Science Fiction: The Lord Of Light By Robert Zelazny Redux

 (Drivebycuriosity) - "The Lord of Light" by Robert Zelazny belongs to the classics of the science fiction genre. I owned the book once in German translation, but I had to give up my library when I moved to New York. Recently I bought the original version and read it again on Kindle ( amazon).

The novel is set in a far future. Some humans acquired god-like powers thanks to a very advanced technology. These humans could reincarnate themselves - and others - into new bodies and became immortal. This omnipotent elite gave themselves the names of Hindu gods and they ruled as Shiva, Kali, Vishnu, Brahman etc. over the rest of the humans, the mortals, suppressing the technological progress of the world.  The immortals built themselves "an impregnable paradise and treated the world as a combination of game preserve and whorehouse..........wondrous harems were paraded before them, and banquets were laid at their feeds". But then a Buddha appears, a reformer, and the arrogance, wilfulness and ridicule of the immortals leads to civil war and a revolution. 

The novel is certainly influenced by Europe`s medieval history. It seems to be an allegory on the almighty Catholic Church (crusades, inquisition) which got challenged by Martin Luther and other reformers which lead to devastating wars in the 17th century, but also started the Renaissance and opened the way for technological progress and the industrial revolution. 

Zelazny possessed a rich fantasy and created bizarre, surreal scenes & tableaus. "This happened as the Lord Mara swept onto the field in his cloudy chariot of colors, drawn by horses who vomited rivers of smoking blood................... A blizzard suddenly swirled about him and the cold of interstellar space itself entered into his bones".

I like the basic idea about a revolution challenging a Hindu pantheon and was fascinated by many ideas & descriptions, but over the time and about 300 pages, I got exhausted. "The Lord.." would have better functioned for me as a novella of about 100 pages. But anyway, the novel is certainly worth browsing and to pick the raisins out of it. 

Covid-19 Pandemic: How The US Can Avoid A Third Wave - What We Could Learn From The UK

(Drivebycuriosity) - The world is still struggling with the Covid-19 Pandemic. It seems that in the US a third wave is developing. The majority of the US states are already reporting rising numbers of new infections and New York City suffers climbing positive rates (washingtonpost). The US would follow the developments in the European Union, Brazil, India and other regions. The new wave is fueled by mutations of the virus (British variant, Brazilian variant, maybe unknown variants) which are more infectious and maybe more deadly.

(confirmed new infections, 7-days-average, Asia: dark blue, Latin America: light blue, US: very bright blue, Europe: dark red, source)

But I believe that the US could avoid a third wave if the authorities respond very very fast. They need to speed up the vaccination roll out. The third wave is starting now and people need to survive April and May without severe health issues.

First the authorities should permit all available vaccines. This would expand the number of doses and immunize as many people as possible. It would help to permit the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is successfully used in the UK, and the Russian & Chinese vaccines which are administered in Italy, Chile, Argentina, Hungary, India and other countries (statista abcnews spiegel.de). Administering these vaccines to millions of people gives much more information than the studies the pharma companies conducted last year.

It also would make sense if the US changes the vaccination strategy. America follows the recommendations of the pharma companies and administers everyone 2 doses in a short time. Pfizer-BioNTech recommended giving the second dose 21 days after the first, Moderna recommended injecting the second dose 28 days after the first and AstraZeneca talked about 6 weeks. These recommendations are based on their clinical studies conducted last year. 

The US could speed up the vaccine rollout considerably if they would follow the British strategy, called "first-dose-first" (FDF). The British delay the second dose some months which allows them to vaccinate twice the number of people in a short time. 

  

 

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New findings support the British strategy. It turned out that AstraZeneca works better when the second dose is injected after three months (not just after four weeks spiegel.de). According to AstraZeneca a longer waiting time raises the efficacy by 80% (papers ). The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer & BioNTech generates robust immunity after one dose and can be stored in ordinary freezers instead of at ultracold temperatures, according to new research and data released by the companies (marginalrevolution).  A single shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is 85% effective in preventing symptomatic disease 15 to 28 days after being administered, according to a peer-reviewed study conducted by the Israeli government-owned Sheba Medical Center and published in the Lancet medical journal. 

