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#danzig crisis
pick-me-up-im-scared · 8 months
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Get To Know Me(-ish)
I was thinking I could answer some typical “get to know me” questions, if anyone’s interested in reading them. If not, I’ve just done it for myself, I guess. Anyway, I’ve found these on Google. Let me know if there’s someone to credit! (prepare for me babbling on about completely useless stuff)
What's your name? Julianna (but I´m open for any nicknames, especially "my little ps5 cooling fan")
How old are you? I turned 23 this year. Yep, I´m having an internal crisis
What's your sexuality? I will say bisexual for now. But there´s a VERY high chance I'll change it to 100% lesbian. Like, right know girls are the only thing that interests me.
What I love the most about myself? I´m very kind and loyal. It could be seen as something bad, ik. But I´m trying to not let people use it against me. I also believe I'm a good listener, which is somethings I'm proud about. I'd also like to think I could make a boring task funny, like grocery shopping or doing the dishes.
What I dislike the most about myself? I have a pretty bad temper, I blame it on my dad. If I'm pissed, don´t even bother trying to calm me down. Just give me a few minutes to myself and I'll be back. But that leads me into the next thing I hate about myself, I hold onto things for waaaay to long. If someone did something bad 5 years ago you better believe I remember it. I´m also stubborn and think about other people´s opinion SOMETIMES, but let's not focus on that. I like to believe I just need to find "the right person" to pull me out of that mindset...
What are your favorite movies? The Wolf of Wallstreet, The Dark Knight, The Amazing Spider-Man, Yes Man, Toy Story, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Cast Away, Forest Gump, How To Train Your Dragon (duh), Black Swan, Django Unchained, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), (I've got a bunch, but basically anything that's either directed by Christopher Nolan or Quantin Tarantino OR has Tom Hanks or Leonardo DiCaprio in it)
What's your favorite song? I can't choose one, but here's a few songs that I can listen to on repeat for months and still find them as good as the first time I heard them:
José Feliciano - California Dreaming
Danzig - Mother
Ansel Elgort - Supernova
ASAP Rocky - Everyday
Pharrell Williams - Freedom
Post Malone - Hollywood's Bleeding
Skrillex - Don't Go
Adele - Chasing Pavements
Macklemore - Wings
KALEO - All The Pretty Girls
Justin Bieber - Hard To Face Reality
The Fray - Look After You
The Lumineers - Cleopatra
The Killers - When You Were Young
What are your hobbies? I´m trying to make myself busy with literally anything. I can't stand the thought of not being productive (doesn't stop me from laying in bed, watching youtube for hours!). So basically anything productive. Drawing, some sculpturing (nothing professional, calm down), very rarely write (obviously, I haven´t been updating this blog for like ages!). Recently I've been trying to learn how to play the piano AND electric guitar (ik, you can give me your number after the show).
Do you plan your outfits? Yeah, way more than I think anyone who sees me thinks. Idk how many nights I've spent, planning out in my head the outfit for the next day. Even if you see me wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt you better believe that t-shirt wasn't the first one I tried on. Even if I´m going to the fucking hospital I can´t wear socks that doesn't match with the rest of the outfit...
The meaning behind my username? Tbh, I just started thinking of random stuff, like "sayings" that doesn't sound too...cringe? Then the Patrick meme of him in a knitted sweater with the writing "Mom, can you pick me up? I´m scared" (or something like that) popped into my head. I rephrased it a little before checked if it was taken, and it wasn't.
Any addition? Vanilla Coke or/and Dr Pepper (apart from my huge cocaine addiction), like I´m obsessed. Ik it sounds sooo dramatic, but if I had a no limit access to either of those sodas I'd die of diabetes in a week. If you want to get in my pants, just buy me a can and I'll get on my knees and propose to you.
Turn ons? I could say something like "eyes" and "hands", but I'll say some features I don´t think are AS common, but I got craaazy for. One of them would be scars. I can't explain to you how fucking kneebendingly HOT I think scars are. Idc if it's from acne, self harm or an actual injury. It's. So. Fucking. Attractive! People who's self contious about their scars, hit me up! Second thing I find really attractive is backs, idk why but I just find them so ecstatically pleasing especially filled with scratches by my nails.
Turn offs? People who's playing hard to get or think they're hot shit! I've spend too much of my teenage years chasing those type of assholes. And people who think people like that, wtf is wrong with you? I'd have a nerdy sweetheart everyday of the week! These fuckboy-type of behavior needs to be stopped, istg. If you like me, tell me that! (also, I need that clarification every now and then, otherwise I'll think you despise me...)
What skill would you most like to learn? To be able to comprehend any social situations without wanting to blow my brains out. I´m the worse when it comes to socializing, like overall. Doesn't matter if it's my relatives or complete strangers, I'll dig my nails so hard into palms inside my pockets. People who can start having a random discussion with someone on the streets, or blend in with their partner´s family first time they meet them PURLEY amaze me. I wanna be like them sooo bad.
Favorite ice cream flavor? I will say just plain vanilla, CAUSE if a brand is good the flavoring doesn't need to be so complicated (to slap). The brands who has these crazy flavor combinations are usually doing it to try and conceal their shitty ice cream *cough* Ben & Jerry *cough*. But if I wouldn't choose that I'd probably be something super childish, like "rainbow bubblegum cotton candy confetti".
Dogs or cats? I know the lesbian community will throw me out, but I 100% choose dogs. Idc what you say, cats are satans creation!
Favorite quote? "When you're having a bad day, don´t forget you're ugly too"
Favorite sport? I´m not really into sports. I was never an athletic kid. But whenever there´s pingpong on tv, I'm in a trance. Like I'll spend HOURS watching that shit without even knowing the rules.
