#Did I maybe do some reading up on their event management software over the weekend MAYBE SO

[dragonofeternal]

Guys I'm trying not to hang my hopes too high but every time I think back on the interview I had last Wednesday I get all giddy and excited like yes! Yes let me come be your office goblin who tames the event management software and helps to develop better archival standards for your stuff so that the rest of you can focus more time and resources on your important work educating health care providers on how to provide more equitable services for queer people sjdjdhehbdvdbd

[kpopfanfictrash]

Mind in the Gutter: Drabble

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: Jungkook

Word Count: 1,447

Rating: PG-13

Summary: An accompanying drabble to Mind in the Gutter. This drabble takes place during the events of MITG and is Jungkook’s POV during the infamous Skype chat Rhea has with Y/N.

[ PART OF MY JUNGKOOK BIRTHDAY DRABBLE GAME ]

Lounged in his seat, Jungkook rummaged in his snack bag for the final corner chip. He’d made the unfortunate mistake of eating lunch early, and if there was one thing Jungkook knew for certain, it was that he needed to eat at regular intervals.

Clicking open on the latest IT ticket he’d been assigned, Jungkook read through the request. Rhea Owens, from HR, was having difficulty with her Outlook – each time she updated a meeting, it didn’t sync to anyone’s calendar.

Sighing under his breath, Jungkook leaned forward and brushed his crumbs over the trash. Rhea was nice, if a bit loud and overly intrusive regarding his personal life. She’d been trying to set Jungkook up for years with little success. Jungkook had actually gone on a few blind dates on her recommendation, but every single one had crashed and burned. All people wanted to talk about was themselves, or worse, some actually wanted to talk about Jungkook.

Whenever he told people about his job, their eyes instantly glazed over. It got even worse when he mentioned his hobbies – most people equated bowling to the lowest tier of sports; only acceptable when one couldn’t do anything else. For this reason, Jungkook preferred to talk about himself as little as possible.

People often said he was quiet, but Jungkook didn’t see it that way. It was just that people rarely listened whenever he did speak.

Opening the ticket up on his screen, Jungkook read Rhea’s request from top to bottom. It should be fairly easy to solve, although he’d need to navigate around her computer in order to check her settings. Throwing his snack in the trash, Jungkook sent Rhea a ping.

INTER-OFFICE SKPE MESSAGE [1:05 PM]

Jeon, Jungkook: Hi, Rhea! I received your IT ticket and am free to assist whenever you have a second. Do you have time now?

Rhea answered almost immediately.

Owens, Rhea: JK!! For you? I have 1,000 minutes

Owens, Rhea: not really, though

Owens, Rhea: I actually have a 1:30 meeting – is that enough time?

Shaking his head, Jungkook typed back.

Jeon, Jungkook: That’s more than enough lol. I do need to take control of your computer, though – is that alright? I’d recommend closing any confidential information before I do.

Rhea agreed and, after a minute, pinged Jungkook so he could proceed. Rhea shared her screen and Jungkook clicked navigate at the top of the window. A quick scan of her Outlook showed everything to be in order. Jungkook frowned, puzzled.

Jeon, Jungkook: Your settings are right… let me check with my manager. He mentioned something in our huddle about a new update causing issues. Be right back!

Owens, Rhea: Okay, sure! Take your time

Jungkook stood and called to his boss over the top of his cubicle. He suggested a fix Jungkook hadn’t considered and he sat back down, ready to relay the information, only to freeze.

Your name blinked at Jungkook from Rhea’s computer. More than that – you seemed to be talking about him to Rhea, an idea which seemed so incomprehensible, it made his heart stop.

Y/L/N, Y/N: I have a giant ass crush on Jeon Jungkook

Jungkook continued to stare at the impossibility before his mind forced him to read the rest of your conversation. Maybe there were context clues to better understand. Obviously, you couldn’t mean him. Maybe there was another Jeon Jungkook at the company. Maybe you knew another meaning to the word crush. He continued to reach for other explanations, each one slipping through his fingers like water.

Rhea attempted to stop your confession – albeit, not very well. She probably thought Jungkook was still away from the computer. Or maybe not, and she was interfering again. Jungkook couldn’t bring himself to care.

He knew he should stop you, knew he should interject and let Rhea know he could see, but he just kept reading your words on the screen. You thought he was perfect, even called him gorgeous. You thought he was sweet, cute and funny and Jungkook’s vision began to blur, hardly daring believe someone felt that way about him.

You were the one who was all those things, not him. You were the perfect one, the one who’d sat beside him in a bar and actually made him want to remove his façade. You even went to his bowling meet, for fuck’s sake, having the audacity to seem interested when he talked.

Jungkook had harbored a crush on you for weeks, but never imagined you might like him back. Silly, he supposed, reading through your list of reasons. He winced when you told Rhea about that time he shot banana milk from his nose – but then, impossibly, you noted how cute it was. Jungkook’s eyes widened.

He’d replayed that day thousands of times in his mind, certain he’d irreparably damaged the way you saw him. He was sure you wouldn’t see him romantically after that and yet here you were, pouring out your feelings to Rhea.

Jungkook nearly punched a fist in the air – only to pause at the next words you typed. Rhea wanted you to ask Jungkook out; an idea you balked at for reasons unknown. These reasons were soon revealed by Rhea’s gentle prodding.

Owens, Rhea: so, the last guy

Owens, Rhea: the dick who broke your heart

Owens, Rhea: he doesn’t have anything to do with the new move, new job situation, does he?

Jungkook’s heart sank. Of course there was another guy. No one as funny, talented and beautiful as you could possibly alone – he’d been afraid of something like this from the start, but as the weeks went by and no one mentioned a boyfriend, he had let himself hope.

Your next words were even more crushing than any admittance of a relationship.

Y/L/N, Y/N: Ahh, you know. The usual. I thought we’d be together forever. He thought it was too early to settle down. We mutually made the decision to break up

Y/L/N, Y/N: you know, because he slept with someone else

Jungkook felt his fury grow the longer he stared at the screen.

The idea of someone cheating on you – on you! – was completely unfathomable. Jungkook had never held cheaters in particularly high regard, but right then he hoped your past boyfriend suffered the same fate as Tantalus. The idea of someone hurting you, of taking your open heart and crushing it like that – Jungkook relaxed his fist, realizing he had clenched it.

Forcing himself to sit back, Jungkook continued to watch you type but remained lost in thought. He didn’t blame you for wanting to protect yourself, for not wanting to be hurt any more than you were. As someone who’d been hurt himself, and often, he understood that innate desire.

What bothered him was your underlying assumption here. The only reason you didn’t want to ask him out was because you thought he didn’t like you back. Jungkook had to go back and re-read that part several times for it to sink in.

No matter how appealing his current method of self-preservation was, it had led you to assume he didn’t like you. Jungkook stared at the screen, baffled and began to think back. There had been several times now he could’ve asked you out, he supposed. That day in your cubicle when he pretend to fix your software for an hour, or maybe after the meet when you lingered on the curb.

He could’ve asked you out either time, but he didn’t and now you were afraid he didn’t like you back.

Abruptly, Jungkook stood from his chair. He took one confident stride towards the hall before promptly sitting down to bury his face in his hands. Confessing to you in your work cubicle was hardly the epitome of romance. He should confess, but at the right time.

Lifting his head to swivel around, Jungkook realized Rhea had hidden the conversation, so presumably that meant it was over. No matter how much he wanted to text you and say in all caps, LET’S DATE, that probably wasn’t the best way to go about this. He should go slow, let you know of his feelings, maybe even flirt a little – the idea twisted his stomach in knots.

It would be alright though, since you liked him. Jungkook couldn’t stop the grin which spread over his face as he returned to his work.

This weekend, he decided, closing out Rhea’s ticket. There was the bowling meet you and Rhea were supposed to come to on Saturday. He would tell you then because honestly, he didn’t think he could wait any longer. All he had to do was hold out until then.

 © kpopfanfictrash, 2020. Do not copy or repost without permission.

[byunsboyz]

Jamais Vu - Part Two

Exo Fanfiction

Baekhyun x Female Reader

Warnings: none? 

Genre: Fluff/Angst

W/C: 3507

Part One Part Three

_____________________________________________________________

You watch as Baekhyun turns away from your front door and disappears inside the next apartment.

No way.

*Slam*

Shit.

************************************************************************

Later that night you lie wide awake. 

Replaying the interaction over and over in your head.

Each time making you want to sink further into a hole of shame. 

Guess it’s time to become a recluse? 

You groan out loud as you roll over and try to shake all thoughts of Byun Baekhyun from your mind.

You nose fills with the smell of fresh cotton and magnolia that seeps out of your sheets from the movement. 

“Byun Baekhyun is that you? It’s y/n from university! Wow, what are the chances….” 

All the things you should have said verbalising in your mind when its already too late.

He would have realised and you both would have laughed and reminisced but no!

You knocked him over, stole his groceries and invaded his personal space.

Your chest feels tight with regret and embarrassment. 

You can’t even remember the last time you were left speechless, probably because you stopped letting your guard down a long time ago. 

You clutch your pillow against your face and let out the frustrated yell that you’ve been holding in all evening. 

The next morning you make sure to leave your apartment early. 

The main reason being that it’s your first day in a new department and you want to get into work to set up early and talk to the Director of Corporate Accounting, Mr Do regarding the accounts you’ll be managing.

You also want to have a quick check-in with Jaehyun to make sure he has everything he needs in place to start managing your old team. 

But NOT because you’re planning on avoiding Baekhyun until your lease runs out. 

Because that would be ridiculous...

“You’re being ridiculous!” 

You sigh, as you friend Aria scolds you on your lunch break.

“I don’t know what you mean” you huff, stuffing a tuna maki roll into your mouth.

Aria has been your best friend since you joined Kim & Partners almost six years ago. 

You often grab lunch at the small ramen restaurant around the corner from your company.

You both started at the same time and hit it off during your induction week.

Aria worked in the IT systems department and helped develop and manage aspects of the different software systems used at the company. 

You were utterly clueless and would often be on the phone to the support desk because you’d managed to crash or break something that should be impossible. 

Aria knew of Baekhyun, you had drunkenly ranted to her about him a few years back triggered by him leaving you a dry happy birthday message on your SNS page. 

You’d told her everything. About how you met, how close you’d been and how you’d felt about him at college.

You remember the tears hitting around the point you explained the last couple of years he had faded away.

“I know that he never could never have known how I felt, but-like” you had paused to down another shot, “...he still should have cared about me in some capacity right?”.

“Then delete him, he’s not worth it” she had soothed, rubbing your back.

You probably sounded so desperate but truthfully you felt abandoned.

You swallow down the uncomfortable memory with a sip of water as you continue to justify yourself.

“It’s not even like we really know each other anymore. Maybe HE’S avoiding ME”. You point your chopsticks at her accusingly. 

Aria raises her eyebrow at your words, accompanied by a glare. 

“Stop it! You’ll make the ramen taste bad!” you gasp, shielding your bowl.

She scoffs at your dramatics. “You live next to each other, it’s not like you can avoid him forever”. 

You look up from your bowl, a glint of determination in your eye.

“Challenged accepted”. 

“Stubborn ass”.

“Says the Sagittarius!” you shoot back.

When you get back from lunch, you head straight to see your new manager.

“I’m back Mr Do, are you ready to go over the client files?”.��

“Please don’t call me Mr Do, that’s my father’s name,” he sighs, looking up from his Laptop. “I’m not that much older than you, call me Kyungsoo”.

He grabs a stack of papers and files from his desk and walks around to plonk them onto yours opposite. 

“Are you sure it’s fine for me to invade your office?” you ask, flipping through the first document.

You were surprised to learn that you were sharing the office with the department director. 

The rest of your colleagues were sat open-plan adjacent to the office. 

You snort loudly.

“You can tell your background is auditing” you add, admiring the uniform presentation of each set of financial accounts. 

“Is it that obvious?”

His voice sounds closer than you expect. He’s still leaning against the edge of your desk as he looks over the file in your hand, a slight smirk on his heart-shaped lips. 

It’s not common to come across such a good looking accountant. A far cry from the crusty old white men you’re accustomed to working with.

Well, Jaehyun is handsome but you only see him as a younger colleague.

Kyungsoo, on the other hand. With his deep whiskey brown eyes and short black hair, complimenting to the warm hues of his skin. Is just plain hot.

His shirt sleeves are rolled up past his elbows and you can’t help but take notice of the tone in his forearms that cross over his chest. His voice snaps you out of the slight trance you’ve fallen into. 

“...and yes, it’d make sense to share the same space since we’re going to manage the biggest clients together. Did Mr Kim not explain that this is a promotion,” 

You nod in understanding and he steps back to his desk, looking up once last time with warm assuring smile. “Let’s work hard together”.

Then his attention is back to his laptop, his expression full of concentration.

The rhythmic tapping of his calculator and keyboard filling the room as soft background noise.

You cant help but smile as you look back down towards the files in front of you, a new feeling of determination ignited. 

Working with Kyungsoo for the rest of the day makes you forget about the previous day’s events.

That’s until you step into the lobby of your apartment building and instantly feel anxious at the sight of the elevator. 

You don’t fancy another run in with Baekhyun, so you opt for the stairwell.

You trudge up the stairs until you reach the top floor. Catching your breath as you stand on your tiptoes to peek out of the small glass window that looks out towards your hallway.  

The coast is clear so you make a stealthy dash past Baekhyun’s apartment into your own. 

Aria is right, you this is childish but you don’t want to deal with any awkwardness or confrontation. 

You leave early again the next morning, work late into the evening and take the stairs. Doing the same the next day. And the day after that. 

Most people don’t talk to their neighbours anyway. You’ve lived plenty of places and hardly interacted with the people in your building.

Maybe this was your new normal. 

The weekend is here before you know it. 

You open your eyes groggily. The last thing you remember was reading through some files that you brought home with you yesterday to make notes.

You blame your passing out on the two glasses of chardonnay you had to accompany the reading. 

There’s an ache in your thighs and knees that you attribute to the number of stairs you’ve climbed recently. 

Perhaps this will count towards your yearly cardio. 

You snort at the thought as you rub your eyes. Stretching your arms above your head as you try to loosen the stiffness of sleep from your body. 

Faint jazz music plays in the distance, drifting through the wall you share with Baekhyun's apartment. 

You close your eyes and listen, a soft piano and guitar medley you think?  The double bass thumping along like a gentle heartbeat. 

A feeling of melancholy washes over you causing you to sigh so you force yourself to get up and take a shower. 

Feeling more awake you decide now is the right time to sneak out of your apartment and grab some groceries while it’s still early.

A few hours later than you expected you return to your building, a bag full of groceries clutched in one arm and a couple of extra bags from an impromptu retail binge. 

You couldn't help yourself when you walked past your favourite clothing store Privé and spotted this beautiful pastel blue off-shoulder skater dress.

It literally called out for you to purchase and before you knew it you were also picking up a few new makeup and skincare items to indulge in for the rest of the day. 

‘I don’t splurge often… I work super hard and I deserve this!” you reason with yourself, grimacing as the total of your purchases flash across the cashier screen.

There's always a pang of slight guilt that accompanies any shopping high. The accountant aspect of you scolding your more impulsive side. 

You don’t dwell much on it as you approach the end of the hallway and find yourself contemplating a new dilemma. 

Haul everything up the stairs or risk the elevator. Realistically you’re carrying way too much so the only logical option is taking the elevator. 

It’ll be fine you assure yourself as you step onto the elevator, pushing the button for the top floor. 

Just as the elevator doors are almost closed a hand shoots through the gap and you yelp in surprise.

“Didn’t you hear me calling out to hold the eleva-!” gasps Baekhyun as he shoves his body through the door gap. 

His words cut short as his eyes land on you. 

Your stomach twists into a knot, tightening your grip on the grocery bags as you step to the side to create more space between you.

“I didn’t hear you...s-sorry” you manage to stutter out, trying your best to keep your voice even and eyes straight ahead.

You catch your image in the mirror of the elevator, your hair looking slightly windswept from the outside. 

A sudden conscious sensation of being watched sends a shiver down your spine and you feel your eyes being drawn to the figure reflected next to your own.

Baekhyun is staring, directly at you. His head turned towards you and lips slightly agape.

As if he’s about to say something. 

You internally plead with the elevator to move faster and as though it’s heard your thoughts, you feel the soft judder beneath your feet as it comes to a halt.