 

 

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By changing to the F-D-F strategy and using all available vaccines the US could triple the speed of vaccinations and hike the number of vaccinated persons weekly about 10 percent points, going from 26% today to 36% in a week and to 46% in two weeks. Early in May about 70% of the population could be eligible for a vaccination. This would save thousands of lives and spare many a severe illness (longcovid).

It needs time till the new vaccines kick in. For the month of April the vaccination rollout could be supported by additional measures. New York and other states allowed indoor dining where people spend hours unprotected (you can not dine with a mask on your face). I often notice groups sitting in restaurants and pubs potentially spreading the virus. Going back to strictly outdoor dining wouldn`t be too challenging (my wife and I are practising it weekly since last summer).

 

 

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Great Britain avoids the third wave we can see in Germany, France and other European countries thanks to a fast vaccination in combination with lockdowns. The US could do the same and save many lives. A fast vaccination also would allow to reopen the economy completely in May.

Covid-19: Why Brexit Saves Lives

(Drivebycuriosity) - Europe is suffering a third wave of Covid-19 infections ( cnbc). Germany, France, Italy and other European countries report sharlply rising numbers of new cases. But there is an exception: Great Britain. UK has much lower numbers of new confirmed cases & hospitalizations - and the numbers are stagnating or even sinking.

 

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The difference is caused by Brexit! Since Great Britain left the European Union the government in London can decide independently from the EU and the European Commission in Brussels. Brexit allowed London to choose a different vaccination strategy, permitting them to avoid the mistakes of the dysfunctional EU. The UK already administered 44 doses per 100 people and 41% of the Brits received at least on dose. The EU is far behind (tables below)

 

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There are two reasons for the British success on the vaccination front. 

 

1. The UK was the first country in the world to give the green light to a clinically-approved Covid-19 vaccine, on Dec. 2, while the EU approved the Pfizer/BioNTech jab a few weeks later, on Dec. 21 ( qz.com). The UK also negotiated contracts which encouraged production. The "pattern of Britain investing aggressively and early while the EU takes a slower, more cautious approach has been the hallmark of the vaccine race in Europe", writes AP ( apnews).

2. Great Britain chose a first-dose-first (FDF) strategy. While the US and the EU countries follow the original recommendations by the vaccine producers and try to give the recipients 2 doses in a short time the British delay the second dose some months which allows them to vaccinate twice the number of people in a short time.   

New findings support the British strategy. It turned out that AstraZeneca works better when the second dose is injected after three months (not just after four weeks as originally recommended spiegel.de). According to AstraZeneca a longer waiting time raises the efficacy by 80% (papers ). The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer & BioNTech generates robust immunity after one dose and can be stored in ordinary freezers instead of at ultracold temperatures, according to new research and data released by the companies (marginalrevolution).  A single shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is 85% effective in preventing symptomatic disease 15 to 28 days after being administered, according to a peer-reviewed study conducted by the Israeli government-owned Sheba Medical Center and published in the Lancet medical journal. 

The British FDF strategy became already a success story. Vaccinating more people with the available doses saves more lives. The British strategy helps to stop the spread of the pandemic because it reduces the number of people who could infect others faster than the 2-doses strategy. With fewer infected hosts, there are fewer opportunities for new mutations to arise—reducing available genetic variation on which selection can act. The FDF strategy also allows to reopen the economy faster without causing another wave.    

As a result London started already vaccinating people above the age of 50 and plans to immunize to the rest of the adult population by autumn ( bbc). 

Quite contrary the European Union is a disaster, caused by the incompetence of the EU authorities and their bureaucracies (the reason for Brexit driveby). The bureaucrats in Brussels wasted too much time to decide and they ordered the vaccines too late. To make things worse, the EU "dragged out the talks to secure better (lower) prices and product liability guarantees" ( marginalrevolution): "That meant it signed the contracts with AstraZeneca in August, three months after the UK’s contract". 

"The EU secured some of the lowest prices in the world. At what cost?" writes Politico (politico ). The magazine also refers to the European bureaucracy: "Before it could place an order, the Commission had to wait for each EU country to sign the contract". Quartz reports: "Experts say the EU’s attempts to negotiate as a bloc, meet the needs of 27 countries, and play hardball with the pharmaceutical industry led to months of delay that are costing Europeans dearly today" ( qz.com). In December the EU complained

Apparently the EU behaved like a monopsony ( a purchasing monopoly) and forced AstraZeneca to deliver the vaccines as cheap as possible, without making profits from it, which doesn`t encourage AstraZeneca to produce as much as possible. Apparently EU`s scrooge is now a main cause for the current delivery shortfalls.   

