Preposterous

please reblog this post, especially if you live outside of the philippines. please help us.

i didn't make the carrd, but it's one of the most useful links right now. #JunkTerrorBillNow needs the most urgency, but there are other issues present too.

Keep things in google apps

Everything is saved to your account, ex. you can delete google photos when your phone is checked, and download it again afterwards and get all your photos back

Also because it’s on your account you can log into google on a friend’s computer or a library computer or something if you need to

I’m not sure about other apps but I know you can put a password on google docs

People are more likely to check notes but assume you have google docs for school assignments and not check that

A lot of people monitor texts/use programs that monitor texts, but who’s going to remember to check Google Hangouts?

Use the internet on apps that aren’t Safari

Download another browser and put it in a different folder, because most people can check your safari history but won’t find another app and then figure out how to check the search history of that app

Also use the internet when you click the link in social media ex. If you click a link on a Pinterest pin it can take you to that link on the internet but stay in Pinterest, so it won’t show up in search histories

Inform your friends and if you want to be really sneaky use code when texting

Sending messages as code helps. Ending sentences with certain letters can work. Need something? Definitely use code. Friends can help you. Or other family. Or teachers. Don’t hesitate to reach out. (the first letter of every sentence spelled out SEND FOOD)

If they’re being sneaky and checking things while you’re not around, make sure to log out of all social media after using it and try to have a slightly different password for each one.

Secondly, this might seem counterproductive, but it seems like an appropriate time to raise awareness of Noonlight for more extreme cases of abusive parents. It’s an app that can alert a list of people of your choosing when you are in danger, or summon the police in an emergency. Works at home, school, work, or anywhere in-between.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.safetrekapp.safetrek

“wake up,” she urged the dummy, pressing her hands to the pulse points on its wrists. “come on. what the fuck.”

“yeah, i don’t think that asking nicely is going to do the trick,” hank said, his eyebrows raised. his helmet, the special one they’d decorated for him with craft supplies from michael’s when he’d gotten promoted to firestation chief, sat askew on his head. “i can see now why they didn’t pass you.”

annabelle rolled her eyes. “it’s a psychological thing,” she said. “it’s like, you give the brain an instruction and it follows naturally. and the pulse-point thing always works. i don’t know why it’s not, like, in any of the books, but i swear to god it’s worked for me every time.”

it was true that annabelle had the best record on low body counts, which was good because she was the smallest person on the team not counting Georgie, who was a corgi. jake and lillian were always making fun of her for having been the shortest of their whole rookie class. but it hadn’t ever been a problem before; annabelle rarely had to carry anybody out, because she was good enough at getting them on their feet.

but none of that would matter if she couldn’t pass her stupid recertification exam, because they’d take her badge and she’d have to go be, like, a doctor or something.

hank blew out a long breath and sunk down to where she was kneeling on the station floor in full fire gear, giving CPR to the practice dummy, whom they called dierdre. there was a little light that went on when you’d saved its life. it had been a dull gray for an hour now.

“look, AB. i know you’re a good firefighter, and i know you know how to deliver CPR. just do it like you do it during an emergency. you’re overthinking it.”

“but this is what i do during an emergency!” annabelle cried, throwing her hands up. “i put my hands on their pulse points and i use psychological mumbo-jumbo and they just get up and walk!” 

hank blinked. “…really,” he said, voice flat. “people who’ve been inhaling smoke for half an hour just … get up and walk.”

“the brain is an incredibly powerful organ,” said annabelle, shrugging. “look man, i don’t know, okay? but it works. i haven’t had to actually do CPR in like a year and a half.”

he gave her a long, quiet loo and said, “well….huh,” before pushing himself back up onto his feet and frowning off into the distance. “keep practicing,” he said after a minute, and left her there.

-

hank switched her team.

“what the fuck, man,” she said, sliding into the truck next to him as the sirens went on. “i can’t get CPR on one fucking dummy and suddenly you don’t trust me to do my job without supervision?”

carl and bethany very carefully did not meet her eyes in the rearview from the backseat. bethany pulled a magazine from beneath the seat and said loudly, “look, carl, jennifer aniston and brad pitt are getting back together.”

