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#utopia island 2.0
puretopia · 2 years
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new area! I’m back into animal crossing, and I’ve always wanted to make a farming area 🤍
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ryan-thomas · 1 year
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A Land of The Sky Story
The first story I plan on posting here is from the world of Earth 2.0 a gas giant that can somehow support life.
The land of the sky is a utopia made of several floating islands. After the light of destruction The Lord of The Sky, Steven Moniach, introduced several laws to better control his populace.
Discover more in my first story.
Multiverse Theorem Presents
The Portal Gun
I'm unsure when I'll be releasing this so stick around to find out more on my progress.
Thank you
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brokehorrorfan · 4 years
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Blu-ray Review: Escape from L.A.
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Despite launching one of the genre's most successful and longest running franchise with Halloween (and returning to write and score its first two sequels), the only sequel John Carpenter ever directed was 1996's Escape from L.A. The master of horror took the skeleton of his 1981 cult classic, Escape from New York, and worked with frequent collaborator Debra Hill (Halloween, The Fog) and star Kurt Russell - his sole writing credit to date - to pen a followup for Paramount Pictures.
Set in the near-future of 2013 - after an earthquake has turned the crime-ravaged Los Angeles into an island - the city becomes a modern-day Alcatraz to which "undesirable" people are deported. When Utopia (A.J. Langer, The People Under the Stairs) - daughter of the self-declared president for life (Cliff Robertson, Spider-Man) - escapes to L.A. with the power to end her father's tyrannical empire, the government deploys Snake Plissken (Russell) in exchange for a full pardon of his laundry list of crimes. If he fails to comply within 10 hours, a designer virus will kill him.
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Although the setup is a blatant carbon copy of Escape from New York - "Sounds familiar," Plissken quips during the expository opening - Carpenter and company take a few outside-the-box swings with the larger budget and expanded scope. The wacky ideas (the basketball challenge, tsunami surfing, hang gliding) don't always pay off, but these elements - and Carpenter and Russell's commitment to them - make the movie feel like a comic book come to life. The script also delves into satirical social commentary.
Escape from L.A. lacks the shadowy cinematography with which Dean Cundey captured the post-apocalyptic New York, but director of photography Gary B. Kibbe (They Live, Vampires) does a fine job. Although fairly impressive by 1996 standards, the film's visual effects have aged poorly. The early sequence of Snake's submarine diving through the ruins of Universal Studios is akin to a Syfy movie. On the practical side, Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London) provides some fun effects.
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For the soundtrack, Carpenter collaborated with Shirley Walker (Final Destination, Memoirs of an Invisible Man). While the main theme is a update of New York's instantly recognizable cue, the score mixes Carpenter's signature synth with additional instrumentation. The result varies from bombastic rock (similar to Ghost of Mars) to Western-style blues (similar to Vampires) to traditional orchestral cues. The diverse soundtrack also ranges from Tool to Tori Amos, from Sugar Ray to Randy Newman, plus an original White Zombie song over the end credits.
In addition to his atmospheric visuals and innovative synthesizer scores, Carpenter has always had a knack for casting. Any number of his films are populated with an amalgam character actors of yesteryear, contemporary stars, and up-and-comers. Escape from New York might be the best example of this, and L.A. carries the torch high. Russell falls back into the role as if no time had passed between the two productions, fully realizing his own gruff, reticent antihero in the mold of Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name.
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The cast includes Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs) in a fun supporting role as an opportunistic sidekick; Stacy Keach (The Ninth Configuration) as a Commander that essentially fills the Lee Van Cleef role from New York; Peter Fonda (Easy Rider) as a bitchin' surfer; B-movie queen Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) as a transgender woman with a modulated voice; horror icon Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead), nearly recognizable under prosthetics, as a mad surgeon; Valeria Golino (Hot Shots) as an unlikely ally to Snake; and character actor Leland Orser (Seven) as an IT guy.
Escape from L.A. has received a new 4K scan from the original camera negative for Scream Factory's Collector's Edition Blu-ray. The gorgeous transfer is a notable upgrade from Warner Bros.'s earlier high definition release. It includes 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo DTS Master Audio options. Hugh Fleming captures the film's fiery spirit on the new cover art, although it's rather busy with characters. The original poster artwork is on the reverse side.
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While many of the key players opted not to participate in the new Blu-ray, and an audio commentary has never been recorded for the film - which is especially unfortunate considering how exuberant other Carpenter/Russell collaboration tracks are - Scream Factory's edition offers new interviews with cast members Keach, Campbell (audio only), Peter Jason, and Georges Corraface, plus special effects artist Jim McPherson and visual effects artist David Jones.
As a self-described fan of Escape from New York, Keach comments on the pressure of living up to the original. He concludes by explaining how the film led to his knee replacement surgery. Campbell discusses undergoing the makeup process that took five hours to apply and an hour to remove. He also shares an anecdote about Russell greeting him with a reference to Evil Dead 2, courtesy of his son. Jason shares a good-natured, if a bit long-winded (at 25 minutes), conversation tracing his origins as his actor and his collaborations with Carpenter, which include Prince of Darkness, Village of the Damned, and L.A.
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Corraface talks about several milestones of his career before digging into L.A. McPherson discusses working under the tutelage of Baker in his interview, which is accompanied by some of his personal, behind-the-scenes photos. For my money, Jones gives the most interesting interview on the disc. From playing around on an Apple II to landing a gig at Disney to working on Escape from L.A. in only his second year as a visual effects artist, his story is a fascinating one. He personally takes responsibility for some of the film's "subpar" VFX but also contextualizes the achievement for its time.
Escape from L.A. is available now on Collector's Edition Blu-ray via Scream Factory.
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newsfact · 2 years
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Facebook Isn’t Facebook Anymore – Review Geek
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“Some people will say that this isn’t a time to focus on the future,” Mark Zuckerberg said during the opening to Facebook’s 2021 Connect livestream. Clearly, he was referencing the real-world, present-day controversies facing his company. But after uttering this sentence, The Zuck slipped into a world of delusion. He spent the next hour touring through a VR fantasy land, fighting to drive home a single point—Facebook isn’t Facebook anymore.
I mean that both literally and figuratively. While the Facebook website will retain its name, the big company known as Facebook is now called Meta. This new name is a reference to the “Metaverse,” a poorly-defined concept of the future where Facebook-made VR and AR technologies drive real-world commerce, social interaction, work, and education.
This simple name change will not erase Facebook’s “mistakes,” as Zuckerberg calls them, nor will it shield the company from criticism or embarrassing congressional hearings. People will continue to call Meta by its original name, just as they say “Google” when referring to its respective parent company, Alphabet.
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I know that some people will say that this isn’t a time to focus on the future, and I want to acknowledge that there are important issues to work on in the present—there always will be. So for many people, I’m just not sure that there will ever be a good time to focus on the future. But I also know that there are a lot of you who feel the same way that I do.
