20200722

Wed Jul 22 06:00:01 EDT 2020 ======================================== Slept from eleven to six. Mostly cloudy in the morning then becoming partly cloudy in the afternoon. A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 80s. West winds 5 to 10 mph. Twenty-five-minute walk in the morning. Overcast. Saw a pair of pigeons and lots of mushrooms. Still construction on Thirteen Mile, with all east-bound lanes closed. Work ---------------------------------------- - Create Entrata users for phase four migration Done. - Close old work orders for phase four properties Done. - Follow up on incorrect Dell invoice Done. - Work on Go utility for lockbox No. - Have FL swap out their router No. Sound of cicadas at mid day. Got derailed doing mail searches in the afternoon. Home ---------------------------------------- - Meditate at lunch? Done, for a few minutes. - Pixel art No. When I was walking this morning, wind chimes reminded me of the clay(?) wind chimes we hand on the porch at Fairview. Thought how I can't ask Dad about them. People talk about a PalmPilot or the Internet or Google being an external brain. When somebody dies — somebody who's know you for a long time — it effectively a loss of memory for those left behind. https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/research-in-conversation/how-live-happy-life/michael-plant# > If we want to be happier, I think the first place to start is looking at the available options and then working out which to pursue. The way I see it, there are only three avenues to take. We can change how we think, how we spend our time, or the external facts of our life. > > If you look at what people actually do to be happier, it seems nearly everyone tries to change the external facts: we try to become richer, thinner, more successful, to find a better house in a nicer area, and so on. A few of us think about trying to spend less time working, and more time on hobbies or with friends and family. Almost no one thinks about actively retraining the way they think. In fact, I don’t think this last one even crosses most of our minds. > > However, looking at the latest research on happiness, I think we basically get this the wrong way around: it seems much easier to become happier by changing how you think or spend your time, and actually quite hard to increase it by becoming rich and successful. I’ll explain why I’ve picked these in a moment, but my top practical suggestions are: > > 1. Write down three things you’re grateful for each day. > 2. Practise mindfulness. > 3. Learn about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and use it. > 4. Track your happiness, then do more of what you like and less of what you don’t. > […] we should fight our intuitions about what we expect would make us happy because they mislead us. Our external circumstances have a surprisingly limited effect because we adapt and stop paying attention to them. If you’re already earning £35,000 then earning more won’t make you any happier day-to-day (although it will make you feel more satisfied with your life). > > Instead, my advice is to change how you think and spend your time. In terms of changing how you think, I’d suggest Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and positive psychology. For those unfamiliar with them, the basic ideas are that CBT teaches people to understand their thoughts and stop negative thinking patterns, MBSR helps people accept, rather than fight, negative emotions and so reduce the suffering they cause, and positive psychology trains people to find more positive emotions, such as by encouraging people to be grateful. > > Mindfulness is starting to become popular, but the other two are basically unknown. I really hope this changes: given how good we are at adapting these look like the best options for becoming happier over the long term. In just a few minutes a day, you can rewire the way your brain works. From the book Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland: > The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. > > His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”. > > Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. US tests / positive results (higher is better, ideally dozens): 10 12 12 10 12 12 12 12 12 11 12 12 13 12 11 (today) 3-day avg: 11 11 12 12 12 US new deaths: 897 → 867 → 854 → 757 → 476 → 327 → 736 → 855 → 977 → 951 → 872 → 523 → 365 → 1024 → 1126 (today) 3-day avg: 873 520 856 782 838 MI tests / positive results (higher is better, ideally dozens): 36 46 37 40 54 41 31 33 29 40 41 54 42 34 45 (today) 3-day avg: 40 45 31 45 40 MI new deaths: 11 → 9 → 14 → 28 → 1 → 7 → 5 → 4 → 18 → 7 → 9 → 2 → 7 → 9 → 6 (today) 3-day avg: 11 12 9 6 7 Oakland county new deaths: 0 → 0 → 0 → 0 → 3 → 1 → 0 → 0 → 2 → 0 → 2 → 0 → 0 → 0 → 0 (today) 3-day avg: 0 1 1 1 0 Beaumont 06/18: COVID-19 patients: 117; COVID-19 ICU patients: 57; all patients bed occupancy: 72% Beaumont 06/22: COVID-19 patients: 122; COVID-19 ICU patients: 56; all patients bed occupancy: 64% Beaumont 06/25: COVID-19 patients: 123; COVID-19 ICU patients: 51; all patients bed occupancy: 71% Beaumont 06/29: COVID-19 patients: 121; COVID-19 ICU patients: 49; all patients bed occupancy: 66% Beaumont 07/02: COVID-19 patients: 137; COVID-19 ICU patients: 61; all patients bed occupancy: 72% Beaumont 07/06: COVID-19 patients: 115; COVID-19 ICU patients: 45; all patients bed occupancy: 61% Beaumont 07/13: COVID-19 patients: 139; COVID-19 ICU patients: 49; all patients bed occupancy: 68% Beaumont 07/16: COVID-19 patients: 179; COVID-19 ICU patients: 56; all patients bed occupancy: 71% Beaumont 07/20: COVID-19 patients: 174; COVID-19 ICU patients: 53; all patients bed occupancy: 60% HCC Region 2 North 07/06: in critical 45, on ventilators 35, inpatients 78 HCC Region 2 North 07/07: in critical 43, on ventilators 32, inpatients 82 HCC Region 2 North 07/09: in critical 36, on ventilators 33, inpatients 96 HCC Region 2 North 07/13: in critical 38, on ventilators 39, inpatients 119 HCC Region 2 North 07/15: in critical 44, on ventilators 31, inpatients 132 HCC Region 2 North 07/17: in critical 45, on ventilators 31, inpatients 126 HCC Region 2 North 07/20: in critical 45, on ventilators 42, inpatients 135 HCC Region 2 North 07/21: in critical 55, on ventilators 45, inpatients 151 HCC Region 2 North 07/22: in critical 49, on ventilators 41, inpatients 144 Servings: grains 8/6, fruit 1/4, vegetables 3/4, dairy 3/2, meat 2/3, nuts 0/0.5 Brunch: cucumber, apple, coffee Lunch: egg and avocado wrap, carrots Afternoon snack: Dinner: chips, macaroni and cheese -31 131/71

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