The situation got worse this month when Germany and other European countries temporarily stopped  administering AstraZenec because about 8 recipients (out of millions) got blood knots, which slowed the vaccination rollout even more. In spite of the severe slow down of the vaccination rollout Germany and other countries are keeping schools open which fuels the spread of the virus further.

 

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If you are 60 and older and you live in the EU you are f...d.  German newspapers report that people aged 80 and older were send home because their were no vaccines available for them. Many people in the EU are dying thanks to the EU incompetence and contempt for human beings. 

Brexit saves lives!
 

 

 

Books: Roman Blood By Steven Saylor

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Books about ancient Rome focus usually on her emperors (Ceasars), kings, dictators, consuls & senators. "Roman Blood: A Novel of Ancient Rome" by Steven Saylor focuses on common Romans (amazon ). The novel, set around the year 80 B.C, is based on a real case which is taught in history classes: Sextus Roscius, a Roman citzen, was accused of the murder of his father. Marcus Tullius Cicero, then a young aspiring lawyer, was defending him. The plot is told in first person by Gordianus the Finder, a (fictional) private investigator, who is commissioned by Cicero to investigate the backgrounds of this case and to deliver material for the defense (this is a spoiler free blog).

Reading this book was like traveling more than 2,000 years back in time. I felt like being in the ancient place and observing Gordianus` highly dangerous activities. Saylor dives deep into Roman politics and social life. He describes Roman life - and Gordianus` investigation - intensely and lively. I enjoyed Saylor`s  humorous style, mixed with gory elements and spiced with Hitchcock style scenes & amorous episodes. The author also draws a fascinating psychological portrait of the young Cicero, which explains his later political career.

I also learned a lot. The majority of the 1 million Romans where slaves, imported from conquered countries, and their offsprings. Apparently every Roman citizen owned at least one slave - and the rich many of them - because slaves where extremely cheap. Slaves did all the work and often fulfilled administrative jobs. Many were mistreated and often sexually abused. But some lucky slaves enjoyed the respect of the owners and got their freedom granted, making them regular citizens.

Ancient Rome was a very dangerous place, dirty, smelly & unhealthy.  There was no police force and not much of a law system. Basically everyone was on his own and the right of the stronger ruled. "Roman Blood" is the first book of a series and I am looking forward to read more about Gordianus the Finder.

Economics: Do Corporations Have Too Much Power?

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Recently I talked with a friend who complained about "the power of corporations". I don`t agree. Corporations have less power than people think and much less power than governments. Governments have state authority and they use armies and the police force to enforce their authority. Companies don´t. Governments are collecting taxes and imposing penalties. Corporations don`t. Government are passing laws and are setting rules for many things in life (regulations). Governments can legally imprison people. Companies don´t.

Milton Friedman said once: "There is no way in which General Motors can get a dollar from you unless you agree to give it to the company. That’s a voluntary exchange. It can only get money from you by providing you with something you value more than the money you give it. If it tries to force something on you that you don’t want, ask Mr. Henry Ford what happened when Ford tried to introduce the Edsel. On the other hand the government can get money from you without your consent. They can send policemen to take it out of your pocket. General Motors doesn’t have that power. And that is all the difference in the world. It is the difference between a society in which exchange is voluntary and a society in which exchange is not voluntary. It’s the reason why the government, when it is in the saddle, produces poor quality at high cost, while industry, when it’s in the saddle, produces quality at low cost. The one has to satisfy its customers and the other does not" (hoover).

The greatest force against corporation power comes from other corporations. They are competing  against each other. When a corporation has success, her rising profits attract automatically others who want a share from the pie.  Microsoft had never a monopoly because everybody could by an Apple computer instead - which I have been doing. Coffee lovers don´t need to purchase their dose of caffeine at Starbucks, there are dozens of alternative coffee chains and other copy cats. Nobody is forced to purchase an iPhone, there are many other smartphones available. 