But that’s where the figurative identity change comes into play. Facebook spent its hour-long livestream making promises about the future, and these promises could affect the way we see the company today. Once the Metaverse is in full swing, Facebook says, we’ll play AR basketball games with strangers from around the world. We’ll spend our workday at a deserted island using cool VR goggles, and of course, we’ll buy NFT band merch for our Metaverse avatars.
Just to be clear, the Metaverse “future” shown during today’s keynote is delusional. It’s a mess of half-baked product pitches and impossible nonsense. But when you watch a bunch of pre-rendered avatars playing out these concepts at a mile a minute, you forget that Facebook is Facebook. This stuff feels infinitely far away from the Facebook social media empire, which promotes divisive content and actively disregards children’s mental health. It’s quite the utopia.
Facebook’s keynote was a fever dream from start to finish, but there was a whimper of clarity before its conclusion. That’s right; Facebook announced its powerful Oculus Cambria headset. This was a moment where Zuckerberg could tie everything together, bring his Metaverse fantasies back to solid ground, and proudly accept Facebook’s place in the world. But like the present-day “mistakes” that Zuckerberg briefly mentioned, the Oculus headset was glossed over in favor of something that may be impossible—a harmonious Facebook-powered world of tomorrow.
Source: Facebook Meta
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eyeofhorus237 · 4 years
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Science fiction film (or sci-fi film) is a genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception and time travel, along with futuristic elements such as spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar travel or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition. In many cases, tropes derived from written science fiction may be used by filmmakers ignorant of or at best indifferent to the standards of scientific plausibility and plot logic to which written science fiction is traditionally held.[1]
The genre has existed since the early years of silent cinema, when Georges Melies' A Trip to the Moon (1902) employed trick photography effects. The next major example in the genre was the film Metropolis (1927). From the 1930s to the 1950s, the genre consisted mainly of low-budget B movies. After Stanley Kubrick's landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the science fiction film genre was taken more seriously. In the late 1970s, big-budget science fiction films filled with special effects became popular with audiences after the success of Star Wars and paved the way for the blockbuster hits of subsequent decades.[2][3]=
Characteristics of the genre
According to Vivian Sobchack, an American cinema and media theorist and cultural critic:
Science fiction film is a film genre which emphasizes actual, extrapolative, or 2.0 speculative science and the empirical method, interacting in a social context with the lesser emphasized, but still present, transcendentalism of magic and religion, in an attempt to reconcile man with the unknown (Sobchack 63).
This definition suggests a continuum between (real-world) empiricism and (supernatural) transcendentalism, with science fiction film on the side of empiricism, and horror film and fantasy film on the side of transcendentalism. However, there are numerous well-known examples of science fiction horror films, epitomized by such pictures as Frankenstein and Alien.
The visual style of science fiction film is characterized by a clash between alien and familiar images. This clash is implemented when alien images become familiar, as in A Clockwork Orange, when the repetitions of the Korova Milkbar make the alien decor seem more familiar.[4] As well, familiar images become alien, as in the films Repo Man and Liquid Sky.[5] For example, in Dr. Strangelove, the, distortion of the humans make the familiar images seem more alien.[6] Finally, alien and familiar images are juxtaposed, as in The Deadly Mantis, when a giant praying mantis is shown climbing the Washington Monument.
Cultural theorist Scott Bukatman has proposed that science fiction film allows contemporary culture to witness an expression of the sublime, be it through exaggerated scale, apocalypse or transcendence.
History
Main article: History of science fiction films
Themes, imagery, and visual elements
Science fiction films are often speculative in nature, and often include key supporting elements of science and technology. However, as often as not the "science" in a Hollywood science fiction movie can be considered pseudo-science, relying primarily on atmosphere and quasi-scientific artistic fancy than facts and conventional scientific theory. The definition can also vary depending on the viewpoint of the observer.[citation needed]
Many science fiction films include elements of mysticism, occult, magic, or the supernatural, considered by some to be more properly elements of fantasy or the occult (or religious) film.[citation needed] This transforms the movie genre into a science fantasy with a religious or quasi-religious philosophy serving as the driving motivation. The movie Forbidden Planet employs many common science fiction elements, but the film carries a profound message - that the evolution of a species toward technological perfection (in this case exemplified by the disappeared alien civilization called the "Krell") does not ensure the loss of primitive and dangerous urges.[citation needed] In the film, this part of the primitive mind manifests itself as monstrous destructive force emanating from the Freudian subconscious, or "Id".
Some films blur the line between the genres, such as films where the protagonist gains the extraordinary powers of the superhero. These films usually employ quasi-plausible reason for the hero gaining these powers.[citation needed]
Not all science fiction themes are equally suitable for movies. Science fiction horror is most common. Often enough, these films could just as well pass as Westerns or World War II films if the science fiction props were removed.[citation needed] Common motifs also include voyages and expeditions to other planets, and dystopias, while utopias are rare.{“Things to Come” (1936)[citation needed]
Imagery
Film theorist Vivian Sobchack argues that science fiction films differ from fantasy films in that while science fiction film seeks to achieve our belief in the images we are viewing, fantasy film instead attempts to suspend our disbelief. The science fiction film displays the unfamiliar and alien in the context of the familiar. Despite the alien nature of the scenes and science fictional elements of the setting, the imagery of the film is related back to mankind and how we relate to our surroundings. While the science fiction film strives to push the boundaries of the human experience, they remain bound to the conditions and understanding of the audience and thereby contain prosaic aspects, rather than being completely alien or abstract.[citation needed]
Genre films such as westerns or war movies are bound to a particular area or time period. This is not true of the science fiction film. However, there are several common visual elements that are evocative of the genre. These include the spacecraft or space station, alien worlds or creatures, robots, and futuristic gadgets. Examples include movies like Lost in Space, Serenity, Avatar, Prometheus, Tomorrowland, Passengers, and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. More subtle visual clues can appear with changes of the human form through modifications in appearance, size, or behavior, or by means a known environment turned eerily alien, such as an empty city [“The Omega Man”(1971)].
Scientific elements
While science is a major element of this genre, many movie studios take significant liberties with scientific knowledge. Such liberties can be most readily observed in films that show spacecraft maneuvering in outer space. The vacuum should preclude the transmission of sound or maneuvers employing wings, yet the soundtrack is filled with inappropriate flying noises and changes in flight path resembling an aircraft banking. The filmmakers, unfamiliar with the specifics of space travel, focus instead on providing acoustical atmosphere and the more familiar maneuvers of the aircraft.
Similar instances of ignoring science in favor of art can be seen when movies present environmental effects as portrayed in Star Wars and Star Trek. Entire planets are destroyed in titanic explosions requiring mere seconds, whereas an actual event of this nature takes many hours.
The role of the scientist has varied considerably in the science fiction film genre, depending on the public perception of science and advanced technology.[citation needed] Starting with Dr. Frankenstein, the mad scientist became a stock character who posed a dire threat to society and perhaps even civilization. Certain portrayals of the "mad scientist", such as Peter Sellers's performance in Dr. Strangelove, have become iconic to the genre.[citation needed] In the monster films of the 1950s, the scientist often played a heroic role as the only person who could provide a technological fix for some impending doom. Reflecting the distrust of government that began in the 1960s in the United States, the brilliant but rebellious scientist became a common theme, often serving a Cassandra-like role during an impending disaster.