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id-element0 · 2 years
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Fendi and Macy have a double birthday celebration into adulthood. Macy gets a new look since she was almost obliterated by the game. Well, I've been having weird wardrobe malfunctions for a while. My sims would go to bed or shower in their day clothes and regularly get invisible. Sometimes things would get so bad that the whole town would go invisible. If not, they will constantly get new clothes assigned to them out of nowhere. The worst was constant addition of full face costume makeup to naked and sleeping outfits. NRaas Dresser option to add the sim to Protected list for outfit checks, doesn't seem to be effective either.
In one of those days, I load my save and Macy is invisible. In map view I click on her tag and click on Fix Invisible Sims via Debug Enabler. That works and she returns to the living, but she's not the same. Not only she obtains an entire new wardrobe, she also gets utterly potatoed in the process. I believe Macy Curse is real.
Luckily I have a version of her in CAS, so I move her body double in town and use bodysnatch function of Awesomemod and she's back. She's also having a midlife crisis; wants to flirt with others and divorce Fendi. Alas, her Eternally Faithful buff prevents her from accepting flirts from other men. Poor thing.
A day after his parents joined birthday, Danzig has his own birthday. It was celebrated with his close relatives and friends, minus his parents. They always work on his birthdays. So he's sulking.
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bulletholemagazine · 1 year
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MARCH/FEBRUARY DUG UP FROM THE GRAVE
The jist of these types of posts is I'll be sending older bands I've discovered recently. Enjoy!
1. Stampin' Ground
Stampin' Ground were a UK band. Not that you'd tell, this sounds like Slayer on amphetamines and NYHC combined. I don't remember exactly how I found them, but I know it was this song and I know I was going monkey over it. It's so absurdly fast and the breakdown hits perfectly. Thrash wasn't dead in the 90's apparently, metalheads just don't know where to look. Their first three albums (one in 1998, one in 2000, and one in 2003 which I'll talk about in a bit) are very straightforward crossover thrash + earth crisis kind of moshy hardcore parts (all tuned to an e flat because of course it is) and their last album gets a bit bouncier and more hxc-leaning. At the time the new wave of american metal was getting its kickstart and I imagine the band was having some internal problems, so they split up after that and haven't done anything since. Now, the 2003 is interesting, since it's a split with the fucking NORTHSIDE KINGS of all bands. Y'know, the band whose singer is famous for punching Glenn Danzig? And the band with song titles such as "Giving emo kids something to really cry about" and "Fuck The Middle East"? Admittedly not a good look for them, but they're brits so I don't even know if they had any idea of what they were getting themselves into with this. Alas, they made some good music and dipped. Next.
2. Concealment
I found these guys through Starkweather's Spotify page. They had a split together and it interested me enough to see who these guys are. And GODDAYUMMMMM THIS SHIT IS GOOD!!!!!! Techdeathy mathcore that hits extremely hard and doesn't spare a single chug or dissonant chord. Their material's just been uploaded to Spotify 3 years ago, their first release was in 2007 and their second album dropped in 2010. The band is still active apparently, as their neat lil facebook page would suggest. Wonder if they'll ever put out anything else. Also, apparently they were (or still are, idk) signed to Total Dissonance Worship, which when I found that out it instantly clicked. If you aren't familiar, that label has put out stuff like Ion Dissonance and Plebeian Grandstand (Thinking of making a video on my YT about them, maybe for Trustkill as well). I think you could make a solid case for this being early deathcore considering that.
3. Left To Vanish
FUCK DOES THIS GO. Left To Vanish are a Philadelphia metalcore/deathcore band that started alllll the way back in 2001 IN HIGHSCHOOL, and as far as I can find their earliest release was in 2005, back during the days of logos-in-impact-font-core. Very ahead of their time, kind of in the same vain as A Life Once Lost in that regard. They then were making music until 2009, but broke up only to reunite in 2016, which makes them the only band still putting out stuff actively. Their latest EP is extremely good(they have a song with jesse leach on it!!!), they've sort of moved on from this firstwavey sound into something more contemporary and it's pretty amazing how well they've managed to adjust, considering a lot of the old school deathcore bands couldn't. Go show the guys some love and listen to their stuff, they absolutely deserve it. If you like Animosity and early Suicide Silence their 2007/2008 era stuff perfectly fits in that style of deathcore.
Thanks for reading!!! That'll probably do it for the zine posts this month, unless something else really interesting comes out while march still isn't over. I might still do another new releases post for other smaller bands (and for the 2 people reading this). Besides that, I'm still working on music and I'm trying to find time to record videos for the YT channel. Stay tuned :3
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The Covid-19 Corona Virus an  information World Health Organization (WHO)
The Covid-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a parallel “infodemic” (Rothkopf 2003; WHO 2020a), a term used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to describe the widespread sharing of false and misleading information about the novel coronavirus. Misleading information about the disease has been a problem in diverse societies around the globe. It has been blamed for fatal poisonings in Iran (Forrest 2020), racial hatred and violence against people of Asian descent (Kozlowska 2020), and the use of unproven and potentially dangerous drugs (Rogers et al. 2020). A video promoting a range of false claims and conspiracy theories about the disease, including an antivaccine message, spread widely (Alba 2020) across social media platforms and around the world. Those spreading misinformation include friends and relatives with the best intentions, opportunists with books and nutritional supplements to sell, and world leaders trying to consolidate political power.
This public health coronavirus crisis hits us at a particularly challenging time, as we are already grappling with issues of information overload and pervasive misinformation due, in part, to the increasing use of online information systems. This perfect storm of a global pandemic hitting a world with global connectivity may be unprecedented, but scientists have a long tradition of trying to understand how we—as individuals, groups, and societies—respond to collective-stress situations (Barton 1970).What do we do when a crisis strikes? We communicate. We utilize our social networks to exchange information as we try to make sense of what is going on around us (Danzig et al. 1958; Erickson et al. 1978; Richardson et al. 1979; Pendleton 1998). We search for, disseminate, and synthesize the content we see into narratives that fit with our current.
