I’ve been looking over Mike Hoerger’s Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative - Data Tracker which estimates and projects daily new COVID cases in the US based on wastewater levels. I think it’s pretty accessible and makes it more obvious how risky it actually is out there.

From the 2023-12-04 report, we’re at an estimated 1.2 million new cases per day. About 1 in 38 people are infectious. In a group of 10 people, there’s a 23% chance anyone is infectious. This is more transmission than during 88.9% of the pandemic. The data tracker link above has a video where he explains the methodology for these numbers.

Wastewater levels are rising as we head into yet another winter surge even earlier this year. Let’s keep each other safe out there by wearing well-fitting respirators, filtering the air, improving ventilation, and staying up to date with our vaccines. 😷💚

Two charts of US SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater Levels, COVID-19 Case Estimates, and 4-week forecast. One chart is for all-time and one is for the last six months. Also shows tables of current estimates, weekly estimates, 2023 cumulative estimates, and 4-week forecasted estimates. Finally, a table shows the % chance anyone is infectious in a group of people based on the number of people.

Image from: Hoerger, M. (2023, December 4). U.S. SARS-CoV-2 wastewater levels, COVID-19 case estimates, and 4-week forecast: Report for December 4, 2023. Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative. https://www.pmc19.com/data


In reply to: https://sarajaksa.eu/2023/12/the-chicken-egg-problem-of-movie-microformats/

I don’t think the watch-of property has to be geared towards internet videos. The URL can be the video you’re actually watching, like on YouTube, or something that represents what you watched, like Wikipedia. That link doesn’t need to be canonical, either. For example, a corollary with my event posts (example) is that I link the location to a venue page on my site where I publish the venue information with an h-card.

If there is no meaningful URL to link to, it’s possible to use p-watch-of instead and just mark up the title. In either case, I think the title of what was watched will be the most important for consumers, at least initially. Getting into categorizing (movies, TV, YouTube, etc.) and uniquely identifying titles would be more complex. That complexity might also be part of why we haven’t seen aggregators yet.


Want to read: Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein (ISBN 9780374610326)


RSVP interested to Author Meets BookTok: Sim Kern and Rashid Khalidi on “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine”

I want to attend, but it’s early Pacific time so might not make it. It says it will be recorded, though, so hopefully available afterwards.



@fromjason@mastodon.social Hi, yes, hello, the line “the web that screamed in horror when summoned through a land line” in the footer of your site is fantastic.


I don’t post about it often, but I maintain indiebookclub, an app to help track books you’re reading on your own website. I just set up a new feature for it, a year in review page: indiebookclub.biz/review/2023



Marching band but make it techno: youtube.com/watch?v=dlFrI8_Orys


Alright, Geico is frustrating me to no end. They 110% do not let you get to talk to a human on the phone and their site doesn't tell me anything about my pending auto policy. Anyone have better auto insurance recommendations for California?


Today is International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. I learned of the collective Publishers for Palestine and the Free Palestine Reading List they’ve organized, encouraging people to read books by Palestinians. This week they have more than 30 e-books available for free. Check it out!


In reply to: https://social.coop/@hollie/111473928560229185

Oh nice, I didn’t realize you had seen some of it before. How far along did you get?



In reply to: https://social.coop/@hollie/111473115530847835

Ooh, it is delightful! Starting with the revived era (2005 series 1, Eccleston as the Doctor) is great and where I would usually recommend, but Tennant in series 2 is a huge fan favorite so you could jump in there too.

I really love the whole arc of series 1-4. Hope you enjoy it!


In reply to: https://bsky.app/profile/twoslashes.com/post/3kevvi5ezxs2r

“We are never, ever, ever going swimming together”


This is a really empathetic and encouraging post urging event organizers to improve events with better Health and Safety policies: An event organizer’s duty of care: from Codes of Conduct to Health and Safety policies

Consider sharing it and the corresponding publichealthpledge.com with any events you might attend. Like @josh@josh.tel wrote, “Don’t let anyone convince you we can’t do better. We can, and will.”



I rarely dream in my sleep (or remember them at least) but when I do, of course it’s something absolutely unhinged like I’m hanging off the side of a big boat and my feet hit Taylor Swift as she was swimming in the water. At least I apologized to her.


Bookmarked: longcovidmoonshot.com

WHAT WE WANT:

  • Invest in a moonshot for Long Covid – a commitment to invest at least $1B per year over the next 10 years into NIH research funding and clinical trials.
  • Back the Long COVID Support Act (S. 2560), TREAT Long COVID Act (HR 3258), and Long COVID RECOVERY NOW Act (HR 1114).

Fix: Adobe Digital Editions Not Recognizing the Nook

This might only help two people out there, but I was one of them, so hey.

I ran into an issue where Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) software was not recognizing my Nook Glowlight 4 ebook reader. I’ve previously transferred several library ebooks using ADE, but this time I started getting the error “Loan token update failed” when I tried to open the book. I searched that error message and found this Overdrive help page.

That page explains how to reset the ADE authorization on the Nook by connecting with USB, deleting the Nook folder .adobe-digital-editions, then trying ADE again. The instructions seem to imply ADE will then automatically find the device and authorize it again. I was nervous so I backed up the folder before deleting it. Unfortunately, ADE stopped seeing the device entirely.

I tried several things including restoring that Nook folder and the two files in it (activation.xml, device.xml), rebooting the Nook, re-authorizing ADE on my computer, etc.

Finally, I was poking around the Nook settings and found it has its own section to enter your Adobe ID and password. I had forgotten about this, but it started to make sense: entering those probably creates the signed files in the .adobe-digital-editions folder. Then ADE uses that to recognize the device since both have the same Adobe ID.

So my recommended steps for the Nook Glowlight 4 would be:

  1. In ADE, go to Help > Authorization Information. The authorization window should pop up and show what Adobe ID you used to authorize the computer. If the option is grayed out, you’ll need to authorize the computer first.
  2. On the Nook, go to Settings > My Account > Adobe DRM Settings
  3. Make sure that the same Adobe ID from ADE is listed under Authorized Adobe IDs. If it isn’t, tap Add Adobe ID and enter the Adobe ID and password.
  4. Re-open ADE and it should display the Nook in the device list now

If ADE still does not recognize the device or if the Adobe ID already appears in the list in step 3, only then would I recommend trying Overdrive’s instructions to delete the folder (“Reset the ADE folder on your NOOK”). After deleting that folder, try my steps again to add back the Adobe ID.

Again, this is specific to the Nook Glowlight 4, but it might work with other versions. Note that transferring ebooks to the Nook Glowlight Plus has different directions. I don’t have any experience with that device, though.