Teal Hat Hacker

COVID-19 A Rational Perspective

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

COVID-19 - An epidemic of body and mind. Practical steps to optimise for health.

COVID-19: Probably not the End, but a Warning

TLDR

First I’d like to summarise what can be done to maximise for our health and the ones we care about:

Apply Common Sense! As in any situation, common sense can help in a whole lot of situations such as this.
DO NOT panic! Panicking in any situation that is a threat in any way does not help and is mostly counter-productive. In fact, studies have shown that happy and relaxed people are usually healthier and our best bet in the worst case, where 2% of the whole population is wiped out, is to boost our immune system. Our minds are powerful things and a positive attitude can work wonders.
Wash your hands more often and properly! This is the easiest, practical thing that we can do to slow down spread. You do not need hand-sanitiser unless it is available anyway.
Shower at least once a day and after uncertain exposure.
Other personal hygiene is also important. Ensure you clean after yourself in kitchens and bathrooms.
DO NOT stock up on items such as food and medical supplies! This may cause more problems than it solves. Hospitals and other medical centres need it more than you! Food supply and essentials will need to keep being supplied, even in worse situations than this. We won’t be starved and actually make it less likely if we just keep buying as normal.
MINIMISE MOVEMENT BETWEEN groups! It is fine to see the people you care about most. This is good for morale and can actually boost your immune system (see above). BUT try to avoid unnecessary gatherings, such as conferences or other work-outings. If your work is non-essential to have you physically present, such as most desk jobs, try to work out how you can effectively work from home. We want to avoid economic depression at some cost, but not cost of life. This means that essential services need to still move between groups. These are people such as medical staff and essential items such as food supply staff.

Auf Deutsch

Covid-19 scheint jetzt ein Virus zu sein, den wir alle oder die meisten von bekommen werden. Das Beste worauf wir hoffen können ist Herdenimmunität, was passiert wenn wir eine kleine Dosis des Virus abbekommen und unser Immunsystem reagiert. Das heißt keine Panik machen sondern persönliche Hygiene einhalten: Hände waschen, oft benutzte Dinge desinfizieren, usw. Ein ca 3.3m Abstand von einem infizierten, der niest ist genug, um höchstwahrscheinlich nicht angesteckt zu werden, auch ohne andere Schutzmassnahmen. GANZ WICHTIG: Auch wenn man glaubt, dass man selbst nicht gefährdet ist, müssen wir versuchen Ansteckung zu vermieden, um die Epidemie zu verlangsamen. Wir können natürlich Nahrungsmittelverteilung usw. nicht anhalten, also Vorräte kaufen bringt nichts und bringt nur Chaos in die Supermärkte. Wahrscheinlich mindestens 98% von uns werden überleben, es ist also selbst im schlimmsten Fall für uns jüngere keine Lebensgefahr. Aber wir wollen natürlich auch unsere älteren und ganz jungen nicht verlieren und eine Verzögerung des Verlaufs erhöht die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer größeren Überlebensgruppe. Lasst euch von den Medien keine Angst einflößen. Glück und Entspannung verbessern das Immunsystem. Treibt Sport, hört auf zu rauchen und wäscht eure Hände richtig und einmal öfter.

Diagnosis and Other Information

Virus Detection:

The simplest way to distinguish Coronavirus from a Common Cold is that the COVID-19 infection does not cause a cold nose or cough with cold, but it does create a dry and rough cough.

The virus is typically first installed in the throat causing inflammation and a feeling of dryness. This symptom can last between 3 and 4 days.

The virus typically then travels through the moisture present in the airways, goes down to the trachea and installs in the lungs, causing pneumonia that lasts about 5 or 6 days.

Pneumonia manifests with a high fever and difficulty breathing. The Common Cold is not accompanied, but there may be a choking sensation. In this case, the doctor should be called immediately.

Experts suggest doing this simple verification every morning: Breathe in deeply and hold your breath for 10 seconds. If this can be done without coughing, without difficulty, this shows that there is no fibrosis in the lungs, indicating the absence of infection. It is recommended to do this control every morning to help detect infection.

Prevention:

The virus hates heat and dies if it is exposed to temperatures greater than 80°F (27°C). Therefore hot drinks such as infusions, broths or simply hot water should be consumed abundantly during the day. These hot liquids kill the virus and are easy to ingest.

Avoid drinking ice water or drinks with ice cubes.

Ensure that your mouth and throat are always wet, never DRY. You should drink a sip of water at least every 15 minutes. WHY? Even when the virus enters water or other liquids through the mouth, it will get flushed through the oesophagus directly into the stomach where gastric acids destroy the virus. If there is not enough water, the virus can pass into the trachea and from there to the lungs, where it is very dangerous.

