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IBM da un gran paso para abrir la caja negra de la inteligencia artificial

IBM (NYSE: IBM) presentó hoy una tecnología que da a las organizaciones nueva transparencia en inteligencia artificial (IA), permitiéndoles aprovechar más plenamente su potencial.




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Inteligencia artificial de IBM para repensar la fuerza laboral moderna

La inteligencia artificial (IA) promete transformar tanto el futuro del trabajo como la función de Recursos Humanos (RRHH). Alineado con esta premisa, IBM (NYSE: IBM) anunció hoy IBM Talent & Transformation, una nueva unidad destinada a ayudar a las organizaciones y a sus empleados a tener éxito en la era de la inteligencia artificial y la automatización.




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IBM Security: Responder a los incidentes de ciberseguridad sigue siendo el mayor desafío para las empresas

IBM Security anunció los resultados de un estudio global que explora los factores y desafíos de ser una organización ciberresiliente. El estudio encontró que el 77% de los encuestados admiten no tener un plan formal de respuesta a incidentes de seguridad cibernética (CSIRP) aplicado sistemáticamente en toda su organización. Casi la mitad de los encuestados informaron que su plan de respuesta a incidentes es informal o completamente inexistente.




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IBM Security: Los costos ocultos de las brechas de datos aumentan los gastos para las empresas

IBM Security anunció hoy los resultados de un estudio global que examina el impacto financiero de una violación de datos en los resultados de una empresa. El estudio descubrió que los costos ocultos en las brechas de datos, como la pérdida de negocios, el impacto negativo en la reputación y el tiempo empleado en la recuperación, son difíciles y costosos de administrar. Por ejemplo, encontró que un tercio del costo de las mega infracciones (más de 1 millón de registros perdidos) se derivan del negocio perdido.




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IBM y VMware expanden alianza para permitir una fácil adopción de la nube híbrida

Durante la conferencia mundial VMworld® 2016, VMware e IBM anunciaron la disponibilidad de los primeros servicios de nube para industrias que permiten a las organizaciones mover rápida y fácilmente, archivos a la nube. Con más de 500 clientes comprometidos ya, la alianza global entre IBM y VMware está ayudando a más organizaciones a extender sus archivos a la nube en horas, en comparación de semanas o meses.




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IBM y Fleury Medicina e Saúde anuncian alianza para ayudar a desarrollar medicina de precisión en Brasil

Fleury Medicina e Saúde es el primer socio de la unidad IBM Watson Health en Latinoamérica. Las dos compañías trabajaron juntas para testear y validar la solución Watson for Genomics en Brasil como una potencial herramienta, que provee información para ayudar en la toma de decisiones médicas. De este modo, la alianza busca avances que permitan aumentar la precisión en la medicina personalizada.




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Presenta Foro Soluciones para Habilitar la Transformación de la Empresa Digital en la Era Cognitiva

Durante la cumbre Business Connect 2017 en la Ciudad de México, IBM presentó a la Transformación Digital como una de las áreas de mayor crecimiento para los negocios en 2017 y mostró cómo las soluciones cognitivas (de analítica avanzada, de nube, de engagement), están transformando la forma en la que trabajamos y vivimos.



  • Services and solutions

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Ecodex incrementa servicios de certificación tributaria para empresas con soluciones inteligentes de IBM

La empresa se afianza como líder de Proveedores Autorizados de Certificación (PAC) y logra procesar grandes volúmenes de transacciones de manera sencilla




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Impulsa IBM ejes de cambio para la transformación de las empresas: datos, interacción y nube

Las estrategias de negocio con las que organizaciones líderes están transformando su negocio para obtener mayores eficiencias se basan en tecnologías para mejorar el manejo de la información, la interacción con clientes y modelos de negocio en la nube. Estas tecnologías son impulsadas por IBM, reconociendo las necesidades de las compañías mexicanas.




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IBM expande la plataforma IBM Watson para la nueva generación de desarrolladores y despliega la mayor oferta de APIs cognitivas

IBM anunció la expansión de la mayor y más diversa oferta de APIs, tecnologías y herramientas cognitivas para los desarrolladores que están creando servicios, productos y aplicaciones que se integran con IBM Watson.




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Dona IBM servicios de consultoría a organizaciones mexicanas para proyectos de impacto social

Con la finalidad de apoyar el desarrollo de proyectos de alto impacto en la Ciudad de México, la Asociación Mexiana de Ayuda a Niños con Cáncer (AMANC), Fondo Unido México, Fundación Carlos Slim, el Patronato del Museo Nacional de Antropología e IBM, ponen en marcha el día de hoy el programa de consultoría Corporate Service Corps (CSC), en su edición Ciudad de México.




