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Texas Jeff

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  1. Video from Abbott's presser today: https://www.c-span.org/video/?473118-1/texas-governor-abbott-coronavirus-news-conference He said we are having record cases but you have to look behind the numbers. Lots of prisoners have tested positive for COVID, some counties have made math errors, and lots of cases have come from retirement homes or other communal gathering areas. He was speaking words but it sounded like he was whistling past the graveyard. Hays County is going to put up a big number today, following a few days of zeros. He said people under thirty were not social distancing, thus contributing to the spread. He asked everyone to wash their hands, wear a mask, and keep at a distance from others. From the hospital numbers, it looked to me like the numbers can get maybe 4x worse before we start stacking sick people where they shouldn't be stacked. So the numbers can double, and then double again, and sometime around there we are full.
  2. If you've updated your phone since around mid-May, you already have the technology in your pocket to do mostly automatic contact tracing. If we all turned it on and we had the correct app for the health authorities to use, contract tracing would be as simple as pushing a button on a phone of someone who tests positive and everyone who was near that person for too long would get a message saying that they might have been exposed. I am amazed that we are not pushing ahead with this as fast as possible. States are refusing to use this technology and instead going with manual contact tracing. Do you remember the names and phone numbers of everyone you stood near for too long at HEB a week ago? No? Maybe because you never met them? Your phone met their phone, or at least it could have. I understand there are privacy concerns (or maybe, Apple and Google's system provides too much privacy) but the numbers are rising and we have the technology on hand to make a dent, we just are choosing not to use it. We can't even opt in to voluntarily joining a national system, because the system today requires a public health authority to release an app to cover an area, and most states have decided not to do that.
  3. The song was written by one guy at the prompting of another guy and sang by four members of the Glee Club, plus the guy who wrote it on banjo. The same guy who wrote the song also wrote a poem in March, two months before the show -- a precursor to what would be the song. It talks about the "myriad eyes of Texas" and ends by saying that Texans' eyes are "Vandyke brown, vermillion, Sepia, Prussian blue, Ivory black and crimson lac, And eyes of every hue." In the poem, he tried to cover everyone, even with a blanket line at the end in case he forgot someone's eye color. Isn't that what we are trying to do? Do we give Sinclair any points for putting diversity in his poem? So, let me tweak the song using words from the poem, but the same melody: The Eyes of Texas are upon you, All the livelong day. The eyes of Texas are upon you, They’re with you all the way. Sing me a song of Texas, And Texas’ myriad eyes Countless as the bright stars That fill the midnight skies. All of those words are from the original poem. The sentiment of the song changes, for me, to mean that Texans are watching you but they are behind you. If we need more tweaks to the wording let's talk about it, but you can build the lines above from the original poem. The poem existed in March, before the show, and has probably never been performed, in blackface or not. I can't change the fact that it comes from the source melody and probably neither could Sinclair, since he stole tunes for both of his song attempts. A&M stole "Goodbye my Coney Island Baby" for their song, so it happens. I also can't change the similarity to the Robert E Lee quote, but I can point out that Sinclair was making fun of the quote derived from the quote. Can we take what we have and work together to make it inclusive?
  4. Not sure if it matters, but the Eyes debuted in 1903 and the Texas Cowboys apparently were founded in 1922. They didn't exist at the time of the show.
  5. Stage 3: Gently suggest that Gov. Abbott help us. Stage 4: Gently suggest that Gov. Abbott help us, but with a bit more emphasis and a more urgent tone. Seriously, 20 admits (maybe per day?) over a rolling 7 day period was the trigger they were worried about last week that would eventually saturate our hospitals. At the time the number was 13.
