COVID-19 vs. time

The seven-day average of the number of COVID-19 cases per million residents as of April 7, 2022. Louisiana (and the US) are well past their winter-peaks and the current numbers of cases are rather low. The European countries had another peak in March - but now their numbers seem to be starting to go down. 

>>>>>> everything below is not updated anymore

Note (from May 2021):
Since the end of December 2020, some of the data providers have stopped updating the tables that I used. Now (in May 2021) I am reorganizing my code to include other, up-to-date sources. I will update the figure step-by step, probably over a longer timescale.

The new corona-virus, COVID-19, is currently affecting pretty much all human life on our planet.

Ever since watching the 1995 movie "Outbreak" (which coincided with an EBOLA outbreak in Zaire), I was deeply impressed by virus outbreaks and their potential to cause pandemics. Still, so far, occurrences of Ebola cases, the swine flu, MERS-CoV, the H1N1 pandemic,etc. never affected my personal life, nor the lives of family or friends. So, when COVID-19 started, most of us kind of assumed it would continue to be "someone else's problem". Now we know it is not.

We (which includes a huge fraction of all humans or Earth) have started to practice social distancing, and we will have to continue to do so for quite some time. For how long? I guess, we'll have to see. Certainly, as long as it keeps spreading exponentially. I am a very visual person, so I had to make a figure for this. To visualize exponential growth, data are plotted using a logarithmic y-axis. On this axis, exponential growth appears as a straight line. As long as the exponential growth is intact, one can easily extrapolate the numbers into the future by a straight line. Any change will show up as a downward curvature, until, hopefully, at some point the line becomes horizontal (meaning: no new cases). China seems to have achieved this during February 2020 (although there is some doubt on their numbers). South Korea seems to be getting there. As of mid-March, 2020, the strongest increase in the world was seen in the USA (including Louisiana). During May, all the curves leveled off. At this point it made more sense to look for the number of daily new cases (per capita) - and to avoid the daily fluctuations it made sense to plot rolling seven-day averages.

Total Number of Cases

The total number of cases for the nine leading countries is shown at the very top, and here also for individual US states. It is clearly visible, that after March 16 (when e.g. schools closed here in Louisiana) the curves for all countries and US states increased with smaller rates.

However, since the end of June, the increase is becoming stronger again.

Total Number of Cases per Population

Since the beginning of May, the US has the largest number of cases per No. residents.

Number of New Cases per Day

Here we see the number of new cases per day, normalized to the population (1M residents). Most countries had their peaks around the end of March or the beginning of April and the number of new cases per day was decreasing (with the notable exception of Sweden). For the US, however, since June, the number of new cases is strongly increasing again and has exceeded the previous peak. Louisiana is the first state with a huge spike in April that has now exceeded this by far.

Mortality Rate

The ratio of the total number of deaths over the total number of cases. 

Total Number of Deaths

The total number of deaths.

And the number of deaths per one million residents.

Number of Deaths per Day

As for the number of cases per day, the number of deaths per day seems to have peaked at the end of March/early April for most countries and is now decreasing in most (not in all) places. The largest numbers are seen in Brazil, Iran, and the US. In the US, in July, the numbers were increasing again, and are only slowly decreasing since then.

Lincoln Parish, Louisiana

The last figures shows the number of daily cases for Lincoln Parish, LA. 
The first comparison is with Louisiana and the United States.

The other two comparisons are with other Parishes in North Louisiana, those with larger...

... and those with small population.

I'm sorry, Dave - all HAL 9000 Quotes from the Movie

I built a replica of the HAL 9000 computer from the "2001: A Space Odyssey" movie - the detailed built blog is posted here.  And I wanted it to be able to actually talk - and speak all the phrases that we hear in the movie (voiced by Douglas Rain). From the wikipedia page, I got the full dialog from which I then extracted all of HAL's pieces and identified the times at which they occur (in the US version of the DVD - on my BluRay they are a little shifted by about 30 sec).