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Dona IBM Servicios de Consultoría a Organizaciones Queretanas para Proyectos de Impacto Social

IBM, Peace Corps y cuatro instituciones locales dieron inicio el día de hoy al programa de consultoría Corporate Service Corps (CSC), en su edición Cd. de Querétaro; con la finalidad de apoyar el desarrollo de proyectos de alto impacto en esta localidad. IBM y Peace Corps (PC) trabajarán en conjunto con la Secretaría de Desarrollo Social del Estado de Querétaro, el Instituto Queretano de las Mujeres, el Municipio de Querétaro - Delegación Santa Rosa Jáuregui, y la Universidad Politécnica de Santa Rosa Jáuregui (UPSRJ).




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Colaboración Académica para Desarrollo de Habilidades del Talento del Siglo 21

IBM y la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC) firman Convenio de Colaboración que incluye conceptos de Iniciativa Académica, Reclutamiento, Investigación, Responsabilidad Social y Proyectos Especiales. Formación de profesionales en las nuevas necesidades de las organizaciones: expertos en cómputo en la nube, analistas de big data, desarrolladores de soluciones móviles y de redes sociales aplicadas a negocios




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IBM y VON DER HEIDE unen esfuerzos para transformar las iniciativas de recursos humanos en resultados de negocio

IBM y VON DER HEIDE, compañía especializada en servicios de consultoría de Recursos Humanos, informan que han firmado una importante alianza para expandir su oferta de servicios de Employee Engagement y HR Analytics en toda América Latina. Por medio de las tecnologías de IBM, esta alianza le permitirá a VON DER HEIDE brindar a sus clientes una oferta de consultoría única en el mercado, para transformar estrategias de talento en resultados de negocio.




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Servidores Linux de IBM, diseñados para acelerar inteligencia artificial, conocimiento profundo y analítica avanzada

IBM (NYSE: IBM) reveló hoy una serie de nuevos servidores diseñados para potenciar las cargas de trabajo cognitivas y elevar la eficiencia en el centro de cómputo. Con un nuevo chip, la línea basada en Linux incorpora innovaciones de la comunidad OpenPOWER que ofrecen mayores niveles de desempeño y mayor eficiencia de cómputo que los disponibles en cualquier servidor basado sobre x86.




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Primer App de educación para iPad de IBM entrega aprendizaje personalizado para alumnos y maestros K-12

IBM anunció la primer app educacional IBM MobileFirst para iOS. La app, IBM Watson Element for Educators, permite un nuevo nivel de compromiso de los maestros al proveer una visión holística en la palma de las manos de cada estudiante, incluyendo data en intereses, logros, desempeño académico, asistencia, comportamientos y actividades de aprendizaje. Como resultado, los maestros están siendo empoderados con la visión de los datos que les ayudará a abarcar necesidades individuales a fin de poder llegar potencialmente a mejores resultados a través de las experiencias de los alumnos K-12 (Primaria y Secundaria).




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ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, IBM, Scentre Group and Westpac Commence Live Pilot for Lygon, A Blockchain-based Platform to Transform the Bank Guarantee Process

ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, IBM Scentre Group and Westpac have jointly launched a live pilot for Lygon, a new digital platform using blockchain technology to transform the way businesses obtain and manage bank guarantees that are often required as part of a retail property lease.




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Australian Settlements Limited Taps IBM Cloud in Preparation for New Payments Platform

ASL to benefit from IBM Cloud and IBM PureApplication to deliver for secure real time payments for NPP Australia



  • Banking and Financial Services

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Successful blockchain trial for bank guarantees

ANZ and Westpac have teamed with IBM (NYSE:IBM) and shopping centre operator Scentre Group and have now successfully digitised the bank guarantee process used for commercial property leasing.



  • Banking and Financial Services

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【テレビ】スカパー!『TAKARAZUKA SKY 』3日間 無料放送!! 2020年4/10(金)〜12(日)まで

予約開始しました!! 宝塚おとめ2020年度版 宝塚ムック 発売日: 2020/4/24 スカパー!特別無料放送 2020年4月10日(金)から12日(日)までの3日間、スカパー!で『TAKARAZUKA SKY STAGE』無料放送 https://www.tca-pictures.net/skystage/whats_new_list.html#...




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【雑誌】『Clara (クララ) 2020年5月号』宝塚音楽学校★文化祭レポ 2020/4/10発売/『宝塚イズム41』さよなら望海風斗&真彩希帆 5/28

Clara (クララ) 2020年 5月号 発売日:2020年4月10日 輝く未来のスターたち 宝塚音楽学校★文化祭レポ 追記 106期6名のインタビュー掲載 新書館 | 雑誌 最新号 宝塚イズム41 特集 望海風斗&真彩希帆、ハーモニーの軌跡 発売日...




