therandomtexan
-
Captain Tom Shows Us How It’s Done
Captain Tom Moore, HMRA (retired), cooked up the idea of a 100-lap charity fundraiser to celebrate his impending 100th birthday. 100 laps around his garden, with a walker (he IS 99). His goal was £1000 for the NHS. Word got out. Right now he’s raised £13 million. In a just world, Captain Tom’s birthday celebration Read more
-
College Ain’t for Everyone…
…and I’m no longer a Voice in the Wilderness saying so. Writing in the Washington Examiner, Michael Barone says American higher education has been in serious trouble for the past two decades. Yes, it’s true that American universities science and technology departments lead the world, and the (increasingly unscientific) social sciences and (often inhumane) humanities Read more
-
WuFlu and the Urban Chicken Movement
San Antonios have become chickenistas! Lots of folks are hoping to avoid egg shortages by raising their own chickens. “When we get them in, it’s been a mad dash for the chickens,” said Cathy Sullivan, who works at Strutty’s Feed and Pet Supply store in Spring Branch. “We’ve had shipments of 300 to 350 per Read more
-
Slide Rules!
WuFlu isn’t the only virus in the air; I’ve been getting a lot of chatter and questions about slide rules. Yes, partly because I’m old enough to remember them and remember (vaguely) how to use them. But what’s going on? Never mind. Here’s some great online resources for the curious and really curious History and Read more
-
Not-Quite-in-Time Logistics
Writing in the Atlantic, Helen Lewis explains shortages and panic buying as a failure of efficiency; the weakness of just-in-time logistics. Sorry Helen, but you’re a logistics n00b; even this old retired Lieutenant Colonel knows about arcane loggie stuff like stock levels and re-order points (zero is NOT a good re-order point). When the military Read more
-
Coronavirus Cumbia
Mexicans (and their Tex-Mexican cousins) can always turn tragedy into hilarity. Check out these coronavirus cumbias: + Mr Cumbia does a great mash-up Grupo EL CAPI does a straight-up band performance with social distancing Ricardo Munoz does another over-the-top mash-up at ChinoVlogs Erik Arturo and buds ham it up to Mr Cumbia’s soundtrack My fave: Read more
-
(Clinical) Trial of the Century
The World Health Organization steps up to the coronavirus plate with what appears to be history’s most ambitious screening experiment. On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a large global trial, called SOLIDARITY, to find out whether any can treat infections with the new coronavirus for the dangerous respiratory disease. It’s an unprecedented effort—an Read more
-
Don’t Bunch Up!
Randal O’Toole, the Anti-Planner, points out the wrongheadedness of ever-increasing urban density, Now, we are getting another lesson. Due to a novel virus, we are told to “socially distance” ourselves. But no one is telling us to drive our cars instead of riding transit. Instead, the transit agencies are still operating and giving out platitudes Read more
-
Some Wu Flu Hacks
We’re all getting into social distancing big time, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. And everyone knows about wash-your-hands-don’t-touch-your-face-sneeze-into-a-tissue precautions. But here are four more behavior changes to help avoid infection: avoid those hot-air hand dryers in public restrooms, they’re germ blasters use disposables instead of reusable shopping bags, they’re mobile petri dishes clean your Read more
-
The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good
Many of us university instructors are scrambling to adapt our formerly face-to-face courses into online courses. This, to allow “social distancing” in response to the Wuhan Flu pandemic. Rebecca Barrett-Fox urges us “Please do a bad job of putting your courses online.” I’m absolutely serious. For my colleagues who are now being instructed to put Read more
The Random Texan 