Me, getting a critical opinion on the deck rebuild.

Ever since we moved into our cottage in the forest, there was a small wodden deck in front of the rock wall that limits the property. It is a sunny spot and the rock stores some warmth, so we naturally like to hang out in the garden furniture there. Unfortunately, the deck itself had rotted so much by now that one started to step through the boards.

I had put a temporary fix in place and thought I'd do the proper renovation early next year. But in a bout of restlessness I tore it all down the other week and started over from scratch. And I mean from scratch, starting by cutting some timber into beams and boards. This a manual process using the chainsaw and some improvised rigs to ensure straight cuts.

Having good foundations is imporant, even for such simple construnctions as a 4.5x3m deck. So I put some heavy granite stones into the corners, drilled holes and glued in some hardware with anchoring adhesive. In one corner the rock wall itself stuck out underneath, so could drill straight into the rock - this thing is going nowhere!

Then I put together the frame and oiled it with a traditional mix of tar and linseed oil. In the picture you can see that I had to put in four additional trusses (the yet unpainted ones) because I originally had far too large spacing.

Even though the surface is not very large, cutting all the boards out of tree trunks and straightening the edges with a circular saw took quite a while. Once I had screwed them on, I did not have the energy to think of any advanced stair construction, so it turned out as simple as possible. Still, I am quite happy with how the whole thing turned out:

I recycled the old railing which was in ok shape, just painted it and screwed it onto some feet, so it will be easily replaced, if needed.

What's up, folks? I hope you so far made it safely through the pandemic and its effetcs on everything else!

After my initial spurt of interest in Feburary and March when I followed the situation closely, once everyone was taking it seriously and it became "all hands on deck", I relaxed and left it to the pros. Arm-chair opinions are usually not my thing and keeping in mind a relatively high level of uncertainty about the state of the world is something that I have become familiar with.

Just as one example, it is still open for analysis and debate, whether the Swedish way to handle COVID-19 without a strong lock-down turns out to be good or bad. There are many facets to this and things are complex enough to maintain some modesty in one's opinions and utterances.

I am among the lucky ones that have experienced very little negative impact. Working from home is something I had done weeks at a time for several years. Being isolated comes somewhat naturally to me. Plus, I made a wise decision in the spring, once it became clear that some projects were put on hiatus anyway, to take a temporary partial leave from work. Therefore I have had plenty of time this spring and summer for other things. Mostly forestry, carpentry and wood-working - more on that later! And brewing more tasty beers, of course.

One of the things I dedicated my time to during this summer of isolation was building a small wind shelter in the forest:

It is made from lumber that I cut myself out of trees that were blown down during the winter. From the same material I also built a garden shed and renovated the deck at home.

Working from home is nothing new for me, I have been doing it some weeks at a time for several years. But now that more and more collegues do the same and use teleconferencing tools and apps, I got a small upgrade for my setup: A goose-neck tablet holder, so that it can become a dedicated second screen exclusively for telecons, freeing precious space on the main screen.

Decent video and audio quality are important for collaborating remotely, I believe. And a camera that is positioned such that you look up to it, rather than looking down into, makes a less imposing and awkward image, thereby contributing to a more pleasant atmosphere.

I have updated the plot on the COVID19 page as ususal, and here is a new version of the one that tries to align the cuves with each other by shifting them in time:

This is scary in the sense that many places will probably look like Italy within days. Exponential grows is unintuitive and easily surprises systems and people that function linearly. This video does a great job illustrating the numbers behind an epidemic - highly recommended watch!

There is hope, of course, and the dire situation in Italy need not be a prediction for the rest of the world. This is because we already have an example of a large outbreak that was brought under control: What South Korea does works! They report a declining number of new cases and have tested 3.6‰ of their population, more than any other country.

Social distancing is a major tool in this effort, more on this in this Twitter thread.

Mellofinalen gick av stapeln igår i Stockholm trots allt. Jag hoppas att jag har fel men jag skulle bli förvånad om det inte bli ett synligt uppsving av COVID19-fall om några dagar. Om inte antalet redan har ökat så mycket då att det inte längre syns i statistiken alltså.

Jag följer noga ett internationellt gäng smarta och kunniga människor på Twitter; epidemologer, virologer och besläktade yrken. Och jag slås med häpnad av diskrepansen mellan deras budskap, baserad på färskaste siffror och kunskap om viruset, och det som man får höra från Folkhälsomyndigheten, med statsepidemolog Anders Tegnell i spetsen.

Så sent som i förrgår påstod han att det inte finns någon lokal spridning i Sverige utan bara importerade fall som man har bra koll på genom smittspårning. Detta medan antalet bekräftade fall är samma som i Italien för bara två veckor sedan.

Tegnell medgav visserligen att han har missbedömt situationen i Kina men idag fortsätter han att argumentera mot drastiska åtgärder. Det blir inte bara aningens obegripligt när Taiwan, Singapore och framför allt Sydkorea visar att det faktiskt går att begränsa spridningen.

I en färsk analys har Sverige högsta R-värde (d.v.s. hur många fall som orsakas av ett befintligt fall) av alla länder som ingår i studien. Det ligger kring R=4 i Sverige. Sydkorea och Hubei-provinsen i Kina har däremot lyckas pressa ner det till R=1 eller t.o.m. under. Spridningen ökar alltså inte längre där.

Exponentialkurvor är luriga och inkubationstiden gör att man hela tiden ligger efter. Åtgärder som känns rimliga i dagens läge kommer att vara helt otillräckliga imorgon, och det som skulle ha gjorts idag känns helt överdrivet än så länge. Men det behöver göras ändå. Det kräver lite mod av beslutsfattarna och utsätter dem för kritiken att överreagera. Låt oss hoppas att en överreaktion är det vi beklagar i snar framtid, inte en situation som i Italien, orsakad av farlig tvekan.

Jag håller därför helt med DN's ledare att det är dags att inse allvaret och inte vara rädd för att "orsaka panik". För det första är panik inte lika farligt som man tror, för det andra eroderar velandet förtroendet för myndigheterna. Det förtroendet kommer att behövas snart, när sjukvården överbelastas rejält.

Slutligen, att "sparka Tegnell" är retoriskt mednat och är inte nödvändigtvis rätt åtgärd. Jag har ingen insyn i hur mycket han själv ansvarar för budskapet och hur mycket som kommer "ovanifrån". Men ett ändrat budskap och drastiska åtgärder behövs.

Ändring 12/3: Jag har lagt till ett "inte" i rubriken.

Since I just tweeted it, I might as well put up this plot here as well:

It shows the latest reported number of COVID19 cases outside China, on a logarithmic scale. If you are not used to this, just know that the curve steepness corresponds to the growth rate of cases, or if you will the doubling time. The steeper the curve, the shorter the time it takes get double the number of cases.

There are several noteworthy things here, I believe. First off, like the last post claimed, S.Korea has managed to flatten the curve more than any European country. Only Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan seem to do even better, but they have had a far smaller outbreak for now.

I sure hope for them that Iran is not doctoring its numbers and that the slowing down in their curve is real.

The steep slope from Belgium, where I am at the moment, it do not like at all. It is still small number statistics and depends on the rate of testing, i.e. what fraction of actual cases is discovered.

Homecountry Sweden is not doing so well either, especially considering that the numbers in the plot are not scaled by population size. At least they yesterday reported the number of 3000 tests carried out, which does not seem ridiculously low for 100 cases. I have asked the authorities for better stats on this, but they will only become available next week.