“thank christ,” said carl. “i’ve been really worried about jen.”

hank gave annabelle the flat look that had gotten him promoted to firestation chief in the first place, the one that said i’m your dad and you don’t want to disappoint me. as always, annabelle wilted underneath it, sliding down in her seat and crossing her arms over her chest. it was a difficult feat in full gear but she wanted him to know she was feeling sullen.

“i trust you completely,” hank told her, his voice a light scold. “i want to see you in action so i can help you figure out what’s going wrong with the dummies. sometimes it’s hard for the brain to accurately remember everything that happens during a crisis.”

annabelle rolled her eyes. “i told you,” she said. “it’s just – it’s the same thing every time, I’m not like, blacking out.”

“great, then i’m about to learn a cool new trick,” hank said serenely, and pulled the truck out of the lot. annabelle kept her gaze focused out of the window, watching the city pass as carl and bethany talked loudly about which celebrities were dating which other celebrities and who wore what better. she tried to swallow down the nerves that tightened her throat. maybe the dummy was right. maybe she was doing something else and didn’t remember it. maybe the last two years had been a fluke and she had no business being a firefighter. maybe she was about to get fired.

there wasn’t a fire, though the alarm was going off. instead they found a bag of smoking popcorn and the collapsed heap of a forty-five year old bachelor type, down to just his boxers and a pair of slippers with llamas on them. he had no pulse. 

hank held carl and bethany back, directing them to deal with the smoke from the popcorn; annabelle he pointed toward the resident with a jerk of his chin. 

she sighed, kneeling by his side. she pressed her hands flat to his heart and then dragged them across his chest and down each arm, to his wrists. with her thumbs on his pulse point, she hissed, “let’s go, man. up and at ’em. you’re not meant to die in your underwear while cooking popcorn, come on.”

she held her breath for a few moments, conscious of hank’s eyes on her, and let out a long sigh of relief when she felt his pulse jump beneath her, watched his eyes flicker. “what the fuck?” he asked, voice a croak. “what happened?”

“you gotta eat more vegetables, bud,” annabelle told him, and looped his arm over her shoulders to help him get to his feet. she was so relieved she could have wept, but instead met hank’s eyes with a challenging glare. see? she thought. i told you. “let’s get you to the ambulance.”

-

“the bad news is that you have a lot of practicing to do if you want to pass your recert,” hank said without preamble, showing up at her apartment. she didn’t think she’d ever seen him in jeans before. it was weird. “the good news is i understand your problem now.”

annabelle stepped aside, beckoning him in. “what problem?” she demanded. “it worked! you saw it work. that’s the opposite of a problem.”

hank shrugged. he handed her a trifold that he’d clearly printed off at home. it said so you think you’re a necromancer. annabelle blinked down at it, and then up at hank, and then down at the trifold again. “i … don’t understand what’s happening here,” she told him honestly. 

“i’m not in the community and they’re kind of cagey, so i can’t really tell you a lot,” hank told her, stilted and visibly uncomfortable. “but i have a cousin who is, and um, i just want you to know that this doesn’t change anything. you’re still who you’ve always been and you have my complete support. we’ll figure out how to get around the recert. maybe i’ll – i can put you on admin duty to give you time to study. we’ll say it’s because of an injury.”

“hank,” annabelle said, with some urgency. “hank, this flier says the word necromancer.”

“yes,” agreed hank, looking relieved. “oh, good, you’ve heard of it already. i thought i was going to have to have the whole your body is changing talk.”

annabelle shook her head. “no, i – hank. you know that … um, you know that necromancy isn’t real, right? people can’t bring other people back from the dead. that’s crazy.”

“annabelle, not four hours ago you instructed a dead man to stand up and he did.”

“okay, he wasn’t dead, obviously. he was almost dead, at best.”

“no. he was dead.”

“i felt his pulse! it was very faint!”

“you called his pulse. no one else would have felt it, because it wasn’t there except in response to you.”