Amazon´s success has been animating a legion of copycats who also benefit from the ascent of e-commerce (and recently from the Covid-19 pandemic).   Amazon is competing against huge retail corporations like Walmart, Target & Best Buy who are copying Amazon`s success, getting better over the time. Amazon is also competing with other Internet companies like Ebay, Wayfair & Overstock. And there are rapidly growing e-commerce platforms like Shopify, where companies can sell their products & services online. Facebook (and their daughter Instagram) and Google also developed platforms where companies can sell their products & services, independent from Amazon. Amazon`s cloud business AWS, which is also getting much attention from the trust busters (those who want to enforce stronger reulations), is challenged by Microsoft, Google, IBM, Oracle and other companies who also want to have a large piece from the pie. Microsoft`s cloud business won a huge contract with the Pentagon and is already growing much faster than Amazon`s cloud business AWS.

Amazon`s success helps many other companies - including small retailers (Amazon`s competitors) - to survive the pandemic. Amazon offers a platform for any company (or individual) to sell products online. The e-commerce giant also supplies logistic services for them, including storage, packing and transporting. Last year the giant invested more than $18 billion to help independent businesses to grow their sales on Amazon. With the help of Amazon other companies, including even small retailers, are also able to sell products nationwide - and often globally. Around 60 percent of Amazon’s sales come from third party vendors — i.e. other retailers — many of whom would not exist but for Amazon’s platform. During laast holiday season, American small- and medium-sized businesses sold nearly 1 billion products in Amazon’s store. According to the Financial Times independent merchants on Amazon’s vast marketplace made more than $200bn of sales in 2020, and tens of thousands of them had revenues of more than $1m a year (ritholtz ). So, far from destroying U.S. retail, Amazon  has enabled U.S. retail to thrive and to survive the pandemic (truthonthemarket). 

The other Big Tech companies aren`t monopolies either. Apple`s iPhones, iPads & MacBooks and services are competing against similar products & services from Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Huawei and a lot of other technology companies. Google & Facebook are fiercely competing against each other and myriad of other media companies because they all depend on advertising dollars. 

Big Tech doesn`t need to be our friend, but the tech giants have to behave friendly otherwise they would go out of business. Adam Smith declared “it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest”. That is also true for Big Tech. If Amazon would treat their customers unfriendly, if they would sell too expensive, deliver too slow & too unreliable, then customers would buy at Walmart, Ebay or elsewhere. That is the magic of competition. Because Big Tech has to compete against others they have to behave like friends. And competition is fierce as the sharp online revenue growth @ Walmart, Shopify & Target demonstrate.

The Internet makes it very easy to compare prices and to switch to other shops, sharpening the competition. Customers can choose the company which has the best quality, the best service and/or the lowest price which gives them a lot power. 

 As a result, customers have more power than the corporations.

 
 

 

Books: Sir Francis Drake By John Sugden

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Sir Francis Drake belongs to the best known Englishmen in history. Rightly so, the captain played an important role in England´s rise to a sea power. Without him England might not had acquired a global empire. The biography "Sir Francis Drake" by John Sugden describes his life and his accomplishments on about 400 pages  ( amazon).

Sudgen narrates Drake`s rise as a pirate, who made a career by raiding the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean. Some chapters read like adventure stories by Robert Louis Stephenson. But the author also chronicles the political influence Drake gained at Queen Elizabeth`s court thanks to his raids. Drake`s talents & expertise were helpful in the brewing military conflict between Spain and England. King Philip II of Spain, a fundamentalist Catholic, was obsessed with the idea of destroying heretic Elizabeth, overtake her kingdom and make the island a strictly Catholic Spanish province. 

Drake´s raid´s on Cartagena (today Colombia), Panama and many other Spanish owned place were just needle stings but they altogether started to weaken the Spanish empire. Bigot King Phillip needed the over sea money as mortgage for the huge loans he took from banks in Genua (Italy) to finance his military operations and to conquer England.

But Drake was more than just a pirate. Sugden narrates the seafarer`s nautical skills which let him find a way around infamous & dangerous Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean, which Drake used - of course - for raiding the Spanish treasures on the Pacific coast, especially in Panama City.

Drake´s experiences, talents & rising political power gave him an important role in England´s defense against the Armada, which the obsessed Spanish king had send to eliminate Elizabeth´s realm. Sudgen elaborates the complex patterns of skirmishes and weather situations which eventually stopped the Spanish attack and killed most her soldiers & sailors. 

