goDel

To be fair though, the US is so big, it makes less sense to have the exact same lockdown policies everywhere. The virus hasn't spread equally. And probably wouldn't because of rural areas, for instance. As long as states are proactive, there can be "some" variation. It's more important for people to be well-informed about the dangers so they can take precautions. I'd be more worried about people being well-informed, btw. I mean, look at Europe. Compare Sweden to other countries, for instance. They have a bit more freedom, but it doesn't look like it's worse over there. At least, not that I'm aware. But it goes both ways. Despite the freeer society, their economy isn't in a very different shape to the rest of the EU either. It's bad everywhere. Also in Sweden. So a bit of variation wouldn't have a big impact on either the safety or the economy. As long as people don't do stupid shit. Most important thing is that the healthcare systems can cope with the demand at any point in time. The lockdown is essentially there to protect the healthcare systems. That was what the whole "flatten the curve" thing was about. It was about slowing down. Not about stopping. We're well past the idea of stopping the virus from spreading. It's already a global thing.

Funny how officials are being blamed for shuttering the economy. I want to make a bet that without the "shuttering by officials" the economy would still be where it currently is. Or worse even. Lots of money is being pumped into the economy by those same officials as we speak, and still they're crying. That's taxpayers money.

If Fauci is happy, something big is happening, right? Cummunism?

fixt

just reposting this here. handy post because it automagically updates ?

Very good. Practice session for coming November. Wanted to post this a couple days ago. But o well. Nice word play

Cute. Imbleach the president

Couple of interesting bits in here. Also, be sure to get the "joke" at the end about the single mask which could save a lot of lives.

If it had a pony in it as well, it would be perfect.

Not sure why we need to point fingers at the US. It's a small minority that's getting a lot of attention. Too much attention, imo. And another is that this isn't restricted to the US either. One way or another, societies will have to move towards the herd immunity situation. And that's not possible with a complete lockdown. So it will be loosened up one way or another. While the virus will still be out there. (it will never leave, probably) Societies will be walking a tight rope until herd immunity is reached. Loosening up, until numbers rise again - which they will - and back again. Get used to it. And be prepared for the next wave. Also note that the current percentages of people with antibodies are based on prevalence of at least 4 weeks earlier. At this point in time the actual percentage of people which will have antibodies might be double or even triple of that. Or in other words, expect that percentage to develop over time in a exponential fashion. Similar to the way the virus itself spreads. And there's also an extra delay until antibodies can actually be measured. So the current percentages represent the situation at the start of the current crisis basically.

Sure! Post it here if you've got a link. Not familiar with the strong songs podcast.

don't forget to check the dissection of pearl jams jeremy

Anyone following Rick Beato's youtubes? What do you think? This guy gives some great insight from the producers perspective. Mostly rock music, but interesting nevertheless. Here's one on Nine Inch Nails. Perhaps not the best example, but probably closest to what people here listen to. Don't think Nine Inch Nails is a particularly interesting though. Compare it to Stevie Wonders Superstition. I love it when he goes into the chords progressions and how various layers work together. The drums bass section, melodies. Plenty more stuff on his channel. Also love his explanation of why rock is dead: quantisation. Bit of an irony given this is a forum about electronic music, but whatever. ;D

I heard they were planning to exchange presidents between the US and North Korea. Allegedly Trump will be their Golden Child. As foreseen in many local folklore legends. And Kim sitting on the US throne is part of their ambition to take over the world. Supposedly, this will be their golden age.

Don't know whether to laugh or to facepalm. Our scientist did a facepalm. Lets take his lead...

Surprise! A rather interesting interview between "the Tuckster" and some former hotshot McKinsey man (typically white, old and grey) about Tsjina. There's a bit of interesting comments in the end about the impact on globalisation. It's a bit of a cringe to watch, because of Trucksters leading questions. But our uber global capitalist seems to be doing OK. Strangely. Fox seems to naturally progress from anti-lockdown to anti-globalism. Left and right doesn't matter anymore, it seems. Just anti.

hehehe forward that to your pro-trump buddies on FB. ;D

nice! ? only had body issues until now. hehe missed a couple of other releases, i notice. so i'm currently busy throwing money at my computer screen. Track sounds promising! Hope the rest is equally good. His next release should be called money issues... ;D

Yeah. If they would have already left the industry, they wouldn't have taken part in this NTS thing under their BOC name. They put something out in public under their name, even if it was a mix. That simply says BOC is still a thing and not defunct, imo. What is notable however, is that there wasn't any unreleased BOC part of that set. Suggests there wasn't anything to put out in the public at that point in time. Which is a rather depressing thought, imo. At least, I can't remember any unreleased stuff. Could be my memory.

