carsonbaker's comments

I'm one of the guys who made the website, and I thought a lot about these things too. You have good concerns. My group talked to doctors and epidemiologists before starting this project and we proceeded with these thoughts in mind.

If it were actually possible to go to your doctor or get tested for COVID-19, I would agree that this is not the best way to collect medical information. The reality is we don't have that fortune right now, and this is the best fallback we can propose.

If you have specific criticism that we can take to improve the form, I'd be happy to implement it.

We're biased towards action, not sitting on our hands.

Thank you, James.

Sorry! Try again.

Very good observation. I'll defer to our network of doctors and take their feedback on this. Thank you!

We might. There's some worry that e.g. showing a heat map of the data might be alarming, so we're trying to figure out where the balance is between transparency and cautiousness.

Yes, we get trend info. We're storing a cookie in your browser with a UUID that is associated to your temperature reading. If you submit temperatures for multiple people in your household, they all get that UUID, which we assume to be a household identifier.

Carson here, site developer. Thank you for the positive response so far, but also feel free to leave us constructive criticism. If you want to contribute to this effort, the GitHub is https://github.com/carsonbaker/takeyourtemp. We're working on it with frenetic energy.

You might be on Firefox. I just fixed this!

You may be thinking of alpinism, where this is perhaps a little true. It's not true at all of rock climbing.

Your comment doesn't make sense. You can't choreograph the result of coin flip, but you can definitely rehearse a rock climbing sequence so that you always nail it. I can promise you there weren't thousands of moments on this climb where chossy rock, the sun, or chaos theory had anything to do with his success or failure.

It's also worth mentioning that 95% of the Nose can be free-climbed by just about anyone that really trains for it. It's hard, but it's not that hard. The Dawn Wall, in contrast, is basically off limits for your average free climber -- especially the middle pitches -- unless you're among the best of the very best.

You can check out the topos for each climb. This is the nose (http://www.supertopo.com/topos/yosemite/thenose.pdf [p15-16]), and you can see, with just a few exceptions, most of the pitches are graded 5.10 or easier.

This is the Dawn Wall (http://www.rockandice.com/dawn-wall-el-cap-yosemite-topo). It's much, much harder, particularly when you realize that the Yosemite Decimal System progresses like the Richter scale, in the sense that a step from 5.13a to 5.13b (an increase of 1 grade unit) is leaps and bounds harder to achieve than improving from, say, 5.8 to 5.9.

It's just very different, to the point where you can't even compare the two climbers with the same ruler. Honnold's biggest achievements are notable because of the risk he takes while soloing. Ondra -- although he tackled some bold climbing on the Dawn Wall -- didn't stick his neck out there in nearly the same way, but instead performed a sustained exhibition of incredible athleticism.

They're both the best at what they do, but they do different things, and I don't think either of them could do what the other does.

Yep, that's exactly what he did.

There's just one safety line (it's called the lead line) and it runs through -- in the video you watch -- quickdraws (or slings with carabiners) that hang on bolts. On other pitches of climbing, it runs through different types of protection: cams, nuts, pitons, and what's called "fixed mank."

And yes, the bolts here were originally installed earlier, possibly back in 70s by the first ascensionist, although I'm not sure what the history of the present-day bolts are. I'm guessing they were added by Caldwell/Jorgeson as they were preparing the free variation of this classic aid line some years ago.

There are various ethical considerations in bolting and it gets very contentious among people who care about this sort of thing.

Suffice to say, to free climb a route like this, yes, you have to be incredibly strong, mentally and physically.

> Apple chose to put a much smaller battery in this model (75 watt) compared to last year (100 watt) for the purpose of thinness.

You mean watt-hours (Wh).

Yes, very sorry. "Some charlatan has stolen a Ziggy and passed it off as his own!"

Wow, I didn't know that in particular. I hiked the John Muir Trail last summer and often looked into the distance at some crazy steep peak and wondered how the hell John Muir nabbed the first ascent with nothing more than a knapsack and a pair of old boots.

Maybe he would have been a BASE jumper. I don't know. What's clear is he loved nature more than anything, and I don't think he'd be too happy at the sight of Curry Village today.

I think part of the reason base jumping is banned in Yosemite has to do with the spectacle of it. The National Park system was founded with a mission to preserve the serenity of our land, and to give its visitors an opportunity to experience solitude.

But Yosemite Village is a lot like a city today. Unless you get more than a day's hike away from the valley floor, there's no hope of finding solitude or serenity. The Merced, with all its plastic rafts and floaties, looks more like a waterpark than a river. And the campgrounds have more RVs than tents, jammed so close together you can't breathe.

When a guy in a wingsuit is whipping through the valley at 100mph, whooping and hollering, it really is incongruous with the park's mission. As is drone flying, mountain biking, snowmobiling, graffiti-art, and lots of other things that disturb nature.

What would John Muir have thought about BASE jumping?

My feeling is that the restriction should be lifted, probably because it's doing more harm than good, but I think both sides of the argument are convincing, and it's unfair to point the finger at the NPS without trying to honestly understand their motivations. There are a lot of news headlines that read something like, "Rules to Blame in Yosemite Accident", and then leave out the relevant counterpoints.

Free soloing does mean no rope however, which is the important bit. You're speaking of rope-soloing, which can be done either free or aid. If you don't have rope with you, whether or not you bring protection only matters in the edge-case that you want to french-free various moves.

This isn't about the article, but I would like to point out that New Hive is really a _fantastic_ publishing platform. There's just an immense amount of creative content on it. It reminds me of what I like to think were the glory days of the Web: you know, when people were on GeoCities crafting pages about their DIY electric car or whatever. It seems like today everyone is feeding what they ate for lunch into some reverse-chronological blogging system and calling it a post. Call me old-fashioned...

Relevant video from QI: How many moons does the earth have? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1zuAQAhhMI