“Putin has played his side of the chessboard with skill, keeping Ukraine in chaos and on the verge of bankruptcy. Putin doesn’t want to conquer Ukraine: he wants to create a running sore of permanent instability on the West’s eastern flank. That is precisely what I would do in his position, and what I predicted would happen in February 2014: “[The] West [has] a limited number of choices. The first is to do nothing and watch the country spiral into chaos, with Russia as the eventual beneficiary. The second is to dig deep into its pockets and find US$20 billion or more to buy near-term popularity for a pro-Western government – an unlikely outcome. The third, and the most realistic, is to steer Ukraine towards a constitutional referendum including the option of partition.”
Month: January 2015
Microsoft Is Going to Fill the World With Holograms
We introduced the DREAM CATCHER as a Hologram creation device in The Voice, a novel we published 14 years ago:
Page 17 “The entire scene gave the impression of one huge machine and after walking for what seemed five minutes we came to a set of steel doors. Inside, a young man sat motionless, staring vacantly at a bank of monitors as his hands grasped a small black machine with shiny gold letters that read Dream Catcher. Perry is our guinea pig. Right now he’s battling Kirk Douglas in Sparticus, Rick said, his voice echoing off the empty walls. Next he’ll have a drink at Rick’s cafe with Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains, have a dance with Julia Roberts and maybe even go to bed with Marilyn Monroe. I glanced at the monitors as Rick removed the Dream Catcher from Perry’s lap and withdrew what seemed like a small glass marble. Then, replacing the marble with one drawn from his pocket I watched as the image of a sneering Douglas, was replaced with Bogart. Rick marveled at the image of the young intern from Sussex as he postured in front of Claude Rains. Imagine the possibilities of this. Look at him. He’s entirely lost in it. Just like a dream.”
If you want to know where we think Hologram technology is really headed read The Voice !
Microsoft Is Going to Fill the World With Holograms Posted on Jan 21, 2015
Click here to view the Microsoft HoloLens – Transform your world with holograms promotion
For the first time ever, Microsoft HoloLens seamlessly blends high-definition holograms with your real world. Holograms will improve the way you do things every day, and enable you to do things you’ve never done before.
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Afghanistan Between Three Worlds is on YouTube
A 1981 Film from behind Soviet Lines and those first few crucial moments in a conflict that still rocks the world
Afghanistan Between Three Worlds – a one hour documentary
by Paul Fitzgerald & Elizabeth Gould
The Story: Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 27, 1979, the entire corps of 1136 Western journalists was expelled, leaving what President Jimmy Carter called the “the greatest threat to peace since the second World War,” shielded in secrecy from Western eyes. In 1981, the Afghan government granted us exclusive permission to spend 10 days inside the country. What our camera saw and reported in an exclusive news story for CBS News was a country desperate to survive the vice-like grip of superpower confrontation while building a modern identity from the mire, violence and confusion of its feudal past. Aired on the PBS network from 1982 to 1983, Afghanistan Between Three Worlds stands today as the only documentary of its kind to challenge the monolithic Cold War images of the era by casting its focus on a different facet of the Afghan war. It is a witness to what might have been had diplomacy prevailed and to one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. View the film here.
The Woman in Exile Returns is on YouTube
A Film by Paul Fitzgerald & Elizabeth Gould
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The Story: As the first Afghan refugee to come to the US in 1978, Sima Wali transformed herself from victim to advocate. As President of Refugee Women in Development (RefWID), Inc. she worked for decades to empower uprooted women around the world to assert their rights and participate in their own economic and social development. Today Wali is one of the most vital and respected Afghans around the world.
In October of 2002 Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, the first American journalists to get behind Soviet lines in 1981, filmed Wali’s first return to Kabul since her exile. As a human rights expert for the empowerment of refugee women, Wali went to run a capacity building workshop for indigenous Afghan women-led organizations. As a woman in exile herself, Wali also went to reconnect to the ground of her own empowerment as a young women growing up in Afghanistan. The Woman in Exile Returns, the film about Wali’s journey home, will give Americans the chance to discover one Afghan’s vision for her people. The only way to bring stability and peace to this vital region is through the rebuilding of Afghan civil society based on tolerance and democracy.
Running time: 58 minutes 2004 Click here to watch.
Viewers Comment: “This story is timeless!” “Awesome… It was filled with real hope.” “A universal story of how women use their strength in a positive way.”