  6. Here's a picture from the Austin ISD police department of some of their vehicles, I always though this was a little excessive for a school police department:
  7. Longhorn Band has a history of the Eyes of Texas posted here: https://longhornband.org/school-and-fight-songs/ The short version is that in 1902, Lewis Johnson, a UT tuba player, wanted to have an original song for the students of Texas. He asked John Lang Sinclair, another band member, to write a song just for Texas. Sinclair's first attempt was called “Jolly Students of the ‘Varsity'” and he ripped off music from "Jolly Students of America" for the song. Oh, the day was made for study, but the night for mirth and song; Let us all go down together, all you fellows come along. What’s the use to grind and cram for ev’ry little term exam? If the Prof intends to bust me, let him bust me as I am! For we are jolly students of the ‘Varsity, the ‘Varsity! We are a merry, merry crew. We’ll show the chief of all policemen who we are Rah! Rah! Rah! Down on the Avenue. And ev’ry day you find us in the classroom or the hall. You’ll find us on the campus and we’ll hear you when you call. We’ll hear you when you call, but when night begins to fall, You’ll seek in vain because we’re not anywhere at all! For we are jolly students of the ‘Varsity, the ‘Varsity! We are a merry, merry crew. And almost everyone who sees us says we are Rah! Rah! Rah! The best they ever knew. It premiered in May of 1902 and it probably sucked, because Johnson asked Sinclair to try again in March of 1903. And this time Sinclair wrote this poem: They watch above you all the day, The bright blue eyes of Texas. At midnight they’re with you all the way, The sleepless eyes of Texas.The Eyes of Texas are upon you, All the livelong day. The eyes of Texas are upon you, They’re with you all the way. They watch you through the peaceful night, They watch you in the early dawn, When from the eastern skies the high light Tells that the night is gone.Sing me a song of Texas, And Texas’ myriad eyes Countless as the bright stars That fill the midnight skies.Vandyke brown, vermillion, Sepia, Prussian blue, Ivory black and crimson lac, And eyes of every hue. This poem was then changed into the song we know as the Eyes of Texas and made into a joke about Prather's use of the phrase "The Eyes of Texas are upon you" when talking to the students. It debuted at the minstrel show in May with these lyrics: I once did know a President A way down South, in Texas. And, always, everywhere he went, He saw the Eyes of Texas. The Eyes of Texas are upon you, All the livelong day. The Eyes of Texas are upon you, You cannot get away. Do not think you can escape them At night or early in the morn – The Eyes of Texas are upon you Til Gabriel blows his horn.Sing me a song of Prexy, Of days long since gone by. Again I seek to greet him, And hear his kind reply. Smiles of gracious welcome Before my memory rise, Again I hear him say to me, “Remember Texas’ Eyes.” The article has a bit more history, but that's some additional background on the origin.
  8. Ask the same folks if they are ok requiring pants to be worn in public. Lots of people just don't want to wear pants .... too much communist government control ... it's too hot for pants ... what if I have to go and I've got these darn pants in the way. Freedom man, feel the breeze.... I see my time has expired....
  9. The left axis is logarithmic, which is making the top line look basically flat.
  10. The Statesman is reporting that implementing Project Connect will require about a 25% rise in your City of Austin tax bill. So, take your property tax bill and add 25% to the City of Austin portion to determine what this might cost you annually in taxes.
  11. I predict they will switch to something derived from their phone silicon, maybe an ARM CPU paired with a GPU. They will start with the lowest end MacBooks and work their way up from there. It makes it easier to develop MacOS and iOS and it will cut cost out of the Mac lineup. I think you'll see low end Windows laptops that are essentially the same thing. Essentially your laptop is becoming a big phone.
  12. Texas's antibody tests so far have shown about 4% positive. That number has been flat over the past few weeks. Keep in mind that the population is somewhat self-selected. You have to have the desire and time to get a test, the knowledge of where to get it, and maybe the money to pay for the test. Or maybe you were having another medical procedure so you were tested. Only about 1 in 260 people in Texas have had an antibody test and maybe 2-3 thousand people per day are getting antibody tests in Texas. Also some are saying the test may not be accurate. So, the current answer is 4%. In my non-scientific opinion, there has not been enough random testing with a proven test in a large enough population to draw conclusions.