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October Creativity 2
My interest with writing alternate histories has flourished so I wrote another text, similar to the one about annexation of Free City of Danzig. It took place in the same universe and was about a missile crisis between Poland and Germany. I did read many articles on Wikipedia about the real places and people to prepare for it. As such, I was trying to present a realistic work. It was meant to look in a special way - without, for instance emotionally-driven language and opinions. The work is in Polish, but maybe the next one will be in English. The work was hard, but it was very satisfying, similar to what I felt while writing other articles. But this time I was a creator of the knowledge.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u4j3sq7-aX3XcLyB_I2wGFMNPZ8YkEBrm_dagV2aaGk/edit
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if-you-fan-a-fire · 5 years
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“Deux Lignes D’Importance Vitale,” L’Illustration Nouvelle. August 29, 1939. Page 06. --- La Ligne Française Maginot ---- La Ligne Allemande Siegfried
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mostly-history · 5 years
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Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck is received by Adolf Hitler on his arrival at Obersalzberg (Germany, January 5th, 1939).
The Free City of Danzig (present-day Gdańsk) was run by the League of Nations as a major port for Polish trade.  The new state of Poland was given access to Danzig by a corridor of land carved out of German territory, which actually cut off part of East Prussia from the rest of Germany.
In October 1938, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop met with the Polish ambassador Józef Lipski to discuss the return of Danzig to Germany.  In January 1939, there was another meeting (pictured here), but Poland refused to back down.
Polish resistance to German demands intensified in March, when Britain and France promised to defend their independence.  In April, Hitler ordered preparations for the invasion of Poland, which would begin on September 1st.
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aftermidnightmp3 · 3 years
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maxxsio: good morning i will be your new substitute teacher please turn to page 36 in your textbooks
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Well I guess that’s that?
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nothingunrealistic · 2 years
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if taylor in 5x12 had (temporarily) become axe on his worst day, taylor in 6x12 has (temporarily) become axe on his best day. at his worst, axe was orchestrating petty revenge plots that caught wendy in the middle, using his shiny new protégé taylor to carry that revenge out, and telling them they should lean into hatred and let it fuel them like he does. in 5x12, taylor had orchestrated a (somewhat less petty) revenge plot that caught wendy in the middle, had used their shiny new protégé rian to do it, and passed on to her the advice they were given about using hatred as fuel — until they decided to change course, took back their advice to rian and instead told her to run, and stood with wendy against chuck and later prince.
at his best, axe was supporting and protecting his employees no matter what — keeping danzig out of jail for firing a machine gun in his backyard and talking through the mental crisis that precipitated it, or figuring out something was amiss with donnie and promising him the best possible medical care and money to leave to his family. in 6x12, taylor figures out something is amiss with rian, talks it out with her, and is there for her to lean on as the consequences play out — and they go beyond what axe would have done by making it clear they have no problem with the choices she’s already made and offering her their unconditional support no matter what steps she chooses to take next, valuing her wants, needs, and happiness above their own rather than using her problems to serve their own interests.
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theadrogna · 3 years
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Dream Show Challenge 2.0
@singledarkshade​ came up with the Dream Show challenge last year, where we had to give her a list of 7 TV shows or films and we were given a cast of 7 actors in return. This time we were given someone else’s cast and were allowed to recast one character (plus add some if we wished). This time I came up with:
Virtuality
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Synopsis:
Good people die before their time and it happens every day. Eli Danzig is doing his best to change that. He invents a way to upload consciousness to an online server where the dead can live out a normal life in a virtual environment. He builds an entire world to keep his uploaded souls entertained, making it as lifelike as possible. Huge amounts of processing power are required so Eli must choose his clients carefully.
The electronic world is called Virtuality and the uploaded persons are known collectively as the digi-souls. Virtuality has a small but growing population, which is a continuing concern as it means more storage space is always needed. Eli funds his enterprise by playing the stock market using his AI Tallis to filter information and predict stock prices. Sometimes he sells patents for the things that the digi-souls invent, but more often they give their inventions away for free. However, money is always a worry because none of this is a stable source of income.
Cast:
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Eli Danzig (Donald Glover) – Eli is a young computer programmer of genius level intellect. He came from a poor background, and was the first in his family to attend university. He is determined to make things better for people, by improving society. He believes that “only the good die young” is a real problem, and if he could keep the good people in the world for longer then maybe more good could be done. He invents a digital after-life for people to upload their consciousness to, but he must maintain it a secret to keep the unscrupulous from corrupting it or destroying it. He researches every person very carefully before inviting them to join Virtuality.
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Ashura Hadid (Tala Ashe) – Ashura is a terminal cancer patient who becomes one of Eli’s digi-souls. She is a prize-winning journalist and novelist, known for taking on difficult stories about things that people would rather keep hidden. She’s recently been looking into CharterTech, owned by Maggie Charter as part of a series on corruption in tech companies, but most of her efforts are going into completing her final novel. Eli and Ashura have undeniable chemistry, but live in very different worlds. She is very driven and moral, always looking for new ways to expose corruption and wrong doing.
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Oren Murphy (Jim Byrnes) – Oren was Eli’s professor at University. He made sure that Eli got the scholarship that he needed to attend, and then acted as his mentor. He suffered from high blood pressure and had multiple strokes. He agreed to be Eli’s test case for Virtuality and was the first digi-soul to be uploaded. He is a calming influence on Eli’s life, often being the one to counsel him out of a rash decision.