For those who can, sunbathe. The Sun’s UV rays kill the virus and the vitamin D is good for you.

The Coronavirus has a large size (diameter of 400-500 nanometers) so face masks can stop it, no special face masks are needed in daily life.

If an infected person sneezes near us, stay 10 feet (3.3 meters) away to allow the virus fall to the ground and prevent it from falling on you.

When the virus is on hard surfaces, it survives about 12 hours, therefore when hard surfaces such as doors, appliances, railings, etc. are touched, hands should be washed thoroughly and/or disinfected with alcoholic gel

The virus can live nested in clothes and tissues between 6 and 12 hours. Common detergents can kill it. Things that cannot be washed should be exposed to the Sun and the virus will die.

The transmission of the virus usually occurs by direct infection, touching fabrics, tissues or materials on which the virus is present.

Washing your hands is essential.

The virus survives on our hands for only about 10 minutes. In that time many things can happen, rubbing the eyes, touching the nose or lips. This allows the virus to enter your throat. Therefore, for your good and the good of all, wash your hands very often and disinfect them.

You can gargle with disinfectant solutions (i.e. Listerine or Hydrogen Peroxide) that eliminate or minimize the amount of virus that can enter the throat. Doing so removes the virus before it goes down to the trachea and then to the lungs.

Disinfect things touched often: cellphone, keyboard, mouse, car steering wheel, door handles, etc

Comments by Prof. Dr. Cord Heuer (Epidemiologist)

As accurate as clinical signs can be. I’d go with this description, it is easy to understand and follow, in Europe the diagnosis is made by ‘dry cough without other respiratory signs’. Not highly specific but accurate enough I’d say. Nice summary you sent!

… WORK IN PROGRESS

Study Computer Science at Massey University - Palmerston North

Wed, 03 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Massey University, Palmerston North offers an excellent learning experience for computing related subjects, such as Computer Science. I have the privilege to have been able to study with some top quality lecturers there and later on work with MUPN CS through Landcare Research.

A letter to Massey University

Dear Chancellor,

As I have been told by one of my lecturers, Assoc. Prof. Jens Dietrich, Massey University is considering shutting down the Computer Science department in Palmerston North.

I was shocked to hear this, because I have been involved with the department since my early days at university in 2002. Massey University, Palmerston North is a great campus with many attractive facilities. It is attractive for any student, because money does not come easy for many who are studying and Palmerston North is a great place to live affordable, while still having a lot to offer for entertainment for people of any age. Lots of outdoor activity, many pubs and restaurants and a quick connection everywhere. This includes Wellington. While still being able to get to the skiing pistes in 2 hours and 1 hour to the beach, Palmerston North makes it perfect for anyone in need of entertainment of any kind. And have I mentioned that housing and therefore rent are still much more affordable than Auckland and other big cities? As a student every dollar counts and just $10 less rent or for commuting per week can make a massive difference. Yes, I admit, Palmerston North has its downsides when you want to go clubbing and things like that, but given the many pubs, other entertainment facilities and gyms, one might discover there is more to life than night life.

MUPN is also great because it has a beautiful campus, plenty of parking and free buses. I could go on praising the location, but that is not all.

Computer Science is an emerging subject and just vitally important in this day and age. The world could not cope with demand on information services, if it was not for computers. It is an art, a passion and vitally important that New Zealand and any first world country develops capability in this area. Demand for good Computer Science experts is high and supply cannot keep up. Sure, there are online courses and extramural studies one can pursue. However, for me it was very beneficial to also have the human interaction with my lecturers. A university education in any subject is not replaceable by online courses alone. It is an experience that will teach you the skills to learn concepts and then the implementation details become near trivial. Don’t get me wrong, I now do online courses to teach me skills in areas that I need to know. However, the university education was accelerated learning how to get better at learning itself and lecturers specialise on teaching you with direct feedback. Also, the benefits of learning in person do not stop there. You learn to express your questions and feedback in person and learn to work together as a team, in for example the Software Engineering papers. Furthermore, with a university education you can go on to a career in spreading knowledge itself, which is invaluable as a skill. You can go on to do a PhD or go further and even become a professor and contribute to humanity in many ways.