“hank, what the fuck.”

he shrugged. “read the flier,” he instructed. “and bring dierdre home with you. you’re going to have to practice a lot if you want to get recertified, considering you haven’t one time had to use any of the skills you learned the first go around.”

he bussed her temple as he went by, letting himself out of her apartment with a friendly wave. annabelle looked down at the flier in her hand with a frown. when she unfolded it, the first page said, everyone’s necromancy journey is different, but most people discover their gift by accident. have you ever brought a pet back to life? touched an elderly relatives hand and seen some of the color flood back into their face? or perhaps, more subtly, been able to keep cut flowers alive long past their purchase date?

annabelle looked at her kitchen table. she’d had the same vase of tulips on it since she moved in, three years ago. it was true they periodically started to wilt, but she usually just changed their water and they were fine, popping back up one after the other as she slid them into the fresh vase. 

Naturally, from this moment forth, we hated her. Under this seating assignment, which lasted all year due to block scheduling, I was grouped with the student council secretary, who had never done anything remotely sneaky in her entire life, and the aforementioned football player, who I had known since birth (his) and with whom I had spent most of august having an in-depth discussion of the summer reading (mine) due to disappointments about frankenstein the year before.

At the other end of the classroom was group B-, a pissed off cluster of orchestra students who were about to turn analyzing the american dream into a blood sport and take all of us with them. We’ll get back to them in a moment.

Somewhat importantly, the three of us sat where the teacher’s back was constantly to us - an inoffensive idea most of the time, except for the amount of resentment simmering in that classroom. Our first semester was short stories, and football season, which lead to Football Player suffering a torn rotator cuff. Somewhat by accident, we discovered that the teacher would not notice him sleeping off his painkillers if Student Council or I pinched his good arm when she finally turned around: He’d bolt upright and mutter something about it being symbolic of the american dream. It’s due to this that the class as a whole worked out that if he was still getting an A+ while on lots of codeine, and group B- had not seen significant increases in their grades, that there wasn’t any actual grading going on.

When our mid-semester project was announced to be an in-depth analysis of a specific character or theme for The Scarlet Letter, and that extra credit would be given for anyone who brought in an appropriately symbolic food, group B- decided to kill two birds with one stone.

They brought in cookies - snickerdoodles with shiny red sugar sprinkles - and explained how they were symbolic of something to do with Dimmesdale… then waited until we bit into them.

The sugar sprinkles were salt, dyed red with food coloring. The symbolism was about deception. They got extra credit, we yelled at them, the cookies were thrown out.

Enter the end of semester project, which was on the Great Gatsby, except people did an in depth creative analysis of a chapter, and my group got the one where Gatsby’s body is discovered, took one look at each other, and decided to go all out.

We met at Student Council Secretary’s house with half a plan, and spent a Saturday afternoon going bananas. We had a game board where each group would play a trivia game about the chapter using a car symbolic of the character they were playing as (several vintage hot wheels were donated to the cause: Football and I had very angry younger brothers, later.) We had an expressionist/Dadaist/give the football player scissors poster depicting the scene of Gatsby’s death, complete with “money growing on trees” because it was faster to chop up rectangles of green construction paper in the paper cutter than to put extra work into it. We had everything… except an appropriately symbolic food.

“We should make them toast to the american dream and the trivia game winner at the end,” said Student Council. “With red koolaid,” said Football, who in addition to having slept through the first half of the semester has an unfortunate sense of humor, “To symbolize the characters’ gullibility as well as Gatsby’s blood.”

I’m not going to take credit or blame for what happened next, except to say that when you’ve known someone since birth, then been separated for the length of middle school due to districting, and then spent the last year and change rediscovering that you’re both fairly bright teenage idiots with no faith in authority while simultaneously making the worst puking noises you can manage when people mistakenly assume you’re dating, you fuel each other’s bad ideas until they become a california wildfire.

Student Council is relatively blameless, and in fact, tried to talk us out of it.

We waited. We presented. We played a trivia game and waxed rhapsodic about impressionism and did a lot of bullshitting about symbolism, and we passed out a stack of red solo cups half full of red koolaid, which NO ONE was to drink until the toast. Who won the race for the american dream? Doesn’t matter. 

“A Toast!” declared Football, “To Achieving the American Dream!” and everyone drank but us.

There was an immediate storm of spitting and yelling from the class, who had drank the kool-aid responsibly, only to discover that it had been made with many, many cups of salt instead of sugar. Group B the second (formerly group B-) was particularly loud, but not louder than our teacher, who had drank her koolaid like a shot, and was gagging enthusiastically into the classroom trashcan. Student Council was ready to die of embarassment, but Football was nothing but thorough when he decided to piss people off.

