{"id":5392,"date":"2020-05-16T02:45:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-16T01:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mathscitech.org\/articles\/?page_id=5392"},"modified":"2020-12-25T21:38:30","modified_gmt":"2020-12-25T21:38:30","slug":"life-hacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathscitech.org\/articles\/life-hacks","title":{"rendered":"Life Hacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Short Articles on Life Hacks
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\n#215 – COVID-19 Preparedness Pack<\/strong>
\nMar 22nd, 2020<\/em><\/p>\n

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  1. Must View: COVID-19 Metrics Deck – Financial Times<\/a>\n
  2. Roundup News: Guardian Live<\/a>\n
  3. Deprecated: COVID-19 Dashboard<\/a>, Johns Hopkins University, latest numbers & interactive map by country & region, Professor Lauren Gardner, et.al., from Jan 22nd (43,141 worldwide cases 23rd Jan, 307,278 cases 22nd Mar, with 1.2 billion daily requests for the map’s data, 2.4M cases 20th April — notice the acceleration: 7x growth in first two months, 7x growth in past month. Prediction: 8M infected by May 20th best case if worldwide lockdowns are effective in slowing spread.)\n
  4. Must Read: Getting along with family and elderly parents during lockdown<\/a>.\n
  5. Must Read: Make your own hand sanitizer<\/a>\n
  6. Must Read: How the Pandemic will end.<\/a>, by Ed Yong, Mar 25th, 2020, Atlantic. This is grim reading but it seems well within the range of possibility.\n
  7. Must Read: Imperial College of London’s paper (PDF, 20 pages, 1 page excellent summary)<\/a>, Impact of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand, Neil M. Ferguson, et.al., Mar 16, 2020\n
  8. Must Skim: Summaries of all 10 Report findings from the MRC<\/a> Centre for Infectious Disease Analysis (CIDA) at Imperial College London, from 17th January (Report #1) when there were only 3 known cases outside Wuhan and an upper estimate of 4000 cases in Wuhan, to 20th March (Report #10) when the pandemic is worldwide, several countries are in lockdown (Italy, Spain, France), with many more countries within and outside Europe having already launched harsh suppression measures (social distancing and home restrictions, mandatory closure of schools, universities, and non-essential services such as restaurants, bars, pubs, public transportation). Current known mortality rates: 1% under 50 years, up to 15% 80 years+.\n
  9. Must Read: Timeline – what happened and when<\/a>, Johns Hopkins University\n
  10. Must Read: COVID-19 Basics<\/a>, from Johns Hopkins University (how it is spread, how long it lasts on surfaces, more about social distancing measures)\n
  11. Must Read: In younger infected, death can come through a blood clot inducing a stroke<\/a>. Treatment is possible if the clot is removed within 6-24h. Do not delay calling an ambulance if this affects you or a loved one.\n<\/ol>\n

    With the additional time indoors, what are you watching? If a little gut-punchingly relevant cinema is to your taste, here are a few titles:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. World War Z (2013), Brad Pitt\n
    2. Last Days on Mars (2013), Liev Schrieber. (And then heck, for a trip further away, Passengers (2016), Jennifer Lawrence, Laurence Fishburne)\n
    3. I am Legend (2007), Will Smith\n
    4. This list by Vulture<\/a>, shares 68 pandemic movies. Binge away!\n<\/ol>\n\n

      <\/a>
      \n#213 – Flour self-sufficiency — Milling your own grains, whole meal baking, and healthy biscuits and cakes<\/strong>
      \nMar 9th, 2020<\/em><\/p>\n

      Totally thrilled! Having been studying the mathematics of the ancient Sumerians<\/a>, and their late Neolithic survival technologies (article forthcoming), and now seeing the impending COVID-19 crisis creating food shortages, I bought two days ago this amazing home grain milling machine (\u00a372.90, Amazon UK<\/a>). <\/p>\n

      \"\"

      Home Milling Machine, or commercial grade fine power grinder, \u00a372.90 (amazon.co.uk)<\/p><\/div>\n

      Stocked up subsequently on dried rations as they keep longer than cans or fresh food. Quite varied stuff: barley grains, red kidney beans, dried lentils, popcorn kernels, brown rice, almonds. All of these grind up into fine flour in 60 seconds or lesss.<\/p>\n

      \"\"

      Flours (L-R) barley, corn, red kidney beans<\/p><\/div>\n

      Since then have been having a blast baking very simple nutritious biscuits for my family (2 young children and me.<\/p>\n