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The Paramount in Boston

Daily Photo – The Paramount in Boston Here’s the famous Paramount Theater in Boston. It looks pretty cool during the daytime, but when all the lights come on at dusk, it’s the best time to take a photo. This shot is using a technique called compression, one that some of you photographers may already know […]




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Would You Be My Little Quarantine by Celtics534 [PG-13]

Moving was always stressful, but to be placed in a nationwide lockdown only a few weeks after moving was just too much for Ginny to think about. At least she had a fit neighbor keep her company... from two meters away, of course.




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Board Game Review > Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1

I don't keep my finger on the pulse of all the independent Kickstarter campaigns running at any given time. There's just too much unique content being produced month after month for me to sift through everything. I leave that to those who write previews and reviews for a living (I am an IT Consultant for a living; I write reviews as a hobby because I'm passionate about board gaming). The only way an independent Kickstarter campaign is going to be on my radar is if the designer/publisher reaches out to me to let me know the campaign is running or if it's created a bit of buzz already in the key circles that I frequent. I definitely wasn't closely monitoring Kickstarter campaigns four years ago when the original edition of Middara  was initially funded. It was an adventurous dungeon crawl that promised to be so much more than an ordinary dungeon crawl. With options to run in campaign mode for an ongoing narrative or crawl mode for one off gameplay, it could work as a long term project for committed game groups as well as a fun game for casual players. It was a long road from its 2015 campaign to its 2019 fulfillment with a lot of unhappy backers along the way who voiced frustration at the late fulfillment of the game. In early summer 2019, a few months after delivery of the original Middara  game was completed, Succubus Publishing launched their Middara: Unintentional Malum Triology  Kickstarter campaign. This offered a reprint of the original game (retitled Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1), expanding it to over 80 hours of content, as well as two new adventure expansions (Acts 2 and 3) and a host of other Kickstarter exclusive add-on and stretch goal content. It also promised a faster turnaround on delivery to backers. Suddenly Middara  and its designers (Clayton Helme, Brooklynn Lundberg, Brenna Moncur, and Ian Tate) were the talk of the town and my husband Chris and I had an intense discussion about backing the second campaign. We were torn - yes the game sounded really cool, but we already own one behemoth campaign dungeon crawl (I’m looking at you Gloomhaven). Did we really need another? We hemmed and hawed and let the decision hang in the air. And then then publisher decided for us, by sending us a review copy of Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1 (M:UMA1).

As soon as the box arrived at the end of June, I poured over all the components. So much stuff! Such a huge box! The artwork (conceived and illustrated by Stephanie Gustafsson, Alex Hansen, Hector Sevilla Lujan, Rhett Mason, and Jon Troy Nickel) is absolutely beautiful. The illustrations are well drawn, well detailed, and bursting with color.
The game could have an audience in the tween set if the drawings were a little less risqué, but as marketed to older teens and adults, everything is within decency standards.

The minis are of good quality; well sculpted. I do wish that at least the starting adventurer minis came pre-painted (I always wish that because I have no painting skills or supplies) especially when M:UMA1 is priced at $150. The components are sturdy and should hold up to regular usage. We haven’t sleeved our cards yet and because of the sheer quantity of them (hundreds) they’ll likely remain unsleeved. I especially enjoy the custom dice, separated by color to indicate which dice should be used during dice rolls.

After examining all the game contents, my interest was definitely on the upswing and Chris and I  set about assembling a crew to play the game in adventure mode. It’s daunting to find others willing to commit to 80+ hours of gameplay, but soon enough we had a happy foursome. One of the players, Craig, actually owned the original edition of Middara but hadn’t found the time to assemble a group and get it on the table. Our other player was his coworker and friend Matt.
Craig showed up for our first night of gameplay with a sweet surprise – he had ordered the fancy game mats and was happy to share them with us for our adventure.