To give more examples rather than speaking in abstract:

Computer Science topics that are taught at Massey University, Palmerston North are of high relevance and the standard is challenging, yet rewarding and top quality. People coming out of MUPN are or have been working at big companies like Oracle on fundamental technologies such as JavaFX (e.g. Johnathan Giles). Every single Computer Science paper that I did at Massey was immensely helpful for my career. Artificial Intelligence is taught by top people like Prof. Stephen Marsland who wrote a reference book on the topic. Excellent lecturers I remember and that are still there are also Ass. Prof. Eva Heinrich, Dr. Catherin McCartin, Dr. Alexei Tretiakov, and last but not least, Dr. Giovanni Moretti.

My involvement with Computer Science at MUPN does not stop there. I have ongoing relationships with people like Dr. Giovanni Moretti and Assoc. Prof. Jens Dietrich. The Capstone Project, led by Jens Dietrich was a key to one of our best software engineers who works for Landcare Research, Tomas B. Behrens. The Capstone Project, which is, what I believe, Software Engineering C was, has always great projects that teach students real world skills in working on a 12 week project to deliver a working product and presentation with tight time-frames and practical experience working on-site, together as a team and has immense quality in terms of product ideas and guidance to students. I know this because I have been attending a few presentations and hired students for summer projects, who attended this class.

Assoc. Prof. Jens Dietrich has been leading this and for me personally has been one of my favourite lecturer, back when I did the paper Algorithms and Data Structures. His clear, to the point and just simple explanations of Computer Science concepts still impress me today.

So, for economic and social-political reasons, I strongly believe, that keeping Computer Science in Palmerston North, is essential to not only Massey University’s but also New Zealand’s prosperity.

Kind regards,

Teal Hat Hacker

PHP5 - Objekt Orientierte Programmierung

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hier Videos über Objekt-Orientierte-Programmierung mit PHP 5. PHP oder PHP Hypertext Pre-processor ist eine Programmiersprache für Hacker von Hackern optimiert fuer Web-Entwicklung.

PHP5 - Objekt Orientierte Programmierung

Slides: PHP5 - Objekt Orientierte Programmierung

PHP ist vielleicht nicht die sauberste und beste Programmiersprache. Aber es ist auf jeden Fall eine, die es wert ist einen zweiten Blick drauf zu werfen.

PHP hat echte OOP und ist eine Scriptsprache, die schnelle Entwicklung erlaubt. Vielleicht hast Du ja Zeit, diese Einfuehrung anzusehen.

PHP5 - Funktionen

Funktionen sind ein wichtiges Konzept in, soweit ich weiß, jeder Programmiersprache. Es ist auf jeden Fall hilfreich, wenn nicht absolut notwendig, Funktionen vom Prinzip her zu verstehen. Ohne sie kann man nicht seht weit kommen.

Blog Post About Blogging

Sun, 22 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, this is a blog post about blogging! In particular about the static CMS Jekyll.

Jekyll is an excellent blogging software which I have just discovered. To my shame, I should have come across it much earlier. It is what can be used on Github to create Github Pages. It’s great because it supports markup/down and various other syntax to write blog posts. So, I can use my favourite text editor (vim) to edit my blog posts. Before, I was using Wordpress, and while Wordpress is great for someone wanting WYSIWYG editing, Jekyll is for the technically minded or someone who is not afraid to use markdown or even markup (HTML).

Also, Jekyll is very user friendly. By user friendly I mean that it gives power to power users. You can do anything you like with it and it becomes a lot easier to write one’s theme. It was near to trivial for me to integrate my own PHP pages and I didn’t have to become an expert in writing extensions for Wordpress, Drupal or another more complicated CMS.

Jekyll generates static pages, which doesn’t only mean that your pages load lightning fast (as fast as your webserver can output them), but also that your website or blog can have static, custom content quite easily.

Another great thing is that it doesn’t have repeated content. You don’t have to repeat the header or anything else, the CMS will generate this for you.

It becomes easier to optimise your website for faster download and a prettier and more professional looking design. Of course, this is not for everyone, but for a web developer it becomes very easy to make a website which has a custom theme or CSS framework and designing the website becomes a lot easier.

You should definitely try out Jekyll if you are a (semi-) professional blogger or if you are not afraid to use a text editor. It can be Notepad. However, the biggest hurdle may be installing it. It took me a while to get everything working the way it is now, but it is well-worth the effort. I think it is still easier than setting up Wordpress with everything customised to your liking.

Wordpress and other blogs can be easily migrated to Jekyll through its plugins. Sure, you have to figure out some DB configuration and load the required dependencies, but migrating my blog was actually a fun task. I didn’t feel like I had to do anything that was mundane, except for changing the author on some posts, because I had used more than one user in Wordpress.