That's the thing, right? Regardless of your personal experiences, when dealing with people from different cultures, and speaking different languages, people should always be wary to judge others. Differences in cultures and stuff that got lost in translation are important to factor in when being part of situations like these. That's part of the game. And I'm saying nothing new, I hope. So when people do get rude or show strange behaviour in international meetings like these, people tend to give others some slack. Normally, you wouldn't hear a thing about stuff like this coming out of EU meetings. People in these meetings understand things can come across differently and shouldn't be taken at face value. Reminds me of that "quite good" issue from a while ago. ;D So, the most simple explanation is it's a mixture of various reasons. And much in public is a bunch of half truths. There are surely some examples of behaviour from the Dutch which would raise some eyebrows. No denying that. But you haven't heard about behaviour of other countries besides the Dutch. Which is quite telling. You can be fairly sure this goes in more directions. You just wont hear it. As that would truly be a step towards further escalation. And the Netherlands is simply too small to result in a full on escalation. Another interesting point is about Germany's positioning within all this. It's largely in the same corner as the Netherlands, but currently plays a more mediating role. Which is rather helpful for the situation, I'd argue. Imagine if Germany was in the same position as the Netherlands. That would make things so much harder. This is also one of the reasons why comments about the EU breaking are not to be taken too seriously, btw. The fact Germany is publicly trying to mediate towards a broader solution speaks volumes. Again, it would be a problem if Germany was not playing the role they're currently doing, there'd be a problem. Also note that there is no scenario where there wouldn't be disagreement between the Southern countries and the Northern. These differences are old. And the Dutch were an easy and thankful target. Big enough to matter. And small enough to not matter at the same time. And easy, because, well, poor PR. There's no smoke without fire. It's just that there might be more fires going on. And there's no clear single "firestarter". It's all rather messy. In other words, some stuff happened, and it was in the interest of a number of parties to put blame on the Netherlands publicly. The Southern countries needed to blow off steam, heighten the sense of urgency and use their posturing to move the collective into their direction. Germany needed to reposition itself. And I'm sure there was some stupid shit about something about a book. (I mean, really....is that what all the fuss is about? Obviously not...) Again, there's plenty of half-truths out in the open. But never the entire truth. The only thing which currently matters is that the EU comes to an agreement about how to deal with the current situation. And the solution needs to keep the anti-EU sentiments at bay. In the end that's probably the strongest reason for conflicts like these. And anti-EU sentiments are not restricted to the Netherlands, I can tell you that. When that agreement is made, all will be forgotten. (unless the southern or northern countries are deeply unhappy) I'm fairly confident the EU comes to an agreement. It just wont be without some struggle. Also note that the countries need some struggle to be able to defend the agreement at home. It's going to be a compromise, so no-one will be completely happy. That's just the way it is. And the situation at home, whether it's in a southern country or a northern, is difficult. Euro-scepticism is widespread. That's not in the current plans, btw. The analysis that's written here in the Netherlands, is that countries like Italy aren't being helped with loans. Regardless of the conditions. Italy would be better off with investments from other EU countries. And ideally, the entire EU could benefit from investing in Italy. The question is about the conditions which come with those investments.

The media caters viewers/readers just like politicians cater potential voters. It's a feedback-loop. In times of populism, the feedback-loop results in a lot of nonsense. Thx! Good piece. Only point I'm a bit critical about is the mention of Macrons remark: I think the way big words are used during negotiations like these, and more importantly, the way the media reports about them, is often with a lot of hype and exaggeration. In this piece it's pretty subdued. Superficially speaking. But the context and it's actual meaning is a bit open-ended. It's a half truth presented as truth. Half-truth in the sense that there is a possibility. There always is. But also, it's said during a negotiation-process. Posturing is part of that. So Macron is looking for leverage whenever he says something like that. Especially under current circumstances. He raises the so-called alarm-bell to push the negotiations in a specific direction. And less so as a general warning without any interest in obtaining a specific outcome of these negotiations. Or in other words, he's not an independent bystander. And that is what is often missed in reporting, imo. It's stated as truth. And people *can* read it to mean that the EU might break and all that. Or worse, people can read into it what they want. Whatever helps them most, I guess.

Best quote in the last bit Also, from a couple of insiders I can tell that the stuff you see and read in the media/public, a lot of it is politically driven. People want you to read it in order to push public opinion into a certain direction. If you sense an outrage coming up while reading something, you basically know you've been spoon-fed something with the goal to trigger you. In the end though, whether you believe it or not, there is a lot of willingness on the all sides in these discussions. It just takes time to come to a consensus. Which is normal. The stakes are high. Very high. The public outrage is used to push that consensus into certain directions. Political parties and other interest groups actively approach the media to push their outrage narratives. And much in the media is just copy-paste without critical assessment. Or worse, intentionally pushing certain narratives out of self-interest. In the end resulting in half stories presenting themselves as complete stories. This one is still one of the better ones though.

Long live Brexit lol https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/coronavirus-what-is-eu-medical-equipment-scheme-why-did-uk-opt-out All this nonsense about the EU being dead ... if people complaining is a sign of disaster, humanity would have stopped existing eons ago