In M:UMA1  adventure mode, players begin the first game by taking on the roles of young students preparing for their Magical Aptitude and Skill Test (MAST). We spent that first evening getting to know the four starting characters (called adventurers) and deciding who would role play each one. Every adventurer has their own unique backstory, motivations, starting equipment (armor, weapons, relics, consumables, etc.), and vivid personality.  I chose Nightingale because I saw myself in her and thought I would really enjoy playing her. Chris chose Rook, Craig took Remi, and Matt selected Zeke.
M:UMA1  adventure mode breaks down the overall campaign (called the adventure) into many sessions called encounters. We typically play one or two encounters each evening we get together, with each encounter lasting anywhere from one to two hours. To start an encounter, all players gather round the table and lay out their adventurer cards and equipment. The narrative is read from the Adventure book, or alternatively listened to on the Middara app. We all really love the app. It’s available on the Apple App store or Google Play store and allows players to hear the narrative bits of the story without requiring one of them to do the reading aloud. The voice actor Succubus Publishing hired is fantastic; she is an expressive reader who brings the characters alive. While the entire adventure in M:UMA1  is narrative driven and so every encounter advances the plot at least a little bit, there are some encounters that have several pages of story so using the app is really nice. After the narration is finished, the location boards are set up for the encounter, forming the terrain, similar to any other dungeon crawl. Directions for setup are given in the Adventure book with modifications in the Diagram book. Some elements of the terrain may have their details partially hidden, such as loot tokens (which hide the exact reward until a character performs an encounter adjacent to the token) and totem tokens (which hide what they represent until an adventurer comes within line of sight of the token). The starting spaces on the board for each adventurer and the monsters (called combatants) are specified in the Adventure book. Once everything is setup, the game begins; turn order for adventurers and monsters is driven by initiative cards that were shuffled and randomly laid out in a row during setup.
During the encounter, players spend their turns moving their adventurers around the terrain, following movement rules, as they work to complete the encounter goals. Usually this involves reaching the exit token, but other goals are possible. Since players typically get rewards (gold, equipment, experience points, etc.) each time their adventurer slays a monster, most will want to prioritize battling the monsters over making a quick run for the exit token. There isn’t a lot of analysis paralysis during game play as the best options for next steps on a player’s turn are usually fairly obvious. Combatants spend their turns completing actions as specified on their description cards. Those that are designated as adventurer opponents are called intelligent combatants and have intelligent combatant cards, while the ones that players control and that fight on behalf of adventurers are called command combatants. 

Exploring the terrain and battling intelligent combatants are governed by an extensive set of rules (60+ pages!) provided in the rulebook. It took us at least three encounters before we really understood most of the basic rules and even now, we find ourselves frequently checking the summary poster we printed out as a giant player aid. There’s just too much information to memorize it all, especially when the information is subject to change due to errata. Which brings me to one of the few complaints I have about this game -the large volume of errata. You either have to remember to frequently check the long list of corrections and changes (to the 1.0 rulebook and to the text printed on various components such as equipment cards, combatant cards, etc) and update gameplay as you go along,  or dedicate a session to reviewing all the changes and corrections and marking up the components with the correct text in one sitting. We started off trying to do the former but it was so frustrating that we switched to the latter and it took me at least an hour.  For the rulebook errata, you can take a shortcut to getting the updates in place (if you don’t mind the ink and paper expense) by printing out the updated 1.08 rulebook from the Succubus website. Another note on the rules- deciding which rule set to play under has become a complicated issue that players will need to come to agreement on as Succubus has compiled and released an entirely new version of the rules (v1.1) that changes several of the fundamental aspects of the game. This was done in response to the feedback from players who have extensively played through the game using the original 1.0 rulebook with errata corrections. The major overhaul is meant to strengthen aspects of the game that felt too weak and weaken aspects that seemed overpowered, but not all players agree on the changes. Also, the 1.1 changes are still in Beta release and so they are subject to change as they continue to be finalized. Our little group likes to keep things simple, so we opted to stick to the 1.08 rule set, at least for now.
Theme is really important to me, so I was very happy to discover that Middara’s theme is well implemented across all components and the gameplay thus far in M:UMA1 . This is where the game really shines over its competitors. Its narrative is extremely detailed and offers so much depth in the characters. More so than Gloomhaven. More so than any other board game I’ve played. An experienced  screenwriter could easily adapt the storyline into a fantastic adventure film for the big screen and I’d go see it. My two year stint playing through the Pathfinder Skull and Shackles Adventure Card Game is a distant second in plot development, and even then, that game only had such a rich narrative track because we employed a user written storyline that we found on BGG (the publisher offered little in the way of quality narrative for the game). I come back to the table each week to play M:UMA1 , not just for the fun of fighting monsters and gaining rewards, but also to find out what happens next in the story. Bonus: as the plot unfolds, adventurers grow in skill and discipline and new content becomes available.
At the time of this writing, we've played through all of Chapter 1 and are partway through Chapter 2 (about 10 distinct sessions). Once we are finished with M:UMA1  in adventure mode (we estimate it will take us over a year, meeting weekly) there are plenty of scenarios and special content for us to replay M:UMA1  in crawl mode.  In fact, a large portion of the Kickstarter promo box is content exclusively for use with crawl mode and I’m excited about eventually digging into that.
Based on my experience with M:UMA1  so far, I highly recommend the game. Not only is the game worthwhile on its own merits, but the friendship building that comes from playing a year+ long adventure with others is wonderful. You can make a full afternoon or evening out of each session, sharing a meal together before sitting down to play the game. Although I was given a review copy of Act 1, I like Middara so much that I’ll be purchasing Acts 2 and 3 myself (or putting them on my Christmas list). You can pre-order the entire trilogy or any part of it on the Succubus Publishing website once the publisher reopens wave 2 pre-orders.
-------------------------------------------------
Publisher: Succubus Publishing
Players: 2-4 (We played with 4)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 1 - 3 hours per encounter
Game type: narrative driven, dungeon crawl, campaign, action points, role playing, cooperative, dice rolling, grid movement
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.