When the door spring open, you walk straight for your apartment. Not daring to look behind you.

Your hand trembles as you rapidly punch in your lock code and push open the door, stepping into your apartment and using your foot to kick the door shut behind you.

The door thumps, obstructed by something and you place the items on your counter thinking that your umbrella stand has probably fallen over.

Instead, when you turn around Baekhyun is standing in your doorway. His arm stretching out to hold your front door open.

“Are you avoiding me?”.

You freeze, feeling yourself flinch at his words. Caught off guard by the sudden accusation.

“No why would you-”. 

“Aw come on Y/N! you can’t even look me in the eye right now.” He cuts you off, his tone exasperated. 

“Who are you to suddenly act as if you know me?” You spit back without thinking. 

A tinge of heat rises to your cheeks. Annoyed with yourself for biting back so easily.

Baekhyun's expression softens. 

He lets his arm drop from the door and shoves both hands into the pockets of his jacket. 

“Look. I’m sorry.” 

“Wha-why?” 

“For yelling at you the other day...for the last couple of years?” he winces at his own words. 

“In my defence, you knocked me over” He looks at you like a kicked puppy, “and your hair is much longer now.”

He’s apologising?

“I don’t know what to say” your thoughts spilling directly from your mouth. 

You feel overwhelmed, unable to pint point exactly how you feel. 

Angry. Relieved. Happy?

You hear a half sigh, half laugh from Baekhyun.

“Hi?” He offers.

“Hey...” you reply weakly. 

You both stand there, for what feels like a while.

“Can we start ove-,” you begin, words cutting short as Baekhyun blurts out the same.

You laugh this time.  

“Please.” he adds.  

You note that his hands are now resting at his sides, a sure sign he’s also feeling less on edge. 

You feel ridiculous for even remembering that.

“Good...well. I’m glad” you agree. 

Not knowing what else to say. 

“Yeah, me too,” he continues. “So we’re finally neighbours.”

“Uh-huh” you nod. 

“Awesome” 

You cross your arms over your chest. “So what brought you to move here?” you ask.

“Work, new job!” 

“Congrats”

“Thanks…” He rocks back on his heel. One hand returning to his pocket. “What about you?”

“Huh?... Oh, the same”.

You cringe at the dry turn of the conversation. 

Is it appropriate to ask him to leave?

“So-uh, yeah. I guess I'll be seeing you around?” You opt for something subtle.

He seems to understand, his eyes widening slightly as he quickly steps back from the threshold.

“Ye-yes of course! Catch up soon?” 

You're not sure if he’s asking you or telling you, so you just offer him a weak nod as he closes your door behind him. 

You hold your breath, straining your ears for the sound of his door closing. 

The moment you’re sure Baekhyun is back inside his apartment you jump straight on the phone to Aria. 

Words of confusion spilling from your mouth as you fill her in on what’s happened.

“What does this mean!?” you whisper/shout over the line.

“How am I supposed to know?” she deadpans, always the most sympathetic. “What do you want?”

“What?” 

You flop onto your couch dramatically.  

“Like, do you want to be his friend again. Address your feelings and issues and rebuild a relationship or just keep things in the past and remain as you are?”.

“I...I don’t know. I’ve spent so much time avoiding him I didn’t even consider anything like that”.

You hear her sigh on the other end. “So think about it carefully, you were really upset last time” 

You respond with a groan.“I know”. 

“Do you want me to text Key and we can all meet up, get some drinks and debate this further. You know he’s always opinionated on things like that.”

“Tempting, but I have to work on some client files and think this over for myself...” you pause, suddenly realising something. “Wait, Key knows?”.

“Yah, I’ve been texting him this whole time.”

You press two fingers against your temple, feeling a headache coming. “Thanks mate.”

Kim Kibum, Key as he prefers; is your other best friend.

You met at a night school you’d attended a few years back, after sitting next to each other by chance on the first day. 

You would meet up at the weekends for joint study sessions, usually followed up with a few drinks and sharing mutual complaints about the difficulties and stress of working and studying at the same time. 

You’d introduced him to Aria and the rest was history. 

You usually meet up together once a month, sometimes hanging out with his roommates Minho and Taemin. 

“Tell Key I’ll text him later, rain check on the drinks. Maybe next weekend...uh-huh, ok. Text you later.” 

You end the call, looking up at the ceiling. 

Chest feeling heavy as you try to put your thoughts towards Baekhyun into one place.

Was this a friendship worth salvaging. You were close past tense, but also people grew and changed. 

He wasn’t the only friend you grew apart from so why did it sting so much when you did?

It’s not like you were still in love with him or anything, or that you were waiting for him all this time.

It’s not a romantic comedy. (Even if you do enjoy watching them).

You feel cursed in the relationship department anyway, the last ending terribly with your ex cheating on you with someone you considered to be a friend. 

Remaining single is currently a choice. Aria and Key constantly threaten to drag you to some speed dating event but you refuse. 

The rest of the weekend goes by peacefully, you meet Key for coffee Sunday afternoon for a change of pace from looking over client files and cleaning your bathroom.

“I think...,” you start, taking an extra-long sip of your iced latte “It would be nice to be friends again”.

“We were friends?” Key looks up from his phone, a smirk on his lips. 

You smack his arm playfully. “You know what I mean!”. 

“So you’re not planning any love confessions this time?”.

You grimace, “I was eighteen! It was a crush...now I’m a grown-ass lady who knows she’s going to die alone with seventeen dogs”. 

“Hmmm, well if you don’t want him, I’ll have him” 

You choke on your coffee.

“How do you know he’s not an ugly ass?”

He holds his phone up to you. 

“Because SNS is a wonderful thing darling”. 

You gasp, snatching the phone out of Key’s hand. Baekhyun's profile photo staring back at you.

It looks like he’s on a beach somewhere. 

His hair a light shade of blonde, wearing a tight fit shirt which only emphasises the broadness of his shoulders.

He’s grinning cheekily at whoever is taking the photo and you feel the corners of your lips tugging upwards in response. 

You don’t think it’s the sun that brightens the picture.

A hand suddenly waves in front of your face. “Earth to lover girl!” Key calls out, removing his phone from your hand. 

“Stop stalking Baekhyun.” you huff. 

“Fine fine fine” he deadpans. “but only if you add him yourself”. 

“How do you know we aren’t already friends?”

He looks up at you with a raised brow. Ah yeah he’s already checked. 

You chew on the bottom of your lip nervously as you press send on the friendship request. 

Pangs of guilt emerging over the fact you had even deleted him in the first place 

But you needed to back then, it used to hurt to look at him. 

Monday morning as your leaving your apartment your surprised to see Baekhyun leaving his apartment at the same time. 

He looks you up and down curiously.

“Morning” He smiles, “this is a bit late for you?” his tone slightly teasing.

He’s not wrong, you’re back to leaving your usual time. 

“or maybe you’re early” you respond, mimicking his tone. 

He laughs and shakes his head. “No, I leave this time every day”. 

He falls into step as you head towards the elevator. 

“I started working in a new department last week so I went in early to try and adjust faster.” 

Wait. Why are you justifying yourself to him? 

“So you’re a big fancy accountant now?” he asks, smiling as you wait for him to step onto the elevator before you push the button for the ground floor. 

“And you a fancy architect?” you offer, he laughs and nods in agreement. 

The rest of the elevator ride is in silence, but this time you're not itching to escape. 

Baekhyun hums randomly to himself as he fiddles around on his phone. 

*ping* 

You reach into your pocket searching for your phone at the sound of the notification tone.

‘Byun Baekhyun has accepted your friend request’.

You look up from your phone but he’s not looking. His expression serious as he continues to look down at his phone. 

Does he feel bad that you deleted him?

You step off the elevator and leave the building at the same time.

Keeping a half step ahead as you turn off towards the subway station.

In your peripheral you see that he’s turned in the opposite direction. 

Should you say goodbye, is it weird to wish him a good day? 

You start wondering as you walk further away from each other. 

“Kick some accounting ass!” Baekhyun suddenly calls out, making you spin around in surprise. 

You snort at his word choice.

“Architect the shit out of some buildings!” you call back. 

You’re rewarded with one of his loud melodic laughs and you catch yourself sighing dreamily.

Ah Shit.

[bibliophilicwitch]

an update

i’ve been relatively quiet the last week or so since i’ve been busy with work and scrambling to get my ducks in a row for taking vacation last weekend and again this weekend to go camping with my family. i need to build my queue back up to make it to tuesday, write up the weekly muse posts, and schedule the tomes and tea reminders. last week my queue was good, i was half prepared for weekly muse, and i ran out of time to schedule tomes and tea. hopefully i can do better this week lol.

i’ve been working my way through my reread of windwitch and i am SO CLOSE TO FINISHING. i’m in those last 50 pages of the book where everything is going fast and it’s HARD to put down the book. i’m also not remembering like any of these events and twists until they happen. makes me really damn happy i reread these books before jumping into bloodwitch. still trying to decide if i want to read sightwitch before bloodwitch or not. i did check it out from libby in audio, so maybe i’ll read both at the same time?? i paused my playthrough of platinum due to the constant freezing and i’ll likely try buying another copy as disappointing as it is. i’ve returned to my playthrough of white and am working on the post game. it would be really good to play while listening to sightwitch.

i’m also thinking i want to participate in the medieval-a-thon but it’s been a challenge to try to shoe-horn my tbr into the challenges lmao

things at the pharmacy are... fine. we are still only being allowed two pharmacists meaning they are the only pharmacist from open to close technically they shouldn’t even leave the pharmacy to use the restroom or buy food per law, so they do not get to take proper breaks or lunches. absolute bullshit and reason #934 why i do not care for this company, but what else is new to this corporate capitalist shitshow? the company appointed an intern who was taking his tests in may to be our pharmacy manager, but his license still hasn’t been approved by the board. our pharmacist float has been traded out and their hours have been dropped also. the new float is also a baby faced new pharmacist though he actually has his license lol. our tech hours have been cut again. luckily for me the pharmacy manager is making a point of getting everyone their hours instead of just cutting. he has been sending our full-timers to another location. one of the techs was out for nearly two weeks for a virus that left her without a voice and then was out for a scheduled surgery for about three weeks and she is FINALLY back. usual petty drama continues, but luckily it is p mild. mostly we are able to handle patient demand and have far less issues causing frustration. i’ve also come to understand this is basically how all pharmacies are. my first pharmacy was an outlier and they have gone under, so while i was originally aiming to get my certification and this be my back up career, i am no longer sure i want to go that route.

library programming was going well for june until the confusion that was last week’s craft night due to the new reminder system and the summer hours time change. i’m vaguely concerned about attendance for this slightly last minute paint night going this evening, but overall feel confident it’ll be fine. there’s a lot i SHOULD be doing and i almost shouldn’t be using vacation time, but by that logic there is ALWAYS shit i SHOULD be doing and basically no opportunities to use my vacation. i just need some chances to not worry about this job so i can come back to it fresh and ready to dig into it. i’ve been researching volunteer management software - of course the one i like the most so far is also around $400 a year ugh - test the software to see how it runs. i have some new volunteers to reach out to and to line up with volunteer opportunities. i need to start planning a craft night i plan to change this fall and the december drop in event needs to be chosen and planned. next year’s craft series needs work and planning and i need to better plan the crafts to use up extra funding for this year. i have a couple of things i said i would do for the after school program that is currently on hiatus over the summer. the monthly report is just around the corner again. and i know there are things not on here. this job is stressful and while i get good things out of it most of the time i don’t feel the positive outweighs the negative. the only reason i keep at it is that 1) i wish to leave this position better than i got it and 2) the pay is worth it. i just heckin wish it was full time or close enough to full time i didn’t need a second job.

[silenceindetroit]

The Meaning of Silence - Part 3

“Connor?”

Hank stepped into the kitchen, fighting with the buttons of his shirt. He sighed to himself when he saw the android sitting on the floor, rubbing one of Sumo's ears in his hand. There was a spot every morning that received a perfect patch of early sunlight. That was Sumo's Spot. But he was generous enough to share it in return for head rubs for a while. “You know I never sweep in here, right?” he asked. “I wouldn't sit on the floor if I were you.”

“I've been keeping up with cleaning,” Connor said. He rubbed his thumb back and forth above Sumo's snout. “I haven't had much else to do to keep busy.”

Hank looked down. He had no reason to feel guilty; they were doing everything they could. Still, he knew it was starting to get to the android. “I know, kid.” He finished the last button. “We're working on it. Cyberlife's been dropping the ball getting back to us.”

When the tides had turned in favor of the android revolution, the first think Hank had done was call Cyberlife, waiting through hours of hold music and countless transfers to talk to someone with enough power to give him a real answer. What did they plan to do with their golden boy?

Even then their explanation wasn't straightforward. All action was currently on hold.

They had given Connor to him, he tried to tell them.

Yes, but only for the deviancy investigations, he was told. Again, any further action was on hold.

“What the hell does that mean?” Hank had growled into his phone. “You already sent a replacement out when he failed his mission. You have newer upgraded models out. Why's it so important that you hold onto him when you're probably going to discard him anyway?”

“Your particular RK800 model is, in a sense, a liability to the company due to its inability to maintain software regulations, as well as its participation in recent events, Sir.”

“Jesus... How much would it cost to purchase him from you guys?”

“All transactions and purchases are currently on hold due to legality.”

He had driven the next day to Kamski's place.

“They're trying to cover their asses,” Kamski said after Hank had explained everything. “They're neck-deep in lawsuits and broken contracts right now. A large part of it due to Connor's break in.”

“Because now they've failed to deliver products that they promised companies,” Hank guessed.

“Exactly.”

“Shit. What can we do?”

Kamski took a deep breath. “What's your poison, Anderson?”

“Bourbon, if you have it.”

Kamski motioned to one of his androids. He didn't say a word until she had returned, two glasses balanced on a tray in one hand, a bottle in the other.

They took their glasses after she had poured for them. “If I offer you my help, I want something in return,” Kamski said as he raised his to his lips.

Hank took a sip. “What kind of help are we talking about?”

“I can buy him off the company. My name still holds a great deal of weight there. I have people who can deal with the legal action. It might take some time, especially with how swamped they are right now, but if all goes well at the end of it your name will be under his owner rights.” Kamski took another sip, thoughtful. “Now would probably be the best time to act, anyway,” he admitted. “Before legal action gets even more complicated. The country's going to be working through citizenships and classifications. All of that could take months. Maybe even years. Best to act before the worst of the storm hits.”

Hank folded his arms over his chest. “And what is it you want if we get through this whole mess?”

Kamski met his eyes. “I want to talk with him,” he said. “I want to pick at his mind, see what makes him tick. Deviancy is incredibly fascinating to me.”

He didn't like the sound of that. “Like a lab rat.”

“Like a client. Who knows, it might even benefit him.”

Hank was silent. He stared down into his glass, weighing both sides. “And how do I know I can trust you?” he asked.

Kamski held his gaze from across the desk. “Liutenant, why do you think I left Cyberlife in the first place?” he asked. “Why did I start building a hidden emergency exit into my own creations?”

Hank grimaced and knocked back half of his drink, setting the glass on the desk. “I don't care what your intentions were in the past. I care what they are now.”

Kamski raised an eyebrow. “And what about you? Why are you so set on saving one particular android?” When there was no reply, he continued, “I offer my help because I see something we can both gain from the situation. And at this point you don't have much of a choice if you truly want to help him. Like I said, if we succeed, his name will be under your ownership rights, not mine.”

“Don't call it that.” But Hank knew he was right. Kamski's offer hung heavy as he sat deep in thought for a few minutes. “This whole observing thing... if he ever says he's had enough, then that's it,” he warned. “You don't do anything he's not comfortable with. And I want that in writing if I say yes.”

To his surprise, Kamski pulled open a drawer at his desk and took out a blank contract paper there and then. Hank made him write out explicit rules, adding that any future new decisions had to be run by and agreed upon by him first.

That was two months ago.

Kamski had managed somehow to be in God's graces and convince Cyberlife to let Connor stay under Hank's care as a temporary setup in order to keep a low profile—but until further notice, Connor wasn't allowed to return to any kind of previous work.

And the android was starting to go stir-crazy.

“We're making progress in the paperwork and legal action,” he reminded Connor now. “We've got the right people on our side. This won't be forever.”