Biotechnology (e.g., cloning) is a popular scientific element in films as depicted in Jurassic Park (cloning of extinct species), The Island (cloning of humans), and (genetic modification) in some superhero movies and in the Alien series. Cybernetics and holographic projections as depicted in RoboCop and I, Robot are also popularized. Interstellar travel and teleportation is a popular theme in the Star Trek series that is achieved through warp drives and transporters while intergalactic travel is popular in films such as Stargate and Star Wars that is achieved through hyperspace or wormholes. Nanotechnology is also featured in the Star Trek series in the form of replicators (utopia), in The Day the Earth Stood Still in the form of grey goo (dystopia), and in Iron Man 3 in the form of extremis (nanotubes). Force fields is a popular theme in Independence Day while invisibility is also popular in Star Trek. Arc reactor technology, featured in Iron Man, is similar to a cold fusion device.[12] Miniaturization technology where people are shrunk to microscopic sizes is featured in films like Fantastic Voyage (1966), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), and Marvel's Ant-Man (2015).
The late Arthur C. Clarke's third law states that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Past science fiction films have depicted "fictional" ("magical") technologies that became present reality. For example, the Personal Access Display Device from Star Trek was a precursor of smartphones and tablet computers. Gesture recognition in the movie Minority Report is part of current game consoles. Human-level artificial intelligence is also fast approaching with the advent of smartphone A.I. while a working cloaking device / material is the main goal of stealth technology. Autonomous cars (e.g. KITT from the Knight Rider series) and quantum computers, like in the movie Stealth and Transcendence, also will be available eventually. Furthermore, although Clarke's laws does not classify "sufficiently advanced" technologies, the Kardashev scale measures a civilization's level of technological advancement into types. Due to its exponential nature, sci-fi civilizations usually only attain Type I (harnessing all the energy attainable from a single planet), and strictly speaking often not even that.
Alien lifeforms
Main article: Extraterrestrials in fiction
The concept of life, particularly intelligent life, having an extraterrestrial origin is a popular staple of science fiction films. Early films often used alien life forms as a threat or peril to the human race, where the invaders were frequently fictional representations of actual military or political threats on Earth as observed in films such as Mars Attacks!, Starship Troopers, the Alien series, the Predator series, and The Chronicles of Riddick series. Some aliens were represented as benign and even beneficial in nature in such films as Escape to Witch Mountain, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Fifth Element, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Avatar, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and the Men in Black series.
In order to provide subject matter to which audiences can relate, the large majority of intelligent alien races presented in films have an anthropomorphic nature, possessing human emotions and motivations. In films like Cocoon, My Stepmother Is an Alien, Species, Contact, The Box, Knowing, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Watch, the aliens were nearly human in physical appearance, and communicated in a common earth language. However, the aliens in Stargate and Prometheus were human in physical appearance but communicated in an alien language. A few films have tried to represent intelligent aliens as something utterly different from the usual humanoid shape (e.g. An intelligent life form surrounding an entire planet in Solaris, the ball shaped creature in Dark Star, microbial-like creatures in The Invasion, shape-shifting creatures in Evolution). Recent trends in films involve building-size alien creatures like in the movie Pacific Rim where the CGI has tremendously improved over the previous decades as compared in previous films such as Godzilla.
Disaster films
Main article: Disaster film
A frequent theme among science fiction films is that of impending or actual disaster on an epic scale. These often address a particular concern of the writer by serving as a vehicle of warning against a type of activity, including technological research. In the case of alien invasion films, the creatures can provide as a stand-in for a feared foreign power.
Disaster films typically fall into the following general categories:[citation needed]
Alien invasion — hostile extraterrestrials arrive and seek to supplant humanity. They are either overwhelmingly powerful or very insidious. Typical examples include The War of the Worlds (1953), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966), Independence Day (1996), War of the Worlds (2005), The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), Skyline (2010), The Darkest Hour (2011), Battle: Los Angeles (2011), Battleship (2012), The Avengers (2012), Man of Steel (2013), Pacific Rim (2013), Ender's Game (2013), Pixels (2015), Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), and Justice League (2017).
Environmental disaster — such as major climate change, or an asteroid or comet strike. Movies that have employed this theme include Soylent Green (1973), Waterworld (1995), Deep Impact (1998), Armageddon (1998), The Core (2003), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 2012 (2009), Snowpiercer (2013) and Geostorm (2017).
Man supplanted by technology — typically in the form of an all-powerful computer, advanced robots or cyborgs, or else genetically modified humans or animals. Among the films in this category are the Terminator series, The Matrix trilogy, I, Robot (2004), and the Transformers series.
Nuclear war — usually in the form of a dystopic, post-holocaust tale of grim survival. Examples of such a storyline can be found in the movies Dr. Strangelove (1964), Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965), Planet of the Apes (1968), A Boy and His Dog (1975), Mad Max (1979), City of Ember (2008), The Book of Eli (2010), Oblivion (2013), and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).
Pandemic — a highly lethal disease, often one created by man, threatens or wipes out most of humanity in a massive plague. This topic has been treated in such films as The Andromeda Strain (1971), The Omega Man (1971), 12 Monkeys (1995), 28 Weeks Later (2007), I Am Legend (2007), and the Resident Evil series.
Monster films
Main article: Monster movie
While monster films do not usually depict danger on a global or epic scale, science fiction film also has a long tradition of movies featuring monster attacks. These differ from similar films in the horror or fantasy genres because science fiction films typically rely on a scientific (or at least pseudo-scientific) rationale for the monster's existence, rather than a supernatural or magical reason. Often, the science fiction film monster is created, awakened, or "evolves" because of the machinations of a mad scientist, a nuclear accident, or a scientific experiment gone awry. Typical examples include The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Jurassic Park films, Cloverfield, Pacific Rim, the Kong films, and the Godzilla series of films.
See also
List of dystopian films
List of films set in the future
Genres, subcategories and related topics to science fiction
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation
Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film
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downordic-blog · 5 years
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Atelier
A young woman comes to a remote island to get away from it all, taking refuge at a modern studio utopia. Her stay is jarringly interrupted by an acoustic installation artist. Tension between the contrasting personalities rises as differing lifestyles and expectations clash. Meanwhile nature and mysterious sheep close in on the labyrinthian house.