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Mohou vás propustit v karanténě a vy dát výpověď? Na otázky odpovídá advokát

Pokud jste se rozhodli pro změnu místa, je to jednoduché. Výpověď můžete dát kdykoli a z jakéhokoli důvodu, vlastně i bez důvodu. Naproti tomu zaměstnavatel vás může propustit jen z důvodů vyjmenovaných v zákoníku práce. Jak je to ale v případě, že jste v karanténě nebo čerpáte ošetřovné? Na tyto a další otázky odpovídá advokát Pavel Nastis.



  • Finance - Práce a podnikání

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Quaranmeme

From just about everybody.

1. Are you an Essential Worker?

Nope. I have been comfortably working from home for a month, making online education. It's useful, thousands of people have been learning about bacterial genomics from my stuff, but it's not essential. In many ways my job hasn't changed very much since lockdown since we did a lot of collaborating with scientists all over the world by conference call, in order to make material that goes on the internet anyway.

2. How many drinks have you had since the quarantine has started?

Hi, I've just finished celebrating Pesach. The two of us got through about 2 bottles of wine in the course of two seders and two kiddushes. And in the couple of weeks before that, something around one bottle between the two of us, again mostly for religious reasons rather than mental health reasons.

3. If you have kids... Are they driving you nuts?

I don't have kids, but there are children who are normally part of my life and now I'm quarantined in a different house from them. They are being amazing and bringing positivity to my life through the limited interaction we're allowed, playing music with me over video link, waving and sending hugs when I'm calling their adults or walking past their house for exercise. I am probably less sane than usual but it's from too little contact with not-my-own children, not too much.

4. What new hobby have you taken up during this

Online play readthroughs, organized by the marvellous wildeabandon. I've tried to start an ultra, ultra low-key exercise routine at home, which isn't a completely new hobby, but is something I hadn't done for some years.

5. How many grocery runs have you done?

None at all since I had maybe suspicious symptoms. We've got by on the generosity of friends bringing us occasional top-ups of extra-perishable stuff like milk and mushrooms, a big online order that fortuitously arrived just before we started full isolation, and a couple of local organizations that were able to make limited deliveries of produce. Before that, we weren't really counting. We had a decent amount of supplies in at the start of lockdown, and jack was visiting the local corner shop a couple of times a week to top up on fresh produce (with careful distancing), but we haven't needed to make a 'run' to a big supermarket since lockdown officially started.

6. What are you spending your stimulus check on?

I'm not getting any extra money, which is reasonable because I don't need any extra money. I am still working full time and still earning my full salary, as is jack. I'm not really even spending much extra on working from home rather than in an office; it's warm enough not to need the heating on during the day, and we already had plenty of broadband. We're spending very slightly more on food because we're getting everything delivered rather than picking up our own shopping, but it's fairly trivial on the scale of things.

Also, can I just say it's a weird framing to talk about a 'stimulus', ie money provided to encourage people to spend and keep the economy buoyant. The state is paying money to people to make it possible for them to stay home without starving, and really the aim is, or should be, to keep the economy as stagnant as possible, not to encourage economic activity which would involve people interacting and spreading the infection.

7. Do you have any special occasions that you will miss during this quarantine?

My plague of disappointment started with a work trip to Paraguay to help with some in-person training. Then I missed spending Passover with my family like I normally do. Other than that, I saw this coming far enough in advance that I didn't make a whole lot of plans for this spring or summer


8. Are you keeping your housework done?

About the same amount as normal. To an extent we tend to tidy for visitors and we're not having any visitors. But we're mostly succeeding with keeping on top of general maintenance. On the other hand I did zero Passover cleaning because I was isolating from jack at the time so not going into the kitchen, and I was uncertain enough about supplies that I wasn't willing to eliminate leavened products.

9a. What movie have you watched during this quarantine?

Lionheart
Porco Rosso

9b. What are you reading right now?

Err... Twitter, mostly. And some Gemara, the mystical bit of Chagigah, which is a project I've been meaning to get to for ages, and which I will hopefully be talking about soon.

9c. What video game are you playing?

At the weekend managed to progress our three-way game of Stellaris with cjwatson in a different house, so that was cool. Still a lot of Monster Legends on my phone. A little bit of the second chapter of 12 Labours of Hercules, but only about as often as I was playing it anyway, which isn't very often.