“I know.” Connor smoothed the fur down on Sumo's giant forehead. “I appreciate everything you've done, Hank. More than you know.”

“Don't get all sentimental on me right before I gotta go in for work,” Hank muttered, studying his shoes while he put them on. Trying to hide the emotions on his face. “I'll see you when I get home. We'll go drive around tonight.”

Connor nodded. He listened as Hank grabbed his jacket and keys. A few minutes later he was gone, door slamming behind him and key loud in the lock as the bolt slid into place.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. Sumo's paws spread out as he stretched out onto his side, his massive jowls opening in a lazy yawn. He gave a small smile and scratched behind the old dog's ear.

The weekend's events were still fresh in his mind. He had been living them on repeat any chance he was alone.

The way Markus had run his thumb over the palm of his hand. Rubbing the paint from his fingers, and then his chin. The unexpectedness of the kiss.

It had triggered some kind of electrical reaction in Connor he had never known could happen, let alone be prepared for. The kiss itself was a gentle greeting between their lips. His tongue had picked up a slight change of warmth in the air when Markus' lips drew apart his own.

And then it was over. His first kiss gone, with no time to savor it.

He hadn't felt quite himself since.

He shook his head a little. “You want to go for a walk?” he asked Sumo, trying to bring some excitement into his voice. Sumo gave a long sigh in reply.

“Guess I'll go by myself.” He picked the dog's head up between his hands. “I need to go clear my head,” he told him, looking into his eyes. “I'll be back in a while.” Sumo's paddle of a tail thudded against the floor. “Yes, you're a good dog. You're the best dog.”

He dropped into Hank's room before he left, grabbing a light jacket from the closet floor and the beanie Hank had let him borrow when he'd infiltrated Jericho. He tried to blend in whenever he went out into the world now. He didn't like the way people still stared at his LED.

He checked himself in the mirror, readjusting the beanie, making sure it came down low enough over his forehead before he headed out the door.

The sky was a deep blue despite the bite in the air. Spring was around the corner, if not a little early; the cold didn't last as long as it used to. Connor shoved his hands into the pockets of the jacket and picked up the pace. He flicked mentally through his collection of music, a few new songs in there that he had added. He hadn't listened to them yet; it was more interesting to be surprised by what he discovered. He settled on one and closed his eyes as the music filled his head.

5:30am... whoa the whiskey's run dry... go close the curtains... don't want to see the light...

There were a handful of people out and starting their day, some walking their dogs, others hurrying to their cars to get to work. He let his pace slow a little.

He was almost angry. Not at Markus, though; never at Markus. He'd barely expected the other android to ever hold his hand again, let alone kiss him. If he'd known it would happen—or been able to read the goddamn signs—he would would have been able to enjoy the ride from anticipation to completion in those few seconds. Instead it had slipped through his fingers. And he and Markus hadn't had a chance to speak since.

What would he even say, though? That he wanted a do-over? The thought alone made his heart pump a little faster, fueling his stress levels. He wanted to tear his circuits apart.

He wondered how he'd looked to Markus in those moments after. If the uncertainty had been noticeable, or the panic.

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself; he hadn't been listening to the song.

Six blocks came and went beneath his feet before he came to a full stop, the corner of his eye catching movement down an alley.

A child, no more than six or seven, was crouched in front of a row of trash cans, leaning forward between two, their face blocked from view. He scanned the rest of the area. No sign of parents.

He took a hesitant step forward, then another. “Hello,” he called out when he was about ten feet away. The child's head turned towards him. A boy. Brown, tangled bangs hung above his eyes. “Are you alright?”

“I need help,” the boy called back.

“Are you in trouble?”

“You have to come see.” The boy motioned for Connor to come over with one hand before his eyes went back to the ground, between the trash cans. Connor walked over and tilted his head down to look. The sounds reached his ears less than a moment before he registered what he was looking at.

A cardboard box had been torn open on one side. Nestled in the very middle was a squirming, mewling pile of kittens, each one a variation between black, tabby, and tortie.

“I found them,” the boy told Connor. He put his chin in his hands as he watched them. “I think there's five.”

Connor knelt down beside him, analyzing. They weren't newborns. Still too young to be on their own, though. “Where's their mother?”

A shrug. “I waited by my door to see if she would come back.” He tilted his head to the side to look up at Connor. “I'm Michael.”

“My name's Connor.”

“We have to help them, Connor,” Michael stated, determination in his voice.

Connor blinked in surprise. This boy didn't even know him. “I think that might be a job for your parents. Where are they?”

Michael shook his head. “They're busy. At work.”

“You're here by yourself?” Warnings flashed through Connor's head. Child neglect?

“Jeanine's here. She doesn't leave the house.”

“Oh.” The warnings subsided, but didn't disappear. “Why's that?”

Another shrug. “Mom said. But it's okay. I'm allowed to go out by myself.” Michael pushed up off the pavement and stood. “Wait here—you watch the kittens. I'll be right back.” He didn't wait for a reply before he turned and ran to the doorway that connected one of the covered parking spots to the inner courtyard of an apartment complex.

Connor stared after him, his fans whirring, trying to process what had just happened. His attention snapped back to the kittens when one of them separated from the rest of its siblings and tried to climb out into the sunshine, still learning its balance. It squeaked in protest when he scooped it up and set it in his lap between his hands. His brow furrowed as he rubbed its chin with his finger. One of the two torties. Most of its left ear was gone, the wound already healed over.

Michael was carrying a plastic tub in his arms when he returned. A towel was spread on the bottom. “Okay,” he announced as he set it down. “I told Jeanine. I can take them to the shelter, then I have to come right back.”

“Michael...”

But the boy was already picking up a kitten from the litter with gentle hands. “Don't worry,” he whispered to it. “We're here to help.” He placed it carefully in the tub. “Oh, you met one,” he commented when he saw the kitten in Connor's lap.

“Michael, can I talk to Jeanine? Would that be okay?”

“Okay. Help me first.”

The two of them piled the rest of the kittens into their temporary home. When they were done Michael stood, ready to pick up the tub.

“Here. Let me do that.” Connor got to his knees and lifted it with ease into his arms.

Michael led him through the courtyard to his apartment door, pushing it open by the doorknob. “Jeanine,” he addressed through the doorway. “My friend wanted to talk to you.” Connor heard footsteps crossing the living room floor, and then the head of an AX300 android appeared from behind the door. Her eyes widened with wariness at him, LED turning yellow.

He made his voice pleasant. “Hello. My name is Connor. Michael says that he's allowed to leave the house unsupervised. I just wanted to check with you that that's accurate.”

“Yes. He's allowed to be out as long as he's back within an hour.”

“He can come with me, right?” Michael asked.

Connor looked down at the boy. “Michael, I don't think—”

“Come on. You have to help. You said you would.”

Jeanine's eyes were still on Connor, studying something. “It's you, isn't it?” she asked. Her voice was low. “The one from the news.” Her gaze seemed to soften. “I knew you looked familiar.” Her LED flickered from its previous yellow back to blue. Connor tried to hide the grimace from his face.

“He can come, right?” Michael pressed.

“The same rules still apply, Michael. Be back in an hour.”

Michael's face lit up. “Yes,” he whispered to himself. “Come on!” He was already taking off, back towards the alley they had come from.

A hand reached out from behind the door as Connor turned to follow. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For what you did.” A look of sadness passed over her face, mingled with gratitude. And then the door shut, hiding her from view before he could think of a reply.

Michael was waiting for him at the end of the alley. “The shelter's twenty minutes if we take the bus,” he said.

“Lead the way.”

Connor glanced down at the kittens as they made their way down the street, their heads swaying with the movement of each step he took. The one with the missing ear stared up at him with bright green eyes.

“Are you a robot?” Michael asked suddenly.

He blinked, unsure how to respond. His beanie was still pulled down low over his forehead. “Well, yes.”

“Cool.” Michael ran over to the curb and tried to walk on its edge without losing his balance. “I wish I was a robot,” he said. “Then I could punch through walls, and stuff.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of Connor's mouth. “I can't quite punch through walls, I'm afraid.”

“Oh.” The disappointment was evident in Michael's voice. “What can you do?”

He thought about it for a moment. Trying to find things that a child might deem interesting. “I can run pretty fast.”

“Neat.”

“And anything a phone can do, I can do in my head.”

“Can you hack computers? Like in the movies?”

“Sort of. Not quite,” he lied. Best not give him any ideas.

They walked another block, Michael deep in concentration, still trying to perfect his tightrope abilities. He looked over his shoulder at Connor just before they reached the bus stop. “Why're you sad?” he asked.

Connor's eyebrows lifted. “I'm not sad.”

“You look sad.”

The boy jumped over a crack in the sidewalk and climbed onto the bench. Connor took the seat next to him, settling the tub onto his lap. “What makes you think so?”

“Grown-ups always get that look when they're sad but they don't talk about it,” Michael said knowingly. He climbed onto his knees, peering over the lip of the tub. “That one likes you,” he said, pointing to the tortie with the missing ear.

“I think you're right.” Connor reached his hand in, offering his index finger to the kitten. “I'm not sad. Not really, I don't think. Just... confused.”

The boy's deep brown eyes were on him now. “About what?”

His brow furrowed, searching for the right words. “Something I did with someone. But in my mind I thought it would go one way. And it didn't. And I was so surprised that I didn't get to appreciate it when it happened.”

“Oh! Like me and David's show?”

“I don't know. Who's David?”

“David's my best friend.” Michael beamed as if David was the most famous person in the world. “We wanted to put on a show about dragons. We set it up in the living room. It was good, but the first time we did it, nothing really happened in the story.” He looked up at the clouds that dotted the sky above them.

Connor followed his gaze. “So what did you do?”

“We started it again and added more cool stuff. We made one of the dragons the bad guy that wanted all the other dragons' stuff. And he put it in a treasure chest so the good dragons had to get the key. But that was still too boring, so we did it again with more keys, and they had to go on a big adventure to find each one.”

Connor smiled. “That sounds exciting.”

“It was. Maybe you could do that with your friend.”

“You mean,” he said slowly, “do it again, but make it more exciting?”

Michael nodded. “Or what was it you said?”

“That I didn't get to appreciate it when it happened the first time.”

“Yeah. All you have to do is do it again. But maybe with explosions.”

“Explosions would make it pretty interesting.”

“Or dancing. When all the dragons got their stuff back they had a big dance party.”

“Huh.” Connor let his eyes drift down the street, where their bus was turning the corner. “I think you might have something there.”

It was less than a ten minute ride to the shelter. The woman at the front desk saw them in right away, letting the two bring the kittens to a back room. “We'll contact our foster families,” she said. “In the meantime they'll have to stay at the shelter for a few days while we monitor their health and get them vaccinated and microchipped.”

Michael reached into the tub and lifted out the tortie with the missing ear.“You should take this one home,” he whispered to Connor, offering to let him hold it. “She likes you best.”

Connor let the boy slide the kitten into his arms. “She doesn't have a name,” he said, cradling her against his chest.

Michael looked into the kitten's face. “She looks like a Beatrice to me,” he replied with a nod. “Bea for short.”

Connor rubbed his finger in gentle circles over the kitten's forehead. “I think you're right.”

“We can keep her here for you,” the woman offered. “But you'll still have to wait the period until all her medical stuff checks out.”

“That's fine.”

“You have a name and number we can call you at?” He considered what to tell her for a second before giving her Hank's.

The bus ride back was quiet between him and Michael. The boy had taken to the window seat, folding his arms under his chin and watching the passing cars. This felt like a good kind of silence, Connor thought to himself. The kind you used for reflection.

“We done good today, Mr. President,” he told Connor when they were halfway home, still looking out the window. “We done good.” The android felt the odd sensation of laughter bubble up in his system for the second time in his life.

They took the bus back to the same stop. “Are you gonna walk home with me?” he asked Connor when they were climbing down the steps.

“Sure.”

It wasn't a far walk. They made it to the alley with ten minutes to spare on Michael's hour long curfew. The boy turned to Connor before leaving the sidewalk for the asphalt. “I'll see you around, right?”

“I'm sure you will.”

“You'll have to tell me how Beatrice is doing when you go get her.”

“I will.”

Michael gave a nod of finality. And then he turned and ran back to his apartment, the way kids do when they have some exciting new to tell. There was only one thing Connor could think as he watched the boy disappear out of sight.

Hank's gonna kill me.

----------

“Welcome home, Markus,” the house announced as its front doors swung open. Markus let his coat slide from his shoulders in the foyer, hanging it on the rack in the corner. He had been called in early that morning to speak with several politicians in Detroit with his own political team of androids. They needed his presence there to back what they were trying to present to the city, he'd been told. The hours had passed slowly in the conference room.

It had been a long day.

“Markus?” Carl's voice called out from the other room, raspy. Markus made his way into the den, where Carl was on the couch with a blanket tucked around his legs, a cup of tea steaming on the side table and a book in his lap.

Markus' eyes softened. “Hey,” he said, coming over to stand by the old man.

“How did the conference go?”

“It went.” He grimaced. “They're thinking they'll need me another two or three days before they get to the end of this.”

“Hm. I know you must be burnt out, but there's something I think you might want to go see. On the roof.”

Markus blinked, confused. “The roof?” he echoed.

“In the garden.” There was a suspiscious twinkle in Carl's eye.

“What is it?” he asked, but Carl only waved his hand at him, shooing him on with a chuckle.

The rooftop garden used to host guests during summer nights once upon a time. As Carl had gotten older, its use had changed mostly for the evenings too warm for staying inside. But they were barely on the cusp of spring. Nothing would be able to grow up there for at least another month or two. Markus pondered the look Carl had given him as he climbed the stairs.

He understood once he reached the door to the garden and pushed it open.

The string lights that zig-zagged overhead had been turned on, casting a warm glow over the empty garden beds and patio benches, the bulbs swaying in the breeze. Connor was seated in the middle of a bench, hands clasped in his lap. The light reflected off the edges of his hair like a halo. His head turned when he heard Markus take a step out.

Markus gave a bemused smile. “What's all this?”

Connor got to his feet slowly. “Markus,” he started. His heart was already pounding out of its typical rhythm. “There's something I've been wanting to talk to you about.”

The smile faded to concern. “Is everything okay, Connor?”

The other android shook his head. “It's... about the last time we saw each other.”

“Oh.” Markus' own heart gave an odd thump in his chest. “I'm sorry if I offended you at all. I should have asked first... If I was wrong to assume—”

“I wasn't ready for it.”

Markus' gaze fell to the empty patio tiles that stretched between them. “I understand.”

Connor closed his eyes, trying to get his thoughts straight. “But I want to be. This time.” He took a step toward Markus, then another. “Markus,” he managed, his voice low, but still loud enough to hear. He reached out his hand, palm open in offering, internal fans whirring. “Will you dance with me?”

Markus' lips parted in surprise. And then a grin spread to the corners of his mouth, and his gaze softened into a look that would have been enough to trigger another overheating warning in Connor's head if not for the chill in the breeze. “Of course.” He closed the distance between them and slid his palm into Connor's.

The moment their fingers interlocked he felt Connor open an interface between them. Their heads filled with the gentle notes of a piano, immediately followed by a young man's voice. Markus raised an eyebrow. “Chet Baker, huh?” he asked. “Didn't think you were such a fan of the classics.”

“It's a song many have danced to over the decades,” Connor replied, looking away to hide his embarassment. He had never realized how beautiful Markus' face was up close. Or rather, he had never let himself indulge in noticing.“I can change it if you don't like it.”

“No. This is perfect.” Connor watched as Markus slid his free hand up onto his hip, picking up a gentle sway that was easy enough to join in to. He followed suit, letting his own palm find its place above Markus' waist, their interlocked hands outstretched a few inches to the side.

“I really am sorry,” Markus said now as they made a slow turn together, his voice sincere. “I should have asked you the first time before I kissed you.”

“To be fair, I'm not very good at reading the signs.”

Connor felt an electric surge pulse through him when Markus laughed. “No,” he agreed, drawing Connor a little closer. “But it's sweet.”

Their feet moved them in small circles until the song reached its end in a duet of trumpet and piano. “Mind if I play one?” Markus asked.

“Not at all.”

Familiar instruments filled his head, but this time there was no drum bass to accompany it. Connor flicked over the song information. “You have a particular preference for this artist,” he commented.

