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    Indeed, "we" do not have "levels" in the US, as they would both require and evidence a comprehensive and rational Federal response, which we very much lack.

    Though I'm not aware of states or municipalities that have established such a methodical approach, either. The preference here is for more flexible and ad hoc responses, though there is also the shadow of the Federal "terror threat levels", which have never done any good for any but those who profit off of such things.

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      Originally posted by Tactical Genius View Post
      Not sure if this is the right place to post this. Looks like the US democracy is starting to break down.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bgCCXSrwHA
      Hmm, that's Mar-a-Lago land isn't it. The truth doesn't matter.

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        I don't want to jinx it, but again I feel the need to remark at how amazed I am at how well the internet is handling this. At least in the US. Penn State reported that the shift to all online has gone way smoother than expected. That is probably the first time in the 165 year history of the university that a major university-wide technological initiative has gone that well.

        And for better and worse, I'm on instagram a lot more now just watching various celebrities read children's books and do live feeds from their kitchens. It's a staggering amount of data.

        I'm of the generation that thought calculator watches and the Atari 2600 were amazing so I still can't quite get my brain around the idea of clear video coming in from people's homes all around the world all at once onto a thing the size of my hand while I sit in bed.

        My first big "holy shit, I live in the future" moment was about ten years ago when I was at that conference in Hamburg. While eating breakfast, I watched the extra-innings of a Reds-A's game, live on my phone. Crystal clear.

        I wonder what William Gibson thinks. Well, I could find out but I don't want to go on twitter any more. It's just too depressing and I hate it in the best of times.

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          Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
          The phrase people are looking for is generally attributed to Mark Twain. “I do not wish ill on another human being. I wii read certain obituaries with great pleasure.”

          Currently stood outside a chippy having a celebratory fish and chips. (I got the Microsoft gig.) We’re all practicing social distancing and the guy is taking orders outside. It’s a bizarre scene.
          Congratulations on the new gig. My local chippy (the best one I've ever lived near) has closed completely for the duration. I'm going to have to scope out the alternative ones nearby before Friday.

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            Yeah, well, it's going to be hard to have them all come to some office and queue up to pick it up.

            Maybe the IRS can hire a bunch of people to increase processing?

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              Originally posted by Greenlander View Post

              Hmm, that's Mar-a-Lago land isn't it. The truth doesn't matter.
              Eh. That shit happens all the time in small towns.

              You can search "town council fight" in youtube and get results from lots of places over the last few years. There are more than 19,000 municipalities in the US. If fewer than 500 have descended into chaos in the last few weeks, I'd count that as a win.

              The town council scenes on Parks & Rec were often the funniest but lots of people don't realize how accurate they are.

              The difference now is that those things are on youtube and can go viral very quickly. It's like brawls at little kids sports. It's not really clear that there's been surge in that sort of thing. We're just more aware of it now.
              Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 25-03-2020, 20:33.

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                The Bay Area has extended the school shutdown (or distance learning) through May 1st.
                I'm not expecting this to be the last extension.

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                  Maryland schools closed through 4/24.

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                    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post

                    Eh. That shit happens all the time in small towns.

                    You can search "town council fight" in youtube and get results from lots of places over the last few years. There are more than 19,000 municipalities in the US. If fewer than 500 have descended into chaos in the last few weeks, I'd count that as a win.

                    The town council scenes on Parks & Rec were often the funniest but lots of people don't realize how accurate they are.

                    The difference now is that those things are on youtube and can go viral very quickly. It's like brawls at little kids sports. It's not really clear that there's been surge in that sort of thing. We're just more aware of it now.
                    Ahh right, I thought the fact that the commander-in-chief has a place just down the road might have been an influencing factor in her reaction.

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                      I'm not sure if this is the place for this. But...

                      From what I've seem of it, the US relief bill seems to be about as good as you could reasonably expect in the circumstances, considering who runs the Senate and White House. Schumer seems to have actually done a great job of getting some oversight on the $500bn business bailout and some restrictions on things like share buy backs (I haven't seen whether there's also restrictions on executive bonuses, which Warren was trying to get in there). More importantly, he's managed to get the unemployment element in there properly - 4 months of unemployment at $600/week (which would be 100% of a 40hr working week at $15) for anyone laid off or furloughed is a massive deal. I don't think anything like that was in the bill to start with. And also keeping the $1200 stimulus cheques to only go to those earning under $100k rather than going to everyone.