10. What are you streaming with?

Netflix, and even that occasionally. Spotify and YouTube for music. I haven't managed to watch any of the free broadcast theatre and opera performances yet.

11. 9 months from now is there any chance of you having a baby?

Very unlikely but not completely impossible. I'm quarantined away from the partner I'm most likely to have potentially-reproductive sex with (but I guess rarely indulging isn't never). I am 41 and was recently diagnosed with PCOS so I'm quite possibly not as fertile as I spent most of my adult life assuming. I have a coil, which should be pretty reliable at preventing pregnancy, but it has reached the end of its predicted 10-year lifetime, and getting it replaced was one of the things I failed to get sorted out while non-emergency medical stuff was still happening.

My partner is going to have a baby much sooner than 9 months away though! She made it before the virus even existed, and I have absolutely no idea how long it will be before I'm allowed to meet the little one, but I'm still quite excited.

12. What's your go-to quarantine meal?

About the same as not in quarantine: we call it goulash, but it isn't really anything to do with goulash. It's a sort of veggie chilli, basically onions, garlic, spice, tomato sauce, some combination of Quorn mince and beans, and veg if we have lots of veg available but otherwise it's nice on its own.

13. Is this whole situation making you paranoid?

So siderea the actual psych says it only counts as paranoia if you're irrationally afraid that beings with agency ... are behaving malevolently towards you personally. So, no, I do not think the virus is out to get me nor deliberately created by evil people.

However, I've already spent much of the last five years worrying that the government and much of the populace want me dead, and it's the worst version of that increasingly nasty government which is in charge of deciding whether buying ventilators and medical equipment is a good use of money that could otherwise be used for bridges to nowhere. When I hear people ranting about foreigners or Europeans or 'citizens of nowhere' it feels personal. I think it isn't, mostly. I'm a shirley exception for lots of people, or at least, I see posts on social media about how it's morally good to exterminate Jews from people who are broadly civil to me as an individual.

I'm scared of vigilantes who are using the pandemic as an excuse for violence against people they don't like being out in public, and to an extent I'm scared of overreach by the official police. And I'm somewhat scared of looting, of people getting desperate enough that they start breaking into houses like mine where there is enough toilet paper and storable foods. And a little bit scared of wannabe fascists trying to deliberately infect liberals and Jews. But not very scared, not to the point that it's actually interfering with my day-to-day life. Anxious, I guess, rather than paranoid.

14. Has your internet gone out on you during this time?

Nah. Internet is fine and I'm deeply grateful for that.

15. What month do you predict this all ends?

I don't think it's going to end, really, not all of it at once. It's going to be a very gradual climb back towards sufficient population immunity that we can live our lives without infection avoidance being the major determining factor in all decisions.

Predicting the end of the plague would require me to predict all of: how fast scientists will come up with a vaccine and reliable tests; how the disease itself will move through the population; and what our terrible politicians will decide, and I don't really have any information on any of those.

I'm guessing some relaxation of lockdown round about July or August, but we will still be very much in a pandemic situation. Sticking my finger in the air I think we'll likely have the capacity for mass vaccination and testing by early 2021, let's say January. But whether we will actually in practice have an effective programme of prevention and detection depends on decisions by a leadership who are erratic and evil, plus we are heading for a cliff-edge end to our Brexit transition at the end of 2020, so I think people will still be getting infected and dying well into 2021 or even 2022.

16. First thing you're gonna do when you get off quarantine?

Go to my OSOs' house and hug my partners and their children. And meet the baby, because I'm pretty certain that getting off quarantine is happening after baby is external.

17. Where do you wish you were right now?

I'm pretty happy with my location, my nice pleasant house with all my friends inside my computer, surrounded by a beautiful spring. The problem is not where I am, it's that I have been forced to stay here for a month and expect to continue here for months to come. I wish I could go to other places, especially places where my friends are.

I slightly wish to be in a country with a competent government, if I have to pick somewhere I'd probably go for New Zealand, but I don't actually wish I were in NZ, since I don't know anybody there and I can't imagine the circumstances that would lead to being there.

18. What free-from-quarantine activity are you missing the most?

Visiting people in person, primarily.

19. Have you run out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer?

No. We usually buy a big family pack of TP once every few weeks and we happened to do so just before lockdown. Also I don't believe in hand sanitizer in a domestic setting.

20. Do you have enough food to last a month?

Yeah, probably. If we really couldn't get any fresh supplies for a whole month we would struggle, and we haven't counted it out in terms of calories and micronutrients per person per day, but we have decent amounts of long-lasting carbs and tinned vegetables.

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Quarantine Music: Bonobo

musicisart magazine Quarantine Music: Bonobo

Perhaps there’s no better time than now to discover Quarantine Music to relax and escape to. Bonobo (AKA Simon Green) has been creating beautiful waves of downtempo, sensually instrumental music for over twenty years. His music incorporates heavy bass, programmed drums, and layers of electronics. Bonobo is a recognized pioneer in the ways he can […]

The post Quarantine Music: Bonobo appeared first on musicisart magazine.




