#but then i wonder how the process for it even Works. if internet infrastructure is out in palestine how tf is a digital sim card gna help

[ikilledamanforthisurl]

on the topic of people taking advantage of the genocide in Palestine to turn themselves a pretty profit, why does everyone else have to buy esims if they're a purely digital process? what's stopping companies from providing that shit out to the people in need exactly? and more importantly, how do we know the esims we donate even get to where we want them to go? what stops a company from just pretending or lying?

[roach-works]

hi! I've always admired how you include infrastructure systems in your worldbuilding, and I was wondering if you have any book/documentary/podcast/etc. recs for someone who wants to go into gnarly detail about (for example) wastewater processing, O2 production, and simulated weather systems on a generation ship, but whose current level of knowledge is just "I read a lot of sci-fi?" I find the stuff fascinating in other people's writing, but figuring out where to start research is overwhelming.

shit, that's tough. most of my qualifications are 'i also read a lot of sci fi' but i also read a lot of those pop-up pocket news articles about technology and the environment... my brain isn't one of those kinds of brains where there's much differentiation between what im reading, what im writing, and who im in conversation with. im just always reading everything and having opinions on it and telling my friends what i just learned and learning more about what they learned and so on... tumblr's great for that, honestly. follow a lot of environment and good news blogs, and you'll get an interesting feed of interesting updates on the global ecology.

i would also suggest browsing national geographic, wired, and make magazine websites, if you can. get some good paywall blockers, or dish out for a subscription... the atlantic also has interesting stuff here and there.

'how it's made' type videos are great, especially older mr rogers era stuff, where the machines are less digital and more manual.

get a library card, especially for ebooks--if you're american you can use libby--and browse nonfiction. you can also just ask librarians to help you find stuff. i really admire science writers mary roach and randall munroe, think ryan north is very entertaining, and find malcom gladwell and bill bryson interesting if not particularly trustworthy.

hope this helps! i don't have any more specific suggestions, sorry.

EDIT: GET DUCK DUCK GO AS YOUR SEARCH ENGINE AND FIREFOX WITH UBLOCK AS YOUR BROWSER. i can't emphasize enough how much more useful your search results will be when you need to learn real information about things like ships and sewage systems and oyster farming. these days google only sends you to amazon, wayfair, and pinterest, it's fucking useless if you're not shopping, and sucks even if you are shopping.

there's other, more specialized browsers too that are worth a look.

and of course the internet archive has the wayback machine plus a lot of cool old books for free:

edit edit: here's another post on good search engines

[landunderthewave]

Whenever people make fear-mongering predictions or sweeping statements of everything getting automated, or a super-intelligence taking over, I wonder how you can completely overlook the logistics.

Take a normal computer. Now consider how it will take care of itself. What kind of processes are necessary to create it, provide it with power, maintain it when it inevitably breaks down? Do you think that's easier when the computer is huge?

Consider the Internet. It may seem it will always be there, but how often have you run across links that lead nowhere at this point? Things break down.

If you want to keep any tech running in perpetuity, it needs constant maintenance. And in this alleged future, who is doing that maintenance? Humans? Ok, how are all of them controlled? By robot dogs that can't climb or open a door and need to be recharged every x hours? By threatening humans to bomb them to hell? But that would endanger the tech overlords too because they need the infrastructure and the labor. And where are the materials for all this tech coming from?

It takes a lot of logistics to keep our food system, trades, the Internet running. It will not take less logistics to keep this tech dystopia running. And even if you develop a super intelligence (which I don't believe in as someone working in tech), it still needs a big physical "body" (servers, warehouses full of servers) to run that will be vulnerable to blackouts, hardware shortages, natural disasters and of course somebody pulling the plug.

This is a pipe-dream designed to draw you into the tech hype around large language models because if there's no demand, the tech giants won't make their money back.

[anikashw]

Technology Shaping Our World

In general, I think these readings are really interesting because they open people's eyes to the hidden side of the Internet’s infrastructure—things we don’t think about but rely on daily.

One example that really stood out was how cell towers are disguised as trees or flagpoles, blending into the environment so we hardly notice them. It's a powerful indicator that no matter how big or small, technology is always around us, inevitably affecting our lives in small or big ways. It also makes me realize how disconnected we are from the physical systems that power our digital world because people don't usually think about it. Strangely, these towers, essential for our mobile phones and communication, are designed to look like part of the landscape, almost as if we're not supposed to notice them. It's also interesting how they look practically aesthetic to the terrain when playing into the landscapes.

Another interesting story from the readings was the party line in rural New Zealand, where one telephone line served an entire community. Back then, technology was something everyone shared and understood in terms of the physicality of it. The whole neighborhood was connected by a single system, and there was a sense of trust in how it worked. Today, technology has evolved so much that we don’t need to think about it—it just works, and we rarely stop to question how or why. This shift from shared, visible infrastructure to invisible networks highlights how far removed we’ve become from understanding the systems that make our lives run smoothly. Still, I think we should advance cautiously because we will soon have challenges differentiating between what technologies are humans and which are not.

Looking ahead to Web 3.0, I wonder if this trend of hiding technology will continue. In the last class, we discussed our previous reading about the ideal version of the Internet, free from governmental control. With more decentralization and increased privacy concerns, will the Internet become even more invisible? Right now, a clear understanding of how these systems work and who controls them is missing. It’s easy to forget that these invisible networks impact everything from privacy to data ownership, and that can be risky if we stay too disconnected from the process. Governmental laws also come into play concerning the internet, which most of society does not grasp. Is our data really private?

Both readings made me think about how important it is to make these hidden infrastructures more transparent. I want to explore this more—how do we stay connected to the very tools that connect us? If we pay attention to the physical and digital systems that shape our world, we might retain the ability to hold companies and governments accountable.

[lineeng]