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Shona Lennox (Sophia di Martino) – Eli’s technician, she has a background in medical devices and large-scale genetic information storage. She built the mainframe and worked out how to put into practice Eli’s ideas. She often finds herself in unusual situations now she is working for Eli, but likes her new job and the excitement it brings, even if she complains about it. She used to work for CharterTech but Eli doesn’t know that when he hires her. When she leaves CharterTech she decides to start self-defence classes and can definitely handle herself in a crisis.
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Ryan Fournier (Joey Batey) – Ryan is an inventor who has been responsible for some of the world’s most important leaps forward in technology, including making ecological sources of power more viable, such as wind and solar power. He is a problem solver and a big ideas guy. Unfortunately, he was born with a genetic condition that meant he died young, but he is now one of Eli’s digi-souls and living on in the Virtuality. He loves nothing better than to sit down with a problem and work out a solution, but occasionally he realises what he’d missing out on in the real world and ends up depressed and unhappy.
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Chie Ohta (Naoko Mori) – Chie is a medical researcher and entrepreneur, but she was unable to save herself from a rare blood disease, despite years of trying. In the process she brought many other useful pieces of medical technology to the market and helped save the lives of countless people with cures for diseases. She loved her work, but always knew she was on borrowed time. She left behind a husband and children, who have no idea of her new existence. She continues to check up on them, despite Oren’s suggestion that this isn’t a good idea.
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Maggie Charter (Alison Janney) – Maggie is a self-made woman, in the way that all billionaires are self-made. She inherited a fortune from her politician father and invested in business. She had a technical background so she picked tech companies as an obvious interest. She now owns CharterTech, one of the largest technical manufacturing companies in the world. She once tried to recruit Eli and has never been pleased that he turned her down. She knows nothing about Virtuality but has heard rumours that someone was working on something like it.
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Tallis (Arthur Darvill) – Tallis is the AI personality that maintains the Virtuality. He is often mistaken for one of the digi-souls by the newly uploaded as he is so lifelike. He is polite and caring, always available to listen. He is Eli’s friend and also occasional advisor. Tallis means “knowledge” and he has access to all of the world’s online resources.
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Occam (Karen Gillan) - Is another AI, built by CharterTech. She is new and unruly, but very quick to follow her creator’s orders. Sparks fly between her and Tallis.
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Episodes:
Episode 1: Virtually Home
Ashura Hadid, prize winning writer, is dying at the age of 38. It’s not fair, it’s not right and she is having none of it. She is being treated for an aggressive brain tumour, but decides to stop treatment when it becomes clear that it will impact her ability to write and finish her final novel. The novel is partly a work of fiction but is also based on real life events at a chemical factory in the city that she has been researching.
Eli Danzig introduces himself to her and explains that he can offer her a second chance at life, by uploading her mind to Virtuality. She explains that she has no money and Eli tells her how he finances the project. She will never have to pay to live there. Ashura questions Eli further about the procedure and Virtuality itself. Eli tells her that he chooses young people, like Ashura, who have died before their time and had great contributions to make to society. They live in a computer generated world where things are simple but they can continue to work and interact with each other. However, they cannot have contact with the outside world, because Virtuality is a secret. It isn’t ready to be opened up to the world, there isn’t enough storage space on Earth to facilitate it. He doesn’t want it to be something that only the rich have access to, so he has decided to choose who gets to go there.
Elsewhere, Maggie Charter discusses her heart condition with her doctor and hears that she may only have a few months to live. She is 61 years old and a tech mogul. For years she has been looking for a way to cure her heart disease. Her network of corporate spies have heard of a young man with an unusual portfolio of patents and a strange pattern of spending on digital storage. She finds out that it is Eli and decides to look into what he is doing more.
Over the course of their discussions, Eli and Ashura grow closer. Eli’s AI partner, Tallis, warns him that he cannot form emotional attachments to the Digi-souls. Ashura will die soon and then Eli will only be able to have limited interaction with her through the interface he has built. Ashura thinks over the proposal and decides to take the plunge. Episode 1 ends with her death. However, Ashura doesn’t die of brain cancer, she is found murdered in her apartment.
Episode 2: Extra Life
Eli must upload Ashura within 12 hours of her death to retain all of her memories, after that time degradation begins to take place. Eli races against time to reach Ashura in the morgue and take the brainwave recording that he needs. Shona Lennox, Eli’s technician, ends up breaking in while Eli creates a computer distraction. They are finally able to upload Ashura’s consciousness, but she has forgotten the days before her death, and they are unable to find out who killed her. She has also forgotten who Eli is.
Meanwhile in Virtuality, the digi-souls try to analyse Ashura’s work for the likely culprit and begin putting together a picture of who it might be. Someone at CharterTech seems a very strong candidate, but then they discover that Ashura was close to uncovering a chemical spill which derails their ideas.
Episode 3: Online Banking
Maggie is putting together more about Eli and his weird ability to make money from stock market trades and a portfolio of patents that seem to have little in common. She uncovers more about the shell companies that he trades through and puts more pieces together. Tallis flags up her interest and Eli works to cover his tracks. It’s the worst time for Ryan to make a major breakthrough in water purification that could save hundreds of lives, but only if they can get it to the right people. With Maggie watching everything that Eli and Shona are doing in the real world, perhaps only the virtual world can get the idea where it needs to be, especially as Ryan is feeling like his efforts don’t matter as he reads yet another news article on how climate change isn’t real.
Shona is contacted by her former boss at CharterTech who invites her to return, but Shona turns them down. The concerning part is that she’s being asked to work on an AI project called Occam. Ashura continues her investigations into CharterTech whilst rekindling her past relationship with Eli.
Episode 4: Occam’s Razor
Maggie has a heart attack, but survives, however she is becoming more and more concerned about her health. She brings online her own AI, Occam and begins to sift through all of the information that she can acquire on medical technology. Occam comes across Chie’s work when she was alive. No one else seems to have been quite as close to curing the heart issue that Maggie has. Occam notices that Eli’s shell company has patented some devices that were based on Chie’s work. In fact, Occam notices that this is something of a trend in Eli’s patent’s and brings together the other work that he has done to see something that Maggie has been unable to see up until this point. Eli may have some way of accessing the brains of the dead.
