It's like living in a submarine Torpedoed in quarantine. Bacillus becomes a biometric A wake-up call going ballistic. Defying mother nature's laws Showcasing our human flaws. Binge buying panicky stockpiling All in all, my appetite is dying. Eating right, fighting fit Our system needs a health permit. Looks like an apocalyptic virus Giving man the price of being lifeless. A pandemic becoming a tragedy Epiphany for man's fragility.
Category Archives: News to use
Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works
We Escaped a War 40 Years Ago. Now We Might Be Sent Back. – Mother Jones
My family came fleeing the civil war in Nicaragua in 1979, because they served in the military and they had to seek refuge here in the United States. We saw this country as a defender of human rights, so we felt safe here.
Since I came to this country, I integrated and saw it as my second home. I haven’t gone back to Nicaragua once. I would feel like a foreigner there, and I wouldn’t feel safe, because I know that people who go back after living here so long are seen differently, and it could end really badly. My life is here; this is my community.
I work doing housekeeping at a university, cleaning offices, and I’m also a representative for our union, where we’re mostly Latinos. We work hard cleaning, especially in this pandemic. We’re keeping the university clean so that students can be safe. Every day, we face uncertainty and fear of getting the virus and passing it on to our families, but we’re considered essential workers.
Back in 2018, Trump said TPS was over—but then it was appealed and instead it got expanded by a year, which would mean it ends January 5, 2021. So all this uncertainty continued. Then, not that long ago, we were told that it was revoked again, but it’s being appealed again. All that keeps us unstable, because we don’t know what’s going on in the courts.
This year my brother, his wife, and I were thinking of buying a house together. I’m divorced, and I live with them, so we wanted to buy a house to live more comfortably. But with this situation, we didn’t do it because of this uncertainty that TPS might end in January.
Sometimes I watch the news and I see how disparagingly immigrants and Latinos are talked about, and I feel terrible. At the same time, I get strength because I know there are a lot of people who support us and who recognize the work we do. We’re not living here for free: We’re working, we’re contributing with our taxes and our culture. If we’re doing good here, why can’t we keep doing so in peace here? I’ll respect whoever the next president is, but the respect has to be mutual.
Source: We Escaped a War 40 Years Ago. Now We Might Be Sent Back. – Mother Jones
I’m an Ivy League–Educated Coder. I Was Told I Had to Leave the Country. – Mother Jones (Our nation of immigrants has become anti-immigrant and that hurts our economy and culture)
Stricter Covid-19 recommendations introduced in several Swedish regions – Radio Sweden | Sveriges Radio
From October 29th the public is recommended to avoid indoor environments like shops, shopping malls, museums, libraries, swimming pools and gyms, as well as meetings, concerts, exhibitions, sports training, matches and competitions. Businesses have also been told to take measures to make sure recommendations can be followed, including shops and shopping centres reducing the number of people they let in, and making it easier for staff to work from home. Similar local restrictions have already been introduced in Uppsala and Skåne.
As Coronavirus Surges, Chastened Dutch Wonder, ‘What Happened to Us?’ – The New York Times
Mr. Rutte continues to reiterate that the Netherlands is a “mature democracy, home to proud adults,” and urges people to adhere to the rules if they want the numbers to go down. But compliance has been spotty, and for now only nine other countries outpace the Netherlands’ 56 globally.
“This has obviously been a colossal political miscalculation,” said Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, a popular Dutch novelist who lives in Genoa, Italy. “Everybody does as they like and are free to decide themselves. Even positive patients in the Netherlands aren’t ordered to stay indoors. This is absolutely bonkers. In Italy, you’ll be thrown in jail.”
With the virus now raging, opinion polls show that a majority favors reimposing a full lockdown.
But Mr. Rinnooy Kan said that taking charge on that level was difficult for any politician in the Netherlands. “There are so many competing interests vying for attention,” he said, “and there is very little patience for blanket measures.”