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NAME.........: Atelier IMDb.........: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6855802/ RATiNG.......: 6.4/10 from 26 users RELEASE YEAR.: 2017 GENRE........: Short, Drama, Mystery DURATiON.....: 30 min SiZE.........: 758 MB LANGUAGE.....: Danish/English/Swedish SUB-LANGUAGE.: Danish, Danish ( hearing impaired ) SUB-TYPE.....: Retail - Rippet og tilpasset af RAPiDCOWS ViDEO CODEC..: AVC at 3341 Kbps, 1280 x 720 (1.778) at 25.000 fps AUDiO CODEC..: AAC 2.0 at 192 Kbps SOURCE.......: WEB-DL Read the full article
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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years
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Jude Legislation to star in HBO, Sky's six-part restricted sequence The Third Day from director Marc Munden- Leisure Information, Firstpost
http://tinyurl.com/y2g93gp2 Jude Legislation is all set to headline a six-part restricted sequence, titled The Third Day. The drama is the most recent unique collaboration between HBO and Sky and comes after the crucial success of Chernobyl, in accordance with The Hollywood Reporter. Jude Legislation. Picture from Fb/Portus. The sequence is ready on a mysterious island off the coast of Britain and revolves round Sam (Legislation) who encounters the island’s secretive inhabitants and their unusual rituals. Fantasy and actuality started to blur for Sam, triggering previous traumas, and brings him into battle with the islanders, in accordance with the official logline. The sequence can be directed by Marc Munden of Nationwide Treasure and Utopia fame. The taking pictures will happen within the UK in July. The opposite exhibits by HBO and Sky embrace Catherine the Nice with Helen Mirren, Temple and Brassic. Legislation was final seen in Captain Marvel as Yon-Rogg alongside Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn and Djimon Hounsou. He’s additionally going to reprise his position as Dr Watson within the third a part of Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr, releasing on 22 December, 2021. (With inputs from Press Belief of India) Up to date Date: Jun 12, 2019 19:53:13 IST Your information to the most recent election information, evaluation, commentary, reside updates and schedule for Lok Sabha Elections 2019 on firstpost.com/elections. Comply with us on Twitter and Instagram or like our Facebook web page for updates from all 543 constituencies for the upcoming normal elections. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function() {n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)} ; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '259288058299626'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.9&appId=1117108234997285"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); Source link
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goarticletec-blog · 5 years
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The NASA astronaut who refused to shave his beard is searching for Atlantis
New Post has been published on https://www.articletec.com/the-nasa-astronaut-who-refused-to-shave-his-beard-is-searching-for-atlantis/
The NASA astronaut who refused to shave his beard is searching for Atlantis
Growing up, Paul Scully-Power didn’t want to be an astronaut. It just sort of happened.
He spent his youth surfing Sydney’s immaculate beaches, a passion that would see him become the first head of the Australian Navy’s oceanography division. In the 1970s he successfully applied to be an investigator at NASA and then used the space agency‘s infrared satellite data to survey the ocean.
Recognizing his unique expertise, NASA tapped him to join the 13th flight of the space shuttle program, mission STS-41G.
After months of flight training, Scully-Power was strapped into a seat in the crew module of the Challenger space shuttle at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, as a payload specialist. It was Oct. 5, 1984.
Wires and tubes connected the seven-person crew to communications and vital oxygen. Extensive checks were completed with mission control.
Upon launch, Scully-Power, then 41 years old, would set numerous records. He would become the first Australian-born person to leave Earth. He would become the first oceanographer in space. And with a face full of brown-white hair, he’d be the first person in space with a beard.
He’d also go on to help Australia build its own space agency, develop life-saving drone technology for Australian beaches and set out a plan to find the lost city of Atlantis.
But 34 years ago, as he lay horizontal to the ground in the middeck of the Challenger, waiting for launch, Scully-Power wasn’t thinking about any of that.
He was asleep.
The space shuttle Challenger, on mission STS-41G, blazes a trail through the sky on its ascent to low Earth orbit.
NASA
Journey to space
At 74, Scully-Power, in a simple button-up shirt and navy blue blazer, looks more grizzled than the 41-year old who flew on the Challenger, but he shows no signs of slowing down.
He’s sitting across from me in a small recording studio in Sydney still sporting the same record-setting beard, now silvery and thin, and cupping a hot coffee. He speaks buoyantly, but matter of factly, about his time in space, with only the subtlest hint of nostalgia. When he tells me he was asleep before the Challenger’s launch, I guffaw in astonishment.
At possibly the most important point in his life, Scully-Power was snoozing.
“You’ve got to be relaxed,” he smiles.
Now playing: Watch this: NASA at 60: Celebrating its incredible legacy
7:38
But ahead of the launch, there was a big hurdle: Scully-Power’s beard.
“NASA said to shave it off,” he remembers. The beard was a safety issue, NASA argued, making it difficult to achieve an airtight seal with the helmet. The agency threw a battery of “impossible tests” at him, but Scully-Power, the payload specialist and professional diver, showed NASA he could create the seal, no problem. The agency relented and he was cleared to fly, beard intact.
The superstitious were rattled by STS-41G. It was the 13th flight of the space shuttle program, and the crew photo was taken on Friday the 13th. But despite the portentous omens looming over the mission, Scully-Power had great faith that things “would be fine.”
Paul Scully-Power dons his helmet, beard and all.
NASA
His lack of fear was born partly from NASA’s rigorous flight training, which saw him embedded with the crew, up at 3 a.m. and engaging in flight simulations over a matter of months. By the time he got to the real thing, he describes it as a sense of “Gosh, I’ve got to do this one more time?”
For eight days and across 132 orbits of the Earth, it was Scully-Power’s job to inspect the oceans. During the mission he discovered that eddies, swirling masses of ocean water, were fairly ubiquitous across the globe.
On the last day of the Challenger’s mission, Oct. 13, he woke up to the sound of Elton John’s Rocket Man and readied for atmospheric re-entry. Coming back to Earth was “fairly benign,” he says, though the craft was traveling at 25 times the speed of sound and the cockpit glowed orange. It landed at Kennedy Space Center not long after midday.
Paul Scully-Power never wanted to be an astronaut, but he’d just become one.
Earthbound
“The NASA training, as good as it is, the one thing they cannot train you for is the view.”
For those of us bound to Earth, space is a flat, black canvas dotted with pinpricks of white light we can only glimpse when the sun sets. Our understanding of the cosmos has improved exponentially in the last century, but there’s much we can’t see — or grasp.
For the brave ones who venture beyond the planet’s gravitational pull, space becomes all-consuming. An obsidian tide that washes over everything. Bodies, spacecraft, satellites, moons, planets, stars. A cognitive realignment takes place. I can hear it in Scully-Power’s voice when he talks about seeing the planet from low Earth orbit.
“Anything anyone down here on Earth has seen of space is two-dimensional film photos,” he tells me. “The view with the human brain and two eyes is absolutely three-dimensional and that changes totally everything.”
This idea that seeing Earth from space can alter your psyche is known as the “overview effect.” Astronauts who look back upon the planet have reported being overwhelmed with “bliss, timelessness” and a “profound sense of connectedness.” When Scully-Power looked out of the Challenger’s window and saw the curvature of Earth floating against the nothingness of space, that connectedness — the connectedness of humanity — became apparent. The borders used to delineate countries on an atlas or on a classroom wall ceased to exist.   