Markus shrugged. “We're drawn to the music that speaks to us,” he replied simply. He reached to take Connor's hand from his waist, wrapping it in his own, and drew their hands behind Connor's back. Their chests were less than a few centimeters apart as the song already made its way into the chorus.

I will not ask you where you came from

I will not ask and neither should you

Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips

We should just kiss like real people do

Connor closed his eyes when Markus tilted his head down, pressing their foreheads together, the music swallowing him. It was terrifying, and exhilirating, and beautiful, all at once. Their feet had stopped, leaving them still swaying together. The two of them were the only ones in the world.

“Can I kiss you?” he whispered. His eyelids fluttered open to look for Markus' response.

The smile on the android's lips was gentle. “You don't have to ask,” he whispered back.

There was no hesitation to stand in his way this time when their lips met. But unlike last time, Connor let it be drawn out, savoring Markus' closeness. He felt the spark again when Markus kissed him back. And again. And again.

Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips

We should just kiss like real people do

(For some reason that whole part with Michael felt choppy. Probably cause of all the dialogue.  Hope I’m just being too critical lol)

[teacherkmd]

Struggles of teaching in China

If you’re in a TESOL prep program, you’ve likely run across articles that talk about the challenges of teaching in China. Well, at the special request of a previous professor of mine, here’s my version.

There are some very good things about teaching in China. For example, it is literally culturally ingrained in the fabric of society that teachers will be and are respected. It means my word will not be questioned (even though sometimes maybe it should be?). What I say goes. Classroom management issues (at least at the collegiate level) do not exist. My students are highly motivated and disciplined. I do not have to worry about attendance; they will not skip. This being said, here are 10 very real struggles I’ve had to face in the classrooms here.

1. The classrooms do not belong to the teacher.

One of the biggest differences between China (and Taiwan) and the United States is that the classrooms do not belong to the teacher. In the US, we often think of the teacher as getting to design their own classrooms and buying materials and decorating it and being the perfect “pinterest” teacher. The students tend to rotate and switch classrooms when the bell rings. Here, that is literally impossible (which might actually be good since I’m poor, not artistic, and don’t have much free time). Teachers are the ones who rotate and the students stay in their classrooms. This set-up means I would have to buy or create duplicates of anything I wanted to hang on the walls. It is good in some ways (gives students ownership of their space, they have a space to study after school hours, they’re responsible for cleaning and maintaining it, etc) but it is also bad because I can’t take up all the wall space. I am sharing with all the other teachers in the department. If I want a vocabulary word wall, or want to put giant “I am thankful for...” turkey’s on the wall or display student work... I’d need to make sure it didn’t bother the other teachers first. If my vocabulary word list would be seen as cheating or distracting for another English class... well it can’t be there. It also means that if teacher’s aren’t cleaning up after themselves a lot of crap ends up laying around the podium. I remember walking in and being annoyed at all the random textbooks, pens, pencils, paper clips, scraps of paper, tea, and other junk in my teaching space. Oh, and don’t think about rearranging the desks... that doesn’t go over well. Not ideal at all. I’ve never taught in a place where I have gotten my own classroom to decorate and create the environment I want, so I guess I don’t really know what I’m missing. I can imagine all the cool things I could do if I did though. 

2. Poor study skills for Western educational expectations

Another issue I’ve come across is what I consider “lack of common sense” when it comes to studying and taking notes. I have to be VERY explicit about literally everything. Do my students need to bring paper to class? Then I better tell them ahead of time. Do I think they should have a place to take notes? Then I better tell them to buy a journal for my class. Do I think they should have a place to put handout? Then I better tell them to buy a folder. Do I think something is important and they should write it down? Better tell them to write it down. I’ve had to give pop quizzes on things I’ve said in class multiple times to prove to the students that they should be taking notes in class. I’ve had to tell them that maybe that random page in their textbook isn’t a good place to put notes. I’ve had to say so many things where I know in America students would be like “duh”. But, that's now how teaching and learning work here. They take notes by taking pictures of my PPT and that is about it.

3. Poor communication styles for Western educational systems

China kind of skipped over e-mail. They went straight from fax to WeChat (a social media platform this is kind of like What’s app and instagram all rolled into one). Therefore, when I tell my students they need to turn in their homework via email, a whole truck full of problems crash into my inbox. No subject line. No names. No attachments. No message. I have had to show them exactly what I want them to write in the email so I know who they are, what class they’re in, and how to formally address a teacher. I haven’t let them vary their emails yet, but if any of them plan to study abroad in America or to teach students who wish to go to the US for schooling, they really need to learn how to write emails. I just wish I had time to cover everything. 

4. Fear of speaking up

“My students are smart. They understand what I am saying. It isn’t my fault they aren’t answering.” -- I constantly have to remind myself of this. I can put them in groups and have them discuss a topic. If I walk around and listen, I hear them all on task, on topic, and answering and sharing opinions correctly in English. Then if I bring them back together as a whole class and ask what they talked about or for examples of what they discussed: dead silence, heads bowed, avoiding eye-contact. It is the most frustrating thing. I know they know the answers, I heard them talking about it, and I literally went around the room telling them good job while I was listening. The cultural expectation that the group is more important than the individual causes a standstill. Almost no students will volunteer an answer freely. They don’t want to be seen as immodest or like a know-it-all. They would lose face if they did so. But, if I call on them, it isn’t them choosing to answer, they will answer correctly and accurately. They’d lose face if they didn't answer a direct question. They can’t be the peg that needs to be struck back down. My classes are slowly getting better.. they know I will hold them over the end of class time if they aren’t responding to me. I’ve reminded them that there are no right or wrong answers. I’ve told them if they don’t know the answer then I need to know they don’t know. I can get group responses quite easily, but class discussions that include the teacher just aren’t happening. I’ve gotten them to speak up by asking them things and saying “I don’t know the answer, so I can’t tell you if you’re wrong. I just want to know what you think”. We had a pretty good discussion on cultural appropriation and halloween costumes. 

5. No concept of plagiarism 

“The right answer is the only answer” and “Imitation is the best way to learn” are common beliefs of my students. If you don’t know how to write or say something, say or write the exact same thing as someone else. Shared knowledge is better than individual knowledge. Nevertheless, 0s have been given out already this semester along with in-depth discussions about how I don’t want perfect work turned into me. If it is all perfect, I could go back home. 

6. Fear of failure to the point of not following instructions

The all important grade. It doesn’t matter if they feel more confident, or if I tell them I see significant improvement. They are only focused on one thing: their grade. They focus on it so much, that if I give them instructions like “don’t write down your conversation and read it for your homework recording”, they will completely ignore the instructions if they think their grade will be better. They were shocked when the recording that was perfect with good intonation, proper grammar, native like pronunciation, etc got a 0. When they asked why, I said they didn’t follow instructions. They wrote down their conversation. How could I tell? Not once did they hesitate, not once did they act interested or surprised by what their fellow classmates had said. It was all scripted. And they can’t understand me if I ask a question, so how would they understand their classmate without having to pause and think about it? hmm? I will say this issue has been very quickly solved. They’ve come to realize in my class that I want them at the level they’re at not at some superficial level they want me to think they’re at. 

7. Highly stressed students

My students have absolutely no free time. They take 18 hours of class a week. Some of them are in military training still. Some have other clubs. Every weekend there are at least 6 or 7 competitions for them to compete in. I assigned a speaking homework and all the responses were about how tired they are and how they can't sleep because they’re so stressed. It broke my heart. The following week, I asked them to take 30 minutes to draw minions in halloween costumes for homework to make relaxation mandatory. I sat outside with a group of them after an English Corner event for 3 hours and talked with them about their lives. They feel so much pressure to conform and meet expectations. Their other teachers yell at them and shame them for being wrong. The foreign teachers are the only ones who encourage them or try to get to know them. I recently boycotted the crappy computer labs they had me teaching in on the 6th floor. I taught in their classrooms on the third floor instead.  The other foreign teacher came in during break and said how nice it was to have me teaching across the hall from her because she could hear them laughing and sounding like they enjoyed learning. I hope my small amounts of encouragement help them. 

8. Poor teaching materials and environment

I know no textbook is perfect... but these are exceptionally bad. All the foreign teachers are from the United States, but the textbooks all teach British English which means there are lots of things in there that I disagree with. The topics aren’t interesting. They’re the same thing they’ve been learning since 3rd grade but with more complex, technical vocabulary that native speakers wouldn’t casually drop into a normal conversation anyway. It just bad. Trust me. The building is also falling apart. The computers don’t work half the time. The software isn’t up to date. The chalk boards are so old you can’t see what you write on them anymore. Just not good for learning. 

9. Poor teaching pedagogy

Another reason my students are stressed is because my teaching style is completely unknown to them. They’ve never been asked to analyze or explain how they know something. The other professors mainly expect them to memorize a passage and spit it out verbatim. They don’t have to understand what they’re reading or saying. They just have to be able to do it. There is an old quad on campus and in the courtyard, we call it the hive. Every student is out there whispering and reciting passages to themselves. The drone of their voices sounds exactly like bees. In my class, they can’t get by on memorization. I make it almost impossible to prepare for class. They have to be ready to use what they’ve learned and apply it in practical situations and discussions. This is naturally very stressful for them. They would do much better if I taught in an audio lingual style or grammar translation style like the other teachers. But, if the school wanted that they would have hired a Chinese national and asked for a foreign teacher. 

10. Class schedules that focus on quantity not quality  

I see my students once a week for 2 hours for 14 weeks. Think back to college.. you had class three times a week for 50 minutes, or twice a week for 75 minutes. Or grad school, I had class twice a week for 2 hours each time. The contact hours I have with my students are very limited. They want to get as many students in there taking as many classes as they can. They all get exposed to the foreign teachers and they cycle them in and out. There is no buy-in, no investment, and no way for me to get to know all of my students. I feel a lot of pressure to cram in as much as I can in the 28 hours of class time they get with me. It is hard to remember that they have 16 other hours of class a week, and that I’m not solely responsible for them learning English. It is just hard for me to imagine that they’re taking away anything from my class. If I didn't have these textbooks dictating the topics we could cover, I would cover much less and slow down and make sure each lesson was in-depth. Instead, I have to make judgement calls about how much time we can spend on each thing before  moving on. 

I don’t want you to see this list and think I am complaining. I am not. I enjoy my work greatly, and I feel very lucky to be working here at QuFu Normal University. My students are brilliant, and I appreciate them daily. However, these are the things I have to keep in mind when I am making lesson plans, working on curriculum, and deciding what to include in teacher training workshops. A lot of these difficulties stem from cultural differences and require me to adapt and change just as much as I am pushing my students to bend. I am becoming a more flexible, more capable, and more opinionated educator. I just hope my students are learning as much from me as I am learning from them and this teaching context. 

[tyronearmstrong]

Quitting Facebook because of the Facebook Friends you chose?

Announcing that you’ve quit Facebook is almost like a badge of honor for some folks these days. Many try to recruit others to follow them.

I get people leaving Facebook out of “philosophical” concerns, though I think they’ll miss out on a lot by doing so. I don’t understand people quitting Facebook because they found their Facebook News Feed so awful.

Afterall, your News Feed is created by your Facebook friends and your engagement with those friends. You choose your friends on Facebook, you share what you want to share and you comment and like at your own pleasure.

It’s your friends and your engagement – sharing, likes and comments that drives Facebook algorithms – the algorithms that will dictate what you see in your News Feed. 

My friend (not on Facebook as he quit) and the founder of Rocket Matter, Larry Port, asked people to join him in quitting Facebook. He quit, in part, because his News Feed.

I found the toxic politics and the pointless arguments very distressing. I’m ashamed to admit that I was part of the problem: I damaged a few relationships (that I know of at least) because of overheated political discussions that did nothing to help anyone.

Also, my news feed was no fun anymore.  It only featured the same twenty or so people even though I had hundreds of friends.  Maybe I muted too many people, or maybe Facebook’s algorithms were tuned to show me too many ads.

Ronald Langeveld, a freelance web developer, shared over the weekend how to quit Facebook and get a download of all your friends and photos before your account is deleted. He was sick of his News Feed.

People still share things way too much and every time you go on Facebook there’s like a whole plague of negativity that’s trying to give me cancer. Just no. It’s not cool. It really is no longer the cool thing it was back in 2008.

Complaining about what your Facebook friends are saying, the friends you chose, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Nor does complaining about the discussion, what you see and what you hear, when you have chosen all of this.

It’s like complaining about the conversation and what you see in this bar you keep going into that’s filled with the friends you chose to be there. Rather than be more selective about the friends you choose, where you go and what you say, you complain about the bar.

I’ve worked to make sure that my Facebook experience is a valuable one. I followed my friend, Robert Scoble’s advice to befriend on Facebook the people who will add value to my life. Facebook friends, whether I know them in person or not.

So when I opened my News Feed just now I saw posts from:

Personal friend

Law firm CMO

Law firm management consultant 

Seattle lawyer

One of the leading advertising and First Amendment lawyers in the country

Iranian-Canadian blogger who was imprisoned in Tehran for six years

Leading class action and mass tort appellate lawyer

Seattle software engineer who has been building successful companies for years

New York Times reporter

Local hometown newspaper in Wisconsin

My cousin

Robert Scoble, a tech evangelist and author

A leading technologist who gave rise to blogging by his invention of RSS

VP of research for a major publisher 

Speech writer of a former US President, now at the Wall Street Journal

Associated Press with piece on Chinese internment camps

Managing partner of major law firm

CEO of a company delivering virtual and augmented reality solutions

Former managing editor of Wall Street Journal, now heading content for new digital site

Co-founder of Findlaw

Author and Associate Director of Yale University

International correspondent with the New York Times

I don’t share this list to impress you – and it’s a total mix of personal items, news and other commentary. I share the list to impress upon you that these are not the type of folks that bring a “plague of negativity” or “toxic politics and pointless arguments.”

These folks bring value to my life, personally and professionally.

I work to improve my News Feed, just like you would work to bring the type of entertainment, news and information to your life by choosing what you considered appropriate magazines, newspapers, television news and shows and local events.

I look at the “People You May Know” feature opening up the pages of people with whom I have thirty or more mutual Facebook Friends. For every twenty or thirty of them, I find someone interesting who is sharing items I would find of value. I send them a friend request and they accept.

Though I am interested in politics, I don’t connect with people who regularly share and discuss political news and views. Doing so would cause Facebook to drive heated political discussion into my News Feed. I also don’t like or comment on political news my friends share on Facebook. Again the algorithms would bring it on.

Right or wrong, because of what the algorithms will bring, I’m conscious of the the things I like and the people whose posts I like. I understand the impact of engagement with certain people and talking about certain things. 

There was no rule book I followed. Insight I read from people smarter than I and common sense guided me.

As a result I have a virtual newspaper of things I find of value accompanied by personal items I enjoy learning of from people I already cared for or have come to care for. The news I receive is from people I trust. 

And I don’t see any ads that I know of – I use my iPhone or iPad for Facebook.

Quit Facebook for philosophical reasons, if you’d like, at your own loss. But don’t tell folks that Facebook is a waste because of your News Feed. That’s your own fault.

Quitting Facebook because of the Facebook Friends you chose? published first on https://personalinjuryattorneyphiladelphiablog.wordpress.com/

[mikegranich87]

The Morning After: Crypto heist hacker returns all $610 million they stole

It’s the weirdest cryptocurrency heist so far. On Monday, Poly Network, a cryptocurrency finance platform, was hacked by “Mr. White Hat” who exploited a vulnerability in its code to steal $610 million in Ethereum, Shiba Inu and other cryptocurrencies. The company now says it has recovered all the money it lost in the theft.

Less than a day after stealing the digital currencies, the hacker started returning millions saying they were “ready to surrender.” They subsequently locked more than $200 million in assets in an account that required passwords from both them and Poly Network. They said they would only provide their password once everyone was “ready.” At that point, Poly Network offered the hacker a $500,000 reward — a fraction of what they had stolen.

It’s not entirely clear why the hacker surrendered, but it may have been difficult to cash out the millions. The hacker says they were trying to contribute to the security of Poly Network. Maybe they just didn’t want to get caught. Poly will breathe a sigh of relief as will those that were doing their crypto trading through the platform.

— Mat Smith

A Razer mouse can bypass Windows security just by being plugged in

The company says it's fixing the flaw.

