First game

Start: 10/17/15

Bacteria: Alien V

Origin: China

100 people infected: 12/03/15

1,000,000 people infected: 1/26/2016

First death: 3/21/16 China

Destroyed human race? Yes (11/13/16)

conquered Greenland? Yes

                 Since China has a general climate, so I first made the bacteria able to travel  and spread in air to increase the infectivity in arid environment and plane transmission. Then I created the bacterial shell to protect against all climate, because it was spreading to other countries that had different climates. I wanted to increase the ability of spreading first, then the severity. I didn’t want people to die too soon because the disease would become more noticeable. The whole Asia soon started getting infected. When the diseases reached Japan, I increase the drug resistance since Japan was a wealthy country and had a high quality of health care. Then I continuously made the bacteria transmitted via rodent, insect, and water. Also, I found that the more countries and people infected or died, the more DNA points I could get. I used a lot of DNA points to made the symptoms more lethal in order to speed up destroying more countries. When the cure reached  25%, I used a lot of DNA points to reduce and hinder the speed of the cure research. Morocco was the last country to be infected, and  the spread was kind of slowed down there instead of Greenland. Greenland was easily destroyed.

Second game

Start:10/17/15

Bacteria: Teddy

Origin: Central Africa

100 people infected: 12/2/15

1,000,000 people infected: 2/6/16

First death: 8/22/16 in Egypt

Destroyed human race? Yes 3/8/2017

Conquered Greenland? Yes

             Central Africa had a hot climate, so I first made the bacteria Africa spread via insect; then, I increased the heat resistance. In the beginning, the bacteria was spreading kind of slow, Even I increased the infectivity of the bacteria, it was still spreading mostly in Africa. Therefore, I wasn’t getting a lot of DNA points compared to China, so I couldn’t really increase the lethality. The first death was almost after a year. This time I spent the DNA points mostly on the symptoms and infectivity. The percentage of cure was up to 50%. After the disease reached to other countries, the spreading was boosted. Greenland was the last country to be infected this time, but I still destroyed it.

             The bacteria spread faster in China than Africa. I think it is because China is a big country that has a lot of businesses and connections  with other countries; therefore, it’s very easy and fast to spread the bacteria via planes and ships. In contrast, Africa is a relatively poor country, so it has less international business with other countries, less people traveling around in this country. Therefore, it took longer and harder for the disease to spread. I saw a lot of airplanes and ships commuting between countries, I assumed that’s how the diseases spread all around the world so quickly. After playing this game, I noticed that pandemic in wealthy countries actually spread faster than poor countries. This game also let me understand that once a pandemic occurs, the first thing people do is to close down the airports and seaports, because that how the bacteria travel from one country to the other. Also, since I was the one who controlled the pandemic, I learned more about how the bacteria can be mutated to survive in different climates, and how the symptoms can be developed and related. I think it will be really scary if it really happens in real life.

At my first go with Plague I decided to name my bacterial disease ‘Toxy Roxy’ and I started her in Egypt. The start date was October 17^th 2015 and by December 12^th it had infected 100 people, just over a year later on November 4^th it infected 4 million people, the 1 million mark escaped me. The first death by Toxy Roxy was on August 5^th 2016 so I think the one million mark would have been between August and November. The disease spread so fast it managed to wipe out the human race in just 588 days, something I am rather proud of. The second game I played I created ‘Brocco’ on October 20^th 2015 and put him in China. I immediately noticed that Brocco spread faster globally whereas Toxy Roxy spread faster continentally. Since China is a richer country than Egypt it was understandable that this would happen seeing as thought they have more international travel and trade. The first 100 people were infected by December 24^th 2015, a similar rate to Toxy Roxy, just a tad bit slower. Brocco had infected 1 million people by March 25^th 2016 and the first death by Brocco occurred on February 17^th, 2017. In a mere 681 days from his creation Brocco wiped out the human population. With Brocco I knew that the first death took longer because I was focused on evolving transmissions rather than symptoms. I did this because after creating Toxy Roxy I played a few more times and had a game where I infected 75% of the world but my symptoms were so deadly that everyone died and the disease eradicated itself. So from that game on I learned that a good tactic to play is to spend DNA points on transmissions rather than symptoms because the symptoms will evolve on their own. This technique works it just seems to go by slower since the first death takes a while so I just put it on fast forward and watch the world come to its demise.