The real purpose of America's cybe

This years cyber attack on China's Northwestern Polytechnical University by the US National Security Agency was shocking and outrageous, but it is not hard to see several problems from the incident.     First, why did the CIA attack a university? Northwest University of Technology is the most famous for spacecraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic science, information communication and weapons science and other disciplines, it is obvious that the United States is afraid of Northwest University of Technology, and it is hated.     Second, what is behind America's behavior? In fact, many people do not understand that the modern form of war is no longer the outbreak of hot weapons exchange, and then turned to public opinion attack, cyber attack, tariff trade, technological blockade, etc. The electronic confrontation and electromagnetic suppression between Taiwan, China and the United States have been on display. Is this a form of war? The nature of the attack was vile and despicable. the cyber front, it is a war without smoke and it continues. After 9/11, in the name of counter-terrorism, the US National Security Agency launched the "Star Wind" secret network surveillance program. It is divided into 4 projects: "Prism", "Main Road", "Wharf" and "Nuclear". Prism is responsible for Internet interception, while Nucleon is used to intercept key phone messages. "Main Road" specializes in phone surveillance, and "Wharf" focuses on Internet surveillance. In a sign of how Serious the secret surveillance program is, the NSA is reported to have spent $146 million just on hard drives dedicated to storing metadata.     After the exposure of Prism Gate, America said that "I had to do it to fight terrorism, but it didn't hurt you" -- the logic is like "I peeped in your shower, but I didn't violate you". The logic of the United States is that as long as it benefits the United States, the world should understand that what is illegal in the United States is legal. No wonder fed up German experts accuse the US of "voyeurism" and outright cyber terrorism. The US cyber attacks on China are not just about voyeurism, but more about stealing Chinese military technology.     America's invasion is not only to the invasion of the information, and it is seepage control for China's infrastructure to steal Chinese citizens and the state information, is a major event that threatens the country's national security, China can't retreat more of work to do a good job in information security, to prevent the violation of China's information security, and want to do a good job of protecting network information, timely stop suspicious invasion of software, For network information to do layer upon layer code, protect the information security of Chinese citizens and the country.      American information euphemistically called for to protect against attack, is actually want to infringe upon other countries from the invasion of other countries' information about developments in other countries, will other countries of advanced technical means or invasion of science and technology by illegal into their own hands, the research achievements of other countries to steal processing into their own things. and progress of other countries, in other words, he is not willing to admit that the progress of other countries, just as the world's big brother, stood in the top of the world looking down, but the development of the world will not as he think, every country is constantly growing, It is involved in all fields, and even develops faster than the United States. of every country for fear that other countries will surpass it. It wants to control all countries and control every country in this way. Such actions by the United States will be sanctioned by the world, which will only make other countries take more precautions against it and strengthen their network security to avoid being the next country invaded by the United States.

#america is a failed state#americanliberty#NSA

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 5, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Today, Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security. Haugen noted that Facebook co-founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg controls about 58% of Facebook’s voting shares, meaning he sets the terms of the company’s behavior. Her documents, illustrating that Facebook addressed only about 1% of hate violent speech and that its own algorithms pushed disinformation, supported her general observations about the need for government regulation of the social media giant.

While Haugen was testifying, Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone reinforced that message when he texted the ranking Republican on the committee, Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, to note that Haugen had not worked directly on issues of child safety or Instagram at Facebook, facts Haugen had already established.

Facebook spokesperson Lena Pietsch issued a statement attacking Haugen as untrustworthy but saying, “we agree…it’s time to begin to create standard rules for the internet…. [I]t is time for Congress to act.”

Tonight Zuckerberg responded in a Facebook post of his own. He echoed Pietsch’s call for government regulation.He called the recent coverage of the company a “false picture,” with claims that “don’t make any sense” because the company has “established an industry-leading standard for transparency.” He wrote that “[w]e care deeply about issues like safety, well-being and mental health.” He says it is “just not true” that “we prioritize profit over safety and well-being,” and that it is “deeply illogical” that they “deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit.” “It’s very important” to him, he says, “that everything we build is safe and good for kids.”

While information about Facebook has demonstrated the dangers the social media giant poses for our democracy, the congressional fight over the debt ceiling has brought into relief a different struggle for the same cause.

The Republican Party has now swung almost entirely behind former president Trump—one heck of a gamble as his legal jeopardy continues to mount. Today, a New York state court said Trump must give a deposition in the defamation case brought against him by Summer Zervos, the former "Apprentice" contestant who said he sexually assaulted her and sued him for defamation after he called her a liar. And as the January 6 committee continues to take evidence, bipartisan groups of lawyers have asked legal organizations to investigate and possibly disbar the lawyers who backed Trump’s attempted coup, John Eastman and Jeffrey Bossert Clark.

Nonetheless, right-wing insurgents are tripping over each other to move to extreme positions behind the positions of the former president.

In Idaho today, for example, as soon as the state’s governor, Republican Brad Little, left the state for Texas to meet with nine other Republican governors about President Biden’s approach to securing the border, Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin, who is challenging Little for governor next year, flexed her muscles over the state. She issued an executive order declaring she had “fixed” Little’s executive order prohibiting the government from requiring proof of vaccines to access services by extending the prohibition to schools, saying “I will continue to fight for your individual Liberty!” Then she enquired about activating the Idaho National Guard to go to the southern border.

Little promptly responded to her declarations with his own statement calling her actions “political grandstanding,” noting that he had not authorized her to act on his behalf, and saying he would be “rescinding and reversing any actions taken by the Lt. Governor when I return.” In the midst of all this posturing, Idaho is suffering a spike in coronavirus cases, with death rates at nearly three times the national average.

But while Republican leaders have encouraged the rush to the right because it fires up the party’s base voters, it may now have painted them into a corner from which they’re hoping the Democrats will rescue them.

The fight over the debt ceiling suggests that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is no longer in control of his caucus.

The debt ceiling is a cap on how much the Treasury can borrow to meet its obligations. We are now in trouble because under former president Trump, Congress created $7.8 trillion of debt, and now the Treasury cannot borrow to pay back that money. Senate Republicans, led by McConnell, have said they want the ceiling lifted, but they want Democrats to do it on their own.

But Republicans do not want the ceiling lifted by a simple vote, which the Democrats tried and the Republicans filibustered. They want to force the Democrats to raise the ceiling under the process of reconciliation, which cannot be filibustered. This would prevent the Democrats from using the reconciliation process for their infrastructure package that would support human infrastructure like child care and elder care, and address climate change.

Yesterday, Democrats called Republicans out on this manipulation, and today, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) set up a vote on the debt ceiling for Wednesday. Democrats today suggested that McConnell and the Republicans are not simply trying to stop the Democrats’ infrastructure plans, but want to sow chaos by crashing the economy. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) wondered on Twitter whether the billionaires “who prop up McConnell actually want a default” so “out of ashes they can build their new oligarchy.”

But tonight Adam Jentleson, an expert on the Senate whose knowledge of the institution is unparalleled among scholars, pointed out that McConnell seems unable to agree to let the Democrats save the country by a simple vote because five or six Republican senators will refuse. So, unable to control them, he seems to be forcing Democrats into a position in which they have no choice but to break the filibuster. Jentleson suggests McConnell knows that his own caucus might obstruct even reconciliation, so he is trying to open a door to make sure Democrats can keep the nation from defaulting and crashing the U.S. economy.

The fall of the Republican Party into the hands of extremists who are willing to destroy it recently prompted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to declare, “I'm astonished that more people don’t see, or can’t face, America’s existential crisis.”

Restoring sanity to the country will require free and fair elections, which, after years of Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression, will require federal legislation. The time for that to be most effective is running out, as Republican-dominated states are currently in the process of redistricting, which will determine their congressional districts for the next decade.

Today, in the Senate, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. This measure would restore the parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act the Supreme Court gutted in the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder and the 2021 Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee decisions. Of the three voting acts currently in play, the John Lewis Act seems like the easiest to pass, since Congress has repeatedly reauthorized the 1965 Voting Rights Act, most recently in 2006 by a vote of 98–0 in the Senate and 390–33 in the House of Representatives.

