I want to share an experience that I have had over the past couple of days because it might help some people get a better perspective on how contagious this virus is. My wife and I have been “hiding out” since March, avoiding people as much as possible, wearing masks, maintaining distance, washing our hands, etc. We do everything that is recommended in the media, very seldom entering buildings other than our home. A couple of months ago I had a surgery for carpel tunnel in my wrist, which has been slowly healing and now is to the point where I should be exercising my hand by squeezing a “nerf” ball. I had to go to the local sporting goods store to purchase a ball. I masked up, as did the clerk at the counter even she was behind a plastic shield. There were only two other people in the large store. We were “distanced” by 20 feet or more. I was perhaps in the store for 10 minutes.

On Monday (three days later) I woke with a really nasty “cold” (I hope – I am going to get tested today). As far as I can determine, that brief exposure to someone with a cold was sufficient to infect me. We had both taken the recommended precautions, but that doesn’t seem to have been sufficient. Upon reflection I realize that my history of “catching” colds is similar, it just takes someone with a cold to be in the vicinity of me for it to infect me. This isn’t because I am particularly susceptible to colds, everyone I know has a similar experience. The cold “just happens” when an infected person is nearby. Since covid-19 is apparently much more contagious than the “common cold” virus, it is obvious that covid can be caught in a similar casual way.

I think those of us who have been lucky enough to have avoided being infected with covid-19 have come to believe we did so because we took all of the necessary precautions. I suspect that it is probably more likely that we just haven’t been in the vicinity of an infected person. It is probably not that we have been so careful, but it just hasn’t spread widely enough for us to come into contact with the disease, especially if we have been spending most of our time at home. I am taking my catching a cold to be a precautionary message that I am perhaps not nearly as “protected” as I would like by simply wearing a mask, washing my hands, and staying clear of people in public. As we enter what is clearly going to be an extremely dangerous period of time during the holidays, I am going to double-down my efforts to stay at home and away from stores, buildings, and people. Please – BE CAREFUL and don’t get it so you don’t spread it.

It has finally gotten to the point where nothing that we hear or see on-line or in the news can be trusted at face value. For example, the November 22 issue of The New York Times that shows up in my email each morning has a very interesting article showing extremely life-like computer generated faces. These images are being used to trick us into thinking that “real” people are posting “real” information on social networks and other places. It turns out that neither are real, neither the people nor the information. I recently posted a blog about things to do to protect yourself from corvid-19, all of which was untrue because the source I had used was promulgating lies and falsehoods. (I consider them to be lies because the original poster went to a lot of trouble making it look “official” and had, or should have had, correct information). This problem seems to have invaded most of our normal channels for obtaining “easy” information (just Google it you say?).

We are faced with a major problem of trying to decide what to believe. We are told to “check it out” – but where can we do that with confidence? It appears that we (all of us) are under attack by someone or something. Perhaps it is just disruptive people, perhaps it is just “true believers”, but more than likely it is other governments or groups within our country that are attempting to gain control. The problem is that there is an actual conspiracy mixed in with our normal chattering back and forth, and disagreeing with each other, as individuals.

The method of “attack” is to create chaos and confusion, pitting people against each other through fake accusations, fake information and now fake people. We are all defending our “truth” and accusing all the others of lying. It used to be that we didn’t think the other was lying, we just thought that they were mistaken – having made a mistake. That caused a lot of confusing and discussion, but at least we could discuss things in an attempt to unearth what the actual truth might be. That seems to have gone away – there is now no way to change opinions by unearthing facts, many people are working out of faith, not facts, and are just using their version of facts to advance their agenda. If an untruth is identified, they just shrug it off and try another version of yet another bit of fake news. Whether or not the “facts” are correct doesn’t seem to have much to do with it.

The problem is that even if you are a person that is a seeker of truth, a seeker of facts, a person that believes that the scientific approach is the best way that we know of to advance our knowledge and understanding of “how things actually are” – how do we do that? We almost never have personal access to the data, the process by which data was created, or the process by which it was analyzed. This results in the only “facts” that we have, are actually conclusions (hopefully based upon something substantial). We end up having to believe, or accept, some source as being a “trusted” source. I go to science journals, what I think are unbiased news programs, books written by supposedly knowledgeable and trustworthy individuals, etc. I have a solid and extensive background in science and related fields, so I compare what I read and hear with what I “know” (or at least think I know) to determine if it fits into my understanding of how things work. I talk to multiple people, check multiple sources of science based information, and do what I can to ferret out “the truth” – always knowing that part of the scientific process is that new information often leads to new conclusions. Theories are just theories and call always be proven wrong, but never proven true. That doesn’t mean that they have no value, it means that science is only able to know about what it knows about – and there might always be unknown unknowns lurking out there to be discovered. However, it has also been shown to be amazingly correct and useful over an extremely wide range of topics. It works, but there is always a hint of a “maybe” it is different. Almost always the new theory incorporates the old, but extends it into new areas.