Badass

Bohemian rhapsody

Killer Queen

Show must go on

Don’t stop me now

We will rock you

We are the champions

Another one bites the dust

Happy

Somebody to love

Crazy little thing called love

Don’t stop me now

A kind of magic

You’re my best friend

Bicycle

Fat bottomed girls

Another one bites the dust

Sad/blue

Love of my life

Radio gaga

My melancholy blues

Frustrated/angry

I want to break free

Under pressure

Needing motivation

We are the champions

Don’t stop me now

Radio gaga

In love W̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶

(because honestly??? that borhap trailer?????? iconic)

Odin: don’t stop me now because that’s probably the song he plays when he’s riding into the sunset on sleipnir for some wisdom juice™

Frigg: i want to break free is giving me mad frigg vibes

Thor: i was gonna say we will rock you but then i realized… HAMMER TO FALL.

Loki: good ol’ fashioned lover boy. the ultimate twink anthem. or literally every song from hot space because that album was for the gays tbh

Freyr: SOMEBODY TO LOVE!! GIVIN ME MAD FREYR AND GERD VIBES BITCH!!!!!

Freyja: i was gonna do a song where about cats by queen but there’s. too many of those so killer queen instead

Tyr: now THIS is who gets we will rock you

Skadi: another one bites the dust is the such a skadi song. like whenever njord’s talking about summer??? ba da bum. bum. bum. another husband bites the dust

Njord: THE SEVEN SEAS OF RHYE

Heimdallr: he probably sings you’re my best friend to gjallarhorn at night

Baldr: TOO MUCH LOVE WILL KILL YOU. GET IT. BECAUSE PEOPLE KISS UNDER MISTLETOE AN—

I had like one, maybe two friends who were all like FUCK YEAH YOU PAINT IT WHATEVER COLOR YOU WANT, PURPLE BEDROOMS ARE AWESOME.

But when they actualy saw the finished bedroom, every single one of them was like, “Oh yeah, that’s really pretty.” (Well, the ones who supported me from the beginning were more like WOOHOO.)

It’s a mistake—a wrong number, per se. No witch it’s ever known has lived in such an, ah, dated, home. Furthermore, no practitioner that ever summoned it has been absent, as if they’d up and ding-dong ditched it. No, it didn’t work that way. Not at all. Not if they want to survive the encounter.

It hears the clinking of movement in the room adjacent—the kitchen, going by the pungent, bitter scent of cooled coffee and soggy, sweet sponge cakes, but more jarring is the smell of blood. It moves—feels something slip beneath its clawed foot as it does, and sees a crocheted blanket of whites and greys and deep black yarn, wound intricately, perfectly, into a summoning circle. Its summoning circle. There is a small splash of bright scarlet and sharp, jagged bits of a broken curio scattered on top, as if someone had dropped it, attempted to pick it up the pieces and pricked their finger. It would explain the blood. And it would explain the demon being brought into this strange place.

As it connects these pieces in its mind, the inhabitant of the house rounds the corner and exits the kitchen, holding a damp, white dish towel close to her hand and fumbling with the beaded bifocals hanging from her neck by a crocheted lanyard before stopping dead in her tracks.

Now, to be fair, the demon wouldn’t ordinarily second guess being face-to-face with a hunchbacked crone with a beaked nose, beady eyes and a peculiar lack of teeth, or a spidery shawl and ankle-length black dress, but there is definitely something amiss here. Especially when the old biddy lets her spectacles fall slack on her bosom and erupts into a wide, toothy (toothless) grin, eyes squinting and crinkling from the sheer effort of it.

“Todd! Todd, dear, I didn’t know you were visiting this year! You didn’t call, you didn’t write—but, oh, I’m so happy you’re here, dear! Would it have been too much to ask you to ring the doorbell? I almost had a heart attack. And don’t worry about the blood, here—I had an accident. My favorite figure toppled off of the table and cleanup didn’t go as expected. But I seem to recall you are quite into the bloodshed and ‘edgy’ stuff these days, so I don’t suppose you mind.” She releases a hearty, kind laugh, but it isn’t mocking, it’s sweet. Grandmotherly. The demon is by no means sentimental or maudlin, but the kindness, the familiarity, the genuine fondness, does pull a few dusty old nostalgic heartstrings. “Imagine if it leaves a scar! It’d be a bit ‘badass,’ as you teenagers say, wouldn’t it?”