Security researcher Jon Hat posted on Twitter that after plugging in a Razer mouse or dongle, Windows Update will download the Razer installer executable and run it with SYSTEM privileges. It also lets you access the Windows file explorer and Powershell with "elevated" privileges, which means nefarious types could install harmful software — if they can get to your USB ports.

Since this vulnerability requires someone plugging in a mouse, it's not nearly as dangerous as a remote attack, but it's still not great for Razer. The company's security team said it’s working on a fix. 

Continue reading.

Finally, the ‘Stardew Valley’ esports tournament is a thing

Farm, mine and fish your way to glory on Labor Day weekend.

ConcernedApe

Esports is most commonly associated with high-octane competitive games, usually with guns. That’s not the vibe in Stardew Valley, where you literally tend to crops. It’s more agrarian, less aggro.

But soon, some of the world's finest Stardew Valley players will face off for thousands of dollars. Creator Eric Barone said the first official Stardew Valley Cup event will take place on September 4th. “It’s a competition of skill, knowledge and teamwork, with a prize pool of over $40k.”

More than 100 challenges have been created for competitors to tackle, with four teams of four players each having three hours to complete as many of the tasks as they can. Best start sharpening that hoe.

Continue reading.

NASA’s latest video from Mars looks like ‘Dune’

A new video from the Curiosity rover is here.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory released a breathtaking panorama of the inside of the Gale Crater, as snapped by the Curiosity Rover. It shows off where the rover has been and where it’s going. Apparently, on a clear day when there’s no dust in the air, you can see up to 20 miles away.

Continue reading.

PayPal brings its cryptocurrency trading feature to the UK

Even in small units.

PayPal is bringing the ability to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies across to the other side of the pond, the better part of a year after it launched in the US. In a statement, the company said that UK-based users would be able to buy, hold and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash via their PayPal account. The company adds that users can buy as little as £1 of cryptocurrency, and while there are no fees to hold the currency, users will have to pay transaction and currency conversion fees. And hey, it’s not Poly.

Continue reading.

'Twelve Minutes' ruins a compelling game concept

I’ve been waiting a while for this, too. 

Annapurna Interactive

Twelve Minutes managed to hook several Engadget editors when it was revealed back in 2015. Even before it gained an all-star cast including Daisy Ridley, James McAvoy and Willem Dafoe, the pitch was easy to understand: a time loop point-and-click adventure. I made a note to keep an eye on the title, and Devindra Hardawar, who reviewed the game, did the same.

Unfortunately, the need to push the story in any — most! — directions leads to some grim choices by the player, and what Devindra calls “mind-numbingly dumb” twists. Tell us how you really feel.

Continue reading.

Apple employees are organizing to push for 'real change' at the company

“We’ve exhausted all internal avenues,” the group says.

A group of current and former Apple employees are calling on colleagues to publicly share stories of discrimination, harassment and retaliation at the company. The collective has started a Twitter account called Apple Workers.

"For too long, Apple has evaded public scrutiny," the group says on its website. "When we press for accountability and redress to the persistent injustices we witness or experience in our workplace, we are faced with a pattern of isolation, degradation and gaslighting." In August, the company put Ashley Gjøvik, a senior engineering program manager, on paid administrative leave. Apple hasn’t yet commented.

Continue reading.

The best streaming gear for students

It’s not just laptops and keyboards.

Being a student is hard, but just because you’re holed up in a dorm room doesn’t mean you should settle for mediocre entertainment. Our updated Student Buyer’s Guide has everything you could possibly need to upgrade from mindlessly watching Netflix on your laptop. That includes deals for TVs, audio gear and the best streaming devices.

Continue reading.

Take a first look at the live-action ‘Cowboy Bebop’

It’s coming November 19th.

Netflix

Netflix's live-action adaptation of classic anime Cowboy Bebop has been a long time coming, and the show finally has a release date. The 10-episode first season will start streaming on November 19th. There’s still no trailer, but we get some stills of the iconic crew, played by John Cho (Spike Spiegel), Mustafa Shakir (Jet Black) and Daniella Pineda (Faye Valentine). There’s a corgi, too.

Continue reading.

Virgin Orbit plans to go public

It’ll go on the Nasdaq exchange to fund its space satellite project.

Mike Blake / Reuters

Virgin Orbit, the less glamorous half of Virgin’s space adventures, has announced plans to go public on the Nasdaq stock exchange through a special purpose acquisitions company (SPAC) merger. The deal with NextGen Acquisition Corp. II values Virgin Orbit at $3.2 billion.

The combined company is expected to pull in up to $483 million in cash when the deal closes, and it plans to scale up its rocket manufacturing. The first spaceflight company to go public through a SPAC, and the company that really kicked off the SPAC trend was Virgin Galactic back in 2019, which sought to fund its tourist trips to space. Yeah, the more exciting facet of space companies.

Continue reading.

The biggest stories you might have missed

The best laptops for college students

'Outriders' is perfectly average, making it ideal for Xbox Game Pass

Teardown shows the Playdate won't suffer from controller drift like the Switch

Rare commemorative Game & Watch handheld sells for $9,100 at auction

T-Mobile is giving customers a free year of Apple TV+

Data leak exposed 38 million records, including COVID-19 vaccination statuses

The OnePlus Buds Pro feature smart ANC and a white-noise mode

from Mike Granich https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-crypto-heist-hacker-returns-all-610-million-they-stole-111630131.html?src=rss

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 4: There has to be more! Part 3

Peach, cherry blossom and white jazmin, somehow, every time Erik got into a very deep sleep, he smelled this fragrance. Like if something in his brain activated and made him able to smell it, and everytime he did he felt protected, he felt alright, he felt... Fine. Sometimes Erik wasn't completely asleep, but instead, he was in kind of a "level zero" zone, there was only him, in an empty dark room, walking, talking and thinking, but the thing that actually remained no matter what, was that fragrance, it even appeared when he meditated, when he relaxed, and sometimes when he was completely calmed or focused, the fragrance appeared floating in the air, he was used to it, and with time, it became his favourite smell in the world. The weekend was here and the question still remained, what was inside the silver plaque. Erik thought about it over and over again, until he couldn't think straight. Probably wanting to know what Alexander was doing was a waste of time, maybe he was working and that's why he couldn't come by his house, or maybe he left never to be seen again, there were endless possibilities to what he was doing and yet, Erik wanted to know. He wanted to know why, he didn't care about the how or the what or even the when, but the why, why was there an Academy? Why no one knew anything about his brother? Why no one was against the Academy? Why things were like they were? Why working for the S.E.A.L.P or the Academy was what everyone desired to do with their lives? All of this questions were constantly in his mind, craving to be answered, and he wasn't going to give up, he was determined to find out what was there.

Erik was sitting on the small stairs that led to the library, just in front of the small park where most students enjoyed group activities together or just hanging out. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plaque, it didn’t matter what he was doing there was constantly a vague thought of it. Erik stood up and he took a deep breath.

«I don’t know what I am doing really» he thought and proceeded to walk to his room. Most of the students were on a relax state, there were no books around or laptops, just people hanging out, the Academy had a great impact in the student's life, but it wasn’t overwhelming enough to frustrate them.

Helena was getting some stuff from the library but Erik was too distracted to help so he decided to go out to try clearing his mind. He walked down the gardens and started looking at everything, the Academy buildings were not exactly old, rather well taken care of. There was no paint missing, or cracks or anything like that. Erik found a lone chair near one of the small ponds, and took a seat. Everything was so peaceful, so soothing, it felt almost unreal.

Durum, Durum

It was Erik’s phone, he took it out of his hoodie and had a look. It was a text from Helena.

                                  //Hey genius, I am done with

                            my homework. Wanna grab a bite?

Erik smiled a little bit, the thought of eating something made him hungry so he answered Helena and walked back to the library.

Both of them walked back to their rooms and prepared to have lunch at Helena’s. She had prepared some fish n chips, they both liked fried potatoes.

Erik tried with all his strength to stop thinking about the plaque and Alexander, but even though he tried, he seemed distant. Helena was talking about what she read about the connection matrix and how it could be used to create an electronic “brain”.

‘Erik, are you ok? You haven’t said anything all day’ asked Helena, quite concerned.

‘Yeah, I know, I am sorry, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it you know? It’s like if it was the last thing I got to my brother, and I am sorry if I dragged you into this, because if you want out, I totally understand…’

‘No!’ said Helena loudly.

‘I don’t want out, I want to help you, we are in this together right? Besides, I’ve also been thinking about it too. Actually I searched for more information in the library.’

‘Really? What did you found out’ Erik got very interested.

‘I didn’t find anything about your name nor your brother’s, but I found out what the A.I. Development team was up to when your brother was here three years ago. Apparently they were developing some kind of adaptable A.I., it was going to be a special software capable of running an entire diagnosis of whatever you need, it could work on any kind of technology, from laptops to even complete computer use houses.’ explained Helena almost whispering.

‘But, we don’t have any of that, all the electronic houses have very simple software, a task and process system. What they were doing, it could’ve changed a lot of things.’ processed Erik, his looked was puzzling and pensive.

‘They managed to create a small prototype, but it never got out of the Alpha release, it was ultimately scrapped. After that, the team disbanded and there was something about neuroscience, but I don’t recall.’ finished Helena.

‘You think the plaque has something to do with any of that, adaptable A.I.? It mimics the surface it touches after all.’ said Erik while he looked at the back of his phone where the plaque was.

‘I am not really sure, it behaves like a hardware rather than a software.’

Helena got up, walked towards Erik and hugged him.

‘I know all of this is frustrating, but we are going to make it through.’

‘Thanks Shine, really’

Both friends finished their meal, and now that they both got some tension out of their bodies, they decided to continue their daily studying routine.

Bureep, Bureep

It was Helena’s phone, she got a text, but it was weird, the only texts she ever got was Erik’s, Erik’s mom and her parents, but this was another number.

                             //Hi, Caitlyn here, I just wanted to

                                  let you know that Chris and

                                   I will go to the Mid-term

                           Relaxation, and we thought it would

                               be great if the four us attended.

                             We hope you can make it, bye!

Helena made a expression of weirdness, she never thought that Caitlyn would message her.

‘It’s Caitlyn, she is inviting us to the Mid-term Relaxation, she’s going with Christopher.’ explained Helena.

‘Oh that event, you want to go?’ asked Erik, if Helena wanted to go he would be ok with it, but he didn’t really liked those type of events.

‘Well, we should try to distract ourselves from all of this, I think this is a good opportunity’ said Helena, fearing Erik would say no.

Erik stayed quiet for a few seconds and then took both of Helena’s hands.

‘I guess if we are going to do this, we should do it the right way,I’ll come pick you up at 6, just be there and be you, pretty.’

Helena blushed a bit, it was the first time Erik said something like that. Erik smiled and he walked out of Helena’s room.

Erik got to his room and after a big sigh, he laid in his bed, he stayed there for a bit, everything seemed to stop and move extremely slow, and somehow  the smell came back.

Peach, cherry blossom and white jasmine.

‘Are you sure of this?’

‘I know what I want’

‘Even if that meant to know something you won’t like.’

‘I am not alone in this… I won’t drag anyone else.’

‘You’ve already done that’

‘Even if I did, I’ll keep everyone else out and safe before any of this ends’

‘You are striving for too much’

‘He would’ve done the same…’

Erik opened his eyes and stood up, he took a glance at his phone, it was 5:26pm. The new symbol was still there, Erik clicked it and a big “Installing” warning popped up. He got ready to go to that, Mid-term relaxation thing, he didn’t want to go too formal, but not entirely casual. He decided to use the Academy cardigan with a nice white shirt underneath. He decided to use a tie, it has been a while since he got to use a tie, he remembered that only once his father teached him how to tie it, it was blue with red stripes. He liked how he dressed up, which was weird since he never actually liked what he weared, it was more a matter of comfort rather than looks.

He was ready and walked out of his room, took a deep breath, tried to clear his mind and knocked on Helena’s door. He stood for about a minute and then, the door opened a little bit.

‘Erik?’ Helena asked nervously.

‘Yeah, it’s me, are you alright?’

‘Yes, is just that, I’ve never done this before’ Helena confessed trying to laugh a bit.

‘If you don’t want to go, it’s fine really.’ tried to explained Erik.

‘No, no, I want to go, is just that… just close your eyes, ok?’ said Helena almost begging for it.

Erik closed his eyes and took a step backwards. Helena opened the door slowly and looked at Erik, she was genuinely surprised, Erik looked quite good and he looked handsome.

‘I guess you can open them now’ said Helena nervously.

Erik opened his eyes, Helena was standing in front of him but she got makeup on, her eyes looked a little bit wider, her slight pink lips were of a darker pink, her hair was on a ponytail but she left some spare hair that hang up on the side of her head.

‘You look, great Shine’ said Erik smiling he turned a little bit to the side and offered her his hand. ‘Shall we?’

Helena took his hand and they both walked out the dormitories building.

The Mid-term relaxation was going to be in one of the event buildings, near the food court, it was a two floor building that had a great view of the Academy grounds.

When they arrived the place had very dim lights and there were a bunch of students outside talking and having a good time. Erik and Helena entered and what they saw surprised them. The place was full of different kind of tables and chairs, and a big table full of different kinds of food. There even was a dancing floor and the music wasn’t very loud, but you could hear it from anywhere.

‘We are here, now what?’ asked Erik.

‘I don’t… know to be honest, maybe we should try finding Caitlyn and Christopher’ proposed Helena walking and looking around.

Erik walked alongside Helena and they found Christopher and Caitlyn near the balcony on the second floor.

‘Hey, so glad you could make it guys’ said Caitlyn happily before hugging both of them.

‘Yeah, good to see you too’ said Erik.

The four of them talked for a while, they had fun and laughs, and for a few moments, Erik forgot completely about the plaque and his brother, specially with the food  it was delicious and somehow you always wanted to eat a little bit more.

Caitlyn and Christopher eventually went dancing, Helena was a little bit tired so she didn’t want to dance at the moment  but she got something else on her mind.

Helena was sat down looking at one of the tables near the dancing floor, she looked, troubled.

Erik took some drinks, apple juice for him and ice tea for Helena, and when he arrived at the table he noticed Helena was looking at something or well, someone. Across the dancing floor, at a round table,  there was black haired girl having a drink, she looked bored though.

‘You should go talk to her’ said Erik before sitting down. This made Helena jump of surprise and then she realized it was Erik, nevertheless, she blushed, a lot, even so that it was noticeable even in the dim lights of the place.

‘Am I too obvious?’ asked Helena while she took her ice tea.

‘Well, besides staring at her, you haven’t stopped playing with you hair, you do that when you are insecure about something, which you shouldn’t, you look amazing, and you are amazing, besides, she looks like she would like a good talk.’ said Erik before taking a sip of his juice.

‘I’ll do it’ said Helena, she stood up and walked towards the lonely girl.

‘Go get’em girl’ said Erik from behind her.

He looked how other people were dancing and talking, but somehow, he felt out of place. Erik stood up and walked up to the second floor, maybe some fresh air would help.

It was relatively lonely, just some people talking and enjoying the view.

Erik looked at the horizon, the air was blowing slightly and it was fresh due to the night. In the distance he was able to see some lights, probably the city, he remembered his parents, his mom was probably finishing a new chapter of her nightly reading and his dad was finishing some work before bed.

‘A great view isn’t it?’ said  womanly voice Erik didn’t recognize.

‘Yeah, I guess it is’ he answered before turning around.

‘Sorry, where are my manners, I am Scarlette’ said the brown haired girl introducing herself.

‘I am Erik’

‘Redwood? So you are the new Academy star huh? The Principals talks a lot about you and you friend.’ said Scarlette while she walked towards the edge of the balcony.

‘You are close with the Principal?’ asked Erik somehow angry, he found the Principal irritating.

‘Not exactly, I am just a S.E.A.L.P. assistant, but she always mentions you at the meetings. She always says that you are a great addition to the Academy, and that your potential shouldn’t go to waste.’

‘Let me guess, she says I should stay so the Academy can have more students like me.’ said Erik with disdain.

‘I don’t really know that, but what I know is that if the S.E.A.L.P. had someone like you  everything would be so much easier. After all, working for them was one of the best decisions of my life.’ Scarlette turned around and looked at Erik.

Erik could notice that her eyes were, somehow red, quite unusual, maybe was the lightning.

‘I don’t want to work for the Academy, nor the S.E.A.L.P., I have other plans for the future.’ Erik remembered the plaque and his brother.