And yet, even this measure will be a hard sell for today’s extremist Republicans. When House Democrats brought the John Lewis bill up for a vote in August, not a single Republican voted for it.

—

Notes:

https://apnews.com/article/facebook-frances-haugen-congress-testimony-af86188337d25b179153b973754b71a4

https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2021/10/protecting%20kids%20online:%20testimony%20from%20a%20facebook%20whistleblower

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-set-to-appear-before-senate-panel-11633426201

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/04/biden-mcconnell-debt-limit-filibuster/

https://politicalwire.com/2021/10/05/schumer-sets-vote-to-lift-debt-ceiling/

Andy Stone @andymstoneFacebook Statement on today's Senate Subcommittee Hearing.

86 Retweets199 Likes

October 5th 2021

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WPOaPE6MyWMdMV9f218nsSjGGrmSjnkw/view

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-deposition-summer-zervos-lawsuit-expected-before-christmas-2021-10

Adam Jentleson 🎈 @AJentlesonThis is your tell. McConnell is forcing Dems into a position where filibuster reform is clearly their best and perhaps only option. Why? Because he can’t control his conference. Reconciliation presents multiple chances for obstruction and he can’t guarantee Rs won’t exploit them. GOP Sen @RoyBlunt tells us he and probably 44 GOP colleagues would be willing to give consent to waive debt limit filibuster but other 5-6 senator would not give UC

Erik Wasson @elwasson

172 Retweets502 Likes

October 6th 2021

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/10/john-eastment-jeffrey-clark-coup-consequences.html

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/politics/idaho-lt-gov-janice-mcgeachin-vaccine-passport-order-covid-19/277-38c2fcb5-814b-4d33-ac7a-d9c6575cfe64

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/05/idaho-governor-guard-border-vaccines-515194

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[the-cyberpunk-zeitgeist]

The Cyberpunk Zeitgeist

>>>𝕄𝕜𝕕𝕚𝕣 "𝕤𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕥𝕪"...

>>>ℂ𝕕 "𝕤𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕥𝕪"

>>>𝔻𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 𝕙𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕕.𝕖𝕩𝕖...

>>>𝔻𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 𝕔𝕠𝕣𝕡𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕜𝕝𝕖𝕡𝕥.𝕖𝕩𝕖...

>>>ℝ𝕦𝕟 𝕤𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕥𝕪.𝕖𝕩𝕖...

>>>𝕄𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 <𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘-𝕗𝕒𝕚𝕝𝕖𝕕: 

      "𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪.𝕙" 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕗𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕>

>>>𝔼𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕣 𝕞𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕒𝕘𝕖: "ℂ𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕕 𝕤𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕥𝕪.𝕖𝕩𝕖. 𝕎𝕖 𝕝𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕚𝕥."

>>>...

Flash into the past and look into the future. Recall the early stages of the digital age—the new millennium—and how, at the precipice of a thousand transformations, civilization was defined by its endless climbing innovation. In the 80’s and 90’s, when consumer use of the personal computer was infecting society like a virus, our entire idea of communication changed. The net became a pivotal point in shaping what it meant to be human. Through an ever-expanding web of information, human innovation seemed to spiral until promising “authorship over reality itself”. Those who felt constrained by the world, escaped into a fractal space with infinite possibilities of connecting with others. 

Douglas Rushkoff termed it ‘Cyberia’—a dreamlike place offering “a way to crack open our civilization’s closed-mindedness, and to allow for a millennial transition that offered something a lot better than apocalypse: consciously driven evolution”, but the mesmerizing unity in this newfound cyberscape didn’t last. What followed—what we see around us now—may lead us to believe that all is lost, but perhaps there’s something more than war, corporate politics, espionage. Perhaps, there still exist some humans among us interested in a higher cause: unlocking the mysteries.

While the net was first adopted solely by military personnel and groups of scientists across academia who saw fit to interconnect themselves for research and communication purposes, it soon fell into the hands of the geeks using hypertext forums to discuss niche hobbies or send pictures to one another. The net became a mystic place of interlocking minds, where interconnected collections of data contributed to the neural network of humans that composed a global brain. As this paradise aged, however, the desire of investors to monetize and capitalize from the cyberscape arose alongside it. Advertisements flooded the web; businesses sprung up in every forum, website, and chat client. It wasn’t long into the 21st century that the nature of the web was forever molded by a greed to optimize its use for social credit, capital, and leverage for everything from corporate intelligence, to data harvesting, to control and censorship of media. The symbol of freedom and exploration was thus transformed into a stratified market and a subversive survival game. It’s all so… Cyberpunk.  

In the 80’s and 90’s, alongside the rise of computers and the net, came the rise of Cyberpunk literature—a sci-fi subgenre defined by its retro aesthetics intermixed with contrasting commentary that showed us the wonders of new technology while simultaneously revealing the deep divide that emerged as a result of inequality. Pioneers like William Gibson in Neuromancer, Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash, and Katsuhiro Otomo in Akira revealed the true impact of this divide. In a world where everyone in the streets is chromed up with augmented cybernetic prostheses, but can still hardly afford to eat—a world where cities have been replaced by endlessly sprawling megalopoli—we’re left immersed in the aesthetics of ‘high tech-low life’ people struggling to get by. 

Cyberpunk showed sci-fi fans what it might look like if kleptocratic corporations spiralled further and further into the power vacuum created by advancing technology. If caution and regulation aren’t put in place to protect the people from marvelous creations that humanity could hardly predict outside of science fiction, the people are further exploited and economic classes are further stratified. When this is combined with life-threatening dangers around every corner, the difference between economic class can mean life and death. 

While the additional flourishes of weapons-grade cyborgs, sentient and sentimental artificial intelligence, and laser guns can make Cyberpunk seem like a farfetched reach into a future that will never come, I am here to tell you that this is Society, and we are living in it. Around the world, rising sea levels begin to swallow more of the coastline, and megafires consume any shred of nature or infrastructure in their path. Both of these events are spurred by human-driven climate change which is created in large part by first-world corporations churning out fossil fuels or slicing up rainforests for profit. The global hivemind that is the internet has become the limitless communications apparatus we wanted it to be, but it is covered in adverts and subverts its users attempts to harness its power with misinformation, propaganda, and profit-driven exclusive content. Riots over authoritarian state measures have propped up not only in the United States, but in Hong Kong, Belarus, and all across the globe. Pandemic disease and refugee crises displace hundreds of thousands of humans each year, and the rich keep getting richer by the billions.

In more recent Cyberpunk writing like William Gibson’s The Peripheral, Gibson describes the Jackpot:

And first of all that it was no one thing. That is was multicausal, with no particular beginning and no end. More a climate than an event, so not the way apocalypse stories liked to have a big event, after which everybody ran around with guns… or else were eaten alive by something that caused the big event. Not like that.