She is as blind as a bat without her glasses, it would appear, because the demon is by no means a ‘Todd’ or a human at all, though humanoid, shrouded in sleek, black skin and hard spikes and sharp claws. But the demon humors her, if only because it had been caught off guard.

The old woman smiles still, before turning on her heel and shuffling into the hallway with a stiff gait revealing a poor hip. “Be a dear and make some more coffee, would you please? I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Yes, this is most definitely a mistake. One for the record books, for certain. For late-night trips to bars and conversations with colleagues, while others discuss how many souls they’d swindled in exchange for peanuts, or how many first-borns they’d been pledged for things idiot humans could have gained without divine intervention. Ugh. Sometimes it all just became so pedantic that little detours like this were a blessing—happy accidents, as the humans would say.

That’s why the demon does as asked, and plods slowly into the kitchen, careful to duck low and avoid the top of the doorframe. That’s why it gingerly takes the small glass pot and empties it of old, stale coffee and carefully, so carefully, takes a measuring scoop between its claws and fills the machine with fresh grounds. It’s as the hot water is percolating that the old woman returns, her index finger wrapped tight in a series of beige bandages.

“I’m surprised you’re so tall, Todd! I haven’t seen you since you were at my hip! But your mother mails photos all the time—you do love wearing all black, don’t you?” She takes a seat at the small round table in the corner and taps the glass lid of the cake plate with quaking, unsteady, aged hands. “I was starting to think you’d never visit. Your father and I have had our disagreements, but…I am glad you’re here, dear. Would you like some cake?” Before the demon has a chance to decline, she lifts the lid and cuts a generous slice from the near-complete circle that has scarcely been touched. It smells of citrus and cream and is, as assumed earlier, soggy, oversaturated with icing.

It was made for a special occasion, for guests, but it doesn’t seem this old woman receives much company in this musty, stagnant house that smells like an antique garage that hadn’t had its dust stirred in years.

Especially not from her absentee grandson, Todd.

The demon waits until the coffee pot is full, and takes two small mugs from the counter, filling them until steam is frothing over the rims. Then, and only then, does it accept the cake and sit, with some difficulty, in a small chair at the small table. It warbles out a polite ‘thank you,’ but it doesn’t suppose the woman understands. Manners are manners regardless.

“Oh, dear, I can hardly understand. Your voice has gotten so deep, just like your grandfather’s was. That, and I do recall you have an affinity for that gravelly, screaming music. Did your voice get strained? It’s alright, dear, I’ll do the talking. You just rest up. The coffee will help soothe.”

The demon merely nods—some communication can be understood without fail—and drinks the coffee and eats the cake with a too-small fork. It’s ordinary, mushy, but delicious because of the intent behind it and the love that must have gone into its creation.

“I hope you enjoyed all of the presents I sent you. You never write back—but I am aware most people use that fancy E-mail these days. I just can’t wrap my head around it. I do wish your mom and dad would visit sometime. I know of a wonderful little café down the street we can go to. I haven’t been; I wanted to visit it with Charles, before he…well.” She falls silent in her rambling, staring into her coffee with a small, melancholy smile. “I can’t believe it’s been ten years. You never had the chance to meet him. But never mind that.” Suddenly, and with surprising speed that has the demon concerned for her well being, she moves to her feet, bracing her hands on the edge of the table. “I may as well give you your birthday present, since you’re here. What timing! I only finished it this morning. I’ll be right back.”

When she returns, the white, grey and black crocheted work with the summoning circle is bundled in her arms.  