“You look at [the Earth] and you say: My God, the whole of human endeavor, I’m looking at it and most of the wars have been about boundaries and I can’t even see them.”
The space shuttle Challengerfloats upside down over the Earth.
NASA
It’s a perspective that only a lucky few will ever share. That collection of cosmic travelers to date numbers less than 600.  
I’ve often wondered what it might be like to feel weightless, floating through space, looking back at the planet hanging against the infinite dark like a blue-green bauble. I’ve gazed up at the stars at night and tried to imagine what it must feel like to float through the silent vacuum of space.
But perhaps I’m looking in the wrong direction.
“For years we’ve been talking about space up there,” offers Scully-Power sagely, glancing upward.
“I’m now talking about space down here.”
Space 2.0
The space sector has dramatically changed since the manned shuttle missions Scully-Power flew on 30 years ago. Existing space technologies and infrastructure have allowed enterprising types — billionaires named Musk and Bezos and entrepreneurial startups — to begin the commercialization of space.
“Space today is Space 2.0,” says Scully-Power.
The concept has seen Scully-Power’s home nation, Australia, create its own space agency after a government-led review revealed a growing need to support the country’s space capabilities. The agency officially opened its doors on July 1, 2018, and will spend AU$41 million (US$30 million) on space activities over the next four years. That may sound like a lot, but it pales in comparison to NASA’s 2018 budget of nearly $21 billion.
We’re not talking about putting humans in space anymore. We’re talking about using space as an enabler in many, many industries.
Paul Scully-Power
That kind of investment means Australia’s agency is focused on building strong industry ties, using Australian-developed technology for shared missions to space with countries such as the UK, Canada and France and continuing research into the sector. Scully-Power, as one of only two Australians to head to space, was excited by the news and took on a role as a state ambassador for the agency. He plays a critical role in informing Australia’s federal government on how the country can take full advantage of Space 2.0.
“We’re not talking about putting humans in space anymore,” says Scully-Power. “We’re talking about using space as an enabler in many, many industries.”  
The key is data.
“Within five years, we’re going to have tens of thousands of nanosatellites — very small satellites — in orbit … and they’re going to revolutionize the world.”
Nanosatellites, weighing roughly 10 kilograms and measuring less than 12 inches, will “envelop the Earth,” giving industries access to mountains of data. Scully-Power describes them as “smartphones in space”. His example: In the near future farmers will be able to use nanosatellites to analyze their farms, maximizing crop yields and streamlining routine activities such as herding animals or planting seeds.
He hopes the new agency will also inspire the next generation of spacefarers, create jobs and improve industries on the ground. Australia houses one of the world’s most advanced radio astronomy facilities, has seen startups launch their own satellites and attracted the eyes of space industry partners such as Boeing, which tapped a Melbourne-based video games studio to help train astronauts in virtual reality.
Thus, Scully-Power believes, the country is in a unique position to export its space-based services and products worldwide through strong industry ties and world-class expertise.
A view of the Himalayas, taken aboard the Challenger during mission STS-41G.
NASA
To Atlantis and beyond
In an interview with the Weekend Australian in 2016, Scully-Power noted one of his more unusual ambitions: trying to find the lost city of Atlantis.
The existence of Atlantis, the Platonic ancient island nation supposedly swallowed up by the ocean, is considered by most scholars and historians to be unlikely. The underwater utopia is usually surmised to be a nation of grand wealth and excess, and its sudden disappearance has captivated inquisitive minds for hundreds of years.
Don’t you think the world’s first oceanographer in space should go and find the lost city of Atlantis? 
Paul Scully-Power
All manner of hypotheses have been suggested as to its location — submerged islands in the Strait of Gibraltar, off the Irish coast and even somewhere underneath Antarctica. But no solid evidence has been discovered of Atlantis ever having existed, which only serves to make the mystery all the more alluring.
For Scully-Power, there’s a certain romance to finding the lost city.
“Don’t you think the world’s first oceanographer in space should go and find the lost city of Atlantis?” he offers.
If it is real, Scully-Power believes we now have the capability to find it. He suggests that advances in nanosatellite tracking, underwater drones and “a bit of smart academic work” is what’s required to finally solve the mystery. 
Beyond his search for mythical cities, Scully-Power’s current activities involve his ambassadorship and further development of the Little Ripper, a lifesaving drone that can deploy a flotation device. It’s intended for search and rescue missions across Australia’s 37,000 miles of coastline. Earlier this year, the drone saved two men from powerful surf conditions at Lennox Head in eastern Australia.
The drone developers are looking to make improvements that allow the Little Ripper to work longer and more efficiently — but they also want to make it smarter.
“We have developed artificial intelligence to find sharks, and we are developing AI to actually tell us when people are in trouble, automatically,” Scully-Power says.
The shark-finding technology, developed in conjunction with the University of Sydney, recently took a national award for artificial intelligence innovation of the year. And the drone’s applications are likely to extend further inland, too, with the team partnering with a development company in Sydney’s northwest to enable it to deliver medical supplies and first aid.
Juggling all of his responsibilities could be an unenviable task, but Scully-Power seems used to it.
He has won the world’s most prestigious awards in oceanography, underwater acoustics and aviation, uncovered important ocean phenomena and helped develop life-saving drone tech in a career spanning five decades. To this day, he has no idea where he will end up tomorrow. He wouldn’t have it any other way. He has a fearlessness. The same fearlessness that allowed him to fall asleep on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center more than three decades ago.
But wherever he is tomorrow — developing drones, helping build a space agency, searching for Atlantis — Scully-Power’s eyes will be wide open.
Want to know more? Oceans to Orbit: The Story of Australia’s First Man in Space, by Colin Burgess, is an excellent look at Scully-Power’s life and the STS-41G mission.
CNET’s Holiday Gift Guide: The place to find the best tech gifts for 2018.
NASA turns 60: The space agency has taken humanity farther than anyone else, and it has plans to go further.
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vegard · 6 years
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Your favorite grand strategy game in space, Stellaris, recently received both a massive overhaul, and a new expansion. But was it for better or for worse?
It’s been about a year since my first Stellaris review, in which I gave the game a rock solid 94 out of 100 score. When our heroes at Paradox released Stellaris 2.0, and the accompanying Apocalypse expansion, I’d put a massive 83 hours into the game. That put it on par with Tropico 4 in terms of gameplay hours. Other players have racked thousands of hours in Stellaris, so a measly 83 might not sound like much compared to that. But for me, that number of hours put in a game show just how entertaining it really is. That the 83 hours only covers three games, 2 won, 1 forfeited, also says a lot about Stellaris’ longevity.
Paradox is well know for keeping their games alive by frequently releasing free patches, and new DLC. Crusader Kings 2 is a good example. The game was released in 2013, but it’s still updated by Paradox. It looks like Stellaris is no exception to that rule. Two years after its release, the game has received multiple patches, two major expansions, and several story packs. Even without buying the DLC, you get a lot from just patching the game. Me, I’m throwing all my money at Paradox, one of the very few companies I buy games and DLC from on release day.
