ellenspictures

Tag: pandemic

  • the balance and Katrina was a cakewalk compared to this…

    the balance and Katrina was a cakewalk compared to this…

    OK folks, day by day, this experience (better to call it for what it is) is unfolding. Observing the culture, so many things have been re-arranged. Seriously. Priorities shift attitudes. Truth. Humans change in attitudes as they are submitted to more and more change. Truth.

    Change is happenin’. Dynamic, by the minute change. On one hand, we have the numbers – not as accurate as we would like, but enough to chart the scary trends and who is doing what that works… Let’s say we can believe our friends in Singapore and South Korea. As draconian as their measures might be assessed by some of our asshole fellow-citizens, driven by racism as their numero uno priority, and of course, just being generally angry… What S. Korea and Singapore have done has worked pretty well at “flattening the curve of the outbreak”. Also, they had some pretty sophisticated and clever ways to test people without exposing their medical workers. I am in AWE of that shit. Seriously.

    But, here in this country that is supposed to be civilized, we have ZERO leadership that is moving between Keystone Cops and some skit out of SNL. We have the grand poo-bah looking more confused every time he gets on TV for his “press briefings”, even today slipping in some reference to his experience with models (and not of the mathematical type). What a freak. Can you believe it?

    Then there is his “Senior Advisor” son-in-law, that looks like some sort of ghost and of course, he’s trying to throw what little weight (and brains) he has around to make himself look important – well the Dumb-Ass leader puts his son-in-law in charge of “supply chain” for important medical equipment. Oh. My. God. The dude gets up and says that the “stockpiles are for the US government, not the states”. OK, shit-for-brains, since you escaped having to take American history or political science classes, what the hell do you think that the “government” is vs. “the states”? Oh boy. We are in true deep doo-doo that is getting deeper by the minute.

    All that I have to say about this right now is “that this is some weird shit.” Taken from our former President George W. Bush from his statement at Trump’s inauguration.

    God, I even miss that guy… he would have done a better job, even though at the time I thought HE was useless… he was quite better at his job, actually – and at least he wasn’t shameless like this *wad. Sorry, I really must curse here. It makes me feel a bit better and for the record, we have some scary stuff to get through over the next few months…

    I’m praying for survival – praying for my family and friends and most of all – praying for a merkle (miracle).

    -Hope Never Vanishes -ellenspictures- April 3, 2020

  • wow. insight into the human behavior during a pandemic. dateline 2005.

    wow. insight into the human behavior during a pandemic. dateline 2005.

    Here is an article for you to read from the Texas Standard, a news organization local to these parts with sharp insight and often featured daily information on public radio. It discusses how the behaviors of players back then are serving as a predictive precursor to human behavior in pandemic situations.

    World-of-Warcraft was a very popular game – one of the first “MMOG’s” and those who played it back then were pioneers in the craft, my son being one of them. Being that he had lots of health issues, his world shifted in his last years of life to computer gaming – or station gaming, but as those evolved, “heavily online”. In 2003-2005, as World-of-Warcraft overtook some other popular games that evolved over time – Dungeons and Dragons, Doom, etc. the community grew for the online gaming to what is now, today one of the largest, if not the largest entertainment sub-verticals in that industry, ahead of movies, television, and streaming service programming.

    The byline quoted below, is by their reporter, Kristen Cabrera who posted the article, and the link leads to the Texas Standard website – the audio content in the player below, has the whole interview with Omar Gallega, the Texas Standard Tech Editor.

    “In 2005, a highly contagious disease spread within the fictional world of the massive, multiplayer online game. Scientists later studied players’ reactions to understand how humans might react in a real-world scenario. “

    https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/what-we-can-learn-about-epidemics-from-the-world-of-warcraft-online-game/

    To the point related to our current pandemic and how WOW in 2005, listen to this segment on The Texas Standard…all rights reserved to that organization.

    From The Texas Standard – What We Can Learn About Epidemics From The ‘World of Warcraft’ Video Game.
    Texas Standard. A service of the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin

    The picture below is of Rob’s character, Jarulf and his pet, Ham.

    The alternate reality where Rob played, unconstrained…

    As we go through this experience, the simulation of this experience fifteen-years ago, we can check to see how that parallels what is transpiring. We cannot actually predict this behavior – too many triggers, and too much change that cannot be foretold.

    14-March-2020

  • we call your attention to our new pandemic diaries page. go there for the latest day by day chronology and status updates…

    we call your attention to our new pandemic diaries page. go there for the latest day by day chronology and status updates…

    The pandemic diaries can be found here.