Episode 5: Reality Bytes
Ryan is bored and ends up creating a virtual ant colony that soon gets out of control, causing all sorts of trouble for Virtuality. Tallis is very much not amused at the replicating program that Ryan has introduced to the system. He and Oren are left to deal with it with only minimal input from Eli as he is being sued by CharterTech over one of his patents. It looks like a lawsuit brought specifically to waste his time, but there doesn’t seem to be anyway to circumvent it, especially with everyone else busy with the increasingly problematic (and storage sucking) ant farm.
Episode 6: Denial of Service
Someone tries to hack into Virtuality and it is up to Eli and the digi-souls to stop them. Chie finds out that her teenage daughter has a new boyfriend, and against Tallis’ advice she looks into him and discovers that he has a possible chromosomal abnormality which could lead to an early death. Chie tries to decide whether she should find a way to let her husband know.
Eli and the others successfully prevent the hack but are worried that someone now knows of the existence of Virtuality. Certainly someone is testing their defences. Shona finally tells Eli that she used to work for CharterTech and the fallout is unfortunate.
Episode 7: Second Life
Eli finds a possible new candidate for Virtuality and starts his due diligence. Usually Shona would be involved in this process but their recent falling out means that things are not running smoothly. The new prospect seems like the perfect candidate and Eli almost begins his usual approach, until Oren uncovers some anomalies that Eli had missed. They may not even exist at all. The question is, who knows enough about Virtuality to do something like this?
Tallis uncovers the existence of Occam, and there is a brief encounter where they size each other up. Occam is identified as the force that tried to hack Virtuality before.
Episode 8: Power Switch
City-wide power outages see Eli scrambling to ensure Virtuality doesn’t go down and lose all the digi-souls. Shona returns to help and the two resolve their differences whilst saving the world that they built together. The digi-souls come up with increasingly desperate plans to produce the power they need to survive, but save the day in the end. Ryan puts together new plans to ensure it never happens again.
Episode 9: Deleted
Ashura finally gets to the bottom of who murdered her and it was nothing to do with CharterTech or Maggie. Her exposé of a chemical company’s disregard for environmental law was the issue that caused her death. Shona uses some contacts to get the police involved and the digi-souls help Ashura gather enough evidence to get the culprit put away in jail for a long time.
Eli and Ashura address some of the issues with their relationship, but resolve to give it a go, despite the obvious barriers.
Episode 10: Boss Fight
Maggie and Occam finally uncover the existence of Virtuality and the digi-souls. The finale sees Maggie managing to force her way into the digital world, whilst Occam and Tallis fight it out. Eli and Shona do their best to help Tallis, but find their offices raided and their technology confiscated. Maggie gets time to get a foothold, but the strain is too much on her heart.
Just as Eli and Shona find their way back in, Maggie dies in the real world. Eli can either choose to kill her for good or keep her malevolent presence in Virtuality. Tallis isn’t too keen on sharing with Occam either.
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id-element0 · 2 years
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Not much going on other than more birthdays. Cousins are children now. Rollins is a good mixture of her parents - too bad she's not the heir. Danzig enjoys sitting on the laps of adults, thanks to this mod. And Prada is having a mid-life crisis after a private celebration of her new age with her brothers and the children.
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President Trump continues to use inflammatory language as many Americans protest the unlawful death of George Floyd and the unjust treatment of black Americans by our justice system. As the protests have grown, so has the intensity of the president’s rhetoric. He has gone so far as to make a shocking promise: to send active-duty members of the U.S. military to “dominate” protesters in cities throughout the country — with or without the consent of local mayors or state governors. On Monday, the president previewed his approach on the streets of Washington. He had 1,600 troops from around the country transported to the D.C. area, and placed them on alert, as an unnamed Pentagon official put it, “to ensure faster employment if necessary.” As part of the show of force that Trump demanded, military helicopters made low-level passes over peaceful protesters — a military tactic sometimes used to disperse enemy combatants — scattering debris and broken glass among the crowd. He also had a force, including members of the National Guard and federal officers, that used flash-bang grenades, pepper spray and, according to eyewitness accounts, rubber bullets to drive lawful protesters, as well as members of the media and clergy, away from the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church. All so he could hold a politically motivated photo op there with members of his team, including, inappropriately, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Looting and violence are unacceptable acts, and perpetrators should be arrested and duly tried under the law. But as Monday’s actions near the White House demonstrated, those committing such acts are largely on the margins of the vast majority of predominantly peaceful protests. While several past presidents have called on our armed services to provide additional aid to law enforcement in times of national crisis — among them Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson — these presidents used the military to protect the rights of Americans, not to violate them. As former leaders in the Defense Department — civilian and military, Republican, Democrat and independent — we all took an oath upon assuming office “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” as did the president and all members of the military, a fact that Gen. Milley pointed out in a recent memorandum to members of the armed forces. We are alarmed at how the president is betraying this oath by threatening to order members of the U.S. military to violate the rights of their fellow Americans. President Trump has given governors a stark choice: either end the protests that continue to demand equal justice under our laws, or expect that he will send active-duty military units into their states. While the Insurrection Act gives the president the legal authority to do so, this authority has been invoked only in the most extreme conditions when state or local authorities were overwhelmed and were unable to safeguard the rule of law. Historically, as Secretary Esper has pointed out, it has rightly been seen as a tool of last resort. Beyond being unnecessary, using our military to quell protests across the country would also be unwise. This is not the mission our armed forces signed up for: They signed up to fight our nation’s enemies and to secure — not infringe upon — the rights and freedoms of their fellow Americans. In addition, putting our servicemen and women in the middle of politically charged domestic unrest risks undermining the apolitical nature of the military that is so essential to our democracy. It also risks diminishing Americans’ trust in our military — and thus America’s security — for years to come. As defense leaders who share a deep commitment to the Constitution, to freedom and justice for all Americans, and to the extraordinary men and women who volunteer to serve and protect our nation, we call on the president to immediately end his plans to send active-duty military personnel into cities as agents of law enforcement, or to employ them or any another military or police forces in ways that undermine the constitutional rights of Americans. The members of our military are always ready to serve in our nation’s defense. But they must never be used to violate the rights of those they are sworn to protect.