‘It’s ok, I am no one to tell you what to do. Sometimes we just need the right conditions at the right moment to take a decision. It was a pleasure Erik, I hope we can talk soon’ said Scarlette before leaving the balcony.

Those words stayed in Erik’s head a while longer.

“We just need the right conditions at the right moment…”

Suddenly he felt like a bucket of cold water hit him, a realization, the plaque needed the right conditions, to be able to be used, the right angle, lightning and environment, he took his phone out and detached the plaque. When the moonlight touched it, it shined brightly, he moved it slowly until he achieved a 45° angle and the circuits started to move by themselves, it rearranged for a couple of seconds until finally it stopped, all the circuits were connected and made a complete path. On the lowest part of the plaque a small circuit was incomplete, it was just two nodes, slightly separated, Erik got his thumb closer and a small red spark shined making the circuits glow dimly.

Durum

Erik’s phone sounded, he looked at the screen, it had a message.

                           //System Synchronization complete

                                Please insert Security Module//

Erik felt as if the plaque got magnetized toward his phone, so he inserted it into the small opening where his ID was.

               //Security Module installed, running Initiative Protocol

                                      Decoder lenz...installed

                                      S.G.S. Clearance...Echo

                                     Documents integrity...27%//

Erik couldn’t believe it, he cracked open Alexander’s plaque, he immediately called Helena.

‘Shine, we did it, the plaque works’

‘You got the document?!’

‘Yes I got it, it can’t be only one, there has to be more!’

[themoneybuff-blog]

Case study: Deep in debt but scared to take action

Last night, as I do from time to time, I met with a GRS reader. Actually, Debbie doesn't read this site but her sister does. And Debbie means to. Although I met Debbie's sister last year at a Camp FI event, I'd never met Debbie before. So, what's your situation? I asked after our waiter had brought us each a glass of wine. What do you want to know about money? Everything, Debbie said, laughing. I feel like I don't know much at all right now. I guess deep down, I know what I need to do. I just don't do it. I nodded. I'm like that with fitness, I said. I know what I need to do, but I just don't do it. I know I need to exercise. I know I need to stretch. I know I need to eat better food. But for a lot of people people like you and me there's a barrier between knowledge and action. It doesn't matter if we know how to do the right thing. It's the action that matters. I buy books about money but I never read them, Debbie said. I have Dave Ramsey and The Millionaire Next Door. Those are both good books, I said. Then, I shifted gears. Looking for Purpose This might seem odd, but let's talk about your goals. What do you want out of life? What are your big plans? Our waiter brought Debbie a bowl of mussels and me a plate of pasta. I want to make the world a better place, Debbie said. I'm young. I work for a huge multi-national company. But I don't believe in the company and I don't believe in my work. I get paid $20 an hour to bring people coffee and water all day. I have a bartending gig on weekends. I want to do something that matters. Maybe improve our food system, for instance. I hate how people eat. I want more people to have better access to high-quality food. That sounds like a noble goal, I said. How do you get there from where you are now? I don't know, Debbie said. It seems impossible. I have $80,000 in student loans but they're in deferral. I don't have to pay anything on them, but they still accumulate $600 in interest every month. How can I ever hope to catch up? Yeah, that's rough, I said. I used to be in a similar position. Twenty years ago, I had over $35,000 in credit card and consumer debt. That's not the same as your $80,000, but it'd probably be equivalent to about $50,000 today. I carried that debt for a long time, just treading water, never getting ahead. I felt like I'd never get it paid off. But you did it? I did, I said. I did it by creating a gap between my earning and spending. Fundamentally, there are only two things you can do to improve your situation. You can make more money or you can spend less. Ideally, you'd do both. You want as wide a gap as possible between what you earn and what you spend. Right now, it sounds as if you don't have a gap. You have a deficit. Debbie nodded. I slurped down some noodles. Two Familiar Foes How much is your rent? I asked. She looked sheepish. I pay $1200 for an apartment in northeast Portland, she said. She gave an address near where I lived after my divorce. I know I should have roommates but I don't. I don't want the complications. And what's your take-home pay? Just over $2000 per month, Debbie said. Yeah, your rent is pretty high, I said. I mean, it's not high compared to other places in Portland it seems about average but it's high compared to your income. Nearly 60% of what you earn is going to housing. That's a lot! The average American spends about one-third of their take-home pay on housing. So, that's a great place to try to cut costs. Maybe not right now, but over the long term. I like where I live, Debbie said, prying open a mussel. You might want to consider roommates, I said. Aside from your housing costs, it doesn't sound like the rest of your spending is outrageous. Honestly, if I were you, I'd try to find ways to boost your income. Especially since you hate your job. I know, Debbie said. I've thought about that. I have a marketing degree that I'm not using. My current company offered to give me a raise and a promotion, but I turned it down. I would have been doing work that I hate even more. It would be difficult for me to be in a position where I had to represent a company I don't like. Why don't you quit? I asked. I did once, she said. But then I went back right away. I was scared to apply for new work. I don't have much self-confidence. I mean, I'm 31 and have a marketing degree, but I don't have any experience. Who would hire me? I get the lack of self-confidence, I said. I totally get it. I struggle with that every day. You do? Debbie said. She seemed surprised. Yes, I said. Every day. Even today, I've been dragging around with my head full of negative self-talk. But here's the thing: I've learned to just do the stuff that scares me anyhow. The Importance of Action For some reason, our conversation turned to running. Debbie wants to run a marathon in two months, but she doesn't feel ready. Have you run a marathon before? she asked. I haven't run a marathon, I said, but I've walked one. Ten years ago, when I was fifty pounds heavier, I trained to run the Portland Marathon, but I got hurt. Instead, when the time came, I walked the entire thing. I paused and pointed at my feet. And I walked it in these hiking boots! For real? she said.

Yes, I said. Looking back, it was goofy. But I really wanted to complete the marathon, so for some reason I decided the best way to do it was just to have fun. Since I was too hurt to run, I walked in street clothes, as if I were out for a hike. Anyhow, this kind of ties back to you looking for work. I could have easily decided to not do the marathon since I was injured. I could have given up. Instead, I found a way to do it. I know that applying for jobs sucks. I know you're worried about rejection. But I think you should do it anyhow. Accept the fact that you're going to get rejected. Screw it. Apply anyhow, and look at the whole thing as practice. Tell yourself that even if you don't find a better job, you'll be getting experience with interviews and the hiring process. I took one last bite of my pasta. Really, I said, it's all about taking action. Even if you're scared. I told Debbie about my friend Mike. Mike is a software engineer who is happy in his high-paying job. All the same, once or twice each year he takes time off work to interview with other companies. He's not actively seeking to leave his job, but he wants to stay sharp. He wants to see what other opportunities are out there. He wants to get practice interviewing. Obviously, Debbie is in a different situation, but I think she can apply the same principles: Actively apply for other work. View the experience as an exercise, not a necessity. When she doesn't get a job, she should follow up to find out why not. Ultimately, I didn't have any magic answers that could make Debbie's money problems disappear overnight. As is often the case, she's going to have to do a lot of hard work (and make some sacrifices) in order to improve her financial situation. She's going to have to avoid falling into the forever fallacy, the mistaken belief that she'll always be struggling at a job she hates while carrying a mountain of debt. Things will be tough for a while but if she can make some course corrections, they'll improve. Thanks for meeting me, Debbie said as we left the restaurant. I hope it helped, I said. I'm never convinced that these conversations are actually useful for the people I meet. Like I said, I too lack self-confidence. It did, she said. I'm going to get a new job. It Gets Better My dinner with Debbie reminded me of a conversation I had last year with my friends Wally and Jodie. As I shared last August, this couple has decided to take control of their finances, but they started with less than zero. In fact, their situation is very similar to Debbie's. When I wrote about Wally and Jodie in August, their income and spending were qual. They couldn't save anything. They had $35,000 in debt and were behind on a car payment. I don't know their exact situation today, but I know they've been working together to increase their saving rate. They don't go out to eat. They don't drink alcohol. They work constantly at multiple jobs. It sucks, Wally told me last weekend. We're tired all of the time. We can't wait for this to end. But you know what? You were right when you said that it won't last forever. Already, we can see that. Last summer, we had no margin. Now we have an $800 gap every month. Wow, I said. Nice work! Yeah, said Wally. It's very tempting to spend that money, but so far we haven't. We're using it to catch up on our debt. It's only a matter of time before everything is paid off and we can go back to saner hours. It feels good. I love hearing success stories like this. I love seeing people taking action to turn their lives around. I believe strongly that Debbie can turn her life around too. She's young. She's smart. She's engaging. She lacks self-confidence, but that can be faked. If Debbie is willing to make a couple of big moves reduce her rent and find a new job I suspect that in six months or a year that she too will find that she has a gap between what she earns and what she spends. And when she creates this gap, her worries will diminish. (They'll never go away, but they'll decline.) In time, she will pay off her student loans, find work that she loves, and change the world.

Author: J.D. Roth In 2006, J.D. founded Get Rich Slowly to document his quest to get out of debt. Over time, he learned how to save and how to invest. Today, he's managed to reach early retirement! He wants to help you master your money and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you reach your goals. https://www.getrichslowly.org/deep-in-debt/

[ecotone99]

[RF] A Ruined Day for an Early Hiker

I’m guessing no one ever really reads this, one or two cops probably read it as evidence, maybe if someone finds this before my body. Well if you’re unlucky enough to be reading this I have some bad news, there’s a body floating somewhere in the lake.

I guess the best place to start would be who I am, then later I can explain why and how I got here. In 1994 two people in their early 20’s met at a Real Mccoy concert, they smoked some pot and talked about space aliens, Bryan was of the belief that space aliens not only existed, but had visited our planet Earth on numerous occasions, Amanda was of the belief that space aliens didn’t really matter, and that she’d rather ponder over the mysteries in Bryan’s pants.

They made love under the stars, which is a very strange thing to do if you believe in space aliens, especially if you believe those aliens often research our planet with very strong telescopes, which of course, Bryan believed. Afterwards Amanda lit a cigarette and told Bryan that while she liked him a lot, she would have to skip town soon, she was a novelist on an adventure, and this little town in Texas was not where the universe was calling her. Amanda had always been a believer that the universe had a plan for each of us, which in retrospect made it particularly strange that she didn’t believe in space aliens.

Bryan was of course saddened by the fact that this beautiful girl would be leaving soon, but he knew he was in no position to adventure with her, he’d just landed a new job at a company that built airplanes, and he’d been taking classes at the local university. Bryan’s life was in that little Texas town, and he was ready to settle down, he’d leave the adventuring for another day.

I am not Bryan, and if you’re reading this before you find my body you should know I’m not Amanda either, while I do have her eyes and nose, there’s a rather distinct difference in what we have between our legs, presumably I got that from Bryan.

I’ve never been a huge fan of overly suspenseful non fiction, so I’ll just tell you now, Amanda’s book was brilliant, Bryan became a spaceship engineer, and they never met again. Oh and they managed to create a fucking monster.

My mother died when I was 15, which I found rather depressing, she’d finished her novel a few months before and was in the process of publishing, when a routine trip to the doctor’s ended badly. You’ve heard that story before, to sum it up quickly, there was a whole lot of crying, surgery, and chemo. After she died the publishing company sent me a very nice gift basket and a letter apologizing but mentioning that they would not be publishing my mother’s book, she was too unknown to publish post-mortem.

Before she passed away my mother gave me an address, my father, she told me, lived in a small town in Texas, he built airplanes, liked the real Mccoy, but thought their album Space Invaders was a bit derivative, and spent most nights looking for space invaders of his own. I threw the address away of course, I hadn’t needed this man yet, and he clearly had better things to do than raise me. Unfortunately some social workers got a hold on the address and had different plans. A week after my mother’s funeral I was on a bus from Kentucky to Texas.

In my defense, I had just gone through a very traumatic event, found out my father didn’t know I existed, and met twin babies that were my new half brothers, it was a stressful time, but I treated the last of my family like shit for the next three years. I should’ve helped with the babies, I should’ve gotten a job, or at the very least helped around the house, instead I spent every day getting high and doing nothing important.

I ruined their marriage, my dad claimed it wasn’t my fault, and of course they both played their parts but I have a feeling it’s a lot easier to raise somebody else’s bastard if he isn’t selling pot to the neighbor’s kids. After the divorce my dad and I moved into a small apartment, he saw the twins most weekends, but I never really found much of a point in it.

I graduated highschool and had good enough grades to get into a small university an hour from my father’s apartment. On the last day I spent in that apartment we shared a 6 pack and my dad told me the story of how he met my mother, it was short enough to include in my suicide note. We both apologized, I forgave him, it wasn’t his fault my mother never told him I existed, and he’d stayed by my side while I destroyed his life.

“Where to next?” I asked him right before we went to bed.

“I guess maybe it’s my turn for an adventure.” We saw each other a few times after that.

College was fine for me, I followed in my father’s footsteps and went into the sciences, I spent five years in that place and managed to walk out with a degree in Computer Science. I had friends there, met girls, and finally did a little more with myself than just smoking weed. My fifth and final year at university was when I started to see the signs.

It started like radio static, like voices were talking very far away and while the noise was carried to me, the words were lost on the journey. I ignored it for a while, nothing more than stress and partying too much.I went to the doctor after the first time I made out a full sentence; “Rape that girl, make her bleed.”

A minor case of paranoid schizophrenia, Thiothixene, one pill a day, and weekly therapy, that’s what they told me it would cost to get the voices to shut up. It worked for another year, and I managed to graduate and get a job validating software, a job anyone could do just fine after a lobotomy.

I didn’t make many friends after college, I spent two years at the same job and went out with my coworkers only a handful of times. There was one girl at work I was obsessed with, Jolene, a gorgeous woman only a year my senior. Jolene worked in our accounting department, she was smart, funny, and cute. Oh and I’m using the past tense because her body is wrapped in a blanket in the trunk of my car.

I didn’t mean to kill her, neither did the voices, at least I don’t think they did, but Jolene stumbled upon my secret and she wanted to leave and she was going to leave and tell everyone and the voices said if I didn’t stop her she would tell them and she wanted to leave so I took the bottle in my hand and I wasn’t thinking but I hit her with the bottle but I hit her too hard.

I didn’t want to hurt her.

She kept breathing for a while, I watched her chest rise and fall for a few minutes, but she was leaking. Blood dripped from her head and her blond hair slowly stained crimson as it clumped together.

I wanted to call an ambulance, I wanted to save her, but they told me not to, they said if we did we’d be locked up tortured there, hurt, raped, beat, killed for what we did.

I tried to reason with them, “But if she lives they can’t be that mad at me, they’ll help they won’t hurt me!”

Then there was a booming laughter drowning in the static of my brain, the volume turned as high as it could go. The voice screamed to me, cackling all the while, “No one will care about this girl, but for what’s on your computer they’ll kill you.”

What is on my computer was put there by someone else, someone using my hands to press the keys, but another person all together. I wasn’t the one making the decision and I didn’t even know it was there until tonight, honest. Well some of it I knew about, the adults, that was the secret she found out, the reason I hit her, but the other stuff I swear was news to me.

I know it was all wrong. I knew it all along, but I guess I just thought no one would really be hurt, it was just for me. But Jolene had been hurt, she was terrified when she saw herself on my computer, fully nude and bent in a submissive position, an intimate photo taken by a lover long ago and still backed up to his Google account. She asked me how I’d gotten it and I lied, told her he’d sent it to me unprompted and for no reason. Of course she didn’t believe me, maybe if I’d been a better liar she’d still be breathing.

And that’s when the radio static demanded I “Stop her! Before she sees everyone else!” Then there was an argument, a bottle, a leaky head, and a slow rhythmic breathing fading away.

I stole her nudes, and others, and set up hidden cameras, it was wrong but I couldn’t stop myself, but this, this was so much worse, but it wasn’t me, the voices did it, not me. Now some poor girl lay dead in my trunk because of them, all because of the voices that never shut up. The voices weren’t content ruining my life alone, they had to drag everyone else down with me. I am the outlet, I cause all of this suffering.