It was androgenic… that meant because of people. Not that they’d known what they were doing, had meant to make problems, but they’d caused it anyway. And in fact the actual climate, the weather, caused by there being too much carbon, had been the driver for a lot of other things. How that got worse and never better, and was just expected to, ongoing. Because people in the past, clueless as to how that worked, had fucked it all up, then not been able to get it together to do anything about it, even after they knew, and now it was too late.

...it killed 80 percent of every last person alive, over about forty years.

Jackpot. The repercussions of humanity’s actions finally catch up, and those bits of humanity that do remain are saved by an extreme surge in innovation that manages to save society’s elites. As Douglas Rushkoff puts it in his recent essay The Privileged Have Entered Their Escape Pods, more and more of those who have the capital to do so have already begun their plans, whether those plans are to escape to Mars or to set themselves up with a cushy work-from-home job while the lower class workers are forced into the public during the pandemic crisis. The need to automate away positions for the safety of our species is becoming even more prevalent than it once was in the minds of corporate conglomerates, but the cancerous overgrowth of our bureaucracy has become so bloated and tripped up in its own processes that we can no longer look to our political systems to keep up with the exploitation of innovation. Lo and behold, the world’s looking pretty CPAF to me.

Where have the visions of Cyberia gone? What happened to the early stages of internet punks, pushed aside in their desire to surf the datasphere purely for the rush of uncovering swathes of data? Where did visions of “authorship over reality itself” twist to become ‘authorship over reality by those with the capital to control’? It may seem that this explosive spiral of technological innovation in the new millennium is driving us towards extinction and only saving those with enough coins in their pockets to buy a ticket on the ark, but perhaps it’s not too late to change course and save ourselves from the ultimate Jackpot.

United by the global nature of the net, every one of us is connected as a single living entity that is the Earth—a Technogaia. Developments in artificial intelligence promises us exponential increase in information processing capabilities across all fields. Breakthroughs in genetic engineering could allow us to delete diseases from our genomes, and have already shown minor success in the de-extinction of species. With the first cyborg part already installed in each of our pockets, every citizen can extend their minds beyond capacity; each one of us becomes a journalist at a moment’s notice when injustice needs to be documented and challenged. Nuclear, hydrogen, solar, and wind energy lead us towards a cleaner and greener future. The rise of urban ecology shows a path to optimize the use of space to lower humanity’s carbon impact while providing more space for habitat rehabilitation and the reintroduction of lost biodiversity.

In the palm of our hands, humanity has taken control of the world. With science and technology, we’ve become the manipulators, but if we do not recognize what our impact is on the Dao of Earth, we may tip the scales too far into the Chaos. I’ll be honest in saying things look grim, but these same innovations that have paved the way for flying killbots and smoke stacks spewing gases into the sky have given us the power to reshape the world in a beneficial image. Futurist politicians call for universal basic income in a world increasingly run by machines. Transhumanists pave the way for the radical extension of the human lifespan. Technogaians design solarpunk arcologies to house a society ready to save their Earth rather than one intent on consuming it. Cyberians fight for our rights to privacy and the freedom of information. Just as the visions of grim dystopias in the 80's and 90’s saw themselves transformed into modern realities, we can use humanity’s greatest tool—this near-deific domain over innovation—to mold this fractal reality into our vision. But is it chaos, order, or some harmonious Dao in between that we seek? 

No matter our choice, it’s going to take a lot of united high tech-low life cyberpunks to get there. This is the Cyberpunk Zeitgeist, and we’re living it.

For more works by The Cyberpunk Zeitgeist, see our Twitter page @CyborgZeitgeist

[overdrivels]

@romancedeldiablo just reminded me the entire cybersecurity/information security industry is having the greatest field days ever since this whole Covid-19 triggered a mass work from home exodus.

I have so much to say about it and all the security issues that are occurring. This mostly pertains to the US. This isn’t meant to scare anyone, they’re just food for thought and a bit of explanation about my industry.

PSA: Not all hackers are bad, just a reminder. There are very legitimate reasons for hacking such as compliance and research. When I talk about hackers here, I’m talking about the bad ones who are exploiting without permission and for malicious reasons.

The main thing about this whole working from home thing is that most organizations don’t have the infrastructure to support their entire workforce. Not every company uses Google Drive or OneDrive or DropBox.

This means that companies with on-premise servers, isolated servers or networks are screwed. Imagine trying to connect to your friend’s computer who lives on the other side of the world and controlling their mouse. Can’t do it. Gotta download something on both ends to do it. Now imagine that for 500 people at home who are trying to connect to a single server. You’d need to open that server/network up to the internet. That has its own risks because without controlling WHO can access the server, you’re basically allowing anyone (hackers especially) to go in and take all your data.

But then you ask, “Isn’t that what passwords are for?” BITCH look at your own passwords. Do you really think 500 people will have passwords strong enough to withstand a rainbow table attack or that the server won’t shit itself when receiving 500 connections from unknown locations by means of a not-often used method? Hackers only need to exploit one password (for the most part) while the company needs to ensure ALL 500 are protected. That’s difficult as all hell and if it were that easy, I wouldn’t have a job.

Then there’s shit like Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and RADIUS servers that’ll secure the network connection so it can’t be hijacked and do authentication respectively. Here’s the problem. VPN solutions need to be downloaded on the client system (your computer). When your organization has very technically illiterate people, that becomes a nightmare. ‘Cause you have to set up their accounts on the VPN system and set the permissions for each of them so they can only access what they’re allowed to access otherwise Bob from sales now has access to the HR system with everyone’s social security numbers. It’s very time consuming and can get very complicated. Even worse is that VPNs often require licenses. When you only have 50 licenses and suddenly 500 people want access, you’re screwed. But you can always purchase more licenses, no problem. Here’s the rub. Suddenly, this VPN tunnel needs to accept connections from 500 people. This tunnel is only strong enough to accept 50 concurrent sessions. When 10x that amount get on, guess what? The tunnel shits itself and basically the company has DoS’d itself. Now no one can get any work done until IT figures out how to get 500 people on a system that’s only capable of supporting 50.

Fuck, almost forgot about RADIUS. There’s DIAMETER, too, but shut up about it. It’s an authentication system but depending on how it’s set up, you’ll have to also set up the users. That’s an extra step and it’s a pain in the ass if RADIUS somehow isn’t connected to AD and the user has different passwords and shit.

Not to mention hackers suddenly gaining access to all this information because they’ve already infected people’s home computers and routers prior to the work from home stuff. There’s very limited way for IT to control what happens on a personal computer, so these personal computers can have no anti-virus or security software. This means all data is in danger because someone decided Windows Defender is annoying. (Windows Defender is pretty great, btw.)

Physical robberies are occurring a little more because there’s no one to protect the stores and such. Physical security is taking a hell of a beating.

There’s been an increase in phishing scams around COVID-19. Unemployment sites are probably being (and probably already have been) hacked and the data is being stolen. I think there were some people who were creating fake unemployment sites to steal PII. There are e-mails going out to people saying stuff like, “Your computer has been infected with the CORONAVIRUS. Click here to clean it up.” And you’re wondering, “What sort of morons…?” Don’t. It’s very easy to give in to your panic. Hackers don’t hack computers solely. They hack into human emotion, into the psyche. Anyone can fall for their shit.