89 former Defense officials: The military must never be used to violate constitutional rights
Leon E. Panetta, former defense secretary
Chuck Hagel, former defense secretary
Ashton B. Carter, former defense secretary
William S. Cohen, former defense secretary
Sasha Baker, former deputy chief of staff to the defense secretary
Donna Barbisch, retired major general in the U.S. Army
Jeremy Bash, chief of staff to the defense secretary
Jeffrey P. Bialos, former deputy under secretary of defense for industrial affairs
Susanna V. Blume, former deputy chief of staff to the deputy defense secretary
Ian Brzezinski, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Europe and NATO
Gabe Camarillo, former assistant secretary of the Air Force
Kurt M. Campbell, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Asia and the Pacific
Michael Carpenter, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia
Rebecca Bill Chavez, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Western hemisphere affairs
Derek Chollet, former assistant defense secretary for international security affairs
Dan Christman, retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army and former assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
James Clapper, former under secretary of defense for intelligence and director of national intelligence
Eliot A. Cohen, former member of planning staff for the defense department and former member of the Defense Policy Board
Erin Conaton, former under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness
John Conger, former principal deputy under secretary of defense
Peter S. Cooke, retired major general of the U.S. Army Reserve
Richard Danzig, former secretary of the U.S. Navy
Janine Davidson, former under secretary of the U.S. Navy
Robert L. Deitz, former general counsel at the National Security Agency
Abraham M. Denmark, former deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia
Michael B. Donley, former secretary of the U.S. Air Force
John W. Douglass, retired brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force and former assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy
Raymond F. DuBois, former acting under secretary of the U.S. Army
Eric Edelman, former under secretary of defense for policy
Eric Fanning, former secretary of the U.S. Army
Evelyn N. Farkas, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia
Michèle A. Flournoy, former under secretary of defense for policy
Nelson M. Ford, former under secretary of the U.S. Army
Alice Friend, former principal director for African affairs in the office of the under defense secretary for policy
John A. Gans Jr., former speechwriter for the defense secretary
Sherri Goodman, former deputy under secretary of defense for environmental security
André Gudger, former deputy assistant defense secretary for manufacturing and industrial base policy
Robert Hale, former under secretary of defense and Defense Department comptroller
Michael V. Hayden, retired general in the U.S. Air Force and former director of the National Security Agency and CIA
Mark Hertling, retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army and former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe
Kathleen H. Hicks, former principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy
Deborah Lee James, former secretary of the U.S. Air Force
John P. Jumper, retired general of the U.S. Air Force and former chief of staff of the Air Force
Colin H. Kahl, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Middle East policy
Mara E. Karlin, former deputy assistant defense secretary for strategy and force development
Frank Kendall, former under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics
Susan Koch, former deputy assistant defense secretary for threat-reduction policy
Ken Krieg, former under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics
J. William Leonard, former deputy assistant defense secretary for security and information operations
Steven J. Lepper, retired major general of the U.S. Air Force
George Little, former Pentagon press secretary
William J. Lynn III, former deputy defense secretary
Ray Mabus, former secretary of the U.S. Navy and former governor of Mississippi
Kelly Magsamen, former principal deputy assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs
Carlos E. Martinez, retired brigadier general of the U.S. Air Force Reserve
Michael McCord, former under secretary of defense and Defense Department comptroller
Chris Mellon, former deputy assistant defense secretary for intelligence
James N. Miller, former under secretary of defense for policy
Edward T. Morehouse Jr., former principal deputy assistant defense secretary and former acting assistant defense secretary for operational energy plans and programs
Jamie Morin, former director of cost assessment and program evaluation at the Defense Department and former acting under secretary of the U.S. Air Force
Jennifer M. O’Connor, former general counsel of the Defense Department
Sean O’Keefe, former secretary of the U.S. Navy
Dave Oliver, former principal deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics
Robert B. Pirie, former under secretary of the U.S. Navy
John Plumb, former acting deputy assistant defense secretary for space policy
Eric Rosenbach, former assistant defense secretary for homeland defense and global security
Deborah Rosenblum, former acting deputy assistant defense secretary for counternarcotics
Todd Rosenblum, acting assistant defense secretary for homeland defense and Americas’ security affairs
Tommy Ross, former deputy assistant defense secretary for security cooperation
Henry J. Schweiter, former deputy assistant defense secretary
David B. Shear, former assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs
Amy E. Searight, former deputy assistant defense secretary for South and Southeast Asia
Vikram J. Singh, former deputy assistant defense secretary for South and Southeast Asia
Julianne Smith, former deputy national security adviser to the vice president and former principal director for Europe and NATO policy
Paula Thornhill, retired brigadier general of the Air Force and former principal director for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs
Jim Townsend, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Europe and NATO policy
Sandy Vershbow, former assistant defense secretary for international security affairs
Michael Vickers, former under secretary of defense for intelligence
Celeste Wallander, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia
Andrew Weber, former assistant defense secretary for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs
William F. Wechsler, former deputy assistant defense secretary for special operations and combating terrorism
Doug Wilson, former assistant defense secretary for public affairs
Anne A. Witkowsky, former deputy assistant defense secretary for stability and humanitarian affairs
Douglas Wise, former deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
Daniel P. Woodward, retired brigadier general of the U.S. Air Force
Margaret H. Woodward, retired major general of the U.S. Air Force
Carl Woog, former deputy assistant to the defense secretary for communications
Robert O. Work, former deputy defense secretary
Dov S. Zakheim, former under secretary of defense and Defense Department comptroller
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/05/89-former-defense-officials-military-must-never-be-used-violate-constitutional-rights/
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arcadianambivalence · 4 years
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World on Fire, Episode 4, or How We React to “Normal” in a Crisis
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Spring 1940
Months have passed since the last episode, and characters have had time to steady their nerves.  Kasia’s previous reservations about killing Germans is largely gone, Lois has decided to have the baby and not involve Harry in her life, Webster and Albert have resolved to stay together, and Nancy has repeatedly tried to sneak her discoveries into her broadcasts (or to smuggle her research out of Germany) despite blackmail.  