I was bit exhausted to browse all the historical facts the author presented, but I also learned a lot - not just about Drake and the Armada, but also about the geopolitical situation in the 17th century. The book is worth the effort.  

Covid-19: An Ode To The British Vaccination Strategy

 (Drivebycuriosity) - It seems the Covid-19 pandemic is nearing her end. A great number of nations are already vaccinating their populations against the virus. Unfortunately the vaccination progress is very slow because the number of available vaccines doses is still low. 

The majority of the countries follow the recommendations of the pharma companies and plan to give everyone 2 doses. Pfizer-BioNTech recommended giving the second doses 21 days after the first, Moderna recommended injecting the second dose 28 days after the first and Astra Zeneca talked about 6 weeks. These recommendations are based their clinical studies conducted last year.

 

 

 

(  source)

Great Britain, who uses Astra-Zeneca & Pfizer-BioNTech, chose a different strategy, called "first-dose-first" (FDF). The British delay the second dose some months which allows them to vaccinate twice the number of people in a short time. UK injected 35 doses per 100 people so far and 33% of the population got already the first dose (ourworldindata ). The US administered 28 doses per 100 people, but just 18% of the US population got the first dose, most of the recent injections were second doses.

New findings support the British strategy. It turned out that AstraZeneca works better when the second dose is injected after three months (not just after four weeks spiegel.de). According to AstraZeneca a longer waiting time raises the efficacy by 80% (papers ). The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer & BioNTech generates robust immunity after one dose and can be stored in ordinary freezers instead of at ultracold temperatures, according to new research and data released by the companies (marginalrevolution).  A single shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is 85% effective in preventing symptomatic disease 15 to 28 days after being administered, according to a peer-reviewed study conducted by the Israeli government-owned Sheba Medical Center and published in the Lancet medical journal.

 

 

 

 

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The British FDF strategy is superior. Vaccinating more people with the available doses saves more lives. The tables above this paragraph show the declining number of new confirmed cases and new hospital admissions, caused by sharp lockdowns and progressively by vaccinations.

In the US about 85% are still unprotected, in Great Britain the number went down to 65%. The British strategy helps to stop the spread of the pandemic because it reduces the number of people who could infect others faster than the 2-doses strategy. With fewer infected hosts, there are fewer opportunities for new mutations to arise—reducing available genetic variation on which selection can act. The FDF strategy also allows to reopen the economy faster without causing another wave

And there is another advantage: People who receive the second dose some months later may get a better version of the vaccine. New mutations challenge the original vaccines which have been developed last year. The pharma firms are already working on advanced vaccines which should protect against new Covid-19 variants. British people, who will get the second dose later in some months, will then get newer and may better vaccines (marginalrevolution ).

It is sad that not all countries practice the FDF strategy. 

 

 

Books: A Death In Summer By Benjamin Black

 (Drivebycuriosity) - A man was killed with a shot gun. Is it suicide? Is it murder? What starts like one of the ubiquituos crime mysteries turns out to be a very special and fascination novel. I am talking about "A Death in Summer: A Novel" by Benjamin Black. The book - set mostly in Dublin in the 1950s - is part of a series around Quirke, a pathologist who works in a morgue ( amazon). 

 Yes, not the usual detective or private eye is the main character and investigator. Quirke is a twisted and very curious man who develops interest in cases which are not really his business. When he believes that something is not right he starts a personal investigation, whatever it may cost him. 

This book, the number four in the series, is again a pleasure to read.  "A Death", a mixture of a romance noir and murders mystery,  is maybe the best of the Quirke novels so far. Quirke deals with characters who are opaque, weird, vicious & self-destructive.  I indulged into Black`s elaborate style and his descriptions of persons, environments & situations: "She was wearing a gown of diphanous white stuff, high-waisted in whast he believed  was called the Empire style, and her hair was piled high and bound with a scarlet ribbon; bathed in the gold light from the garden she might have been a portrait by Jacques-Louis David".

Benjamin Black is the pen name of the Irish writer John Banville. I loved his novels "Kepler" and "Wolf on a String" (here my reviews Kepler & wolf ) and enjoyed "Christine Falls" as well, the start of the Quirke series ( driveby). I plan to read more Quirke novels.