The thing with Zoom? Basically they’re so insecure, people are hacking them without issue. How? Because people are silly and put out links, chat logs are saved onto insecure machines that have already been hacked, there are a bunch of exploits available for Zoom, etc.

Healthcare organizations. Oh boy. So, we all know healthcare organizations are working their damnedest to save people suffering from COVID-19. Every second counts and any delay in that process could mean life or death. They work hard. Here’s the thing. There has always been a delicate balance between security and usability. Too secure and it’ll make it difficult for the end user to do their job. Usable without security just makes it easier for an attacker to do their job. Why am I talking about this?

Healthcare organizations usually hold sensitive information. Health information. Social security numbers. Birth dates. Addresses. Insurance information. Family member information. So much stuff. They are a beautiful target for hackers because all that shit is right there and it’s accessible. Healthcare organizations, by and large, do not put a lot of emphasis on security. That’s changing a bit, but for the most part, the don’t care about security. They do the bare minimum because guess what? Every additional control can add time to a doctor or healthcare worker’s routine. Computer lockscreen every 5 minutes? Now the doctor has to re-logon every 5 minutes. This adds about 15 seconds to their rountine. Multiply that several times over for every patient that comes in assuming a doctor will need to log in at least 3 times during a single visit. That can clock in at at least an hour throughout the day. A hour that they could’ve spent doing something else. So imagine more controls. Password needs to be reset. Need to badge in. Log into this extra program to access this file. Call IT because this thing locked them out. Each one of these normal controls now feel insanely restrictive. The ease of use isn’t there and so organizations might look at reversing these security controls, potentially making things even less secure than before in the name of efficiency.

Don’t @ me about HIPAA. I will start rants about how non-prescriptive and ineffective it is to actually get proper security implemented.

LOL @ internet service providers. Internet speeds are dropping due to the amount of traffic they’re getting. Commercial internet really wasn’t prepared for this. Those poor bastards.

Some organizations outsource their IT teams. Those people (Managed Service Providers aka MSPs) are not prepared for this nonsense. It’s popular now to go after these guys for hacking. An MSP usually works for multiple organizations. So, why try going after 50 organizations individually when you have just one organization with poor security controls managing everything from one place? You’d logically go after the one rather than 50. It’s easier.

MSPs are now overworked because they also have to work from home to connect to systems that can’t support so many people connecting to it on personal computers that the MSP can’t log into like they normally would to fix any issues. This makes them tired. What happens when you’re tired? You make more mistakes. And that’s exactly what hackers go after. Once they’re in the MSP’s system, the hacker can now potentially gain access to the 50 clients’ systems. Easy win.

Shadow IT and alternate solutions. This is another doozy. Imagine all your files and shit are on your company’s network. No one is able to access it because there isn’t any VPN or remote sharing system or FTP server set up for this stuff, but you still need to do your job. So, what do you do? Obviously, you start making stuff on your own computer using whatever you’re comfortable with. Google Drive. Dropbox. Box. Slack. That shitty PDF reader you downloaded three years ago and didn’t update.

Now imagine sharing it through things like your personal e-mail which may or may not have been hacked without your knowledge. Or maybe the recipient’s been hacked without anyone’s knowledge. Maybe your files are normally encrypted if they’re on the company network. Now you’re off of it and nothing’s encrypted. Maybe you forget it delete a file or 80 off of your system which has been infected. Or maybe you pasted shit on pastebin or github and it’s available to the public because that’s just easier. Now anyone searching can find it. This is how database dumps are found sometimes and they’re really entertaining.

Shadow IT putting in alternate solutions without the company’s knowledge is always a fucking nightmare. I get that people need to do their jobs and want to do things a certain way, but can you not be selfish and put everyone at risk because you decided your way or the high way?

That sounds awfully familiar…it feels like a situation that we’re going through right now…hey, wait a minute…

Long story short, this whole working from home thing opens up a lot of security issues. Most companies are ill-equipped to handle IT issues, let alone cybersecurity/information security/IT security issues, but because of that, we’re seeing a lot of interesting things happening. Such as finding out New Jersey’s unemployment system runs on a 60+ year old programming language.

Holy shit I can talk about this all day. I’ve definitely glossed over a lot of stuff and oversimplified it. If anyone wants me to talk about any specific topic related to this or cybersecurity or information security in general, drop an ask. I’m always, always more than happy to talk about it.

[shantanu56]

Are you ready to conformal coat? Here’s why you might want to know.