                      Basically, it's got three main pillars:

                      Decent unemployment for those who've lost their jobs, to protect them. This seems to include gig-economy workers.

                      A massive stimulus by just giving cash to people, and mostly to people who aren't rich enough to just stick it in their savings accounts so it'll actually probably go into the economy

                      A load of cash to protect businesses that have been fucked over, but with perhaps enough oversight to prevent egregious abuse by companies.

                      I'm sure there's a ton more to it, and I'm sure it's flawed in all kinds of little ways. But as a big picture move, it looks like Schumer has done pretty damned well.

                      Of course, it's being held up at the moment by Graham and Sasse because they're insufferable little cunts who think the poor are undeserving and shouldn't get a reasonable safety net.

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                        1 - that seems to be the stimulus $1200, not the unemployment. As I understand it, this isn't money that's meant to keep them alive during the crisis - if they've lost their jobs I believe they can claim their unemployment. This is money that's meant to just get the economy kicking off again.

                        2 - how would you propose accelerating the process?

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                          not my job but most people have social security numbers don't they?

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                            the stimulus is giving trillions to billionaires

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                              https://www.facebook.com/589055780/p...631730781/?d=n

                              An easier way to access the vox pops Fussbudget mentioned.

                              I spoke with a 49yo in Newcastle last year who had never heard of Chernobyl.

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                                Self employed to get 80% of recent earnings, apparently. Presumably 80% of recently declared taxable earnings, which for quite a few will mean 80% of the just above/below the tax threshold that they pretended to earn. Still a lot better than £94 a week.

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                                  Last I saw it was based on the average of the last three years

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                                    Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                                    not my job but most people have social security numbers don't they?
                                    Taxes are the link they have to social security at a federal level is my guess (where you are of working age).

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                                      https://twitter.com/mattzarb/status/1242845332372938752?s=20

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                                        Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                        I don't want to jinx it, but again I feel the need to remark at how amazed I am at how well the internet is handling this. At least in the US. Penn State reported that the shift to all online has gone way smoother than expected. That is probably the first time in the 165 year history of the university that a major university-wide technological initiative has gone that well.

                                        And for better and worse, I'm on instagram a lot more now just watching various celebrities read children's books and do live feeds from their kitchens. It's a staggering amount of data.
                                        I saw a number a couple of years ago that says YouTube pumps out more data now than the entire Internet in 2006. And when you consider how much is in the cloud - there were inevitable hiccups over the past couple of weeks (Microsoft even now are turning things off behind the scenes) but I've been quite surprised that we haven't had more failures. Then again, Microsoft have 100 data centers with somewhere between 250,000 and a million physical servers each. And AWS not only runs Amazon, but Twitter, Dropbox, Playstation Online and others. Google has Gmail, YouTube and the search engine. The raw power is astonishing.

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                                          https://twitter.com/ericuman/status/1242928690557784067?s=20

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                                            We got that yesterday. It looked really fucking weird to my eyes

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                                              My employer was reluctant to grant wfh to non-management staff, partly due to cost of token licence but the crisis had them setup a new authentication system in days (Google) and cheaply. Now this particular genie is out of the bottle, unless there is a widespread drop in performances by staff, it will be here to stay, if not all the times, certainly a lot more than before...

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                                                I went for an exercise stroll today in the local countryside, passing through the local high street on the way home. It was all very quiet. There were probably a few more people out walking in the fields than there would normally be, but no more than that, very little activity around the supermarkets and pharmacies and minimal infraction of the social distancing rule, (I saw a couple of mums with their very small children walking together, but that was it). All in the brilliant sunshine and all rather surreal.

                                                When I did encounter people on my walk, they gave me a very wide berth, much more than the 6ft recommendation. Good for them, better safe than sorry and all that, but it did make me feel rather odd, as though I was carrying a knife or an unpleasant odour!

                                                As I passed them I involuntarily held my breath.
                                                Last edited by Nocturnal Submission; 25-03-2020, 23:44.

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                                                  My organisation's huge increase in WFH has left those of us on site without Chrome to access the intranet, presumably a licensing thing.
                                                  Which means we have to use Internet Explorer - sadly one of the crappy later ones which doesn't work particularly well (neither did Chrome, but I'd got used to the specific ways it was shit, IE more random.)

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                                                    The authorities in Napoli are using drones to monitor compliance with the restrictions in Scampia, the neighbourhood in which Gommorah was set.

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