Perhaps hubris is a better way to explain the failed policy, said the journalist Addie Schulte, who wrote an opinion article in the leading NRC Handelsblad newspaper, arguing that the governmental disorganization and incompetence laid bare by the pandemic also revealed a blind spot among the Dutch elite.
“Simply put,” he said, “we haven’t been able to manage even the most basic services, and allowed this crisis to get out of hand.”
Gilead’s Covid-19 Drug is Mediocre. It Will Be a Blockbuster Anyway. – The New York Times
just days before the F.D.A. granted approval, a large study sponsored by the World Health Organization found that remdesivir provided no benefit to hospitalized patients.
“I think most people think that because a drug is F.D.A. approved, that means it must work,” said Dr. Aaron S. Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who studies the drug industry. He and other researchers recently found that less than one-third of new drugs approved by the F.D.A. and its European counterpart over the past decade were rated as having a “high therapeutic value” by outside experts.
“I think it’s important to recognize that F.D.A. approval doesn’t guarantee a certain level of benefit — all it says is that there is some benefit,” he said.
Visualizing How Covid-19 Spreads Indoors
But your indoor birthday party with 10 friends or Thanksgiving dinner with the cousins and grandparents? Or dining out in a room full of strangers at a restaurant? Even with masks and ventilation, it’s not a great idea. Scale it down, move it to Zoom/FT, hold it outdoors (distanced, masked), or just skip it. Source: Visualizing How Covid-19 Spreads Indoors
30th Day of October – Fat Cow Co War of the Worlds radio broadcast
1938 – Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of ‘The War of the Worlds’
“The War of the Worlds” is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds (1898).
It was performed and broadcast live as a Halloween episode at 8 p.m. on Sunday, October 30th, 1938, over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network.
The episode became famous for allegedly causing panic among its listening audience, though the scale of that panic is disputed, as the program had relatively few listeners.
The first twenty minutes, the broadcast was presented as a typical evening of radio programming being interrupted by a series of news bulletins. The first few news flashes occur during a presentation of “live” music and describe a series of odd explosions observed on Mars, followed by a seemingly unrelated report of an unusual object falling on a farm in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.
Source: 30th Day of October – Fat Cow Co
Brain-Machine Interface with Stentrode | NeuroLogica Blog
Windows 10 operating system through the Stentrode device. However, they combined this with eye-tracking technology, so it was not entirely controlled through BMI. The eye-tracking was how they moved the mouse cursor, and the BMI was how they clicked the mouse (with several distinct “mouse click actions”). While very basic, this setup allowed the subjects to interface with the computer – to write texts, send messages, and control devices. That may not seem like much, but if you are paralyzed any measure of independence is a big deal. I see this as mainly a proof of concept study – showing that Stentrode can be safe in humans, and can successfully read signals from the brain, sufficient to train a user to click a mouse with their mind. Yes, this is a baby step, but as I have recounted many times before most scientific advances are journeys may of hundreds or thousands of baby steps. I am actually impressed that this technology has progressed as quickly as it has, with a decade from initial concept to successful human trial.
Source: Brain-Machine Interface with Stentrode | NeuroLogica Blog
Koulourakia: Ancient Τraditional Greek Easter Cookies / Κουλουρακια βουτυρου
- After the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire- – which also included Greece – by Constantine the Great, (Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity ) he was the first to offer as gifts to his officials, the so-called “palatine bread”, today’s butter cookies and sweet bread (tsoureki). The shape of these Easter cookies and breads varies depending on local traditions.The best known is the braid. Braids and knots come from pagan times, as symbols of the removal of evil spirits.
- So one of the ancient culinary Easter traditions in Greece is the butter cookies called “koulourakia” (kuluràkia). During Holy Week they are found in abundance in Greek bakeries and home kitchens. The dough is mainly made of butter and must be of excellent quality. Low quality butter will give horrible results without consistency, flavor and aroma. For this reason, every home…
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