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Malta - a Lilliput state with potentates separated from and above the people?


Memorial plaque
Memorial plaque
Malta is the smallest country among EU member states. It has only about 400000 inhabitants and the area is only 312 square kilometers. The Maltese people are very proud of their country and are very right to be so. During WW II the Maltese people were very courageous and it was then the Maltese people was rewarded S: t George’s cross 1942 by the king of England, which cross since 1943 is a symbol on the Maltese flag. The president of the United States of America, Franklin D. Roosevelt, has expressed his gratitude to the Maltese people, which can be seen on a memorial plaque on the wall of the predidential palace in Valletta. 
However, the majority of Maltese do not seem to travel a lot and therefore are rather ignorant about other countries. Malta is just a rock in the Mediterranean, but, of course, historically an important rock. Yet, you can hear Maltese people quite seriously say that Malta is the most beautiful country in the world. Of course, what is beautiful is a very subjective. Still, very few people, but the Maltese, would say that Malta is the most beautiful country in the world. I have also heard that the Maltese wines as well as its vegetables are the best in the world! There might be a few countries which would like to contest that. Maybe it is beacuse of this ignorance that the Maltese people accept the behaviour of their potentates.

The government, backed by its loudspeaker, The Times, does everything to give the impression to the Maltese people that Malta has an important role to play in EU and in the rest of the world. If prime minister Gonzi for instance travels to some conference abroad, the articles in The Times have headlines giving the impression that the other prime ministers were there just to listen to Mr. Gonzi. Malta also has a Head of State, a President with his own flag and a car with a special license plate. His wife is called Malta's first lady! Even the The Commissioner of Police has his own flag as well as the Archbishop. The corruption is widely spread. But there is of course a reason for all these cars and flags and mumbo jumbo; the government wants to give the people the impression that Malta has a bigger role to play in EU and in the world than it really has and therefore one also must have men in formal high positions with attributes. One must remember that Malta, although a sovereign state, is not bigger than a middlesized european town and ought to be be governed more in accordance with that and not like United States of America..



Archbishops BMW license plate
Gozo bishops Toyota license plate
The catholic faith is state religion in Malta. The archbishop as well as the bishop of Gozo has company cars, the latter a smaller one than the BMW that is archbishop Cremona's company car. Do not for a moment think that these cars have ordinary license plates. No way, they have plates of a silvery material in the shape of a bishop’s miter. If you do not believe me, look at the pictures. And, of course, the archbishop has a more expensive car than the Gozo bishop (The Observer wonders what Jesus would think of that!).To a foreigner from a more secular state this looks really ridiculous. Of course also the prime minister’s car have special plates. As far as the Head of the State, the President, is concerned, it is more understandable. He is, after all, a symbol. If the president and the prime minister want to attend a mass in Valletta they travel by these cars about 200 meters to the church. This is just window dressing. One could argue that they travel by car for security reasons; no way, anyone could go close to these potentates. All this is also a part of implementing the belief in people that Malta and its potentates are very important, separated from and above the people. They act like royalties more than the royalties in the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden.

President Abela's car and flag
To a foreigner all these attributes are kind of sweet and touching, except for the corruption. Malta is a Lilliput with its attributes similar to those in operettas. This is sweet, but, of course,  fulfills a not so honorable cause, namely to keep the people in a feeling that Malta is something it is not.




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Making buildings higher and thus destroy their appearance

Terrible building on Tower Ro
Terrible example on Tower Road
Beautiful building on Tower Road
Villa Aurora on Tower Road
As a foreigner I sometimes wonder how it is possible that some buildings in, for instance, Sliema have had floors built-on in a completely different style than the existing house. On Tower Road there are several terrible examples. Before one start such development one must get permission from the authorities, I suppose that the authority in such case is MEPA. Either there are no rules in what way you can change a building’s appearance or, someone, apart from the owner and the developer, have had some odd interest in granting permission despite the rules. One can only hope that this destruction of buildings does not in the future affect Villa Aurora or the other lovely buildings on Tower Road that not yet have been in the hands of irresponsible developers and, if there are rules, civil servants with a private agenda. However, there are good examples of buildings where the developer has tried to build the extra floors in a style that are more consistent with the older part of the building






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173 gestrande Belgen eindelijk thuis na quarantaine in Tenerife: “Regering liet ons aan ons lot over. We hebben twee maanden op ons terras moeten doorbrengen” - Het Laatste Nieuws