  13. Travis County's website shows a breakdown by zip code and shows an ethnic breakdown of who is in the hospital. Since April, the percentage of hospitalized that are Hispanic has risen and the number of cases in poorer zip codes is larger than counts in wealthier areas. North Austin, south/southeast Austin, and Pflugerville have the largest counts. If that is true, then cases may be rising among folks that have to do physical labor to survive. They are also the least able to afford masks or have healthcare. A positive test means no work, which means no money. We aren't set up as a society to give this population paid time off to let the virus burn out, and they are choosing to work and take their chances with COVID. If we could magically change the world tomorrow so that a positive test resulted in an automatic two week paid vacation for anyone, I think we would see the spread slow below the 1.0 rate and cases start to drop to zero.
  14. Trump finally got his wall, just not in the original intended location:
  15. About 4% of the antibody tests done so far in Texas have come back positive. That does not mean 4% of Texans have been exposed, it just means that 4% of those with access and desire to get tested have had a positive result. That result is too low for us to be anywhere near herd immunity. It would be nice if our health care folks were randomly testing people for antibodies so that we can get some idea of how many people might have been exposed.
  16. Ship floating in calm water -- feed good. Ship being blasted by space rocket falling from the sky -- feed bad. Ship no longer being blasted -- feed good. It is possible there is some correlation ... they need another camera some distance away.
  17. Just a guess -- Fauci and Birx told him that yelling blows the corona off the mic -- they're now masked up somewhere in the White House laughing their asses off.
  18. here's what I think I know, but I'm not an expert: It's the first manned launch for this platform, which I think is the first new launch platform since the Space Shuttle in 1982. This gives us the ability to send people to space from our own soil, something we lost when the shuttle was retired. Before this, they flew similar equipment on the Crew Dragon Demo-1 flight, but it travelled unmanned to the space station. Then they had another test flight to prove the emergency escape systems would work. The important step for this flight, named Crew Dragon Demo-2, is to add a two-person crew. There is another flight planned for August called USCV-1, similar mission to this flight except with a full four person crew instead of a two-person crew. After these first flights, there will be more to ferry people to and from the ISS. Boeing is also developing a capsule similar to SpaceX's Dragon for similar missions. The long term plan is to return to the Moon, relearn what we knew how to accomplish circa 1973, and eventually plan a trip to Mars.
  19. C-SPAN2 is showing it. Channel 226 on Spectrum in Austin.
  20. rt.live now has Texas leading the nation. According to them, our R number has risen from 0.83 on April 5th to 1.09 now and we are #1! Texas is one of only five states over 1.0.
  21. Notice that she's standing in the back and not seated in the press area. She's not part of the normal press coverage, she is just standing behind them so that she can be called on to offer up the friendly question of the day. Then the question gets answered with prepared stuff and the press secretary exits stage left.
  22. Forget it, he’s rolling...
  23. Some elementary schools in Austin are around 200 kids in a school built for maybe 600. For example, on the east side you have Sanchez (268 kids) and Metz (212 kids) being combined. Right now all of the kids are at Metz while they build a new Sanchez Elementary from the ground up. Sanchez and Metz are about seven blocks apart. After they build the new school, all of the kids will end up at Sanchez with room to spare. Metz will close, saving maintenance cost on the building. Zavala Elementary, which is four blocks from Metz, will remain open. Class sizes K-4 are limited to 22 or fewer kids, so class sizes will not go up until the 5th grade.
  24. I was referring to the original plan, which was much more of a re-org. I think maybe 12 schools were involved but I can't remember. There was push back and the list was cut down to just four schools. There was a lot of push back against that change. It is really hard to close a school. BTW, I totally support the modernization efforts and I will vote for bonds to support improving Austin ISD schools. They need a lot of work and in many cases, a do-over. There is an issue of under enrolled schools and a lack of efficiency in keeping a building open with low enrollment, especially when it is old and expensive to maintain.
  25. The majority of losses are in the eco-dis population, to charters and suburbs. Austin ISD's student population is becoming smaller but wealthier. Not as wealthy as the western suburbs, but it is changing. Declining enrollment could be managed by school consolidation into modernized schools, but they tried that last fall and backed off after the public complained. Right now they have too many buildings that are too old and it's politically difficult to change. Frisco ISD operates about 70 schools for about 60,000 students. Austin ISD operates 129 schools for about 81,000 students.
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