Playing this game was really fun and interesting. Initially was a little hard to understand the process but after a few tries I got the hang of it. I named my bacteria XWORLD, hoping that I would be able to eliminate the human race. On the first game I started in China since the large population would contribute to the extent of the spread. I try to keep an eye on the news and see how I could use them to help spread the disease. I started the game on October 17, 2015. About 150 people were infected on day 62. in three months there over 120.000 people infected. The first death took place about one year later in China. During the game one i tried to use all the points to my favor in order to potentiate the effects  of the bacteria. It was so obvious how quickly the disease was spreading especially in highly populated areas. I used my DNA points for the symptoms, but that was not enough. Pretty soon the cure was developed and I was not able to eradicate the human race, unfortunately.

On my second try I wanted to start in Canada, since the climate is a little cooler and the population is lower than China. Starting date of the game was October 17, 2015.  About 100 people were infected on day 45 and by five months period over 100.000 were infected. During my second try I keep some of the symptoms hidden, trying to see if that changes the course of the disease. It seemed that if the symptoms were not noticeable the disease spread quicker. regardless of many adjustments that I made, the bacteria was not deadly yet to eradicate the world. Because I started in a cooler environment and less populated than the first one, this allowed for the bacteria to be slower in spreading and the cure was found faster this time around. So, unfortunately I ended up killing less people this time around not able to eliminate human kind.

What is so interesting about this game is that it gives us a visual idea on how the disease spreads, and how easy it nowadays considering air travel. If a bacteria of virus were to be deadly in nature, the humanity can truly suffer and elimination can be a potential outcome if the cure is not developed on time.  Stopping the transmission can break the cycle and allow enough time for cure to be developed.

I will give this game few more attempts until I eliminate humanity…. Interesting and fun game to play.

On the first try, I named my bacteria EMNY and started it off in China. The disease spread almost instantly. I kept my eye on the world news, such as a kissing festival. When that festival occurred, I would upgrade my bacteria that can spread through blood contact. I spread the bacteria mostly from upgrading the Water Transmission and Air Transmission. When the news said the ships were going to increase its resistance to bacteria, I would upgrade the Water Transmission further. My first death took a while because I did not upgrade its symptoms very much until the bacteria was spread to a few billion people. However, my first bacteria failed because I upgraded the symptoms too soon and I did not manage to infect every single person. Therefore, the bacteria died with the last person infected, and the few that were not infected with the bacteria lived.

On my second try, I named my bacteria AYNY and started it off in India. I repeated the steps from the first game except I did not upgrade any of the symptoms until I got a notification that every single living being was infected with my bacteria. When that happened, I upgraded all my symptoms to high lethality and I easily wiped out humanity in just mere minutes.

In both games, none of the countries found a cure past 30%. On the second try, the bacteria spread a lot quicker because I focused on upgrading the Transmission chart over anything else in the beginning. The game helped me understand how simply easily and quickly a deadly bacterium can spread due to so many factors, such as air, water, animal, and blood transmission.

First Game

Start: 10/16/15

Bacteria: LoveBug V

Origin: Zimbabwe

100 people infected: 12/08/15 (around 2 months)

1,000,000 people infected: 02/08/15 (around 4 months)

First Death: Mexico 09/15/15 (around 11 months)

Destroyed Human Race: Yes 05/30/15 (593 days)

Conquered Greenland? YES

In this first game, I chose to go with Zimbabwe, a poor nation. Since a poor nation is a rather easy breeding ground for bacteria, I chose to focus on increasing some transmission but mostly the abilities so that it could survive in wealthier nations and I would increase the symptoms once more nations were infected so it wouldn’t be as noticeable. I think this game took longer than the test rounds I played before because it takes a lot of DNA points to increase the lethality of the symptoms as well as the abilities of the bacteria. Also, poor countries mean that no one really travels out or into the country so spreading the bacteria to wealthy nations is actually quite difficult.