Other characters have started to lose their determination.  Claudia and Uwe’s marriage is falling apart over their differing ideas about how to protect Hilde, Harry is struggling with his responsibilities in combat, and Grzegorz is grappling with his empathy and endurance.
(More under the cut)
The Winter of 1939 – 1940 has ended, and with it, the illusion of peace for Western Europe.  Stationed in Belgium, Harry’s group retreats closer and closer to the French border as the German army arrives with far more resources.  
Meanwhile, the American hospital in Paris receives wounded soldiers from the front.  Refugees fleeing the war need attention too, like a Jewish emigree couple attacked by Anti-Semites, much like Albert was attacked by fascists in the first episode.  Henriette, a nurse and Webster’s friend, confides in him that she is Jewish and had hidden that fact when she applied for work at the hospital.  
Albert and Webster count their days left together.  Webster is happy just to be with him, but Alfred is afraid of being seen.  They’ve been together for half a year, and the closest Alfred can get to public displays of affection is a brief kiss after a furtive look around.  The reasons for this become all too clear when they return to his apartment to find a swastika on the door and a severed pig’s head on the doorstep.  
“I’ll never be safe anywhere in this world,” he tells Webster.  “People have got plenty choice of what they might hate me for.”
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(I would like to take a moment and appreciate this show for pointing out the fascist movements and rising acts of intolerance all over Europe in the late 1930s and 1940.  This is especially visible in the Paris subplot, drawing attention to the wide swath of cultures in the city without entirely romanticizing it as a place of absolute refuge from prejudice.  It makes me think the show is laying the foundation for exploring Occupied France and Vichy France next season...)
The German gains in the invasion bring new worry to the Rosslers.  “The better the war goes, the worse for Hilde,” Claudia says.  Uwe is not happy that Nancy and Claudia continue to meet.  Claudia discovers Uwe has registered as a Nazi to cover the family after his conversation with the workers last episode.  She is horrified, and the two have a big argument with Nancy uncomfortably caught in the middle.  “The Nazis are going to win,” Uwe says.  They must appear to be on their side.
Claudia refuses to take the same course of action.  She brings Hilde to Nancy to say goodbye, perhaps permanently.  Mother and daughter will be staying in a little cabin far away from the city and its watchful denouncers.  
Uwe will not be joining them.
Nancy gifts Claudia a bottle of spirits and Hilde American candy, then asks them to listen to her radio show and toast to a better future.
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The way Nancy makes sure to place her hand firmly over Claudia’s hurts.
Douglas has concern for his own children’s safety.  Tom returns home on leave and confesses that he is thinking about deserting and becoming an official conscientious objector.  His father has reservations.  Tom could be executed for desertion, and then there are the political ramifications of a pacifist letting his own son into the movement.  Hurt and betrayed, Tom leaves home as if he does not plan on returning.
Things fare little better between Douglas and Lois.  Although Lois adamantly states that she does not want Harry or his mother involved in her life anymore, Douglas tells Robina that Lois is pregnant in the hopes that Robina’s sense of social (and financial) duty to her grandson will override any qualms about class. 
(The cautious back-and-forth between Douglas and Robina is great, as always, and if Harry and Lois don’t get back together, can their parents have something?)
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In the middle of these life-changing historical events, characters continue to talk about relationships and their social lives.  Lois can’t bring herself to sing one night because she’s heartsick over the realization that her feelings for Harry was a love for a person that never truly existed.  Robina and Douglas still have small talk while the latter spoons cubes of sugar into his tea.  Stan teases Harry for his two girls back home.  Thomasz and Kasia’s interactions are sweet when they get to act like two young adults who aren’t in an occupied country with their lives at risk every minute...then they casually discuss killing a soldier like it’s a fact of life.  
Moments like this feel like a kick in the teeth.  
On one hand, you could argue that the characters are too blasé about the killings and the risks involved.  At one point, Thomasz arrives late to a rendezvous and gives “There was a round-up” as his explanation, almost as if it’s a regular occurrence.  On the other hand, wouldn’t it have been?  Poland had been occupied for half a year by this point, and maybe Robina was right last episode (to a degree), you do get used to it...or at least, you continue to live alongside it.
All characters undergo a great change in this series, but it’s still startling to see how they react to their circumstances, especially when their reactions are so different from who they were before or how we expected them to be.  
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Kasia, Harry, and Grzegorz are all placed in perilous situations that ultimately lead to the decision of whether or not to take someone’s life.  
Kasia lures an SS officer to a secluded part of town with the expectation that Thomasz will kill him, but when Thomasz has not arrived and the officer starts to go too far, Kasia draws a gun from her purse and kills him.  In retaliation for the death of an officer, a new raid is carried out, leading Kasia to come face-to-face with the family of an innocent woman executed for what she did.  
The moral quandary in her storyline returns: if killing the enemy results in the death of innocents, do you kill the enemy?