“I found these designs in an occult book I borrowed from the library. I thought you’d like them on a nice, warm blanket to fight off the winter chill—I hope you do like it.” With gentle hands, she spreads the blanket over the demon’s broad, spiky back like a shawl, smoothing it over craggy shoulders and patting its arms affectionately. “Happy birthday, Todd, dear.”

demon: you’re not blind here – but you’re not surprised. when…?

anette: oh, toddy, don’t be silly, my biological grandson’s not twelve feet tall and doesn’t scorch the furniture when he sneezes. i’ve known for ages.

demon: then why?

anette: you wouldn’t have stayed if you weren’t lonely too.

demon: you… you don’t have to keep calling me your grandson.

anette: nonsense! adopted children are just as real. now quit sniffling, you silly boy, and let’s go bake a cake. honey, heel!

String theory is a fascinating physical model in which all particles are replaced by one-dimensional objects known as strings. This theory says that we live in more than four dimensions, but we can not perceive them.

String theory, is a complete theory and unites quantum physics with Einstein’s general relativity.

On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries gravitational force. Thus string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.

According to string theory, the reason we can not observe these dimensions is because they are very small and compact (smaller than the plank length 10 −35)

Compactification is one way of modifying the number of dimensions in a physical theory. In compactification, some of the extra dimensions are assumed to “close up” on themselves to form circles. In the limit where these curled up dimensions become very small, one obtains a theory in which spacetime has effectively a lower number of dimensions. A standard analogy for this is to consider a multidimensional object such as a garden hose. If the hose is viewed from a sufficient distance, it appears to have only one dimension, its length. However, as one approaches the hose, one discovers that it contains a second dimension, its circumference. Thus, an ant crawling on the surface of the hose would move in two dimensions.

Compactification can be used to construct models in which spacetime is effectively four-dimensional. However, not every way of compactifying the extra dimensions produces a model with the right properties to describe nature. In a viable model of particle physics, the compact extra dimensions must be shaped like a Calabi–Yau manifold

Another approach to reducing the number of dimensions is the so-called brane-world scenario. In this approach, physicists assume that the observable universe is a four-dimensional subspace of a higher dimensional space. In such models, the force-carrying bosons of particle physics arise from open strings with endpoints attached to the four-dimensional subspace, while gravity arises from closed strings propagating through the larger ambient space. This idea plays an important role in attempts to develop models of real world physics based on string theory, and it provides a natural explanation for the weakness of gravity compared to the other fundamental forces

One notable feature of string theories is that these theories require extra dimensions of spacetime for their mathematical consistency. In bosonic string theory, spacetime is 26-dimensional, while in superstring theory it is 10-dimensional, and in M-theory it is 11-dimensional. In order to describe real physical phenomena using string theory, one must therefore imagine scenarios in which these extra dimensions would not be observed in experiments.

The original version of string theory was bosonic string theory, but this version described only bosons, a class of particles which transmit forces between the matter particles, or fermions. Bosonic string theory was eventually superseded by theories called superstring theories. These theories describe both bosons and fermions, and they incorporate a theoretical idea called supersymmetry.

This is a mathematical relation that exists in certain physical theories between the bosons and fermions. In theories with supersymmetry, each boson has a counterpart which is a fermion, and vice versa.

There are several versions of superstring theory: type I, type IIA, type IIB, and two flavors of heterotic string theory (SO(32) and E8×E8). The different theories allow different types of strings, and the particles that arise at low energies exhibit different symmetries. For example, the type I theory includes both open strings (which are segments with endpoints) and closed strings (which form closed loops), while types IIA, IIB and heterotic include only closed strings.

Branes

In string theory and other related theories, a brane is a physical object that generalizes the notion of a point particle to higher dimensions. For instance, a point particle can be viewed as a brane of dimension zero, while a string can be viewed as a brane of dimension one. It is also possible to consider higher-dimensional branes. In dimension p, these are called p-branes. The word brane comes from the word “membrane” which refers to a two-dimensional brane

In string theory, D-branes are an important class of branes that arise when one considers open strings

D-branes are typically classified by their spatial dimension, which is indicated by a number written after the D. A D0-brane is a single point, a D1-brane is a line (sometimes called a “D-string”), a D2-brane is a plane, and a D25-brane fills the highest-dimensional space considered in bosonic string theory. There are also instantonic D(–1)-branes, which are localized in both space and time.

