Teleporkalypse Now!

Today my elder daughter came home from school with log-in details for an online virtual classroom service, which she had never heard mention of before. It's kind of a private email/virtual homework site, a sort of very low-quality version of Facebook. Part of me suspects that this has been in the works for months, is for purely educational purposes, and that the timing is just coincidental. Another part of me thinks that some bright spark is ahead of the curve and is expecting a lengthy period of school closures. But that may be giving the local government too much credit. Tomorrow will tell, perhaps. Meanwhile, I continue to monitor newsmap and HealthMap with interest. I'm increasingly fascinated by how decentralized news flows can inform, and perhaps mis-inform, in times like these.

UPDATE (in DEFCON 1 flaming red): What's interesting about the Bloomberg article is the observation that Obama wants $1.5bn to deal with an outbreak. So, it takes a paltry $1.5bn, practically a rounding error by recent standards, to deal with something which could cause the deaths of tens of millions, when dealing with the fallout from fictitious bank assets apparently costs $X trillion - and counting. No wonder Mother Nature is out to kick our collective ass. We have achieved Koyaanisqatsi, on steroids.