20th of April blogpost

With little new going on lately, I focused on a hobby, designing and describing a new fictional world with its nations and history. While not new to me, this time I decided to fragment the task to individual eras, starting from the mythical prehistoric origins, and see how it goes, especially simulating its economy and demographics.

I have been watching tv series (finally finished Altered Carbon – really good, I prefer season2 to season1 myself). From games, I came back at Starbound, which I will refer to in another post, under gaming section.

After close to half a year of cold, torrid rain and clouded skies, April has been unbearably nice, warm and sunny, perfect to go out or travel – which of course is impossible now due to the coronavirus pandemic. Below is a number of things that are somewhat new.

1. In Poland, where I live, they shut down all parks, town squares and entrance to forests.
2. Fines for breaking social distancing are draconian, they range from minimum 5000 zł ($1200, €1100, £962) and cap at maximum of 30000 zł ($7200, €6600, £5777) and they must be paid in full in 7 days. Those fines can be crippling if you’re from a rich country, such as the US, Western Europe or the UK, but here the minimal wage is about 1800 zł net ($430, €400, £346) and the average bread-eater is probably earning between 2000-2500 zł monthly, which minus living costs will get him a free purchasing power of about 200-500 złoty monthly. In short – those fines are debilitating.
3. Police has been widely reported to fine people for replacing winter tyres to summer tyres for cars. Polish Association of Tyre Industry issued a letter to the government declaring the practice unjust as in temperatures above 15°C (59°C) braking path at speed of 100 km/s (62 mph) can be even 16 metres longer. The government, consequently, allowed the practice (source: wprost.pl).
4. In Cracow, man riding a bicycle on the main square got a 12000 złoty fine (source: gazeta.pl).
5. Many sources point out that forbidding entry to the forests by the government was illegal (sources: oko.press, onet.pl, bezprawnik.pl, antyradio.pl). The problem is that to pursue your rights you have to take the government to the court. In the meantime, you will be forced to pay the fine. In short, don’t go when the restrictions are up, even if the restriction is technically illegal.
6. New restriction came on 16.04 that each person must wear a mask in any public place.
7. Starting today, 20.04, forests and parks are opened back again, but social distancing of 2 metres away from another person still stands.

That is all for now!

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Cryostratos

Traveller, linguist and amateur photographer from a Slavic country.

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