Social Distancing: Day 153 -- A week off-ish

It's been just about 5 months since the start of social distancing. I remember naively thinking towards the beginning of this that it would just blow over in a few weeks, but I also naively assumed that people would take things seriously. And that turned out to be quite wrong. I'm now settled into the idea that the entire academic year will be done primarily in a distance format, and that this has the possibility of running for much longer. One of the big things that I've seen is that the CDC had to reject a statement that implied that there was a 3-month immunity window post-COVID, which means that there's no real evidence of sustained immunity after being infected. I don't want to be excessively pessimistic, but quoting the History Channel's webpage on the 1918 flu pandemic: "By the summer of 1919, the flu pandemic came to an end, as those that were infected either died or developed immunity." If the development of long-term immunity is unlikely, then it's going to be a rather long ride because we're waiting for a pharmaceutical solution rather than having our bodies figure it out for us. However, I saw an article today that herd immunity may be closer than we think, though it acknowledges that there's a lot of guesswork involved. (It also has an ominous sentence warning about the length of time immunity is experienced: "The virus may still flare up here and there, even if its overall spread is stymied. It’s also unclear how long someone who has recovered may be immune, and for how long.") But in any case, I hope people will start getting used to the idea of wearing a mask everywhere, as this is showing itself to be very effective in slowing/reducing the spread, and it's a simple thing to do.

My second course at UNLV just came to a close. I've now got a nice broad foundation in statistical techniques for modeling that I didn't have before, which feels pretty good. It's been a while since I've had to absorb information at such a quick rate, and it's good to know that my brain can still work at that level if I need it to. I've got this week off before the next class (Business Intelligence) starts. That will be my first synchronous online course, so that's new and different. The class meets once a week on Monday evening (7-10 PM) and there are only about 20 students in it. So it's not going to be an unreasonable class size to have actual interactions. The Canvas shell was posted today and the first day's slides are posted. I'm looking forward to the course. I'm in good shape to take it as I've already got SQL and Python experience, but it looks like I'm also going to be picking up Tableau in this class. That’s a good thing, as I’ve tried to self-teach it previously and just didn’t have the mental energy and focus to really take it on.

I’m also one week away from starting my volunteering at the Southern Nevada Health District. I’m only volunteering for 20 hours per week, so I’ll still have lots of time to work on my class and work on my other projects. It sounds like I’ll be going in for maybe a few days and then working from home from that time moving forward. My onboarding is Monday at 8 AM. I still don’t really know what I’ll be doing, but I’ll be talking with the head data scientist on Monday and I’ll find out then. It sounds like they’re excited to have me, but I also get a sense that they really don’t know what to do with me. But that’s okay. Part of the process is for me to get to know how their organization works and lay some groundwork for them to begin to think about what they would do if they started to get student interns. Next Monday will also be the first time since March that I’ve put on my work costume (khakis and a button-up shirt). I’ve grown quite fond of waking up and working in my bed-clothes until 11 or so before getting changed into shorts and a T-shirt. I think once things get rolling, I may only need to dress up for the weekly team meeting on Thursday mornings. Or I may not need to dress up at all. We’ll see if it’s expected to be in video chat for that one or not.

For this week, I’ve got mostly flexible time. I’m going to try to work through some more computer vision stuff and try to do learn more javascript canvas stuff. I’ve got a few different types of video from that camera that I bought, and I’m going to try to run through it to see if I can get it to properly identify motion and then also do some object identification. I doubt I’m going to come close to finishing up that project this week, but I’d really like to try to go a little deeper with it. I’m using Open-CV with Python, which has been easy enough to learn and use so far. For javascript, I’m thinking of just learning some game design basics because I think if I can do that then I can do a lot of what I might want to do. It will give me experience with the basics of drawing and user-interface/interactions. And that’s mostly what I think I’ll need.

Miscellaneous: Thor is fine. He’s mostly recovered from the trauma of the vet and being force-fed medicine. I’m starting to think about getting some sort of birdfeeder to attract some birds to come by the window that he’s always sitting at, but since I’m just starting to think about it only halfway seriously right now, I probably won’t do anything until Spring. I haven’t touched the piano, but am planning to write that into my schedule for the Fall. My indoor garden is growing, and I’m eating the things that are growing, except for the tomatoes. They’re growing, but it’s been a couple months and they haven’t turned red and are kind of small. I don’t know if that’s a temperature thing, but for now I’m just going to let them continue to be there and see what happens. I’ve been using the basil a lot for eggs and pasta. The lettuce has been consumed in miscellaneous applications. At some point, I’m going to try planting something different.