I wish I had an answer of how to convince us all to keep open minds in the face of a constant barrage of obviously false information, and work together to find the truth – accepting that we won’t always be right, but that we can get better. I am pretty certain that our basic goals and basic needs are quite similar, but we can’t even seem to have conversations that allow us to discover that simple fact.

The Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rica has come to the end of its life. Broken cables have become too dangerous to repair, so the current decision is to demolish the giant antenna. What a shame! This telescope has a long history of providing important, breakthrough observations and discoveries. It will leave a BIG hole in arena of world class telescopes. Somehow I find its passing to be a sad moment among the barrage of bad news that we have been enduring this year.

I have begun a “deep dive” into what sort of education and background are important for being a fully functional “system safety engineer.” This is an unusual profession because it is so broad and gets involved in so many different aspects of the design, development, use and misuse of all manner of “things” that an extremely wide, and deep, knowledge in many fields is required. An analogy came to my mind that the necessary background is a bit like swimming in a large lake where the education, knowledge and experience are like the water in the lake. It has to be all around you. It isn’t a knowledge of science, or engineering, or cultures, or management, or math or anything in particular – it is knowledge in all of those things and more. I have begun the task of making a list of the broad areas of interest, which will be future subdivided into areas of concerning within each of those, and finally into a list of specific topics that can then be incorporated into a description of expected “prerequisites” as well as course curricula useful for creating specific classes, workshops and other educational resources to assist a new person enter the field of System Safety Engineering. It is my hope that my project will be in collaboration with interested parties through the support of the International System Safety Society (ISSS). It is my expectation that we form a committee within the ISSS to accomplish this task in time to present the outcome to the August 2021 ISSS Conference that will be held in Portland, OR (covid willing), or at virtual conference should it not be possible to hold an in-person conference at that time.

I am wondering about how the world looks from the eyes of the President. As of Nov 21 it is 306 to 232 electoral votes and about 80 million vs 74 million actual votes. This is not close, and there is no path available for it to change. Yet, the President is still claiming victory, or at least making statements such as “I won of course.” Obviously he didn’t win, and is not going to win unless something really unexpected occurs. This can only happen if something such as them somehow taking it to the Supreme Court and having the court that he so carefully packed with his supporters overturn an obvious popular and electoral vote. I suppose that is possible. Or perhaps the electoral college decides to dump it all on its head and radically change their votes. This appears to be legal, but I rather doubt if they would be so bold as to do that. Perhaps this isn’t about the Presidential election at all, but is actually a last minute, desperate effort to gain another seat or two in Congress. I don’t think the recount includes congressional seats, but perhaps it does and this might be a reasonable strategy.

None of this seems to make sense or align with logic or tradition. It appears that he either believes what he is saying, or there is some much deeper, and probably more disruptive, reason for putting on the charade. Since there seems to be a LOT of republican politicians supporting this process I assume there is a deeper reason that has nothing whatsoever with Trump winning the election. I wonder what that might be, it isn’t obvious to me – but the possibility is certainly worrisome. Perhaps it is all about keeping his power during the “lame duck” period so he can make appointments, laws, and pardons that would be impossible in a normal transition period. What is happening “behind the curtain”?

I am wondering what is up. Does the President really think he won except for widespread election fraud? If so, that means one of two things, (1) he knows something that we don’t and there really is widespread fraud or (2) he is actually insane. I don’t think he or anyone else thinks there is widespread fraud.

I just read an interesting update on what to do about covid-19. Most we have all heard about, some are new to me. First, 10-ft of separation outside is closer to correct than 6-ft for protection. The virus lives on metal and hard surfaces for 12 hours, 6-12 hours on cloth – wash hands often. Drink warm water (no ice) every 15 minutes, it washes the virus into your stomach. Self-test every morning by taking a deep breath and holding your breath for 10 seconds. If you can do it without coughing or discomfort you are probably OK. Runny nose is the cold (of course you might have covid too). – Oops. Sorry folks, got caught by fake news once again. The self test part is not true. Apparently none of it is true. It is all fake news distributed in a form that looked “authentic” enough to convince me into accepting it without checking further. Apparently that is no longer a viable practice – no matter what, or how “obvious” or “correct” it might seem. Sorry about that.

My understanding is that there is no safe distance indoors, and more like 20 feet outdoors – based upon the way air moves and small particles move in air. The thing that I have never heard is how large of a “particle” is required to carry a dangerous load of virus – it appears that small enough to be an aerosol, which means it does not stop moving or “drop out” of the air. They are suspended and move VERY fast and for a long distance.