I am proof God either doesn’t exist, or is the world’s biggest asshole, a real loving God would have killed me the day I was born. My mother would’ve finished her book years earlier, she’d die happy as a published author, my father would be happily married, Jolene would walk into work tomorrow, and the twins, the things the voices made me do to them. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

They’re screaming at me even now. They want me to stop, to make myself throw up. “Cut up the body, hide it here. Run! Escape!” They won’t stop yelling things like this to me, it makes me think they’ll die with me.The thought of them dying is all that keeps me moving now. I’m nearly paralyzed with fear but I’ll keep going I can still bring some good to the world, if only by stopping my own evil.

I’m sorry, I’m scared, I don’t want to die, but I’ll die for you, for the good of all of you.

I finished the bottle of Thiothixene and washed it down with some bourbon, nice stuff from Kentucky, from home, from a time before the voices, before I was afraid, before I was a monster.

I’m leaving the notebook here on the dock, thank you for reading this. If there’s a God in heaven I’ll tell him off for all of you. For now I think I’ll go float into the lake for one last swim. The stars are beautiful tonight, I’ll look out towards them and watch for space aliens.

Goodnight.

I’m so sorry.

Dante

submitted by /u/WritesGarbage [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2BsFDbG

[khanguadalupe]

Quitting Facebook because of the Facebook Friends you chose?

Announcing that you’ve quit Facebook is almost like a badge of honor for some folks these days. Many try to recruit others to follow them.

I get people leaving Facebook out of “philosophical” concerns, though I think they’ll miss out on a lot by doing so. I don’t understand people quitting Facebook because they found their Facebook News Feed so awful.

Afterall, your News Feed is created by your Facebook friends and your engagement with those friends. You choose your friends on Facebook, you share what you want to share and you comment and like at your own pleasure.

It’s your friends and your engagement – sharing, likes and comments that drives Facebook algorithms – the algorithms that will dictate what you see in your News Feed. 

My friend (not on Facebook as he quit) and the founder of Rocket Matter, Larry Port, asked people to join him in quitting Facebook. He quit, in part, because his News Feed.

I found the toxic politics and the pointless arguments very distressing. I’m ashamed to admit that I was part of the problem: I damaged a few relationships (that I know of at least) because of overheated political discussions that did nothing to help anyone.

Also, my news feed was no fun anymore.  It only featured the same twenty or so people even though I had hundreds of friends.  Maybe I muted too many people, or maybe Facebook’s algorithms were tuned to show me too many ads.

Ronald Langeveld, a freelance web developer, shared over the weekend how to quit Facebook and get a download of all your friends and photos before your account is deleted. He was sick of his News Feed.

People still share things way too much and every time you go on Facebook there’s like a whole plague of negativity that’s trying to give me cancer. Just no. It’s not cool. It really is no longer the cool thing it was back in 2008.

Complaining about what your Facebook friends are saying, the friends you chose, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Nor does complaining about the discussion, what you see and what you hear, when you have chosen all of this.

It’s like complaining about the conversation and what you see in this bar you keep going into that’s filled with the friends you chose to be there. Rather than be more selective about the friends you choose, where you go and what you say, you complain about the bar.

I’ve worked to make sure that my Facebook experience is a valuable one. I followed my friend, Robert Scoble’s advice to befriend on Facebook the people who will add value to my life. Facebook friends, whether I know them in person or not.

So when I opened my News Feed just now I saw posts from:

Personal friend

Law firm CMO

Law firm management consultant 

Seattle lawyer

One of the leading advertising and First Amendment lawyers in the country

Iranian-Canadian blogger who was imprisoned in Tehran for six years

Leading class action and mass tort appellate lawyer

Seattle software engineer who has been building successful companies for years

New York Times reporter

Local hometown newspaper in Wisconsin

My cousin

Robert Scoble, a tech evangelist and author

A leading technologist who gave rise to blogging by his invention of RSS

VP of research for a major publisher 

Speech writer of a former US President, now at the Wall Street Journal

Associated Press with piece on Chinese internment camps

Managing partner of major law firm

CEO of a company delivering virtual and augmented reality solutions

Former managing editor of Wall Street Journal, now heading content for new digital site

Co-founder of Findlaw

Author and Associate Director of Yale University

International correspondent with the New York Times

I don’t share this list to impress you – and it’s a total mix of personal items, news and other commentary. I share the list to impress upon you that these are not the type of folks that bring a “plague of negativity” or “toxic politics and pointless arguments.”

These folks bring value to my life, personally and professionally.

I work to improve my News Feed, just like you would work to bring the type of entertainment, news and information to your life by choosing what you considered appropriate magazines, newspapers, television news and shows and local events.

I look at the “People You May Know” feature opening up the pages of people with whom I have thirty or more mutual Facebook Friends. For every twenty or thirty of them, I find someone interesting who is sharing items I would find of value. I send them a friend request and they accept.

Though I am interested in politics, I don’t connect with people who regularly share and discuss political news and views. Doing so would cause Facebook to drive heated political discussion into my News Feed. I also don’t like or comment on political news my friends share on Facebook. Again the algorithms would bring it on.

Right or wrong, because of what the algorithms will bring, I’m conscious of the the things I like and the people whose posts I like. I understand the impact of engagement with certain people and talking about certain things. 

There was no rule book I followed. Insight I read from people smarter than I and common sense guided me.

As a result I have a virtual newspaper of things I find of value accompanied by personal items I enjoy learning of from people I already cared for or have come to care for. The news I receive is from people I trust. 

And I don’t see any ads that I know of – I use my iPhone or iPad for Facebook.

Quit Facebook for philosophical reasons, if you’d like, at your own loss. But don’t tell folks that Facebook is a waste because of your News Feed. That’s your own fault.

Quitting Facebook because of the Facebook Friends you chose? published first on http://fergusonlawatty.tumblr.com

[jimgsimon]

Quitting Facebook because of the Facebook Friends you chose?

Announcing that you’ve quit Facebook is almost like a badge of honor for some folks these days. Many try to recruit others to follow them.

I get people leaving Facebook out of “philosophical” concerns, though I think they’ll miss out on a lot by doing so. I don’t understand people quitting Facebook because they found their Facebook News Feed so awful.

Afterall, your News Feed is created by your Facebook friends and your engagement with those friends. You choose your friends on Facebook, you share what you want to share and you comment and like at your own pleasure.

It’s your friends and your engagement – sharing, likes and comments that drives Facebook algorithms – the algorithms that will dictate what you see in your News Feed. 

My friend (not on Facebook as he quit) and the founder of Rocket Matter, Larry Port, asked people to join him in quitting Facebook. He quit, in part, because his News Feed.

I found the toxic politics and the pointless arguments very distressing. I’m ashamed to admit that I was part of the problem: I damaged a few relationships (that I know of at least) because of overheated political discussions that did nothing to help anyone.

Also, my news feed was no fun anymore.  It only featured the same twenty or so people even though I had hundreds of friends.  Maybe I muted too many people, or maybe Facebook’s algorithms were tuned to show me too many ads.

Ronald Langeveld, a freelance web developer, shared over the weekend how to quit Facebook and get a download of all your friends and photos before your account is deleted. He was sick of his News Feed.

People still share things way too much and every time you go on Facebook there’s like a whole plague of negativity that’s trying to give me cancer. Just no. It’s not cool. It really is no longer the cool thing it was back in 2008.

Complaining about what your Facebook friends are saying, the friends you chose, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Nor does complaining about the discussion, what you see and what you hear, when you have chosen all of this.

It’s like complaining about the conversation and what you see in this bar you keep going into that’s filled with the friends you chose to be there. Rather than be more selective about the friends you choose, where you go and what you say, you complain about the bar.

I’ve worked to make sure that my Facebook experience is a valuable one. I followed my friend, Robert Scoble’s advice to befriend on Facebook the people who will add value to my life. Facebook friends, whether I know them in person or not.

So when I opened my News Feed just now I saw posts from:

Personal friend

Law firm CMO

Law firm management consultant 

Seattle lawyer

One of the leading advertising and First Amendment lawyers in the country

Iranian-Canadian blogger who was imprisoned in Tehran for six years

Leading class action and mass tort appellate lawyer

Seattle software engineer who has been building successful companies for years

New York Times reporter

Local hometown newspaper in Wisconsin

My cousin

Robert Scoble, a tech evangelist and author

A leading technologist who gave rise to blogging by his invention of RSS

VP of research for a major publisher 

Speech writer of a former US President, now at the Wall Street Journal

Associated Press with piece on Chinese internment camps

Managing partner of major law firm

CEO of a company delivering virtual and augmented reality solutions

Former managing editor of Wall Street Journal, now heading content for new digital site

Co-founder of Findlaw

Author and Associate Director of Yale University

International correspondent with the New York Times

I don’t share this list to impress you – and it’s a total mix of personal items, news and other commentary. I share the list to impress upon you that these are not the type of folks that bring a “plague of negativity” or “toxic politics and pointless arguments.”

These folks bring value to my life, personally and professionally.

I work to improve my News Feed, just like you would work to bring the type of entertainment, news and information to your life by choosing what you considered appropriate magazines, newspapers, television news and shows and local events.

I look at the “People You May Know” feature opening up the pages of people with whom I have thirty or more mutual Facebook Friends. For every twenty or thirty of them, I find someone interesting who is sharing items I would find of value. I send them a friend request and they accept.

Though I am interested in politics, I don’t connect with people who regularly share and discuss political news and views. Doing so would cause Facebook to drive heated political discussion into my News Feed. I also don’t like or comment on political news my friends share on Facebook. Again the algorithms would bring it on.

Right or wrong, because of what the algorithms will bring, I’m conscious of the the things I like and the people whose posts I like. I understand the impact of engagement with certain people and talking about certain things. 

There was no rule book I followed. Insight I read from people smarter than I and common sense guided me.

As a result I have a virtual newspaper of things I find of value accompanied by personal items I enjoy learning of from people I already cared for or have come to care for. The news I receive is from people I trust. 

And I don’t see any ads that I know of – I use my iPhone or iPad for Facebook.

Quit Facebook for philosophical reasons, if you’d like, at your own loss. But don’t tell folks that Facebook is a waste because of your News Feed. That’s your own fault.

[megadarkbouquettidalwavethings]

Dropbox Chief to Join Elite Ranks of Idea-to-I.P.O. Founders

Whether Mr. Houston successfully takes Dropbox public will be closely watched, with other privately held tech companies like Uber and Airbnb also edging toward an I.P.O. Dropbox, which is based in San Francisco, is unprofitable, and Mr. Houston now has to navigate through a challenging time, both guiding his company around the tech giants that are squeezing into its space and adapting his frat guy persona to a changing culture.

“He’s maybe one of the last ones of a very un-C.E.O.-like C.E.O.,” said Jeffrey Mann, a vice president at research firm Gartner, who follows the file-sharing and collaboration industry. “He was technical. He started out by coding. Most start-ups now when they get to that size, founders like him get pushed aside for someone with a finance or management background. But he managed to stay there.”

Dropbox said Mr. Houston was unavailable for comment, citing the quiet period before an I.P.O. But according to interviews with more than a dozen people, Mr. Houston — a private man with a love of 1990s rock and business books — built his company with an easygoing management style and a dry sense of humor, which helped him deal with the bumps along the way.

Mr. Houston grew up in Acton, a suburb outside Boston, the oldest of three children. His father, an engineer, and his mother, a librarian, noticed early on that Mr. Houston was precocious and encouraged him to explore his interest in computers, but did not want him skipping grades.

“His parents wanted him to stay in first grade for socialization, and they didn’t want to use the term gifted,” said Claudia Couto, who taught at Mr. Houston’s elementary school and tutored him privately. She is now retired.

As a middle schooler, Mr. Houston beta-tested computer games looking for security flaws. He worked for a robotics start-up as a teenager and repaired computers for neighbors. He got a perfect score on the SAT and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001.

Photo

“He’s maybe one of the last ones of a very un-C.E.O.-like C.E.O.,” one tech analyst said of Mr. Houston, center, at an event in San Francisco. Credit David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

At M.I.T., he joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, which he has said helped him learn how to build a corporate culture.

Continue reading the main story

“My first management experience was being rush chairman for my fraternity, and I learned a bunch of things,” Mr. Houston said in a New York Times interview in 2016. “You deal with a lot of the same broad questions — who do we want to be as an organization, what kind of culture do we want, what kind of people are we looking for? — that you do when you’re starting a company.”

After his sophomore year, he took a year off and started an SAT prep company called Accolade with one of his former high school teachers, Andrew Crick. Upon returning to M.I.T., Mr. Houston decided to learn as much about business as he could, plowing through business books from a chair he set up on the roof of his fraternity, he has said.

A Pearl Jam fan, Mr. Houston in 2005 formed a 1990s cover band called Angry Flannel, which played at venues around Boston.

On a bus one day from Boston to New York, Mr. Houston forgot his USB flash stick. Frustrated, he started coding what would be the foundation of Dropbox. He became less interested in Accolade, which closed.

“He was really interested in entrepreneurship, which was not a common trajectory for M.I.T. students,” said Kyle Vogt, 32, chief executive of the self-driving car company Cruise Automation, who met Mr. Houston at an M.I.T. entrepreneurship club event. “The default back then was to stay in Boston or go to New York and work for a hedge fund.”

In 2007, Mr. Houston entered Dropbox into the Boston program of Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley start-up incubator. Paul Graham, who was running Y Combinator, said Mr. Houston needed a co-founder fast. Mr. Vogt referred Mr. Houston to Arash Ferdowsi, an M.I.T. student. Within two weeks, Mr. Ferdowsi became Dropbox’s co-founder; he owns a 10 percent stake of the company.

The duo worked in Cambridge, Mass., but struggled to land more funding.

In August 2007, Mr. Houston and Mr. Ferdowsi moved to San Francisco to get closer to the start-up scene. A month later, they raised $1.2 million from investors including Sequoia Capital.

Mr. Houston and Mr. Ferdowsi moved into an apartment building in the city’s North Beach neighborhood. It was known as the Y Scraper because of how many Y Combinator company founders lived and worked there. Mr. Houston and Mr. Vogt later became roommates.

Continue reading the main story

“To this day, he still likes to have people over to his apartment and do jam sessions,” Mr. Vogt said.

Mr. Houston also became close to Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. In 2013, Mr. Houston joined Mr. Zuckerberg as a co-founder of FWD.us, a group that mobilizes the tech industry for immigration reform.

Running Dropbox, Mr. Houston was at first determined to aim its product — which lets people store and access their files in the cloud — at consumers rather than businesses. He spent lavishly on employee perks, totaling $25,000 a year per person by 2016. The company once paid $60,000 for a five-foot chrome panda for its headquarters, becoming a symbol of start-up excess.

Then hurdles sprang up. In 2011, a security researcher complained to the Federal Trade Commission about the way Dropbox encrypted files. Mr. Houston called dealing with the criticism “a rite of passage.”

Dropbox also developed a reputation as an unwelcoming workplace for women. “Some of the things they’ve been struggling with are how to balance Dropbox being a fun place to work with accusations of having a frat boy atmosphere,” Mr. Mann said.

Dropbox’s business evolved in 2014 after Mr. Houston hired Dennis Woodside, a former Google executive, as chief operating officer. Now its products are primarily used for work, with businesses paying a subscription fee for the platform. A rival company, Box, which was aimed at businesses, went public in 2015.

“From Day One, Dropbox has been an incredibly user-friendly product — which is a big reason why it spread virally — but it also took the company too long to realize the money was in being a business-focused company, not a consumer-focused one,” said Ben Thompson, the analyst behind the influential tech newsletter Stratechery.

In 2015, investors began questioning whether high-priced start-ups were living up to their skyrocketing valuations. Dropbox, already privately valued at $10 billion, was marked down in value by some large institutional investors.

Continue reading the main story

Dropbox instilled more financial discipline. In 2016, employees lost many in-office perks. (The panda remained. A note posted nearby said it would serve as “a reminder” to be thoughtful about spending.)

Whether Dropbox can compete against behemoths like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google, which all provide cloud storage, remains a question.

“Here you have somebody who’s literally in competition with all four, except Facebook,” said Hadi Partovi, an early Dropbox investor. But he added that Mr. Houston’s even-keeled demeanor had allowed the company to work with competitors like Microsoft and Google.

Today, Mr. Houston lives in the Millennium Tower, a glass high-rise in the South of Market neighborhood. His apartment floors are stone and the furniture is minimalist and modern. In the living room, he has built a midsize stage to perform music. He has a house in Hawaii where he vacations.

He is a bachelor and, his friends said, lives like one.