Second Game

Start: 10/16/15

Bacteria: Rapid Z

Origin: Canada

100 people infected: 01/13/16

1,000,000 people infected: 06/13/16

First Death: USA 01/02/17

Destroyed Human Race: No

How long until cured: 972 Days (05/02/18); 05/31/18 bacteria was eradicated

In the second game, it took extremely long for the bacteria to travel out of the country and even longer for the whole world to be infected. I started this game thinking that if I maxed out the abilities of the bacteria it would prevent the cure from being made too fast. However, towards the middle and end, I realized that if the bacteria was not lethal enough, the whole nation would not die fast enough meaning the cure can still be created. It was already too late to do anything about it because as the game goes on, less DNA points are accumulated. Overall, starting in a cold and wealthy nation meant slow infectivity and low lethality if points aren’t distributed amongst the 3 categories evenly.

This game really helped me to understand the pandemic transmission better because it was visualized and I was the one controlling the bacteria. It was interesting to learn that although in both games the whole world was infected with my bacteria, the second game showed that there is still a chance for humanity to redeem themselves as long as they suppress the effects of the bacteria and slow it down. Perhaps humans can endure more than we think? Also, Greenland was infected in both games!

At first, I played around with the app and thought it was pretty limited. Keep in mind, I was not in class, so I was experimenting. After a couple of tries I saw that you can pick HOW your disease is transmitted which has a lot to do with the spread of a disease. Anyway, the poor country that I picked was the Dominican Republic, but came up generalized as the Caribbean. I also named my diseases an existing one, not realizing we were supposed to make up a name. The disease I picked was Tuberculosis or TB.

By November 20, 2015, there were 100 cases of TB. The first place the disease spread to was Mexico. Once it reached Mexico, the cases began to increase dramatically and exponentially. By the time, I blinked, the case number was already past 1 million. Guesstimated, the total count reached one million around early March 2016. Same thing occurred for the death toll. I looked one second and it was 0. I looked another second and it had reached 103 deaths by May 19, 2016. The second place it spread to was the United States. Once it reached the US, the number of cases began to still increase but by 10s rather than by 1,000s. This is because the US is medically advanced and knowledgeable. Then in July 2016, the disease spreads to the UK and Central America. The reason why it has traveled to places like that is by means of transportation, boat or plane. It took over 6 months for TB to be recognized by a medical professional. Not until March 2017, that a doctor in India is the first to begin researching the cause and cure of TB. The cure to the disease was completed on August 31, 2018. By the route that the plague was taking, when originating in a poor nation, I totally believe that it has the potential to wipe out the human race. Almost my entire map was red, or infected when the search for a cure was at 50%. The disease was eradicated in 1063 days.

When I started my disease in a wealthier country with more resources, the statistics weren’t all that the same. I started the disease in Italy, As soon as 11 people were infected, a notification arrived that medicine in Italy was slowing the infection. By January 12, 2016, 105 people were infected. The first country to be infected after originating in Italy, was France, and that was in March 2016. On June 9th, 2017, Germany began to work on a cure.  The first death occurred in September 2017. On October 22, 2018, the cure for the disease was completed. This disease was eradicated in 1,144 days.

The results weren’t as expected. The cure for the disease took longer when originating in the wealthier country. However, less deaths occurred due to the use of medicine sooner, than later. A prediction as to why the disease cure took longer may be because it reached the USA, which is the leading country in medicine, later in time.

In Weems’ “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried.” collection, I feel that the appropriation of Zealy’s photographs are transformed into a deep meaning and feeling collection. Her use of the color red really make me focus on each photograph more carefully. The darks are darker and the lights contrast more. It might also evoke the emotion of anger or rage that she felt whilst making this collection. The text added to the pictures tells a flowing narrative through the collection and could also be used as a stand alone statement with the picture.  The text can be read along with viewing the photograph, but after reading the text I tend to analyze the picture more, and let the words sink in. It is like the picture accentuate the words and the words emphasizes the picture.  Without the text I don’t believe the collection would be as powerful a statement about slavery and racism. Weems turned what was a collection of pictures taken for a hateful purpose of lessening African Americans and turned it into a powerful piece about discrimination and bigotry.

