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Apr. 22nd, 2020 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Ah some good news, Here's Exactly Where We're At With Vaccines & Treatments for COVID-19.
NY1 reported that Oxford University, Johns Hopkins, and scientists in Germany were hard at work on coming up with a vaccine. Everybody trying something different, and yes, they are sharing information.
They are still a ways away from getting a vaccine in place, but there's progress and several groups on working on it at the same time from various angles.
2. On the Kensington FB Page - someone posted about how there would be testing for COVID-19 in my area, but don't go unless you are sick and need to be tested. The ensuing discussion on the page, made me wonder about people.
The individual doing the testing is a PA - so of course someone said they couldn't do it. (OF course they can, Physician's Assistants (PA) are the ones that take samples. Doctors don't. When you get a flu shot - it's given by the Physician's Assistant in most cases, as are blood work, etc. The Doctor is the one who orders the test, but the assistant is the one who takes it and sends it to the lab.)
Another idiot said not to take a test - because you could get the virus from the test. Eh, no. All they are doing is taking a sample - and then sending it to the lab to test. They don't have the virus - the lab has the virus to test the sample against. And the lab has safety measures in place.
Honestly, it's not like we don't live in an age in which you can't instantly find the correct information on the internet. Are people born stupid? Although I began to wonder if the idiot was a troll, obviously, I was not alone, because the idiot and the entire thread were deleted.
To be honest this isn't the first discussion that's made me wonder about folks. There was another one with someone who didn't understand why they had to wear a mask if they were obviously not sick.
Apparently the people in the horror movies who do dumb things are far more realistic than we realized. Who knew? As one poster on Twitter put it - she really didn't want to know this about people. She was enjoying her delusion that humanity was smarter than that.
Speaking of all of the above? Here's a Twitter comment that I found particularly amusing, I shouldn't, but I did...
Bill Marx for Congress
billforpa14
I mean you have to admit it's hilarious that the people who have spent their entire lives stockpiling beans & ammo and publishing newsletters about preparing to shelter in place during a global crisis are the ones having meltdowns because they can't go to the cheesecake factory.
Apparently they were preparing for the Zombie Apocalpyse, not...well what they got.
As this guy states..
Bill Clearlake
bclearlake
·
Apr 20
Replying to
billforpa14
They were expecting a foe they could empty some rounds into. Perform Rambo-like acts of courage. Instead, fighting this war requires cooking skills, caring about others, sewing masks, teaching kids, and figuring out what else there is to watch on Netflix.
Yes, I find it ironic that the heroes in the movies aren't the doctors, nurses, scientists, transportation workers, and food providers/volunteers, but people who shoot things. In reality, the bad guys are the people who shoot things.
3. Other thing that I shouldn't find amusing but I did, but I'm not sure if you can see it? Amazing Girls Quarantine Workout Video
4. There were two things that I heard today that I feel the need to jot down and share and remember.
* The Governor of New York was answering a question by a reporter who asked how he would respond to the protestors who were upset they'd lost their jobs and wanted to go back to work and couldn't wait a few more weeks while he continued to test to determine how far the virus had spread. And the people who did not see the need to wear masks.
He said, "What I need you to try to wrap you head around is the word "we". That every life matters. Being out of work and having economic ruin as bad as it is - is not death. Illness equals death. If you go back to work, and you are carrying the virus and infect someone else - you may not care about your life but what about the other person's life? Doesn't their life matter? 484 people died today, and those people are my family, they are part of all of us. They are just as important as you are as I am. If you aren't going to stay home for you, stay home for me or another person, make this about "we" not you."
Dalia Lama seemed to repeat this message on Twitter for Earth Day...
"Dalai Lama
dalailama
·
Apr 20
Time is always moving on; nothing can stop it. We can't change the past, but we can learn from it to shape the future. Stress on ‘us’ and ‘them’ is a source of conflict. We neglect basic human qualities of kindness and compassion. Let’s work together to create a happier future."
My meditation app - showed me a little film about the life cycle of a maple tree. It showed how flexible and giving the tree was - sharing it's sap with the world around it, and budding and living.
The app, also did a daily meditation on "The Words of Others", which I desperately needed.
*"Just like our thoughts, other people's words come and go - if we can distinguish what is helpful we can let go of the rest."
Too often I dwell on the negative words of others, taking them in, brooding on them, letting them eat away at me, and churn. When in reality they are just words without any power. I'm giving the words power. That's my choice. Just as I can choose to give thoughts power or let them float away.
It's kind of like what Stephen King once said about taking criticism on his writing - he said he ignores the things that aren't helpful and uses the bits that are.
5. 8 TV Shows That Were Creatively Altered by a Writers Strike
(Yes I'm rewarding the people who put up with all of the coronavirus crap.)