  1. 173 gestrande Belgen eindelijk thuis na quarantaine in Tenerife: “Regering liet ons aan ons lot over. We hebben twee maanden op ons terras moeten doorbrengen”  Het Laatste Nieuws
  2. 173 gestrande Belgen eindelijk thuis na quarantaine in Tenerife: “Regering heeft te weinig gedaan!”  Het Laatste Nieuws
  3. Na quarantaine in Tenerife: 173 Belgen eindelijk weer thuis  De Morgen
  4. Belgen die vastzaten op Tenerife charterden zelf vliegtuig naar huis  De Standaard
  5. West-Vlaming regelt repatriëring gestrande Belgen  Focus en WTV
  6. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws







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Sex toy sales take off amid Colombia's coronavirus quarantine

Gerson Monje holds up his cellphone to proudly show off his online sex shop. A red banner reading "sold out!" is plastered across half of the products.





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Beanie Feldstein’s Quarantine Craft Is Made of Her Favorite Childhood Memories (Literally)

It was inspired by her current habit of wearing old sweatshirts and sweatpants left behind by childhood friends. READ MORE...




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Diversity guarantees our cultural survival

In November of 1993, a week after the death of celebrated Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, the New York Times published an article by Bruce Weber in which he made clear his impatience with the supposedly opaque, perplexing movies of directors like Fellini. One person who read the piece was Martin Scorsese–he responded by letter. (Source: New




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PREPARADENESS

PREPARADENESS has finally been achieved.




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Community-led care and support: a new paradigm

Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) Report 71 from SCIE Roundtable held on 12 February 2015. The aim of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) roundtable discussion was to identify, celebrate, support and learn from community-led activity.




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#87: Trailer Talk Marathon




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#296: The Very Secret and Amazing Life of Arabella Figg

This week: we go through the week's Potter news, including the new Wizarding World app as well as the upcoming release of the graphic edition of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire!

This week's What About That: Arabella Figg is here to change all our SEO results. Who was she? What's her history? Was she married? Was she gay?

Also: squibs in the wizarding world: what does it mean to be a squib? What's the deal with the book and the quill? Why was it mean to Neville? WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER BE MEAN TO NEVILLE?

Also this week from Mischief Media: Listen to A Story Most Queer, now available wherever you listen!

Don't forget that we have a Patreon where you can get extra (sorting-related!) content!

By the way: never listen to what number we call the show inside the recording. We're gonna stop doing that.

Also, in the drums: John explains Brexit! 

Produced by Adam Molina // Assoc. Produced by Kylie Madden




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15.4 Live with your Qs from Quarantine

We asked what you wanted us to talk about, and here are the results, yet more Potter silliness while we're all in lockdown!

Reminders!
CHECK OUT OUR MERCH, omg it's so good. http://mischiefmerch.com

Join our patreon! http://patreon.com/pottercast - Now, you can also join our Discord community there!





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(W)In Quarantine – Some More Time In A Dream

I admit that sometimes I feel I want something more than I want it. Boy was I mad at NBC went Conan O’Brien didn’t get The Tonight Show spot. I may not have lost sleep over it, but I gasped, I cried, I raged, and, if Facebook had this react at that time, I would […]




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Quarantine Beauty: The Tools And Techniques That Have Me Glowing!

I don’t know about you, but giving daily make-up a rest has been doing wonders for my skin. But in case we’ve never met before — hi, I’m Gala! — I like to maximize things. My train of thought goes something like, ‘Sure, my skin looks good… But what if I came out of quarantine looking better than […]

The post Quarantine Beauty: The Tools And Techniques That Have Me Glowing! appeared first on Gala Darling.




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The Paramount Leader is Ready for Sacrifice: Your Sacrifice

This week President Trump had a new message: he’s bored with the COVID19 epidemic. Or perhaps putting it a bit...




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Our Doctors, Ourselves: Barbara Seaman and Popular Health Feminism in the 1970s

“If the plastic speculum was the tool of choice for self-help advocates, leading women to a better understanding of their own bodies, then the popular media was Barbara Seaman’s preferred weapon in the cultural battle against medical sexism.”
— Kelly O’Donnell, in her article “Our Doctors, Ourselves: Barbara Seaman and Popular Health Feminism in the 1970s”

Barbara Seaman, a popular journalist in the 1960s and 70s who wrote for magazines including Brides, Ms., Ladies Home Journal, and Family Circle, was one of the first journalists to ... More

The post Our Doctors, Ourselves: Barbara Seaman and Popular Health Feminism in the 1970s appeared first on Our Bodies Ourselves.




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TRIGGER TIME DURING QUARANTINE TIME

Trapped at home. Many if not most ranges closed, depending where you are. How can shooter folk get some trigger time for skill maintenance, recreation, and the all-important boredom prevention? Airgun fun is quiet…don’t forget eye protection. Well, for one Read more