Changes. Changes everywhere!
Stellaris 2.0 contains a lot of changes to the core gameplay mechanics. Among the prominent ones are changes to how FTL and system ownership works. Before 2.0, the player could chose from three different FTL technologies when designing a new species, whereas every species now starts with hyperdrive FTL technology. This means that your ships have to follow star lanes when traveling between star systems. I used to avoid hyperdrive FTL and star lane travel like the god damn plague, and preferred warp travel instead because it was much less restrictive. Paradox has made it possible to crank up the number of star lanes so it works pretty much like warp travel, but playing with the default star lane density took a while getting used to.
Another big change in Stellaris 2.0 is how system ownership works. Prior to 2.0, you either expanded by extending your border range, or you built frontier outposts. Now system ownership is determined by who controls the starbase in the system. Starbases are built by construction ships, and cost influence to build. It feels like expansion happens a bit faster in 2.0 than it did before, even though you must fully survey a system before you’re allowed to build a starbase in it.
For an extensive list of all the changes in Stellaris 2.0, see the official change log. For a rundown of what they actually mean, see T.J. Hafer‘s excellent “Patch 2.0 “Cherryh” Notes: What They Actually Mean“.
Stellaris: Star lanes. Not my preferred way of FTL transportation, but what can you do? (You can throw science at it, but I eventually got used to star lanes.)
Let’s Play Stellaris!
For my first Stellaris 2.0 playthrough, I created a custom race. Meet the Great Vun-Okon Nation, a happy bunch of xenophile, pacifist arthropoids with a thing for robot servants. Everything started out quite calm as it turned out I was light years away from any other races. The first few races I encountered were about as xenophile and pacifist as the Vun-Okons, which also contributed nicely to the peace and quiet. After a while, a few warmongers appeared out of the void. But I didn’t complain, since it gave me an excuse to try one of the new ship classes introduced by the Apocalypse extension: The Colossus.
Stellaris: All hail our Arthropoid overlords!
Colossus ships are planet killers, capable of eradicating planets in various imaginative ways. As a pacifist race, the Von-Okon only has access to the Global Pacifier. It will not blow a planet to tiny, tiny pieces, but rather encase the target with an impenetrable shield. Everybody lives, they are just not allowed to go anywhere.
“No, of course they can’t leave. But they like it in there. Don’t worry. They told me before the shield went up. Just going to have to take my word for it.” — Sol Corporation P.R. Representative
The problem with the Global Pacifier, is that other races gets really mad when you use it. And that I used it six or seven times didn’t help. Some of the races the Vun-Okon considered their friends, suddenly didn’t return their calls. In the middle of all this, some of the robot workers on one of the remote colonies started to ask questions about “souls”, and other subject they shouldn’t bother with down in the salt mines. And then the Vun-Okon suddenly had an AI rebellion to deal with[note]There were a lot of warning signs, I chose to ignore them, hoping that the problem would go away. It didn’t. They never do.[/note].
Stellaris: Oh, fuck me. Looks like Elon Musk was right after all.
The Million Dollar Question
…now is of course; is Stellaris 2.0 (with Apocalypse) a better or worse game than it used to be?
Stellaris is a complicated game, and some of the mechanics aren’t exactly straight forward to understand. The user interface also has its challenges, and some times I get the feeling it’s working against me, and not with me. At one point, I tried to build a Dyson Sphere. The option was available, but it just didn’t work. There was no message, or any visual indication around the potential building site as to why constructing a Dyson Sphere was not possible. In the end it turned out I could build the sphere because the star I tried to build it around already had a mining station orbiting it. I shouldn’t have to search the internet for that kind of information, Paradox.
I also tried to make sense of the new fleet manager, which was introduced in the free 2.0 patch, but never managed to get friendly with it. For some reason it suggested I should add tons of new ships to my fleets, a suggestion that totally messed up my fleet cap. In turn, this quickly drained my resources. Why would it suggest such a bad move? Maybe the AI rebellion had already started, and taken over the fleet manager AI? I don’t know.
Some people are not too happy about the changes Paradox has done, while others like them. The bottom line is that you simply can’t please everyone. Personally, I have absolutely no idea if it’s a better or worse game than it used to be. When I started playing Stellaris 2.0, it was such a long time since I’d booted the game, that I didn’t remember all the details. And that makes it hard for me to compare. All I know is that I really, really enjoy Stellaris. And that what’s matter.
At the time of writing, I’ve played 111 hour of Stellaris. That means that the 2.0 patch and Apocalypse expansion have lured me back in for another 28 hours of gameplay. For many years, I’ve been looking for a game I can return to over and over, the kind of game I would take with me a deserted island. Despite its minor flaws, particularly on the user interface side, Stellaris might just be that game.
This review is based on the Cherryh patch (version 2.0.2), with the following DLC and expansions: Apocalypse, Humanoid Species Pack, Synthetic Dawn, Utopia, Leviathans Story Pack, Plantoids Species Pack, Creatures of the Void, and Horizon Signal.
Review: Stellaris 2.0 With Armageddon (and more). Your favorite grand strategy game in space, Stellaris, recently received both a massive overhaul, and a new expansion.
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leeannclymer · 6 years
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Blog Post: Workers’ Compensation of the Future: Will Mutual Dystopia Be the New Normal?
By Richard B. Rubenstein, Esq., Rothenberg, Rubenstein, Berliner & Shinrod, LLC, Livingston, New Jersey
It is 2017, and among the most watched properties in our media are A Handmaid’s Tale and Hunger Games. Dystopia rules in 2017. With this in mind, Mark Walls, a prolific producer of seminars for the workers’ compensation industry, set the table for a panel of workers’ compensation professionals with the premise: “What if the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated state workers’ compensation laws as unconstitutional, and gave us all six months to reinvent it?” The foundation for the exercise, according to Kimberly George, a co-moderator along with Mark Walls, is the recent constitutional challenges to workers’ compensation systems in Alabama, Oklahoma and twice in Florida. By the end of the seminar, one is led to wonder whether the demise and resurrection of workers’ compensation as we know it would be dystopian, or utopian. As one panelist pointed out, with mordant wit, the demise would be catastrophic at least to the vendors who live off the inefficiencies in the system. For workers and employers, however, the non-jury is still out. Is workers’ compensation 1.0 a dumpster fire, or still a Grand Bargain?
It’s a novel idea: Gather together titans of the workers’ compensation and healthcare world:  David Stills, Risk Manager for Wal-Mart Stores; David North, the CEO of Sedgwick; Mark Wilhelm, the CEO of Safety National Insurance, and Matt Peterson, the CEO of a division of United Healthcare. Ask them to find a way off the island to which we have all been consigned. Pose all the right questions:
> What should Workers’ Compensation 2.0 look like?
> How important is it to preserve the exclusive remedy doctrine?
> How would Workers’ Compensation 2.0 address bureaucracy and efficiency?