Numerous TV series have had to return from strike to a kind of creative reboot, from rewriting single episodes to devising entirely new finales. Here are eight of them.
1. BREAKING BAD
An enduring legend about Breaking Bad sprung up around the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike. According to that version of events, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) was originally set to be killed off by the show’s writers, but when the strike occurred and forced the show to cut its first season from nine to seven episodes, some hard thinking about the show’s structure led to the decision to keep Pinkman around. It turns out that’s only partially true, as creator Vince Gilligan has since noted that he’d decided not to let Paul go by the second episode of the show. The strike did fundamentally alter the show’s overall plot progression, though.
Those final two episodes in season one would have originally given us two fast-paced hours in which Walter White (Bryan Cranston) would have very quickly become the drug kingpin known as Heisenberg. With the strike standing in the way of that, Gilligan and company threw those episodes out and took a more careful approach to bringing out Heisenberg. That meant a slower pace, but an awesome three-episode arc to kick off the second season.
2. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
The 1988 Writers Guild of America strike was the longest in the organization’s history, and its long run cut into the production of a number of series, among them the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. As a result of the strike’s duration, the season order was shortened from 26 episodes to 22, and with a shorter production window, the show went looking for script sources beyond the standard writers room. As a result, the season premiere episode “The Child” was adapted from a script originally written for the aborted Star Trek: Phase II TV series in the late 1970s. Producers also began mining the “slush pile” of submitted spec scripts from outside writers and found “The Measure of a Man,” by attorney-turned-writer Melinda M. Snodgrass. The script became the ninth episode of the season, and Snodgrass was hired as the show’s story editor.
3. HEROES
After starting off red hot with huge ratings and critical acclaim, the second season of the comic book-inspired NBC series Heroes suffered a ratings decline and attacks from fans due to new characters that took time away from the old ones, a time travel storyline that seemed to drag on too long, and romances that pulled attention way from the show’s super-powered action. It got so bad that creator Tim Kring admitted mistakes in an Entertainment Weekly interview. But the writers strike offered Kring and company a chance to rethink and restructure.
The strike limited the show’s second season to just 11 episodes, and sensing that a change needed to come, Kring reshot the ending of that season’s eventual finale, ”Powerless,” in order to scrap a planned plague storyline that would have made up season two’s second half. The planned fourth “volume” of the series, “Villains,” became the third, and the show carried on for two more seasons.
4. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
The hit sci-fi series only had one episode of its final “Season 4.5” run completed when the 2007-08 strike hit, and the situation felt so dire at the time that the cast was convinced during filming that said episode—“Sometimes A Great Notion”—would be the show’s last. The series did return to produce 10 more hours to end its run, and, like Heroes, the strike actually gave creator Ronald D. Moore a chance to rethink the planned ending of the show.
“There was a different ending that we had, it was all about Ellen aboard the Colony,” Moore told io9. “She was sort of turned by Cavil, because she found out that Tigh had impregnated Caprica Six, and that deeply embittered her. And she sort of became dedicated to the idea of destroying Galactica and the fleet out of revenge. And [she and Cavil] got Hera, and then the final confrontation became very personalized between Tigh versus Ellen, and should they forgive.”
“That was the story, generally speaking. We didn't have a lot more than just what I spun out to you, when the writer's strike hit. Over the course of the writer's strike, I rethought about it and thought, ‘That's not going to do it. It's not epic enough. It's not interesting enough.’ That's when we decided to start over, and reinvent the last arc of the show.”
Moore and his writers ultimately devised a different series finale, featuring the daring rescue of Hera Agathon and the discovery of our prehistoric Earth.
Others in the article include Pushing Daisies, Scrubs, 30 Rock, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog.
6. Okay, the title amused me, I have not read the article. How a Huguenot Philosopher Realized That Atheists Could Be Virtuous?
I'm amused, because honestly, I'd think of the two, Huguenots and Atheists, Atheists would obviously be the most virtuous. The Huguenots were a tad full of themselves.
NY1 reported that Oxford University, Johns Hopkins, and scientists in Germany were hard at work on coming up with a vaccine. Everybody trying something different, and yes, they are sharing information.
They are still a ways away from getting a vaccine in place, but there's progress and several groups on working on it at the same time from various angles.
2. On the Kensington FB Page - someone posted about how there would be testing for COVID-19 in my area, but don't go unless you are sick and need to be tested. The ensuing discussion on the page, made me wonder about people.
The individual doing the testing is a PA - so of course someone said they couldn't do it. (OF course they can, Physician's Assistants (PA) are the ones that take samples. Doctors don't. When you get a flu shot - it's given by the Physician's Assistant in most cases, as are blood work, etc. The Doctor is the one who orders the test, but the assistant is the one who takes it and sends it to the lab.)