Jekyll is also very secure. Your blog posts are static, so there are no hacks other than breaking into the hosting machine, which is far harder than breaking into an outdated Wordpress and upgrading Wordpress every time a new version comes out is mundane and boring and feels like a chore.

The other great thing is that Jekyll is free and open source. But that’s almost a given nowadays.

Now, go ahead and try it for yourself! Don’t be afraid, I’m not a Ruby guy and I could install it easily. The hardest part was getting Ruby and a plugin installed that I wanted to use, but there are good instructions for that around.

Selling Domains

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 06:05:35 +0000

Because I want to concentrate on development of fewer web applications rather than incept new platforms and realize them, I decided to sell the following domains:

designingright.com
glaslampen.com
glasslamps.eu
inceptyou.com
landcafe-mulmshorn.de
open4geo.com
programmingreference.net
pyramidenlampen.de
pyramidlamps.com
pyramidlamps.net
uinstruct.net
youinstruct.net

Healthy Nudelauflauf - Mmhh

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:06:16 +0000

Today, I'm about to cook something I haven't cooked in quite a while. It's called Gesunder Nudelauflauf (in German - Healthy Pasta Casserole), or better, I just called it that because I couldn't come up with a better name. This is mainly for my own reference, but I thought, I'd share it.

Ingredients:

Carrots (~3-4)
Broccoli (1)
Coliflower (1/2)
Pasta (Pene) (500g)
Tomatoes (2-3)
Feta Cheese (1 pack ~250g)
Grated Cheese (~200g)
Flower (1 tbsp)
Water
Milk (to liking, ~50ml)

The order of making things you can optimise to use the least amount of time.

Boil ~1/2 pot of water put (carrots in first) vegetables cut into pieces. Boil for ~10-15 minutes, depending on whether you want them soft or on the hard side. Add Chicken stock or similar or salt and pepper to liking. Important: keep water content as low as possible and do not get rid of the water after.
Make a "Schwitze" (roux): put some flour (1 tbsp initially) and butter (1 tbsp) into a small pot (preferable) or pan, wait until golden brown, add water from boiled vegetables (to keep the nutrients), add milk until you have a thick soup.
Boil pasta until al dente with salt to liking.
After vegetables are ready, put them into a casserole dish, put unboiled tomatoes and feta cut into pieces over. Add pasta and finish with the "Schwitze" on top. Add grated cheese on top.
Put into oven at 200 degrees (centigrade) for 30-45 minutes (check).

Voila! You should have made a reasonably healthy pasta casserole. Please comment if it works out well. :-)

My VIM Settings

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 04:25:48 +0000

Here my vim Settings.

# ~/.vimrc
set ignorecase
set tabstop=2
set shiftwidth=2
set autoindent
set expandtab
imap <c-space> <c-x><c-o>
autocmd FileType php set omnifunc=phpcomplete#CompletePHP
autocmd FileType css set omnifunc=csscomplete#CompleteCSS
autocmd FileType javascript set omnifunc=javascriptcomplete#CompleteJS
autocmd FileType html set omnifunc=htmlcomplete#CompleteTags
autocmd FileType php set omnifunc=phpcomplete#CompletePHP
autocmd FileType css set omnifunc=csscomplete#CompleteCSS

http://shang-liang.com/blog/using-vim-as-actionscript-editor/

Teal Hat Hacker Resume

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:13:56 +0000

Please view at Teal Hat Hacker Curriculum Vitae

Manawatu Jazz Club Big Band Concert - Christmas Club Day

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 04:31:22 +0000

It's time for the yearly Christmas concert of the Manawatu Jazz Club Big Band.

It's on

Sunday 12th December 4:30pm
@ the ANZAC Lounge RSA on Broadway

Featuring

Johnny McCormick
and
The Manawatu Jazz Club Big Band

With
Vocalists
Erna Ferry & Meri Hammi

This is the Annual MJC Big Band Benefit Concert to thank them for their valuable contribution through the year... take some time out from the Christmas rat race and bring lots of friends.

Members $10, non members $15, Secondary School Students $5
Meals & Full Bar Service
~All Welcome~

Big Band Jazz Concert - 12/09/2010

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:38:27 +0000

On Sunday 12/09/2010 at 4.30pm there is a concert of the Manawatu Jazz Club Big Band at the Masonic Hotel, which I am part of. I will be playing at least one solo, so be prepared, whatever that means :)

There might be a small cover charge, however last time it was not compulsory.

Hope to see you there. If you are into Jazz it is well worth the visit. We often have high quality singers and we are generally well accepted.