The delightfully well-written and stimulating blog Cocktail Party Physics provides a history lesson about cholera epidemics and, along the way, highlights the account of an 1868 cholera epidemic in Buenos Aires as described by one Charles Darbyshire.

Darbyshire’s fears proved well-founded when an epidemic broke out in the summer of 1868, brought about (he believed) by Brazilian ships tossing the bodies of those who had died from cholera into the River Parana, thereby contaminating the water supply. People in the cities fled to the countryside, bringing the disease with them, and Darbyshire soon found himself in the position of a public health leader, advising his neighbors on removing themselves from unsanitary conditions, not drinking water unless it was boiled, burying all refuse, keeping floors and patios clean. The 12 people in his own household did not contract the disease, which probably lent credence to his his advice. Despite all the deaths, there was one positive outcome: the Argentine government overhauled the city’s drainage system and installed a proper water supply.

Read the full post at Cocktail Party Physics.

Okay, this has nothing to do with Buenos Aires……

I’m occasionally asked about good, cheap, affordable, low-cost hosting for Web sites. There are a lot of providers out there on the market. Before establishing this site, I did a lot of research on various hosting companies and ultimately selected site5. I’ve been with site5 for over two years and have never had a problem. So, site5 is the web hosting company that I recommend.

The backend controls and tools to manage your site5 account are very nicely designed and easy to use. The company has an active forum for technical support and other issues. Many people know that I’m a librarian but may not realize as a librarian I managed Internet technologies for 15 years and was a Unix sysadmin, so I have very high standards for a Web host. I have no plans to change from site5 at anytime.

Site5 always runs a lot of special pricing on new plans. I was lucky enough to get a plan a few years back that offered unlimited bandwidth. Yeah!! That plan is no longer available but they have a great new plan that is only $5 a month for 110 GB storage, 5 TB bandwidth, and that allows you to host up to 110 domains.

This is NOT a sponsored post. I’m just a happy customer. Okay, there are affiliate codes in those links to site5, so I get some coin if you sign-up but I really am very pleased with the service of site5.

…..we can return to talking about Buenos Aires now.

Here’s a wonderful photo blog that I wished I had discovered sooner, when it was still active. Gustavo Romano is an artist in Buenos Aires who photographed the contents of his pocket everyday for almost three years.

Looking at the photos is quite addictive and provides an alternative visual memory of Buenos Aires (and other places that Gustavo visited during those years). Anyone who has spent anytime in Buenos Aires immediately will recognize many of the objects that cross our paths and find their way into our pockets everyday.

View more of Pocketlog

(The Pocketlog website is a little difficult to navigate. Hint: use the calendar at the top right of the page to move from day-to-day).