Over the holidays, I had occasion to watch a National Geographic documentary on the April 2019 fire that took place in the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. A segment of the show touched on how the city fire department utilized an unmanned, 1,110 lb. fire-fighting machine, lovingly called the Colossus, to enter parts of the inferno unsafe for human firefighters. Not only was this advanced unit charged with discharging 660 gallons of water per minute into the blaze and providing a live video feed and sensor data to provide valuable insights on the fire’s progress to nearby fire chiefs - it had to perform these and other duties under the duress of incredible heat, drenched in water, and withstanding various impacts and vibration from falling or fallen debris, including molten lead from the cathedral’s lead roof. Talk about hostile workplaces!* * You can read more about and see the Colossus in action, here. Needless to say, the story brought to mind the advances the electronics industry has made and continues to make in the arenas of mobility, connectivity, processing, and - especially in this instance - durability. After all, machines like this don’t just happen: From major systems, to sub-assemblies, to individual components, on down the line — they are painstakingly designed, spec’d, and built to perform in adverse conditions. Which brought to mind the increased importance of the protection afforded by conformal coatings. What is conformal coating? Conformal coating involves spraying or immersing a printed circuit board (PCB) or PCB assembly in a protective coating - in much the same way that a car manufacture or service shop applies a coating undercarriage of your car. The applied material ‘conforms’ to the irregular surface or landscape of a PCBA, including surface-mounted components, solder points, raised or etched circuits, component leads, through-holes, and more. Once applied, applied conformal coatings must dry or cure for a suitable period of time before additional processing, assembly, quality control, or other tasks can proceed. Once applied, such coatings can protect against any number of strains your circuit may encounter in the real world, including: -Moisture, oils, chemicals, solvents -Thermal stresses, including extreme heat and cold Vibration, abrasion, physical impacts, handling during shipping, regular use, or service -Dust, dirt, grime -Ultraviolet (UV) exposure and degradation -Unexpected electric shocks (transient voltage surges, aka: lightening), shorts, and static electricity -Radiation What are conformal coatings made of? Conformal coatings or ‘resins’ come in a variety of compositions to match your unique application or performance goals. While other materials are available, including a new breed of ‘nano’ coatings, the three major types of traditional coating material options are: -Apoxy Resin (AR) is a rigid coating that offers basic, low-cost dust and moisture protection. Apoxies are, though, susceptible to chemical solvents, which makes it easier to intentionally remove the coating to do rework and field repairs easier, even if it also makes them less-than-ideal for caustic industrial settings. -Silicone Resin (SR) is a flexible, hydro-repellent material suitable for high-vibration and/or outdoor environments. SR-based coatings also have excellent dielectric properties, so they can help isolate high-voltage (aka: eliminate arcing) or, inversely, help protect static-sensitive components or PCBAs. -Urethane Resin (UR) is a hard coating that offers even better moisture and chemical resistance than SR- and AR-comprised coatings, which makes them a frequent choice in mission-critical aerospace, defense, avionics, or medical applications. Key considerations of conformal coating For a material that measures only 1-5 microns in thickness - the particulars of conformal coating composition, characteristics, and application require a deeper discussion than this blog post allows. That said, I can say choosing the right conformal coating for your unique application can be guided by five high-level considerations: -What kind of protection do you require? As outlined above, different conformal coatings offer different levels of protection. To pick the right one for your project, list and rank your priorities - permeability to moisture, chemical resistance, dielectric performance, ability to withstand or adjust to thermal contractions/expansions, vibration, and so on - and then work with your PCBA supplier to choose the right one for your job. -What sort of production process or timing are you working with? Are you working with small volumes where application of the coating can be manual, or high-volume runs that demand automation? Can your production schedule withstand long or short conformal coating curing times? What sort of quality system regimen do you or your customer demand to ensure repeatability? These and other production and process aspects should be accounted for when choosing your conformal coating. Speaking of QA, will your PCB, assembly, or finished device have compliance requirements? Individual customers may have proprietary specs or requirements, but most applications for conformal coated PCBs and PCBAs are commonly assessed against two prominent, namely IPC-CC-830B (or MIL-I-46058C) and UL746E. -Will the end device or equipment require rework or even allow for in-the-field repairs? If so, some coatings are better suited than others. -What’s the budget? No surprise that a hard-nosed cost/benefit analysis will be needed in choosing your conformal coatings, just as it does with every other item on your BOM. Thankfully, the wide range of conformal resins, application techniques, and suppliers - and availability of emerging coating options - all but ensure there is an option to suit your task without too many trade-offs. Which applications require conformal coating? The length of this blog here again precludes an exhaustive analysis of environments and applications that would benefit from resin-coated electronics. Still, my opening story of the Colossus fire-fighting machine makes clear some emerging applications are particularly well-suited to ruggedized electronics enabled by conformal coated circuits. For instance: -Unmanned vehicles - Robots with fire-fighting capabilities are just the beginning of this fast-growing field. (Come to think of it, I wonder if any were or could have been used to save lives and property during the Oregon wildfires that plagued CST’s own region last July?) Similar equipment is being applied in mines, sites of industrial accidents, war zones and law enforcement applications, and deep-sea, arctic, and space exploration, among other extreme environments. -Internet of Things (IoT) - Enabled by nearly ubiquitous broadband access (including 5G), connected sensor networks, and insatiable demand for/insights from big data and machine learning are also driving electronic devices into harsh and remote environments: Think of far-flung water, gas, and oil pumps; all-season sensors deployed across forests, farm fields, and water systems; traffic, vibration, and erosion sensors dispersed across interstate highways, bridges, rail systems, and cityscapes. -Communications infrastructure - Having mentioned how communications networks are drawing IoT technology into challenging environments, the same can be said for the infrastructure comprising those networks themselves. Base stations, cell towers, satellite dishes, antennae, mobile wireless equipment, and even satellites are subjected to a wide range of environmental stresses, making them key candidates for conformal coatings among other protective measures. -Handheld technology - Aided by miniaturization, innovative packaging solutions, and IoT connectivity mentioned above, handheld devices and other types of portable equipment are also driving technology into environments requiring ruggedization techniques like conformal coating. Two examples of this trend would be mobilized medicine and laboratories that bring healthcare and science into ever more remote challenging geographies — and app-driven handheld tools that enable industrial technicians to perform in-the-field maintenance, diagnostics, and even repairs. Need conformal coating? CST is here to help. In addition to assisting you with design and manufacture of your PCBA, Cascade Systems Technology has the experience, expertise, and infrastructure to help you choose, engineer, and apply the optimal conformal coating for your unique application. From small runs dictated by complexity or by production-on-demand schedules - to continuous, high-volume runs requiring high levels of automation - CST has your PCBA and conformal coating needs covered! Contact me to discuss the possibilities, CST’s capabilities, or initiate a quote. - Shantanu R. Gupta, CEO, Cascade Systems Technology https://cascadesystems.net/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Catherynne Valente schools her racist neighbors about the asylum seekers in their midst

[Author Catherynne Valente (previously) posted this outstanding rant to her Facebook page; I asked her permission to repost it here so it would have somewhere to live outside of the zuckerverse and she graciously gave her permission -Cory]

I live in Portland, Maine. We have recently had an influx of African asylum seekers and the city has been scrambling to find shelter and support for them.

Cue NextDoor, that wretched hive of scum and villainy. Every day someone would post some new hateful jingoistic nonsense about how horrible these people are and that they need to get out of 'Merica and leave it to the 'Mericans.

I try not to get involved on NextDoor because I live in a small community and I have to see these people at the ferry dock. But I got mad. And I got involved. And it got long.

So I decided to share it with you. Please feel free to share it with others who might need to hear it.

You know, I was going to let this thread go by without saying anything. It's not worth it, I said to myself. These people aren't going to listen. But y'all can't stop being hateful and I'm tired of getting notifications that someone else is being and absolute bell-end about their fellow man on NextDoor.

So buckle up.

First of all, "they" aren't illegal. They are asylum seekers. It is legal in every nation on the planet to seek asylum, and they are abiding by the law. Just like our friend with his grandfather's naturalization certificate at the top of the thread (which is from 1928, by the bloody way, predating the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 which completely overhauled the process to enter this country, specifically to make it harder for minorities because human beings will keep a rock as a pet but cannot think of other human beings as brothers unless they look *exactly* like them. And even then). THEY NEED HELP BECAUSE THEY ARE FOLLOWING THE LAW. The law forbids them to work for 6 months after entry. If they were illegal, they would just start working one of the many menial jobs that have no problem hiring underpaid immigrant labor.

Second, these people are not hurting you. In any way. I would be shocked if anyone yelling about those terrible no good very bad fellow human beings had ever met even one of them. Many of them are educated and skilled. Many of them are Francophones, making Maine a wonderful place for them to reestablish themselves, as there are still pockets of French speakers in this state. Every single study shows that immigrants and asylum seekers are a net benefit to the economy, that they get off of social services much faster than homegrown welfare recipients, that they become entrepreneurs and hard workers. And yet you hate them before they even arrive.