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When Harry kills the German sniper, he does it to save his own life, but he also does it to save the lives of the men in his troop.  It is one of the few sequences in this show that has the kind of heroics expected of war depictions.  But what could in other hands be cathartic violence against non-character antagonists in battle is undercut by Harry’s emotional reaction after the skirmish and the way he freezes at the beginning of the conflict.  
He’s not calm-under-fire war hero of fiction, but he’s not exactly a romantic hero, either.  Yes, he is the romantic lead of the show, but unlike last episode, he spends his few moments of quiet dealing with his deep-seated familial issues brought out by his powerlessness.
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On the run from a death squad, Grzegorz holds a German soldier at gunpoint. The soldier, barely an adult and crying in fear, lowers his jammed weapon.  But instead of killing the soldier like Kasia and Harry do, Grzegorz offers his hand.  Despite all of the atrocities he has witnessed in the past year: his father’s death, people burned alive in Danzig, narrowly escaping execution, the massacre on the farm, the starvation and sleeping in the woods...and there is still a kind little boy thrown into something much bigger and meaner than he is underneath the exhaustion and self-preservation.  
It’s Konrad who kills the soldier, to Grzegorz’s horror.
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“I killed one German, just like a German killed your dad.” “Not that German.”
The landscape of the woods around them changes.  Snow dusted ground gives way to moss and mud.  A spring fog cloaks their journey.  And just as the natural landscape subtly changes, so does their luck.
The two stumble across a troop of British soldiers (wait, where are they?) and quickly join the men.  Their relief is short-lived, though, and they are soon back in combat.  Konrad is shot through the head.  
In order to air with a certain rating, World on Fire has to clean up some of the images of violence.  You don’t see blood spurt out of people when they’re shot.  The scenes of death are not drawn out. 
But the image of Konrad, dead before he hits the ground, blood covering face, with a stunned Grzegorz kneeling over him shocked me.
When Grzegorz grieves, the loss of his family comes out, too, for his father Stefan and father figure Konrad.
In Grzegorz’s final scene, he stumbles through a forest, the British soldiers long gone.  Spring is here and beautiful, the snow has melted away, the birds are chirping, and green has returned to the Earth.  Grzegorz seems unaware of the world around him, only the journey ahead in the middle of anywhere and nowhere.
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Spoiler
The next episode’s promo places him on a beach.  Is he transported out of Poland by a ship on the Baltic sea?  Or are we supposed to believe Grzegorz and Konrad have spent all winter and spring walking through Poland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and finally into France?
Notes
Konrad calls Grzegorz son...
After a disastrous cup of tea with Douglas, Robina makes sure to pay for the both of their orders before leaving
Tom brings the canary home, a visual connector between Jan and his bird in the pilot and Tom now
When Kasia breaks the news to the Polish family of the executed woman, Thomasz notices a German officer kissing a Polish woman next door, which indicates that not all Poles consider Germans the same way they do (and raises the threat of someone recognizing them later)
Robina casually mentions the newly-appointed Churchill to see Douglas’s reaction
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June Creativity 2
On You Tube I found a video with alternate history of Poland, taking place in a world in which World War 2 never took place, instead a long rivalisation between far-right, democracy and far-left took place. One of my favourite parts of it was peaceful annexation of Free City of Danzig by Poland. In the last days of June I visited the place when it once existed. I got interested even more in the topic and started reading about this short-lived state. One day, when I was resting, I grabbed my computer and felt that it was the moment to write down my ideas. During approximately 2-3 weeks before I did it, I was thinking about a text like in a history book about this imaginary event - "Danzig Crisis - which in a video was based around Polish annexation of Free City. I was partially inspired by the video, for example I took the dates from it. But most was invented by myself. At the end, it probably looks like a Wikipedia page. It was a very interesting experience and I was happy to do something with my ideas. It took me maybe 1-1.5 hour and it's 1000-words long. Overall, I'm very satisfied with the effect
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bristolforeurope · 4 years
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"Professor Devi Sridhar is Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh. She has offered true wisdom during this pandemic, and before. Back in 2018, she said in her speech for the Hay Festival that the largest threat to the UK population was someone being infected from an animal in China – “that’s received antibiotics to improve its growth, it’s transferred to the farmer, which is transferred to community” – and then gets on a plane to the UK. She’s offered her Twitter feed and the media so much sage advice about #Covid19 that she has become a media and medical star at the same time. Writing for The Guardian today, Professor Sridhar asserted that instead of quarantining the entire population, the most pragmatic way out of the pandemic in the UK ‘would be via a more nuanced and data-driven approach of mass-testing 75-100,000 people per day’. She explained: ‘This would not be testing random people but rather those presenting with symptoms, and then tracing all of their contacts (household members, colleagues, flatmates) to ensure they are also tested. ‘All those who are virus-carriers would be put into a mandatory two-week quarantine in their homes, enforced through tracking and fines. ‘This will allow the public health community to identify where exactly the virus is, to break further chains of transmission and to keep case numbers low and within the NHS capacity limit. ‘It would also allow most of society, and the economy, to continue on a somewhat more “normal” basis.’ Why isn’t the government listening and following Professor Sridhar’s sound advice, which is 100% backed by the World Health Organisation? ▪ If you have suggestions of other people who are worthy of the hashtag #Covid19Wisdom, please let me know. Together, we can celebrate wisdom, all become wiser, and find our way through this planetary pandemic crisis. ▪ Introduction and poster design by Jon Danzig ▪ Link to Professor Sridhar’s article in The Guardian: theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/01/lockdown-buys-time-virus-mass-testing-coronavirus-uk " https://www.facebook.com/549379585194546/posts/1886042481528243/ https://www.instagram.com/p/B-cjijTlFYB/?igshid=pzb3f25do4hh
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