ITHCWY Newsletter for April 2021

Some changes to the ITHCWY coronavirus visualization page.
For reasons that I'm struggling to understand California's cap and trade system adds a discount to my energy bill.
Catfood WebCamSaver 3.24 released.
Previously:
- 2020: Using the Azure Monitor REST API from Google Apps Script
- 2019: Improving the accuracy of the new Catfood Earth clouds layer
- 2018: How does the Nest Learning Thermostat work?
Related Posts
Coronavirus Visualization Update
I've just made a few changes to my daily Coronavirus Visualization post.
The daily version is now based on seven day moving averages. This helps with the rate at which different regions report statistics and makes the animation a but easier to follow. The shading is based on the difference between the average yesterday and the average for the previous day (i.e. today it's the increase from April 17 - 23 to April 18 - 24).
Population scaling is now different between the daily and cumulative versions. Daily frames are scaled to the worst recorded case and death increase for that region. Cumulative frames are scaled to the cumulative highest case and death levels, but each region is scaled by population so the highest level is on a per capita basis not an absolute total. For the US animation this uses 2019 estimates from the US Census Bureau. The global animation the figures are 2018 World Bank estimates.
Finally the frame rate for videos has increased to 24fps from 5fps.
The post Visualizing Coronavirus Cases and Deaths by Country and US County updates around 8:30am PST every day with images summarizing yesterday and videos that show the course of the pandemic so far.
Related Posts
- Visualizing Coronavirus Cases and Deaths by Country and US County
- Daily Average Global Cloud Cover Animation
- Animation of a year of Global Cloud Cover
- Animation of US PM2.5 Air Pollution in 2023
- Change in Presidential Vote from 2000 to 2020 by US County
(Published to the Fediverse as: Coronavirus Visualization Update #etc #coronavirus ITHCWY coronavirus visualization now includes seven day moving average daily updates and population scaled (per-capita) cumulative videos showing the course of the pandemic. )
Catfood WebCamSaver 3.24

Catfood WebCamSaver 3.24 is available for download. This release includes an update to the default list of webcams.
(Previously: Catfood WebCamSaver 3.21)
Related Posts
Sun Halo
California Climate Credit
Once in a while I'm stupid enough to read my email. This month I'm getting a climate credit! Must have done something right? No:
"The California Climate Credit is part of California’s efforts to fight climate change. This credit is from a state program that requires power plants, natural gas providers, and other large industries that emit greenhouse gases to buy carbon pollution permits. The credit on your bill is your share of the payments from the State’s program."
So... apparently part of fighting climate change is making my energy bill randomly cheaper?
It's hard to think of anything less likely to help. Just as I'm starting to feel the pain of winter bills I'm paying slightly less and so I'm slightly less inclined to turn down the heating or finally do something about my beautiful but effectively absent front windows.
A problem with carbon taxation is that it's regressive. So why not use this money to make the first $xx cheaper, and maybe even charge more at the high end of usage?
Related Posts
- Pandemic Gas Mystery
- Better Rotating Outages
- California 2012 Propositions
- California, I can save you billions with a small and reasonably priced computer program...
- California November 2020 Propositions
(Published to the Fediverse as: California Climate Credit #etc #gas #electricity #climatechange #california Why do I get a California Climate Credit? This is the worst possible way to fight climate change. Do something smarter California! )
Links for April 2021
The New York Times: How Brexit Ruined Easter for Britain’s Chocolate Makers
Interesting that there also seems to be a shortage on British supermarket shelves as well then.
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Easter egg hunt: UK shoppers disappointed by shortages | Easter | The Guardian
Here's the Guardian on the shortage. So British chocolate can't be found in Europe or the UK. Where is it going? Eezy Freezy!
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The story behind Kidlapse
Latest update on Kidlapse.
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Search Engine Roundtable: Google: User Generate Content Products Reviews Will Have A Hard Time Ranking Well
And instead we get affiliate link stuffed fluff pieces?
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The Washington Post: We should soon stop catering to the vaccine holdouts
Yes
Related Posts
ITHCWY Newsletter for March 2021

Spring Equinox 2020 in Catfood Earth
On productivity: Out of Office Hours and why I still love email.
Some Great Horned Owlets.
San Francisco tides animated over the course of one year.
A deep faked me. Just needs hooking up to Teams...
Previously:
- 2020: Backup locked files on Windows 10: Volume Shadow Copy Update
- 2019: Age and Life Expectancy Weighted Voting
- 2018: Facebook shouldn't own your social graph
Related Posts
Book reviews for March 2021
I Love Email

Everyone is always trying to kill email, and it's always because it's a supposed productivity villain and life will be so much easier when we can all live happily in some chat based universe. I've spent enough time in Slack and Teams and their predecessors to know that we should go back before it's too late.
Chat brings you infinite inboxes and no great way to tell which of them is important. Having looked away for a few minutes there are dozens of unread conversations. Some of them are people sharing a photo of their cat. One of them is an emergency requiring immediate attention but good luck finding it without wading through everything.
This brings me to a lack of useful state. I handle email in two quick passes - read everything (and discard anything that doesn't need further attention), deal with anything critical and then at some point go back and mop up the rest. In chat though you just blew past something that needs a response eventually and it fades from your mind as you fight the fire elsewhere. I never miss an email, I often miss a chat.
And good luck finding anything. Maybe a market leader or two will establish dominance for long enough but my experience so far has been lurching from one platform to the next, both professionally and personally, and having a hard time finding that one thing I know should be in there from the end of last year. My Gmail has emails going back to 1996, and yes that's almost a decade before Gmail existed. I can find anything.
On the subject of dominance, the real reason for all of the attempted email homicide is that it's one of the last open systems that everyone still uses. If only email would just die you'll be trapped forever in Messenger and Hangouts.
Updated 2026-01-17 23:10:
Cory Doctorow nails this.
Related Posts
- Fight Facebook with Email
- Why Microsoft is Likely Doomed Based on one Email Folder
- 1,000th Post!
- Bye Skype
- Think before you print?
(Published to the Fediverse as: I Love Email #etc #email #productivity #gmail #slack #teams In the rush to Teams and Slack we're missing the advantages of email, including single inbox, state management and an open protocol. )