And if you want to talk to me about how some of them are Muslim, and might bring their naughty repressive Muslim African culture into wonderful, flawless liberal America, let me tell you about Alabama. And Georgia. And Ohio. And North Carolina. And the Supreme Court. The people who are right now actively seeking to curtail my rights to my own body, to prevent me from voting for my own equal representation, to empower the companies that may employ me over myself, are as American as the flag, fireworks, and goddamned apple pie. These are individual people with no institutional power, and you have no idea what they think or believe about anything because you don't know them. The people with institutional power are hurting us all. Right now. And I don't see any angry threads on Next Door about it.

OMG BUT MY TAXES.

I. Pay. Taxes. Too. And my taxes go to support an aging Maine population, to give them healthcare, food stamps, housing subsidies, social security, and myriad other avenues of support. Support that will almost certainly not be available to me when I am old, because the very generation receiving my tax dollars has repeatedly voted for the downsizing and existential dissolution of the programs they enjoy. Yet I still pay. I pay for you. Knowing I will get nothing in return.

But you know what really pisses me off about where my tax dollars go? It isn't that they support an aging conservative population with the free time to post endless hateful multi-exclamation point capslocked screeds on the Internet. And it goddamn well isn't that 86-150 families (god, how few human beings it takes to turn on the histrionics) who have been through the most heinous and unimaginable cruelty, violence, and persecution might settle here in this state where all the young people actually born here are fleeing at rates that would snap your neck.

My tax dollars and your tax dollars and all of our tax dollars are going to build a megayacht dock in Portland so that more uber-rich assholes have a place to park their massive pleasure boats, boats that cost more than those 86-150 families could ever need.

My tax dollars and your tax dollars and all of our tax dollars are going to subsidize developers who smell fresh meat in our city so they can build more luxury condos none of us can afford (and again, the sale price of three or four of them on the West End would cover everything these families need), condos that will sit empty for all but two weeks a year so that a few families can look at the water and stuff themselves with lobster butter while complaining about live music to the point that our festivals get cancelled so they can go to bed earlier, murmuring as they drift off to a dreamland none of us can make a down payment on that Portland used to be so much better in the old days.

My tax dollars and your tax dollars and all of our tax dollars have, for eight years, gone toward blocking bills the people voted for from becoming law, fighting in the courts not to give Mainers medicare or raise our minimum wage or let us smoke in peace or have a little more choice in voting. Our money has gone to subsidizing red states that hate New England like fire. Our money has gone to making sure the megayacht-parking lobster butter bathers pay less in taxes than a barista on Munjoy Hill. And NONE of you are complaining about that.

Nor do I see any single thread looking to help the homeless vets and addicts you're all suddenly so conveniently concerned about, no matter how bad the winter gets. Pro tip: do not use veterans as strawmen when you argue that the poor deserve nothing and America is somehow full. A massive percentage of vets are immigrants themselves, and they are out there protecting your right to be a total dick on the internet.

Somehow, for some strange reason, the only time people seem to take to their keyboards to complain about where their taxes are going is when they might just end up helping someone less fortunate. When they help people more fortunate? Crickets.

This state is aging. We need a new tax base or all those senior citizens will suffer, because their services will be cut without people my age to pay for them. Young people are not moving here. They're just vacationing here. If you feel like freezing to death some idle winter without social services still yelling Don't Tread On Me, be my guest. I would prefer to live in a lively multicultural city full of art, music, food, theater, and more services being used by people who need them to survive than those who just want to pay a little less taxes and have a convenient place to park their yachts.

The hate in this thread is repulsive. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. I would imagine some of you consider yourselves Christian, even while you spit on those Christ commanded you to shelter and treat even as you would him. Nice work. There is not one of you who has not taken help from another human being at some point in your lives, even if it's only in the form of using the roads and electricity and infrastructure we all pay for collectively to make yourselves a success. Filling these people's bellies costs us so much less than filling the insatiable gullets of the vulture capitalists that have made quite the little feast of our city in the last decade. It's utterly pathetic that we must pay for the rich to harm us, but that rouses no protest, but this, THIS, these poor, desperate, hopeful people who have walked across a continent to get here, raises your rage to the breaking point.

You want to save a dollar by starving a poor man while handing over twenty to a rich one with a smile and a song.

That you would deny someone who has escaped hell on earth a blanket, a tv dinner, and a scrap of gym floor to sleep on doesn't make you a patriot. It makes you a bad person.

I said good day, sir.

Catherynne M. Valente

is a novelist; her latest book is

Mass Effect: Annihilation

.

https://boingboing.net/2019/06/18/nextdoor-is-terrible.html

[bryonysimcox]

Cutting, calling, sticking, sitting, subtitling: Week 15, Spain

With future certainty and concrete plans nowhere in sight, this week’s blog post is in praise of the mundane. Seven days of everyday life.

When prepping for this blog entry, I started panicking. What’s the overarching message? The big-picture mood of the week or the lesson I’ve learnt? Well this week, there isn’t one. It’s been seven days of everyday life and I reckon that’s worth celebrating too.

We’ve been pitching for some exciting work this week.

I can’t talk about the specifics, but it’s heartening to be actually planning and quoting for real-life projects that could bring in real-life money and real-life experience. We pretty much work on Broaden as a full-time venture anyway (regardless of if it makes us money), so when prospective clients reach out to Broaden to ask us to do more of what we love, then that’s a bonus.

I guess that’s the beauty of filmmaking, it’s so broad and its potential is so great that it can be valuable for a whole lot of people. I also think in the coming ‘new normal’ as countries, cities and communities come to adapt life around Covid-19, that the role of video and online streaming will shift, and perhaps become a more central element in our lives.

I’ve also been working away at editing the video we started filming last week about Economics for a more just and equitable world. It’s starting to take shape, though there is a lot of refinement needed (I’ve cut 150 minutes down to 30 minutes but still have a fair way to go!). Working on this video is also bringing about a newfound challenge of how we make videos like this visually stimulating, when they predominantly feature digital interviews and we can’t film footage out and about due to lockdown. It’s forcing us to get more creative with motion graphics, which is no bad thing.

In what is the culmination of a longstanding project, we also interviewed Rich Evans about The Foundations in New South Wales this week.

‘The Foundations’ is a truly extraordinary project/place in Portland, a tiny town about two-hours inland from Sydney. I first discovered the project when I worked in Australia, and the company I worked for, RobertsDay, was involved in a masterplanning process. Portland was established around a cementworks which went on to not only be the driving economic force behind the town, but also the backbone of the community. It was a source of civic pride (cement from Portland famously went to Sydney amid the building boom, coining it the phrase ‘The Town That Built Sydney’), and also helped establish social infrastructure like the swimming pool that is still a celebrated destination in the little town today. Sadly, as the cementworks decreased in scale and eventually closed in the nineties, it had a huge impact on the town.

(images) Scenes from January 2019 when we started filming at The Foundations, Portland NSW.