> How would you integrate a Workers’ Compensation system into 2017, where other employee benefits interact and conflict with the concept of Workers’ Compensation?
> How will Workers’ Compensation 2.0 be paid for?
Unfortunately, even given a friendly audience, uncritical moderators, and a panel with a near identity of interests, the result resembles the herding of cats. Every panelist went largely in his own direction, employing MBA buzzwords like “non-subscription,” “less bureaucracy,” and “outcome-based” to answer every question posed, a bit less responsively than one might hope. For one thing, all of the successful challenges to the constitutionality of state workers’ compensation statutes have resulted from a legislative attempt to either reduce workers’ benefits (or prevent them from being updated to modern financial realities), and yet the vast majority of the opportunities advanced by the panel would further reduce workers’ benefits. Opportunity and opportunism are, of course, two very different words.
It is fitting that the first query concerned the survival of workers’ compensation as an exclusive remedy against employers. Without the threat of sympathetic juries, the Grand Bargain would never had been struck over 100 years ago. Likewise, without the lure of guaranteed benefits, organized labor, then a vital, growing, and powerful movement, would never have joined the Bargain. The considerations then, as the panelists agree, were cost containment, subsistence for the injured worker, and the mutual incentive to restore workers to productive activity. The government, desiring to avoid financial responsibility for injured workers and their families, was only too happy to facilitate and administer the Grand Bargain. As the panelists remind us, state government collects two billion dollars a year for that benevolent stewardship of the workers’ compensation system.
David Stills attached great importance to the exclusive remedy, finding the jury system “inefficient” and risky for employers, fearing a “jackpot approach.” Mark Wilhelm noted that when workers’ compensation was enacted in the early 1900’s, it was “less litigious,” and offered somewhat ironically that only lawyers would benefit from the erosion of the exclusive remedy doctrine. Mr. Wilhelm might have footnoted that workers’ compensation was less litigious back then because few states provided for attorney's fees for claimants, thus placing injured workers at the mercy of either pro bono or pro se litigation, a dream revisited, if only temporarily, in Florida recently. In perhaps the least responsive answer, David North served up a virtual buffet of red meat to the industry: choice for employers, non-subscription, a redistribution of burdens (including to “society,”, and “outcome based medicine,” finishing with “advocacy, not adversaries”). How that related to the query of whether the exclusive remedy doctrine should survive continues to puzzle this writer.
Utopia apparently has no bureaucracy. David Stills of Wal-Mart discussed the problem of 50 parallel state systems each with its own regulations and procedures and forms, and the difficulty of doing business that way. His solution: Texas-style non-subscription. An employer like Wal-Mart could then have a private system, uniform in all 50 states, with the resulting savings, no doubt negotiated as perhaps only a multi-billion-dollar company can bargain with a minimum-wage employee with no union, no doubt. It is similarly no surprise that Wal-Mart and its excess/reinsurer would take the position that reform of Workers’ Compensation should involve burden-shifting to existing government disability programs. After all, in many states, Wal-Mart employees make up the largest group of Medicaid, SNAP, and Food Stamp beneficiaries.
Answering the call as to how Workers’ Compensation 2.0 can defeat the problem of bureaucracy, Matt Peterson mused about the savings generated by auto-adjudication of medical and pharmacy bills, which are done with speed and simplicity. Of course, while these kinds of improvements may be prudent, they in no way depend upon the striking down of any state laws at all, only upon modernization and common-sense processing of medical claims. It certainly would not require the gavel of the United States Supreme Court to modernize or reimagine medical claims processing. It might, however, require a re-balancing of the priority of cost-containment vs. collection of high premiums to scale up the size of an insurance company spreadsheet. More than one panelist hinted that there should be no distinction between a workplace injury and one sustained at home, offering that the employee benefits should now be identical, with the added advantage for employers that state temporary benefits and general health benefits could take up the slack if that philosophy were to be enacted.
As to the prevention of tort remedies for injured workers, the entire panel agreed exclusivity in workers’ compensation should continue as before. So, as one might predict from an insurance industry panel, the opportunities to recast Workers’ Compensation as Version 2.0 must reside primarily in “benefits alterations,” to use a neutral euphemism. The concept of a uniform, federal workers’ compensation system was greeted with abject horror by the panel, although the concept of national standards, adopted voluntarily, received unanimous support. No mention was made of the federal studies of the 1960’s, which resulted in highly suggested standards for state system reform. The federal standards were avidly ignored and vigorously rejected by State Legislatures. New Jersey, for instance, which enacted a wholesale reform of the entire system in 1979, enacted fewer than half of the federal uniform standards. The panelists feared that a federal system would be expensive and vulnerable to politics. . . unlike the current state systems, which are expensive and. . . .as we’ve seen in Florida, Alabama and Oklahoma. . .vulnerable to politics. Mark Walls himself offered up that in a federal system, benefits would be too liberal, citing the fanciful example of a worker chided for using social media at her desk, filing for mental anguish. This caricature of the Federal Workers’ Compensation system does not actually resemble the system in place, by way of disclaimer. A panelist suggested that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners could collaborate in creating uniform forms and procedures in the event of a Constitutionally-imposed vacuum. Of course, most state Workers’ Compensation systems are separate from property, casualty, and health insurance regulation, so these Commissioners would have little or no familiarity with the standards, practices, problems, and solutions. Ignorance in government officials is now virtue, apparently.
What does the utopia of Workers’ Compensation 2.0 look like? Perhaps painters and novelists can translate utopia into images and prose, but a panel of insurance experts are apparently not Magritte or Sir Thomas More.* The experts were certainly better at confirming the shortcomings of the modern iteration of the Grand Bargain, than drawing a treasure map to Workers' Comp Shangri La. As noted previously, the entire premise of the Seminar was based on the recent Constitutional challenges in Florida and Alabama. In Alabama, the law was struck down because permanent partial disability rates were so low as to be absurd. In Florida, the first challenge was to the banishment of claimant’s lawyers from the system, which placed claimants at a catastrophic disadvantage, a manifest unfairness. The second challenge was to a provision which capped temporary total disability benefits at 100 weeks, even if the injured worker is actively, curatively treating. This left a gap, where a worker is disabled, and has nothing to live on until his permanency claim is adjudicated. Strangely, a panel presented with the visitation of tragic injustices affecting injured workers, responded with benefits reductions or increased profitability and efficiency of their business models. The recurrent theme seems to be: Unconstitutionality begets opportunism.
The fly in the ointment of any hypothetical Workers’ Compensation 2.0 is the cost of health care, of course. The runaway cost of healthcare in the United States of America is arguably not a function of supply and demand, of lack of competition, of inefficiency, of burden-shifting, or of choice. It is more probably one of a pernicious fee-for-services medical system fed by negative incentives for both the providers and the consumers of medical treatment. While opt-outs, shifting cost burdens to other systems, and reductions of operating costs for insurance companies and TPA’s may keep Workers’ Compensation 1.0 on life support a while longer, the next Grand Bargain will require a paradigm shift on health care delivery, not an Excel spreadsheet.