Duality

A striking fact about string theory is that the different versions of the theory prove to be highly non-trivial in relation. One of the relationships that exist between different theories is called S-duality. This is a relationship that says that a collection of interacting particles in a theory may in some cases be viewed as a collection of weak interacting particles in a completely different theory. Approximately, a collection of particles is said to interact strongly if they combine and deteriorate frequently and interact poorly if they do so infrequently. The type I string theory turns out to be equivalent by S-duality to the heterotic string theory SO (32). Likewise, type IIB string theory is related to itself in a non-trivial way by S-duality

Another relationship between different string theories is T-duality. Here one considers strings propagating around a circular extra dimension. T-duality states that a string propagating around a circle of radius R is equivalent to a string propagating around a circle of radius 1/R in the sense that all observable quantities in one description are identified with quantities in the dual description. For example, a string has momentum as it propagates around a circle, and it can also wind around the circle one or more times. The number of times the string winds around a circle is called the winding number. If a string has momentum p and winding number n in one description, it will have momentum n and winding number p in the dual description. For example, type IIA string theory is equivalent to type IIB string theory via T-duality, and the two versions of heterotic string theory are also related by T-duality.

Black holes

In general relativity, a black hole is defined as a region of spacetime in which the gravitational field is so strong that no particle or radiation can escape. In the currently accepted models of stellar evolution, black holes are thought to arise when massive stars undergo gravitational collapse, and many galaxies are thought to contain supermassive black holes at their centers. 

Black holes are also important for theoretical reasons, as they present profound challenges for theorists attempting to understand the quantum aspects of gravity. String theory has proved to be an important tool for investigating the theoretical properties of black holes because it provides a framework in which theorists can study their thermodynamics.

The big bang theory doesn’t offer any explanation for what started the original expansion of the universe. This is a major theoretical question for cosmologists, and many are applying the concepts of string theory in attempts to answer it. One controversial conjecture is a cyclic universe model called the ekpyrotic universe theory, which suggests that our own universe is the result of branes colliding with each other.

Some things that string theory could explain: Neutrinos would have to have mass (minimum), Decay of Proton, New fields of force (short and long range) defined by some forms of calabi-yau, Explanations for Dark Matter.

sources: x, x, x, x, x, x

Here (Washington Post)

Here (The Guardian)

Sources:

Chairs Urge Ambassador Branstad to Prioritize Mass Detention of Uyghurs, Including Family Members of Radio Free Asia Employees- Congress Executive Commission on China (April 3, 2018)

*Muslims Forced to Drink Alcohol and Eat Pork in China’s ‘Re-education’ Camps, Former Inmate Claims- The Independent (May 18, 2018) Covers the treatment the prisoners endure in the camps. Also has a short video of the witness, Omir Bekali, describing his time there.

*New Evidence Emerges of China Forcing Muslims into ‘Re-education’ Camps- The Washington Post (August 10, 2018) Another witness, Sayragul Sauytbay, speaks out. Also features some Chinese arrest statistics and explains the significance.

China Uighurs: One Million Held in Political Camps- BBC.com (August 10, 2018)

*China is Treating Islam like a Mental Illness- The Atlantic (August 28, 2018) This article links to many, many other articles and pieces about the camps, some of which are governmental sources. All the links work. One wants you to make an account to access it, but I have it saved. PM me if you want to see it.

UN Panel Confronts China Over Reports that it Holds a Million Uighurs in Camps- New York Times (August 28, 2018)

*Detention of Uighurs Must End, UN Tells China, Amid Claims of Prison Camps- The Guardian (August 30, 2018) There are many good links here, although one of them is in Chinese. They all work.

Internet Sleuths Hunting for China’s Secret Internment Camps, The Atlantic.com- (Sept. 15, 2018) - This article talks about the treatment the Uighurs get in the camp and talks about the risks some Chinese people are taking to find out the truth. It also goes over some of the solid evidence debunking Chinese claims that the camps do not exist, eyewitness accounts aside.

Uighurs Abroad Cut Off from Relatives in Chinese Detention, The LA Times, Sept. 17, 2018- More personal accounts

Action:

Here is a fundraiser started by an Uyghur with the aim to “ to start an organization, aim to seek practical action in Finnish foreign ministry, in the European Parliament and commission, to pressure the Chinese government to stop the concentration camp, stop the genocide of Uyghur Muslims. ”

The goal has been met, but the fundraiser ends October 31st, 2018.