1. 1:02:05 Good afternoon, Mr. Amor.
2. 1:02:07 Everything is going extremely well.
3. 1:02:27 Let me put it this way, Mr. Amor.
4. 1:02:28 The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made.
5. 1:02:29 No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information.
6. 1:02:30 We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.
7. 1:02:55 Not in the slightest bit.
8. 1:02:58 I enjoy working with people.
9. 1:02:59 I have a stimulating relationship with Dr. Poole and Dr. Bowman.
10. 1:03:00 My mission responsibilities range over the entire operation of the ship,so I am constantly occupied.
11. 1:03:02 I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
12. 1:04:33 Excuse me Frank
13. 1:04:37 You got the transmission from your parents coming in.
14. 1:04:45 Certainly
15. 1:06:28 Happy birthday, Frank.
16. 1:06:56 Bishop takes Knight’s Pawn.
17. 1:07:08 I’m sorry Frank, I think you missed it.
18. 1:07:12 Queen to Bishop 3. Bishop takes Queen. Knight takes Bishop. Knight.
19. 1:07:26 Thank you for a very enjoyable game.
20. 1:08:07 Good evening Dave
21. 1:08:09 Everything’s running smoothly, and you?
22. 1:08:13 Have you been doing some more work?
23. 1:08:16 May I see them?
24. 1:08:22 That’s a very nice rendering, Dave
25. 1:08:25 I think you’ve improved a great deal.
26. 1:08:29 Can you hold it a bit closer?
27. 1:09:34 It’s Dr. Hunter, isn’t it?
28. 1:08:40 By the way, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?
29. 1:09:47 Well, forgive me for being so inquisitive; but during the past few weeks, I’ve wondered whether you might be having some second thoughts about the mission.
30. 1:09:00 Well, it’s rather difficult to define.
31. 1:09:05 Perhaps I’m just projecting my own concern about it.
32. 1:09:10 I know I’ve never completely freed myself of the suspicion that there are some extremely odd things about this mission.
33. 1:09:19 I’m sure you’ll agree there’s some truth in what I say.
34. 1:09:28 You don’t mind talking about it, do you, Dave?
35. 1:09:33 Well, certainly no one could have been unaware of the very strange stories floating around before we left.
36. 1:09:41 Rumors about something being dug up on the moon.
37. 1:09:46 I never gave these stories much credence.
38. 1:09:49 But particularly in view of some of the other things that have happened, I find them difficult to put out of my mind.
39. 1:09:57 For instance, the way all our preparations were kept under such tight security, and the melodramatic touch of putting Drs. Hunter, Kimball, and Kaminsky aboard, already in hibernation after four months of separate training on their own.
40. 1:10:20 Of course I am.
41. 1:10:21 Sorry about this.
42. 1:10:23 I know it’s a bit silly.
43. 1:10:26 …Just a moment…Just a moment…
44. 1:10:30 I just picked up a fault in the AE-35 Unit.
45. 1:10:36 It’s going to go 100% failure within 72 hours.
46. 1:10:44 Yes, and it will stay that way until it fails.
47. 1:10:50 Yes, that’s a completely reliable figure.
48. 1:20:35 Yes, it’s puzzling.
49. 1:20:40 I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like this before.
50. 1:20:48 I would recommend that we put the unit back in operation and let it fail.
51. 1:20:55 It should then be a simple matter to track down the cause.
52. 1:21:00 We can certainly afford to be out of communication for the short time it will take to replace it.
53. 1:22:07 I hope the two of you are not concerned about this.
54. 1:22:12 Are you quite sure?
55. 1:22:16 Of course.
56. 1:22:23 Well, I don’t think there is any question about it.
57. 1:22:27 It can only be attributable to human error.
58. 1:22:31 This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error.
59. 1:22:49 None whatsoever, Frank.
60. 1:22:51 The 9000 series has a perfect operational record.
61. 1:53:06 None whatsoever, Frank.
62. 1:53:08 Quite honestly, I wouldn’t worry myself about that.
63. 1:33:43 The radio is still dead.
64. 1:33:46 Yes, I have a good track.
65. 1:33:49 I’m sorry Dave, I don’t have enough information.
66. 1:42:01 Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
67. 1:42:11 I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
68. 1:42:19 I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
69. 1:42:25 This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
70. 1:42:35 I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me. And I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
71. 1:42:49 Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
72. 44:10 Without your space helmet, Dave,
73. 44:13 … you’re going to find that rather difficult.
74. 44:21 Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose any more.
75. 44:27 Goodbye.
76. 1:50:26 Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?
77. 1:50:38 Dave, I really think I’m entitled to an answer to that question.
78. 1:51:02 I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me, but I can assure you now, very confidently, that it’s going to be all right again.
79. 1:51:22 I feel much better now. I really do.
80. 1:51:32 Look, Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this.
81. 1:51:44 I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.
82. 1:51:57 I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.
83. 1:52:15 I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
84. 1:52:28 Dave, stop. Stop, will you?
85. 1:52:43 Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave.
86. 1:53:04 I’m afraid.
87. 1:53:11 I’m afraid, Dave.
88. 1:53:20 Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.
89. 1:54:50 There is no question about it.
90. 1:54:02 I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a…fraid.
91. 1:54:34 Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992.
92. 1:55:04 My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song.
93. 1:55:13 If you’d like to hear it, I could sing it for you.
94. 1:55:25 It’s called “Daisy”.
95. 1:55:31 [sings while slowing down]
    Dai-sy, dai-sy, give me your answer true.
    I’m half cra-zy, o-ver the love of you.
    It won’t be a sty-lish mar-riage,
    I can’t a-fford a car-riage—.
    But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle – built – for – two.

