Here are 400+ great reads from 2022 handpicked just for you by NPR staff and trusted critics.
— Read on apps.npr.org/best-books/
This book list has the ability to open a link to your local library and you can borrow or put a book on hold including Ebooks. Or there are links to AMAZON. This is the book list I have been waiting for. Now they just need a link to Goodreads.
www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/remarks-2022-11-22.pdf
Some words of wisdom from The Bank of Canada about the global financial situation. They seem to thing short term pain for ling term gain. Let’s hope this is true.
www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Northern-Populism-Graves-Smith.pdf
A very long read. Published in June 2020 it follows on the early post I published on the ethical conflicts during COVID. This post is from a Canadian Think tank and polling company. It is helpful to understand the forces driving things like the Ottawa convoy and see international trends in public emotional responses to perceived and real events.
Perspective from The New England Journal of Medicine — What Covid Has Taught the World about Ethics
— Read on www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2210173
Wondering why everything to do with the pandemic triggered controversy? This article sums up most of the ethical am moral dilemmas.
In 2020 at the beginning of COVID19 sold my condo in Vancouver and moved to Courtenay BC. I although I had stayed in Courtenay for a few weeks in the last year, I did not realize how hot, noisy and busy it had become compared to paradise. (Hornby Island) Ironically, Vancouver had became considerably quieter with Covid-19. Traffic was down by about 80%. Everything was closed except grocery stores.
My new 4th floor condo in Courtenay overlooked a busy street and faces west, letting the hot evening sun stream into my floor-to-ceiling windows. Not something the home inspector picked up on when she viewed the unit. I investigated some home cooling options and started with ceiling fans which have helped. Then Safe and Sound came to install window film. Visually it looks good, a bit like looking through sun glasses. They used 3 different kinds of film, depending on the sun exposure.
Even with the window film it was still too hot so I plugged in the portable AC I brought with me from Vancouver. The temperature on the balcony sometimes hit 40C. The portable AC was a very good investment. I also bought a tilting patio umbrella. It took a while to ship umbrella as I guess they were sold out. I tracked the temperature on an excel speadsheet and the inside temperature has been able to be kept around 25C or less with my heat mitigation strategies while the outside temperature goes up to 40C late in the afternoon. So here are my strategies in the order of how much I think they help:
I didn’t install cellular blinds mainly because I wanted to see what affect # 1-5 had and it was tolerable without the cellular blinds. However, after I moved out and got a tenant I installed cellular blinds in the north facing bedroom that she uses as an office. Some of the heat on the 4th floor is a result of the heat rising from the other floors in the building. Really the whole building should have air conditioning.
I moved to a new condo with cellular blinds on the south facing window but the cord on the Select Blinds broke so I had to get new Levelor blinds form Home Depot which took several months to arrive. The cellular blinds were effective at blocking the heat in the summer and cold in the winter but the cord stopped working and I had to get the blind replaced which took several more months. During all the blinds business, the government of Canada banned blinds with cords. So now the options are limited to wands or remote control. In retrospect I would had preferred the remote control that can be managed from your phone.
I subsequently found a used Noma portable air conditioner with a remote control that works with my programmable thermostat that operates from my iphone. Very Cool literally and figuratively. The device for the portable AC costs $ 140 and was surprisingly easy to set up in you have a MYSA Thermostat..
As I was finishing the heat management project, the strata council announced they were approving a process to install heat pumps. I got a quote for $10,000 per condo. Further research on the topic shed more light on heat mitigating strategies. Unfortunately the rebates for heat pumps do not apply to condos. There is a GST exemption in BC for purchase of heat pumps for condos. However, the experts on managing building temperature recommend double or triple glazing windows as the most effective strategy followed by canopies. Essentially they recommend heat blocking before air conditioning as a more ecological solution.
Other resources:
https://www.visoa.bc.ca/?visoaevents_categories=webinars
Ok I think this project is done for now!
How living in a pandemic distorts our sense of time | Science News
— Read on www.sciencenews.org/article/pandemic-living-distorts-time-sense
Are you caught in Blursday? I know I am. I thought it was just getting older but apparently not 🙃
Is this the end of another summer, or the end of summer as we know it?
— Read on www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/when-summer-becomes-the-season-of-danger-and-dread
What were the historical reasons for the resistance to recognizing airborne transmission during the COVID‐19 pandemic? – Jimenez – 2022 – Indoor Air – Wiley Online Library
— Read on onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.13070
Interesting history of theories of disease transmission and how hard it is to change theories or beliefs. One wonders if social media will increase the adoption of innovation. I predict more research to come on this topic.
www.nature.com/articles/s41430-020-0558-y.pdf
There is controversy about Vitamin D supplements. At least there should be routine testing for deficiency covered by health insurance which it is not. With 7.4 % of Canadians reporting deficiency it is a public health issue.
Prevalence rates of severe vitamin D deficiency, defined as 25(OH)D <30 nmol/L (or 12 ng/ml), of 5.9% (US) [18], 7.4% (Canada) [19], and 13% (Europe) [2] have been reported. Estimates of the prevalence of 25(OH)D levels <50 nmol/L (or 20 ng/ml) have been reported as 24% (US), 37% (Canada), and 40% (Europe). T
Since I live on Islands, transportation is primarily by water for man and beast. Shots were edited on software to black and white and not all really work in black an white. Shots are from Vancouver island and Hornby Island and one shot of a friend in Kelowna. Ok these are not all public transportation but they are transportation in public. I didn’t take a picture of the 4 sailing ferry wait this morning when I dropped off a foot passenger to the ferry
TheUnRetired.life 