Another idiot said not to take a test - because you could get the virus from the test. Eh, no. All they are doing is taking a sample - and then sending it to the lab to test. They don't have the virus - the lab has the virus to test the sample against. And the lab has safety measures in place.
Honestly, it's not like we don't live in an age in which you can't instantly find the correct information on the internet. Are people born stupid? Although I began to wonder if the idiot was a troll, obviously, I was not alone, because the idiot and the entire thread were deleted.
To be honest this isn't the first discussion that's made me wonder about folks. There was another one with someone who didn't understand why they had to wear a mask if they were obviously not sick.
Apparently the people in the horror movies who do dumb things are far more realistic than we realized. Who knew? As one poster on Twitter put it - she really didn't want to know this about people. She was enjoying her delusion that humanity was smarter than that.
Speaking of all of the above? Here's a Twitter comment that I found particularly amusing, I shouldn't, but I did...
Bill Marx for Congress
billforpa14I mean you have to admit it's hilarious that the people who have spent their entire lives stockpiling beans & ammo and publishing newsletters about preparing to shelter in place during a global crisis are the ones having meltdowns because they can't go to the cheesecake factory.
Apparently they were preparing for the Zombie Apocalpyse, not...well what they got.
As this guy states..
Bill Clearlake
bclearlake·
Apr 20
Replying to
billforpa14They were expecting a foe they could empty some rounds into. Perform Rambo-like acts of courage. Instead, fighting this war requires cooking skills, caring about others, sewing masks, teaching kids, and figuring out what else there is to watch on Netflix.
Yes, I find it ironic that the heroes in the movies aren't the doctors, nurses, scientists, transportation workers, and food providers/volunteers, but people who shoot things. In reality, the bad guys are the people who shoot things.
3. Other thing that I shouldn't find amusing but I did, but I'm not sure if you can see it? Amazing Girls Quarantine Workout Video
4. There were two things that I heard today that I feel the need to jot down and share and remember.
* The Governor of New York was answering a question by a reporter who asked how he would respond to the protestors who were upset they'd lost their jobs and wanted to go back to work and couldn't wait a few more weeks while he continued to test to determine how far the virus had spread. And the people who did not see the need to wear masks.
He said, "What I need you to try to wrap you head around is the word "we". That every life matters. Being out of work and having economic ruin as bad as it is - is not death. Illness equals death. If you go back to work, and you are carrying the virus and infect someone else - you may not care about your life but what about the other person's life? Doesn't their life matter? 484 people died today, and those people are my family, they are part of all of us. They are just as important as you are as I am. If you aren't going to stay home for you, stay home for me or another person, make this about "we" not you."
Dalia Lama seemed to repeat this message on Twitter for Earth Day...
"Dalai Lama
dalailama·
Apr 20
Time is always moving on; nothing can stop it. We can't change the past, but we can learn from it to shape the future. Stress on ‘us’ and ‘them’ is a source of conflict. We neglect basic human qualities of kindness and compassion. Let’s work together to create a happier future."
My meditation app - showed me a little film about the life cycle of a maple tree. It showed how flexible and giving the tree was - sharing it's sap with the world around it, and budding and living.
The app, also did a daily meditation on "The Words of Others", which I desperately needed.
*"Just like our thoughts, other people's words come and go - if we can distinguish what is helpful we can let go of the rest."
Too often I dwell on the negative words of others, taking them in, brooding on them, letting them eat away at me, and churn. When in reality they are just words without any power. I'm giving the words power. That's my choice. Just as I can choose to give thoughts power or let them float away.
It's kind of like what Stephen King once said about taking criticism on his writing - he said he ignores the things that aren't helpful and uses the bits that are.
5. 8 TV Shows That Were Creatively Altered by a Writers Strike
(Yes I'm rewarding the people who put up with all of the coronavirus crap.)
Numerous TV series have had to return from strike to a kind of creative reboot, from rewriting single episodes to devising entirely new finales. Here are eight of them.
1. BREAKING BAD
An enduring legend about Breaking Bad sprung up around the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike. According to that version of events, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) was originally set to be killed off by the show’s writers, but when the strike occurred and forced the show to cut its first season from nine to seven episodes, some hard thinking about the show’s structure led to the decision to keep Pinkman around. It turns out that’s only partially true, as creator Vince Gilligan has since noted that he’d decided not to let Paul go by the second episode of the show. The strike did fundamentally alter the show’s overall plot progression, though.
Those final two episodes in season one would have originally given us two fast-paced hours in which Walter White (Bryan Cranston) would have very quickly become the drug kingpin known as Heisenberg. With the strike standing in the way of that, Gilligan and company threw those episodes out and took a more careful approach to bringing out Heisenberg. That meant a slower pace, but an awesome three-episode arc to kick off the second season.
2. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
The 1988 Writers Guild of America strike was the longest in the organization’s history, and its long run cut into the production of a number of series, among them the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. As a result of the strike’s duration, the season order was shortened from 26 episodes to 22, and with a shorter production window, the show went looking for script sources beyond the standard writers room. As a result, the season premiere episode “The Child” was adapted from a script originally written for the aborted Star Trek: Phase II TV series in the late 1970s. Producers also began mining the “slush pile” of submitted spec scripts from outside writers and found “The Measure of a Man,” by attorney-turned-writer Melinda M. Snodgrass. The script became the ninth episode of the season, and Snodgrass was hired as the show’s story editor.
3. HEROES
After starting off red hot with huge ratings and critical acclaim, the second season of the comic book-inspired NBC series Heroes suffered a ratings decline and attacks from fans due to new characters that took time away from the old ones, a time travel storyline that seemed to drag on too long, and romances that pulled attention way from the show’s super-powered action. It got so bad that creator Tim Kring admitted mistakes in an Entertainment Weekly interview. But the writers strike offered Kring and company a chance to rethink and restructure.
The strike limited the show’s second season to just 11 episodes, and sensing that a change needed to come, Kring reshot the ending of that season’s eventual finale, ”Powerless,” in order to scrap a planned plague storyline that would have made up season two’s second half. The planned fourth “volume” of the series, “Villains,” became the third, and the show carried on for two more seasons.
4. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
The hit sci-fi series only had one episode of its final “Season 4.5” run completed when the 2007-08 strike hit, and the situation felt so dire at the time that the cast was convinced during filming that said episode—“Sometimes A Great Notion”—would be the show’s last. The series did return to produce 10 more hours to end its run, and, like Heroes, the strike actually gave creator Ronald D. Moore a chance to rethink the planned ending of the show.
“There was a different ending that we had, it was all about Ellen aboard the Colony,” Moore told io9. “She was sort of turned by Cavil, because she found out that Tigh had impregnated Caprica Six, and that deeply embittered her. And she sort of became dedicated to the idea of destroying Galactica and the fleet out of revenge. And [she and Cavil] got Hera, and then the final confrontation became very personalized between Tigh versus Ellen, and should they forgive.”
“That was the story, generally speaking. We didn't have a lot more than just what I spun out to you, when the writer's strike hit. Over the course of the writer's strike, I rethought about it and thought, ‘That's not going to do it. It's not epic enough. It's not interesting enough.’ That's when we decided to start over, and reinvent the last arc of the show.”
Moore and his writers ultimately devised a different series finale, featuring the daring rescue of Hera Agathon and the discovery of our prehistoric Earth.
Others in the article include Pushing Daisies, Scrubs, 30 Rock, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog.
6. Okay, the title amused me, I have not read the article. How a Huguenot Philosopher Realized That Atheists Could Be Virtuous?
I'm amused, because honestly, I'd think of the two, Huguenots and Atheists, Atheists would obviously be the most virtuous. The Huguenots were a tad full of themselves.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 06:59 am (UTC)Just sayin! Stunt performers, perhaps?
no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 02:19 pm (UTC)But, Yes, it's kind of obvious that the people doing it are professional trainers, who have a work-out website - Amazing Workout Girls. And the video is probably a parody/satire of the whole working out at home craze - not meant to be taken seriously.
I snagged it from Masq, who posted it on FB.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-24 04:07 am (UTC)Ahh, that would make sense! I kept wondering if this was something like America's Funniest Home Videos, which I watched only a few times (ever) largely because so many of what was supposedly funny was people-- often little kids-- shown doing things that appeared genuinely dangerous or harmful.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 09:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 02:24 pm (UTC)But it doesn't pose a risk to the person providing the sample. They are taking it from you with a cotton swab. Any more than taking a blood sample for HIV test, or testing for mono harms the patient.
The patient isn't the one handling the sample.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 02:28 pm (UTC)So because they can't think critically, or logically, they tend to go with whatever the crowd tells them, or some news personality that they like, or piece of information they read. Or what they perceive with their own eyes, without question.
I blame our education system to be honest.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 05:45 pm (UTC)1. Our Universe is a karmic one and has a wicked sense of humor. It loves nothing better than throwing folks on the opposite side of every argument they've ever been on. So, it may not be them today - but it will be them tomorrow. Kind of like WWII Germany - oh, I'm not Jewish, this isn't going to effect me. Then along comes the sustained bombing of Dresden and the Berlin Wall...oops, guess it did, huh? We're all connected to one another whether we like it or not.
2. The other difficulty with trusting the gut - is it's hardly reliable unless you are on a really really healthy diet and have no food issues. IF you've been eating a lot of sugar, it's probably the sugar not your gut talking. Lots of nasty little parasites can grow in that gut, including COVID-19 (which also attacks the gut). So it could be a parasite or a virus telling you to be an idiot. ;-)