“He never cooks. He’s a snack guy all the way if that makes any sense,” Mr. Croswell said. “He definitely wants a family.”

On weekends, he and his friends around the country still put on their headsets and play video games together.

“He doesn’t have to do any of the hacks anymore,” Mr. Croswell said. “Software companies all fixed that kind of stuff.”

Continue reading the main story

NELLIE BOWLES

The post Dropbox Chief to Join Elite Ranks of Idea-to-I.P.O. Founders appeared first on dailygate.

[ds4design]

Router assimilated into the Borg, sends 3TB in 24 hours

reader comments 0

"Well, fuck."

Harsh language was appropriate under the circumstances. My router had just been hacked.

Setting up a reliable home network has always been a challenge for me. I live in a cramped three-story house and I don't like running cables. So my router's position is determined by the fiber modem. In a corner on the bottom floor. Not long after we moved in, I realized that our old Airport Extreme was not delivering much signal to the attic, where two game-obsessed occupants fought for bandwidth.

I tried all sorts of things. I extended the network. I used ethernet-over-powerline connectors to deliver network access. I made a mystic circle and danced naked under the full moon. We lost neighbors, but we didn't gain signal.

Eventually, I gave in to the inevitable. After some research, I purchased a router that, I was told, would probably deliver useable signal to the outer reaches of the solar system. And it worked. The Netgear R6400 left only one place in the house with little-to-no reception. But, crucially, my wife and son were happy gamers upstairs, <Netflix flixxed, and Youtube tubed. Life was sweet.

Then, sometime in January, I came home to find my boy Adrian with his face in a book. Adrian reads a lot, but there is a time and place for everything, and this was gaming time and gaming place. "How's it going, Adrian?"

"Oh, good. I gave up gaming. I kept getting kicked. Even downstairs."

I attributed that to a busy server somewhere. My connection seemed good, and no one else was complaining. A few days later, my daughter Jennifer was home from school sick. She sent me a message saying that her laptop couldn't connect to the network. I talked her through a bit of trouble shooting, and, after restarting the router, all seemed to be right again.

I was troubled, though. Adrian had basically given up on gaming, but Netflix worked, and no one else seemed to be having problems.

I looked at the router settings, and they seemed OK. The router showed no interference from competing networks, but the amount of traffic it logged was suspiciously high. Or was it? I'd never tracked my household traffic before, so I couldn't be sure that what I was looking at wasn't the normal combined Youtube and Netflix usage of five people plus regular visitors.

In fact, interpreting the data use was more difficult than it should have been. My computer was confused about how numbers should be displayed. Applications that pay proper attention to the system settings use a point as the decimal place and a comma for separating thousands, millions, etc. Applications that only pay attention to my location use a comma for a decimal point and dot to separate thousands and millions. (This discrepancy can probably be attributed to me being a New Zealander living in the Netherlands.) So either the router had logged terabytes of traffic in the last period, or it had logged almost nothing.

I knew I would have to investigate. But I travel a lot for work, so finding time was difficult.

Suddenly, connecting to the network in the attic was impossible again. I couldn't figure out why. Then I noticed that my phone was randomly connecting and disconnecting from the network. A few days later, I got a message from T-Mobile saying that I'd used all my mobile data for the month. For the remainder of the lunar cycle, I would be reduced to data delivered by drunken sloths. This had happened before, but I'd been traveling a lot then, and I had been careful when traveling ever since—the sloths had caused fellow passengers to complain. In any case, I knew it was time to pull finger and do somethingTM.

Events intervened, and I was forced to delay doing anything useful. But everyone in the house was getting increasingly frustrated with the network. Then, on my way home from work one Friday, Donna told me that absolutely nothing in the house could connect to the network. And now she couldn't do her work. Deadlines were being crossed, and it wasn't her that was going to be dead. I got the message.

I arrived home that Friday night to find a house full of disconnected family members. Then, bizarrely, upon my arrival, everything connected. I ran a speed test from my computer and Donna's phone at the same time. On average, we obtained 150 percent of our maximum-rated upload and download speed. I declared there to be no problem right now. We decided to watch a show on Netflix while I kept an eye on networking performance.

To do this, I installed Peakhour. It found the router and started displaying traffic. It didn't look like much. Netflix started streaming, which caused a small bump in traffic. But traffic swiftly flattened out to background value. As I watched an old Star Trek episode and the network traffic, I contacted the Orbiting HQ for advice on how to figure out if my router (or anything else) had been hacked.

"When the police arrest your for distributing child porn" was the helpful response.

In the meantime, the total amount of data that I'd transmitted crept up, and Netflix choked on a particularly painful Wesley Crusher moment. That's when the first useful suggestion came from the collective Ars brain: a stranger had probably managed to connect to our wifi.

I know our neighbors, and I didn't think that was likely. But a huge number of devices were connected to the router, so I couldn't be sure. We turned off everything that could be turned off and slept everything that could be slept. That left a couple of unknown devices, which I kicked off the network.

Nothing changed. In the first half hour or so that I'd been monitoring, I'd transmitted 25GB of data. By the time everything else had been disconnected from the router and I'd checked that the TV software was up to date, I'd logged 188GB of data (up and down combined).

Meanwhile, Eric, our managing editor, had dug up an article from December disclosing a vulnerability in my router. The command that was supposed to kill the problem... didn't. Later, I discovered that if the command didn't work, you were already patched. Not only that, the only way to distribute the hack was for someone on our internal network to visit a dodgy website.

Lee suggested that I install DD-WRT. A quick search of DD-WRT's online database suggested that my router wasn't supported.

Also, there had been a firmware update since the hack was reported, and I'd conscientiously installed it. An Internet search didn't provide any hint of any other problems. The collective wisdom dictated that restoring factory settings might solve the problem, and it was about the only thing I could do in any case.

Fast forward another 45 minutes. The router was reset, and the network was set up again. By the time I was done messing around, Peakhour had my traffic clocked at 470GB. But I'd gotten rid of the problem (or so I thought). The next morning, before I left for the weekend, I checked: the total traffic was at around 500GB. Maybe I'd defeated the hackers.

That night, I heard from Donna. She'd been monitoring traffic, which was now over 3TB. And, just to make sure we had no doubt, devices were dropping off the network again.

The factory reset had not worked.

When I got home, I put the Airport Express back in place. And, in the following four days, a whole 12GB of traffic was recorded. Of course, wifi coverage upstairs was terrible. Discontent filled the air.

I examined the router logs of the R6400 and discovered that it had been contacting an NTP server just about as fast as it could. Evidently, my router was being used to DDOS someone (sorry, whoever you are). This, as far as I can tell, has not been reported anywhere. I don't have the skills to analyze the hack properly. And, to be frank, I just wanted my router back, which I still wasn't ready to give up on.

After some searching, I discovered that the DD-WRT database isn't very good, and a firmware update was available for my router model. I downloaded it, read the instructions, and followed them. Half an hour later, I had my router back on line and was monitoring traffic: silence. When my computer was idle, the router logged almost no traffic. I kept a close eye for another 30 minutes before deciding that the router was off the botnet. I could set up my home network again.

DD-WRT is not the friendliest bit of software, but I managed to fumble my way through to get everything up and running. Except for the 5GHz radio, which remained stubbornly off. I went back to the DD-WRT stock of firmware and discovered that I could update to a new version. Unfortunately, this time I did not read the instructions as carefully...

And then I had a brick. Admittedly, it is a brick that is no longer part of a botnet, but it is also not very useful either. After more searching, I discovered that I could, apparently, fix the problem by connecting to the router through the JTAG port on the router's motherboard. By this time, though, I would have just as soon stabbed myself in the eyeball with a fork. It would save time and hurt less.

So the Airport Extreme is back in position, the R6400 is in the garage with all the other bricks, and the attic is a (nearly) wifi-free zone again. Next time I'll just run cable.

I admit that I'm annoyed at myself, DD-WRT, and Netgear. I could have been more careful and not ended up with a brick. DD-WRT could have a simpler upgrade procedure. And Netgear could provide a secure router. I also discovered during this tribulation that I am not the only one who has experienced similar problems. Although there seems to be very little on the Internet, I discovered that other people in our neighborhood had had a similar experience. They, too, had been unable to remove their router from the botnet by using factory resets and manufacturer-provided firmware. They ended up replacing their routers.

Now, two experiences don't provide us with any statistics to rely on. But if my experience is common, then maybe manufacturers need to start producing a more extensive range of tools to recover hacked routers.

[jccamus]

Router assimilated into the Borg, sends 3TB in 24 hours

reader comments 0

"Well, fuck."

Harsh language was appropriate under the circumstances. My router had just been hacked.

Setting up a reliable home network has always been a challenge for me. I live in a cramped three-story house and I don't like running cables. So my router's position is determined by the fiber modem. In a corner on the bottom floor. Not long after we moved in, I realized that our old Airport Extreme was not delivering much signal to the attic, where two game-obsessed occupants fought for bandwidth.

I tried all sorts of things. I extended the network. I used ethernet-over-powerline connectors to deliver network access. I made a mystic circle and danced naked under the full moon. We lost neighbors, but we didn't gain signal.

Eventually, I gave in to the inevitable. After some research, I purchased a router that, I was told, would probably deliver useable signal to the outer reaches of the solar system. And it worked. The Netgear R6400 left only one place in the house with little-to-no reception. But, crucially, my wife and son were happy gamers upstairs, <Netflix flixxed, and Youtube tubed. Life was sweet.

Then, sometime in January, I came home to find my boy Adrian with his face in a book. Adrian reads a lot, but there is a time and place for everything, and this was gaming time and gaming place. "How's it going, Adrian?"

"Oh, good. I gave up gaming. I kept getting kicked. Even downstairs."

I attributed that to a busy server somewhere. My connection seemed good, and no one else was complaining. A few days later, my daughter Jennifer was home from school sick. She sent me a message saying that her laptop couldn't connect to the network. I talked her through a bit of trouble shooting, and, after restarting the router, all seemed to be right again.

I was troubled, though. Adrian had basically given up on gaming, but Netflix worked, and no one else seemed to be having problems.

I looked at the router settings, and they seemed OK. The router showed no interference from competing networks, but the amount of traffic it logged was suspiciously high. Or was it? I'd never tracked my household traffic before, so I couldn't be sure that what I was looking at wasn't the normal combined Youtube and Netflix usage of five people plus regular visitors.

In fact, interpreting the data use was more difficult than it should have been. My computer was confused about how numbers should be displayed. Applications that pay proper attention to the system settings use a point as the decimal place and a comma for separating thousands, millions, etc. Applications that only pay attention to my location use a comma for a decimal point and dot to separate thousands and millions. (This discrepancy can probably be attributed to me being a New Zealander living in the Netherlands.) So either the router had logged terabytes of traffic in the last period, or it had logged almost nothing.

I knew I would have to investigate. But I travel a lot for work, so finding time was difficult.

Suddenly, connecting to the network in the attic was impossible again. I couldn't figure out why. Then I noticed that my phone was randomly connecting and disconnecting from the network. A few days later, I got a message from T-Mobile saying that I'd used all my mobile data for the month. For the remainder of the lunar cycle, I would be reduced to data delivered by drunken sloths. This had happened before, but I'd been traveling a lot then, and I had been careful when traveling ever since—the sloths had caused fellow passengers to complain. In any case, I knew it was time to pull finger and do somethingTM.

Events intervened, and I was forced to delay doing anything useful. But everyone in the house was getting increasingly frustrated with the network. Then, on my way home from work one Friday, Donna told me that absolutely nothing in the house could connect to the network. And now she couldn't do her work. Deadlines were being crossed, and it wasn't her that was going to be dead. I got the message.

I arrived home that Friday night to find a house full of disconnected family members. Then, bizarrely, upon my arrival, everything connected. I ran a speed test from my computer and Donna's phone at the same time. On average, we obtained 150 percent of our maximum-rated upload and download speed. I declared there to be no problem right now. We decided to watch a show on Netflix while I kept an eye on networking performance.

To do this, I installed Peakhour. It found the router and started displaying traffic. It didn't look like much. Netflix started streaming, which caused a small bump in traffic. But traffic swiftly flattened out to background value. As I watched an old Star Trek episode and the network traffic, I contacted the Orbiting HQ for advice on how to figure out if my router (or anything else) had been hacked.

"When the police arrest your for distributing child porn" was the helpful response.

In the meantime, the total amount of data that I'd transmitted crept up, and Netflix choked on a particularly painful Wesley Crusher moment. That's when the first useful suggestion came from the collective Ars brain: a stranger had probably managed to connect to our wifi.

I know our neighbors, and I didn't think that was likely. But a huge number of devices were connected to the router, so I couldn't be sure. We turned off everything that could be turned off and slept everything that could be slept. That left a couple of unknown devices, which I kicked off the network.

Nothing changed. In the first half hour or so that I'd been monitoring, I'd transmitted 25GB of data. By the time everything else had been disconnected from the router and I'd checked that the TV software was up to date, I'd logged 188GB of data (up and down combined).

Meanwhile, Eric, our managing editor, had dug up an article from December disclosing a vulnerability in my router. The command that was supposed to kill the problem... didn't. Later, I discovered that if the command didn't work, you were already patched. Not only that, the only way to distribute the hack was for someone on our internal network to visit a dodgy website.

Lee suggested that I install DD-WRT. A quick search of DD-WRT's online database suggested that my router wasn't supported.

Also, there had been a firmware update since the hack was reported, and I'd conscientiously installed it. An Internet search didn't provide any hint of any other problems. The collective wisdom dictated that restoring factory settings might solve the problem, and it was about the only thing I could do in any case.

Fast forward another 45 minutes. The router was reset, and the network was set up again. By the time I was done messing around, Peakhour had my traffic clocked at 470GB. But I'd gotten rid of the problem (or so I thought). The next morning, before I left for the weekend, I checked: the total traffic was at around 500GB. Maybe I'd defeated the hackers.

That night, I heard from Donna. She'd been monitoring traffic, which was now over 3TB. And, just to make sure we had no doubt, devices were dropping off the network again.

The factory reset had not worked.

When I got home, I put the Airport Express back in place. And, in the following four days, a whole 12GB of traffic was recorded. Of course, wifi coverage upstairs was terrible. Discontent filled the air.

I examined the router logs of the R6400 and discovered that it had been contacting an NTP server just about as fast as it could. Evidently, my router was being used to DDOS someone (sorry, whoever you are). This, as far as I can tell, has not been reported anywhere. I don't have the skills to analyze the hack properly. And, to be frank, I just wanted my router back, which I still wasn't ready to give up on.

After some searching, I discovered that the DD-WRT database isn't very good, and a firmware update was available for my router model. I downloaded it, read the instructions, and followed them. Half an hour later, I had my router back on line and was monitoring traffic: silence. When my computer was idle, the router logged almost no traffic. I kept a close eye for another 30 minutes before deciding that the router was off the botnet. I could set up my home network again.

DD-WRT is not the friendliest bit of software, but I managed to fumble my way through to get everything up and running. Except for the 5GHz radio, which remained stubbornly off. I went back to the DD-WRT stock of firmware and discovered that I could update to a new version. Unfortunately, this time I did not read the instructions as carefully...

And then I had a brick. Admittedly, it is a brick that is no longer part of a botnet, but it is also not very useful either. After more searching, I discovered that I could, apparently, fix the problem by connecting to the router through the JTAG port on the router's motherboard. By this time, though, I would have just as soon stabbed myself in the eyeball with a fork. It would save time and hurt less.

So the Airport Extreme is back in position, the R6400 is in the garage with all the other bricks, and the attic is a (nearly) wifi-free zone again. Next time I'll just run cable.

I admit that I'm annoyed at myself, DD-WRT, and Netgear. I could have been more careful and not ended up with a brick. DD-WRT could have a simpler upgrade procedure. And Netgear could provide a secure router. I also discovered during this tribulation that I am not the only one who has experienced similar problems. Although there seems to be very little on the Internet, I discovered that other people in our neighborhood had had a similar experience. They, too, had been unable to remove their router from the botnet by using factory resets and manufacturer-provided firmware. They ended up replacing their routers.

Now, two experiences don't provide us with any statistics to rely on. But if my experience is common, then maybe manufacturers need to start producing a more extensive range of tools to recover hacked routers.

Publicado en Ars Technica http://ift.tt/2l0hX4V vía IFTTT