guardian

How the word β€˜woke’ was weaponised by the right | Social trends | The Guardian

Rather than rejecting the concept of wokeness outright, today’s detractors often claim they are rejecting the word as a signifier of pretentiousness and “cultural elitism”. However, as Fox and others have shown, it is as much to do with the issues of racial and social justice. Criticising “woke culture” has become a way of claiming victim status for yourself rather than acknowledging that more deserving others hold that status. It has gone from a virtue signal to a dog whistle. The language has been successfully co-opted – but as long as the underlying injustices remain, new words will emerge to describe them.