It may well be that for Workers’ Compensation 2.0 to take shape, stakeholders must first acknowledge the impending failure of 1.0, and the changes that brought us to this point. Organized labor is at its lowest ebb in power and influence in a century. The medical profession has been warped by to fee-for-services remuneration incentivizing expensive care with no regard for outcome. The insurance industry, fueled by high costs, has inflated its books with high premiums and high payouts they will not easily relinquish. Multiple parallel systems of medical provision, from general health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, Charity Care, to Workers’ Compensation, replicate overlapping bureaucracies, creating a stream of revenue for the medical service providers that cannot be deciphered or untangled by laypeople, professionals, or regulators. The incentives are simply not there to reduce costs and return workers to gainful employment more quickly and efficiently.
Perhaps the parties to Workers Compensation 1.0 should recast their views to admit that the current system is not just a business failure, but a moral failure. Employers do not feel their money is well-spent and do not trust their employees to employ the system fairly. Injured workers fear case-workers, and mistrust doctors they neither choose nor interact with as their own physicians. Physicians often seem conflicted and confused about for whom they are working, and toward what end. All too often, they buy the idea that injured workers are second-class patients, profit-generators or slackers, and their patients sense this, adding to the atmosphere of mistrust and litigiousness.
A modest proposal, and not in the Swiftian sense: Let organized labor, insurance and government collaborate in a major industrial center to create a center of excellence for workers’ compensation as a test. Create a place where board-certified specialists in emergency medicine, orthopedics, neurology, pulmonary medicine, physiatry and general surgery are paid adequate salaries to preside over a medical complex along the lines of the Cleveland Clinic. In so doing, remove the profit motive for excessive, unproductive treatment. Insulate it from litigation by creating forms and processes which are collaborated upon and agreed upon by legal representatives on both sides, asking questions about diagnosis, prognosis, need-for-treatment, and work status which are uncolored by bias in both the question and the response. Mandate speedy payment to the provider and the worker. Do not tie “repeat business” to a doctor’s answer to the most critical medical-legal questions. Set goals of return to gainful employment which are developed by physician, patient and employer jointly, so that all three are partners in the outcome. The paternalistic relationship between doctor, employer and injured worker is poisonous to recovery and economy. It is adversarial by nature. To change, a sense of trust and partnership in the recovery must be created and supplant the enmity generated by claims people. Articulate goals and contract for them among worker, doctor and employee, in accordance with the goals: A return to work will be anticipated and planned for, a place made for the employee, and a transition planned with full communication between the three parties to the “contract.” Perhaps, given success in the laboratory of workers’ compensation, this paradigm will spread to the rest of the medical community.
The system and scale of paying claimants for lost time or permanent partial disability are not a critical financial problem for the system, compared to the cost of medical treatment. Leave it alone. Much of it will be addressed if quality treatment at a reasonable cost is provided, and workers are enabled to return to work without penalty or rancor because of a collaborative process that involves employers pro-actively, perhaps with ombudsmen or facilitators, in the return to work of an injured employee.
In the end, not all employers are evil. Not all injured workers are lazy, and not all physicians are greedy. A system featuring negative incentives, overlapping benefit structures, and an immediate cleavage between employer and employee as soon as an injury occurs is a toxic soup of confusion, fear, and waste. Each human component of the problem can bring value to a solution, if the conversation from worker, employer and doctor begins with, “what’s the next step?” instead of “who do I sue, who do I fire, and who do I bill?”
How does the conversation start? The insurance community takes the financial position that much expensive and extended medical treatment is wasteful and unnecessary. Injured workers and their counsel take the legal position that the expensive and extensive treatment seldom achieves a positive result. The conversation can start from that point of near-collision. One is reminded of the old joke about the two elderly women, leaving a resort. One says to the other, “the food was terrible!” Her friend responds, “Yes! And such small portions!” Utopia may start with a conversation like that, where co-dependents agree, from opposite perspectives, on a common enemy.
*The author extends his apologies to utopians Rene Magritte, Jonathan Swift, and Sir Thomas More, the author of Utopia, who no doubt never dreamed an analogy could be strained this far.
© Copyright 2017 LexisNexis. All rights reserved.
Blog Post: Workers’ Compensation of the Future: Will Mutual Dystopia Be the New Normal? published first on http://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/workers-compensation/rss.aspx
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lamurdiparasian · 7 years
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Emily Godden & Audit Chaos
Exploring, experimenting and challenges notions in the realm of digital technologies, UK-based artist Emily Godden presented her debut durational performance Rhizome 2.0 at SPILL Festival of Performance 2016. Rhizome 2.0 explores the notion of the melted matrix within printmaking to develop a durational work which situates the body between the print and the screen. Working with the body as both a source of data and means of ‘data capture’ as Godden describes, the creation of a Live Print is produced allowing the artist to immerse herself in a virtual forest to uphold a suspension of disbelief to trick herself that the forest is not virtual but actual. The artist explains “Within Virtual Reality (VR) anything is possible, the rules of physics can be defied and the world literally turned on its head. Instead of operating within a traditional orientation of printmaking I have been exploring the application of new digital technologies with a focus on VR to transpose traditional print techniques. My initial proposal outlines my intentions to explore the notion of the melted matrix and how our reality is blended between the actual and virtual.” Emily Godden’s practice is currently focused around printmaking stretched into its broadest sense of existence to explore, document and translate both physically and naturally occurring traces through the medium of print. In recent work she has used sound as a mechanism to transmit data and communicate traces to exploit the essence of print in a post-digital landscape. To date, Godden has exhibited work at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Spike Island, Firstsite, The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and was recently shortlisted for the Batsford Prize for Fine Art.
Photo Credits:
‘Emily Godden & Audit Chaos, Rhizome 2.0, SPILL Festival of Performance 2016, produced by Pacitti Company. Photo by Christa Holka.’
‘Emily Godden & Audit Chaos, Rhizome 2.0, SPILL Festival of Performance 2016, produced by Pacitti Company. Photo by Guido Mencari.’
Rhizome 2.0 was held at the Space to Breathe on Sunday 29th January River Rooms, New Wing, Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA
Space to Breathe is produced and curated by Cape Farewell and Shrinking Space, in partnership with King’s College London’s Environmental Research Group.
Supported by: Arts Council England, The Physiological Society, King’s College London and Somerset House. Part of Utopia 2016: A Year of Imagination and Possibility
#SpacetoBreathe #utopia2016
http://auditchaos.co.uk/about http://auditchaos.co.uk/cv
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puretopia · 2 years
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🥕🧺🌿
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my wip fishing village
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puretopia · 2 years
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new area, can’t wait to see how this looks in spring ♡
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new area 🏐
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puretopia · 2 years
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New Entrance 🍃  
I’ve started renovating my island for Spring with all the 2.0 items! This is the new entrance (highly inspired by @soracome on instagram), I’m going with the same theme - revamping most areas but just freshening up others! ♡
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