It is not a hidden secret to me that photography has the ability to manipulate and objectify depending on the objectification, just in similar fashion; an eloquent caption can add a new frame or new dimensions to a story. For instance, the history of race relations in the US and throughout the new world was based on racism, the exploitation and the enslavement of people of color, by Europeans or those of European origin. A perfect example of that can be taken straight from the photograph of J.T. Zealy’s daguerreotypes of slaves that were commissioned by the eminent Harvard scientist Louis Agassiz to support his belief in the theory of polygenesis, with the idea that blacks were inferior to whites. Carrie Mae Weems, an artist who uses the tool of appropriation to critique the issues of race in her art, debunks the photographs of Zealy’s daguerreotypes of slaves. She adds a narrative to the photographs in order to help emphasize to the audience the new meaning behind them. The added texts, try to erase the harsh truth behind the pain and the suffering in the lives of black people during slavery or in the times of segregation. It made these series of photographs seem more like a work of art by changing and manipulating the colors which ultimately make them visually appealing to the senses. It captures their souls and their tribulations, with the transgressions committed against them. The provocative message behind Ms. Weems’ work is intended to serve as the voice of the voiceless; through her their feelings and emotions can finally be heard or felt. Moreover, it demonstrates through their hardships and calamities that their efforts and struggles were not in vain because black people have come a long way since then, and today we have many prominent, successful black people in every fields, who have contributed to the betterment of this country and to the rest of the world .

Personally, I don’t subscribe to the idea that history can be rewritten, even though this may not have been the intentions behind her work. Nonetheless, I believe that these series of photographs have made a poignant reminder to all of us that we are all human beings regardless of the color of our skins and our cultural heritage.

Carrie Mae Weems  recreates  photographys by Zealys to tell a story. She uses appropriation , a technique in which modern artists borrow and alter existing images in order to give new meaning . In this case Carrie Mae Weems explores the African American experience from slavery. She uses many images of individuals in normal everyday life as a slave, I have noticed that many of her images  are depicted in black and white, some with an overlay of red. Black and white photographs tend to hide flaws . The red overlay depicts the hardship , blood, sweat and tears during slavery.  Using texts with the images conveys the exact story that Miss Weems is telling. There is a saying that a picture tells a thousand words, But a picture with text attached to it is priceless. Without texts the images would tell less of a story and each viewer would form their own opinion of  the image. The text somehow makes the story more concrete and conveys uniformity. Her photograph ” Some say you were the spitting image of evil” clearly tells me that the artist is depicting a black young whose color of her skin “black” is compared to evil during slavery. Black equal bad, nothing good even though the woman  is a human being  who has the same blood running through her veins as every other race.

I think the story that is told through Miss Weems  photographic project is modern and the subtitles for each photograph gives a clear picture of what the artist is conveying. It gives the viewer a chance to enjoy the story depicted. I enjoyed going through the gallery and the portraits are very informative especially with the text attached.

The images by themselves are very powerful, I like how with the words the artist is trying to take and change the messages of those pictures. Some of those pictures are very hard to look and bring anger to myself as being a man who has witness racism and had it happen to me. I can see how the original purpose of these pictures was to make these men and woman not human, but like the scientist intended was to make them a whole different species.   With the words in the pictures they portray a new meaning, like she became the owner of these pictures. I think that those pictures like just in the past have a very powerful message. With all the things that have been going on in this country, with the words that are being spoken by people like Trump and Ben Carson, we need to remember that this was part and still is part of our history. Some people, mostly white people, seem to think that racism is over in America, These pictures and the words written in them are very powerful, she is speaking the truth, facts, and history, of the African American experience is America. The image with the slave with all the whip marks is powerful! I like how she is trying to own these pictures and making the viewers think about the individual in the pictures that they are humans, that they weren’t just property, and how they help make this country. Very powerful images.