      Recipes so far (watch this space for more!)<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. barley-almond cookies combining almond and barley flours (Sun Mar 8th)\n
      2. corn, kidney bean, and barley cookies (Mon Mar 9th)\n
      3. coconut and barley macaroons (Sun Mar 15th)\n
      4. chicky-choco-oaty-boaties, combining equal parts chick-pea flour (gram flour) and oatmeal, with cocoa and orange essence for (Fri Mar 20th)\n
      5. spelt and oat (Fri Apr 10th)\n
      6. atta (wholemeal wheat)<\/a> and oat (Sat Apr 11th)\n
      7. atta, oat, and cocoa (Sat Apr 18th)\n
      8. sweet atta (Mon Apr 27th) – 1\/2 cup of sugar (same\n
      9. cinammon atta (Fri May 1st) – 3 cups of flour, 1\/3 cup of sugar, 3 eggs, 1 cup of milk, 1\/2 cup of corn oil, plenty of cinammon (3-4 tablespoons) This forms a dough that can be rolled and cookies cut out and put on baking tray: 15 min at 170 deg.\n
      10. chocolate atta (Wed May 6th) – note, 1\/6th cup of cocoa requires an extra 1\/4 cup of sugar to offset the inherent bitterness of cocoa\n
      11. coconut macaroon filling (Sun May 3rd) – coconut flour, 1 egg, sugar, milk. Mix well. Leave it in the fridge for 2 days. Forms a delicious macaroon filling.\n<\/ol>\n
        \"\"

        Corn, Barley, Red Kidney Bean Cookies<\/p><\/div>\n

        \"\"

        From grain to (60) biscuits in (30) minutes<\/p><\/div>
        \n

        \"\"

        Chicky-Choco-Oaty-Boaties<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

        Basic cookie recipe<\/strong> has just 5 natural ingredients:
        \n2.5 cups of flour (mix whatever kinds you like, I typically use 2 cups of a basic grain, and 0.5 cup of exotic stuff)
        \n0.25 to 0.5 cups of sugar (I use less where the flours are basic and more with the exotics which have a stronger less child friendly taste)
        \n2-3 eggs (more eggs, yummier)
        \n0.5 cups of oil (I use sunflower or corn oil)
        \n0.5 cups of milk (I use soya as it has a thicker texture)
        \n0.2 cups of baking cocoa (unsweetened) optional
        \n1-2 tablespoons of extract (e.g. orange, almond, lemon, etc.) optional, I use this only with high exotic blends like 50% chickpea flour due to mask their strong taste and make the results more appealing for little palattes<\/p>\n

        Mix the dry goods first in a mixing bowl. Add the wet stuff. Mix with a fork into a batter. Adjust ingredients to get the texture to a scoop-and-blob consistency, and blob onto baking tray with baking paper. Over pre-heated to 170*C. Bake for 10-15 minutes depending on how crispy vs. soft you like the insides.<\/p>\n

        Bakes about 60 small and nutritious cookies, which in my family, then last 4-5 days, as they become part of breakfast and snack times.<\/p>\n

        The grinder is easy to set up, a snap to use, and easy to clean with the brush (I have not felt the need to clean it with water).<\/p>\n\n

        <\/a>
        \n#184 – Leadership Toolbox: The Dance Floor and the Balcony<\/strong>
        \nFri 12th July, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n

        This metaphor of the Dance Floor and the Balcony, by Ronald Heifetz (Leadership on the Line, 2002, Harvard Business School Press), is one worth reflecting on each day.<\/p>\n

        \"Enhance

        Enhance your effectiveness by moving between the dance floor and the balcony<\/p><\/div>\n

        “Let\u2019s say you are dancing in a big ballroom. . . . Most of your attention focuses on your dance partner, and you reserve whatever is left to make sure you don\u2019t collide with dancers close by. . . . When someone asks you later about the dance, you exclaim, ‘The band played great, and the place surged with dancers.’<\/p>\n

        “But, if you had gone up to the balcony and looked down on the dance floor, you might have seen a very different picture. You would have noticed all sorts of patterns. . . you might have noticed that when slow music played, only some people danced; when the tempo increased, others stepped onto the floor; and some people never seemed to dance at all. . . . the dancers all clustered at one end of the floor, as far away from the band as possible. . . . You might have reported that participation was sporadic, the band played too loud, and you only danced to fast music.<\/p>\n

        “. . .The only way you can gain both a clearer view of reality and some perspective on the bigger picture is by distancing yourself from the fray. . . .<\/p>\n

        “If you want to affect what is happening, you must return to the dance floor.”*<\/p>\n

        “Each day you need to be both among the dancers and up on the balcony. That\u2019s where the magic and insight is, going back and forth between the two, using one to enhance the other. To do that takes discipline, can be tiring, and takes time. The pressure of daily life tends to keep us on the dance floor.<\/p>\n

        “How to shift between the dance floor and the balcony:
        \n“Pencil in some quiet time each day to step outside the daily grind and review what you are doing against where you would like to be going. Create an opportunity amongst the demands of the day to stop and reflect. Think about how your time each day is split between the \u2018dance floor’ and the \u2018balcony’. The split will be different for different people on any given day. It’s about asking yourself if you are aligning what you are doing, with what you want.”<\/p>\n

        Sources:<\/p>\n