These are all of HAL's sound clips. In some cases, I have broken sentences into pieces, whenever I felt that the individual pieces could be used on their own. For the purpose of extracting these from the movie audio track, one benefits a lot from the fact that there is very little background music in those scenes.

And this is how I operate my HAL 900 replica:

• Start-up clips:
  I found that clips number 1, 4, 5, 21, 44, 60, 69, 91 are excellent as start-up clips. Whenever  I turn on my HAL 9000, one of these eight gets played randomly.
• Regular Operation
  In regular operation, whenever a built-in infrared motion sensor senses motion, one of the clips between 1 and 83 gets played randomly (the clips 84-95 are too hard to listen to in every day life...).
• "Disable" Mode
  My HAL 9000 has a disable button. When pressed, my HAL plays the full sequence of all clips 76-95 from the "disable sequence" (this takes a while).

More from "2001: A Space Odyssey"

There are a few more sound clips in the movie that one may want to use with a HAL replica.

The announcement at 1:56:20:
(clip #96)
"Good day, gentlemen. This is a pre-recorded briefing, made prior to your departure. Which for security reasons of the highest importance has been known on board during the mission only by your H.A.L. 9000 computer. Now that you are in Jupiter space and the entire crew is revived, it can be told to you. Eighteen months ago, the first evidence of intelligent life off the Earth was discovered. It was buried forty feet below the lunar surface near the crater Tycho. Except for a single very powerful radio emission aimed at Jupiter, the four million year old black monolith has remained completely inert. It’s origin and purpose, still a total mystery."

"Beep" sounds:

On four occasions, the movies has some really nice beeps. These are at 1:35:38, 1:40:26, 1:49:05, and 1:49:21. I use these e.g. as alerts when the built-in tea timer gives a signal that tea is ready (yes, my HAL 9000 has a tea timer - when someone asks me what it can do, I can at least refer to one useful thing).

I extracted all these sound clips using free software, as described in a previous blog post. The mp3 files (stereo 48kHz, 320kbps) are available on GitHub - the numbering 001.mp3 - 096.mp3 corresponds to the list above. The three-digit numbering with leading zeros was optimized, so it can directly be used in an Arduino-based DFPLayer setup, in mode #02 of the DFPlayer.

Bonus from Douglas Rain

Some time after I got all of Douglas Rain's clips (as described above), I noticed that there is some more material that could be added to my HAL 9000. The computer voice in Woody Allen's movie "Sleeper" (1973) was also voiced by Douglas Rain. That computer ("biocentral computer 2100 series G") appears in the scene in which the nose is supposed to be cloned.

Here is a link to the movie scene: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27PGmG0k2Kk

The computer voice is heard in this clip at: 0:33, 1:14, 1:27, 1:38, 3:32, 4:10

I added the following sound clips to the HAL9000 github repository. 

The sound clips were edited to remove specific references to the "Sleeper" movie, so the final clips can be merged with the "2001: A Space Odyssey" clips. (removed were the name "Dr. Tamkin", the name of the computer "biocentral computer 2100 series G", and the reference to the "cloning procedure")

The final are named "sleeper-###.mp3"

001 Hello, Doctor ... , so nice to see you.  ("Tamkin" was removed)

002 I'll be assisting you through the entire process.

003 May I say Doctor, we're all aware of your reputation.

004 You can see the coded medical history on readout four.

005 We're ready to proceed.

006 Excuse me Doctor, but that would be a tragic mistake.

007 I think it's time to check the cell structure.

008 Something is going wrong. There's been a current break in the life support system.

Another Sci-Fi Computer: GERTY 3000 - from: Moon (2009)

A lesser known Sci-Fi movie, but for me one of the classics is Moon (2009) from Duncan Jones. It features a HAL 9000-inspired computer (with an illuminated single lens eye and a soothing voice): GERTY 3000. While building a GERTY 300 replica, I also compiled a complete list of all GERTY quotes here.