In 2008, there was a natural terrain motocross track in Searles, MN near New Ulm. It was open for a few years and was always a good time.
Google’s Role in Social Distancing
I thought this was interesting! Google is taking anonymized, aggregate data from Google Maps for public health officials to understand responses to social distancing guidance related to COVID-19.
Here is the data I pulled for the state of Minnesota. It looks like in general, 38% less people are travelling to work, 35% less people are travelling to grocery stores and pharmacies, and 58% less people are travelling to restaurants, cafes, and shopping centers. Rice County seems to be doing slightly worse at sheltering-in-place compared to the average in Minnesota, except in the travelling to work and parks categories.
Source: COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports (https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility)
The more you know!
The more you know!
Does a USB drive get heavier as you store more files on it?
Believe it or not, they get lighter. USB drives use Flash memory, which means the the ones and zeros of your data are stored on transistors. When you save data, a binary zero is set by charging the float gate of the transistor, and a binary one is set by removing the charge. To charge it, we add electrons, and the mass of each electron is 0.00000000000000000000000000091 grams. This means that an empty USB drive (which mostly holds zeros) weighs more than a full USB drive (which has ones and zeros). Add data, reduce the weight. However, you would need to weigh more USB drives than exist on the planet together at once before the difference in weight became easily measurable.
Believe it or not, they get lighter. USB drives use Flash memory, which means the the ones and zeros of your data are stored on transistors. When you save data, a binary zero is set by charging the float gate of the transistor, and a binary one is set by removing the charge. To charge it, we add electrons, and the mass of each electron is 0.00000000000000000000000000091 grams. This means that an empty USB drive (which mostly holds zeros) weighs more than a full USB drive (which has ones and zeros). Add data, reduce the weight. However, you would need to weigh more USB drives than exist on the planet together at once before the difference in weight became easily measurable.
(source: Dr. Peter Bentley, sciencefocus.com — https://www.sciencefocus.com/…/does-a-usb-drive-get…/…)
Not All is Doom and Gloom with COVID
All joking aside for once, if there’s one thing I can say about all this Coronavirus “craziness”, “pandemic”, “panic”, “crisis”, “precaution”, “stupidity” (pick the adjective you most relate to), it is this: People are forced to think out of the box for solutions to problems they never thought they’d encounter, and this is NOT A BAD THING! It shakes up the status quo and forces people out of their comfort zone.
People will have to educate themselves on using technology to get work done, instead of forcing mostly unnecessary (and potentially hazardous right now) in-person meetings.
Businesses owners will have to remain agile and adapt their business models on the fly. Especially now, as bars and restaurants are being forced to close. They have to. Otherwise they have no choice to close and layoff all their workers.
Yes, the stock markets are down. If you are on a long-term plan to retirement, it’s going to recover no problem. This is an opportunity, not a crisis. Make the best of the hand you’re dealt now!
Above all, don’t sweat the small stuff. So, you may need to use a fabric cloth instead of a paper towel. So you may have to meet a new neighbor to borrow a couple of eggs. The world survived many centuries without all the modern conveniences we take for granted now. Use it as a way to learn history, and use it as a way to learn something new.
Nearly nobody has framed this event as a positive one. Yet, with a slight change of mind, there can and will be good things that will come out of this that will help us, and will help the country grow stronger. Get ready for a wild ride guys! This is no doubt a story people will be able to tell their grandkids about. 
I’m a New Mac Owner!
I never thought the time would come, but I have to announce I’m a brand new Mac owner! Mind you, it’s not a new Mac, but I am a new owner! 
I received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition!
Wow! I received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from our District’s Representative Jim Hagedorn for the “Hidden Gem” award I received from the Faribault Virtues Project. It was an honor to be recognized for some work I’ve done over the years preserving history in Faribault and Rice County. If we all pitched in and helped our community in one or two small ways, what a wonderful place our world could become!
Tri County ATV Park RAW from April of 2005
A look at a typical Spring afternoon in Tri-County ATV Park near Faribault/Northfield, Minnesota in April 2005.
50 Years Ago Today, Man Embarked on a Mission to Set Foot Upon the Moon
At 8:32 a.m. on July 16th, 50 years ago, 3 American men, strapped into the seats of their Apollo command module, were propelled into space by the tallest and most powerful rocket ever created, the Saturn V. It would take them 3 days to reach their destination. The mission…to land and walk on the moon.
The computer to take them there operated at a 0.002048 GHz clock speed. It had 0.000002 gigabytes of magnetic-core RAM, and 0.000036 gigabytes of hand-woven core rope ROM. It weighed 70 pounds. Today’s computers have millions of times more memory. Yet, in 1969, it performed flawlessly to navigate the men into lunar orbit.
These videos are the best thing I’ve found to help set the scene in your mind on how big of an event this was, and still is, in all of mankind. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did!
Video Credits:
“Apollo 11 liftoff unseen spectators original launch footage”, Youtube, suicidecrew.
“Apollo 11 Launch HD”, Youtube, NasaHD.