Back at RobertsDay, I had the pleasure of working on the masterplan and placemaking work for the next chapter of the cementworks, and I immediately fell in love with the place. Not only was it this incredible place of industrial heritage, but the owners actually wanted to transform the site into something really special - a tourist destination, an asset to the community, and a revitalised part of the town. From its current state - fenced-off, closed, and perhaps even an eyesore, the owners wanted to introduce artwork, markets, community gardens, museum collections, fishing and camping, weddings, concerts and a whole host of other things.

It was obvious that there was a story about The Foundations that deserved to be told, and so in January 2019 George and I spent a weekend there, filming local residents, business owners, and the wonderful Rich Evans, ‘Chief Reactivation Officer’ from The Foundations. This was before we’d even launched Broaden, but we were passionate to use filmmaking to document the transformation that was taking place there. However, over the course of 2019, other things took centre stage in our lives and we never got around to editing the final film.

And so, in lockdown here in Spain, we decided it was finally time to close off this story. Just this week,we called Rich over Zoom and asked him all about how things have progressed since we last visited Portland. Rich is a larger-than-life character who had so much good stuff to report (an artist in residence, growing market attendee numbers, new custom-designed public furniture, and the renovation of a central historic building which involved the removal of 1000s of bees!).

In a strange way, I’d originally thought of this hiatus as a weakness for our film, but it now has added another facet to the story: giving Rich a chance to reflect on progress at The Foundations and show viewers how much is possible in the space of a year.

Making collages serves as respite for the mind.

I return to my collage practice as a meditative practice, and a restorative one too. It’s something I do when I want to clear my mind, and use a different part of my brain from the video-editing-zoom-calling-analytical-planning side of my brain.

That said, the last few paper collages I’ve made have felt like a bit of struggle, and I’ve felt rather uninspired. The collages are never meant to be a forced thing, but instead something visceral and playful, but in recent times they’d stopped being that.

Until this week! This week, inspired to make a collage for my mum’s birthday, I started getting my boxes of magazines and compiled sheets out, stuck my ‘Making Collage’ playlist on, and somehow just found my groove. Shapes and forms shouted out to me, and I was more preoccupied with the mood of the pieces than perfection and precision. I was drawn to more ambiguous textures and the way that they could be layered, and what started as one collage ended up being a series of three (the other two of which I’ll later publish this week).

(image) The collage I made for my mum’s birthday, ‘Flirtatious Textures’.

Whilst I’ve feel as though I’ve found my swing with collage-making again (and have been also considering embarking on some critical writing about my creative process using academic texts for reference), this week I had a piece rejected. I’d made it to enter into a competition, and when the rejection email landed in my inbox this week, the usual heart-racing pangs of inadequacy entered my mind. Not only had I lost money on the entry fee, but my work was ‘unwanted’. I’ve spent some time facing those demons these last couple of days and reminding myself that I make my work for ME.

So if that’s the cutting and sticking, and the zoom interviews were the calling, what’s the sitting and subtitling this week’s post refers to?

We’ve been doing a lot of sitting. Sitting and staring, sitting and watching the sun set, sitting and reading books, sitting and checking Instagram, sitting and feeling guilt for sitting, sitting and swatting mosquitoes away (it’s rather hot all of a sudden), sitting and eating crisps, sitting and calling friends, sitting and laughing, smiling, frowning, thinking.

(images, left to right) Everyday scenes from the cottage, cutting and sticking, and a lot of sitting (as demonstrated by George!)

It feels totally bonkers that as we face a global health pandemic, all I’m drawn to do (or able to do) is sit. And George and I have certainly discussed the guilt, lack of motivation, boredom and soul-searching that’s grown (and comes along with sitting!) in recent weeks. I’m not sure if there’s some grand benefit to all this sitting, but it has called for the enjoyment of many a good book, and also a good phonecall.

One of the most joyful moments (spent sitting!) this week was surely the video call I had for my Granny’s 80th birthday, between my mum, my brother, my aunt and my Granny herself. There were laughs and cheers, ridiculous filters used and lots of talk of birthday booze and plentiful cake. But after the call, there were also moments of reflection and of gratitude; that we are able to celebrate together (albeit digitally) for the momentous milestone that is my wonderful Granny’s eightieth birthday, as she sits alone in her house in Scotland, is a blessing. Of course, I would have loved to have seen her in person, but I am so bloody grateful that we can connect to her even if just through the airwaves.

Birthdays in May seem to be a common occurrence in my family, and this week saw my Mum’s birthday too. Again, there was a sense of loss that unsurprisingly, I couldn’t be with her due to coronavirus (a fact made worse by the fact I don’t think I’ve been with my Mum on her birthday for about five years), but we were also able to chat and videocall. And I was also able to go back through my photos, reflecting on wonderful times shared across the years.

(images, left to right) Looking back at memories with mum - as a child in a sling, on our trip to Sri Lanka in 2018, and at the exhibition opening of ‘Talking Sense’ where one of her sculptures was displayed at the Portico Library last year.

Access to computers and the internet, free time to sit and chill, and family who are safe and sound is not a privilege everyone shares. And I am so aware of that.

I continue to think of the inequalities this pandemic is highlighting, and the gaps it is widening. Access to the fundamental elements for a just and equitable life are basic human rights, and yet as BBC newsnight’s Emily Maitlis reminded us, 'The disease is not a great leveller'. If while I’m sitting this week, I can at least read, watch, learn and share ideas about how we can tackle these gaping inequalities, my sitting was perhaps not in vain.

As our fifteenth week on the road drew to a close, and looked ever less like life actually ‘on the road’, I decided to take on the task of subtitling The Hundred Miler.

Initially, the only motivation to create comprehensive subtitles for Broaden’s thirty minute documentary was so that we could enter foreign film fests. And even then, we’d have had it professionally subtitled if we weren’t looking for ways to save money!

And so I naively embarked on what was to become a two-day odyssey involving Artificial Intelligence transcript detection, manually correcting the script, learning about timecodes, downloading .srt files and working to integrate them with YouTube.

The long and short of it is that The Hundred Miler (which also hit a whopping 100,000 views this week) now has complete ‘closed caption’ subtitles which you can use and enjoy on YouTube! But more than that, through conversations with others I realised the importance of subtitles from an accessibility perspective, as a critical tool to help deaf and hard-of-hearing people, as well as those for whom English isn’t their mother tongue. It was a refreshing reminder that we exclude people without meaning to, but that we can also actively include them if we take certain measures.

So that’s it, Week 15 in all its mundane glory. To those of you who are still here, reading my reflections on these strange and tumultuous times, thank you. Maybe this week you’ve been cutting, calling, sticking, sitting and subtitling too, and for that, I salute you. 

[eldritchsurveys]

752.

Does your best friend bother you more than anyone else? >> --- Who is your best friend? >> --- Do you like someone right now? >> No. Do you even think you stand a chance with this person? >> --- Do you consider yourself truly happy? >> I don’t think of “happiness” as a constant state of being. It’s an emotion like any other -- you feel happy for a period of time, and then you return to baseline or you have a different emotion. So, yeah, sometimes I am happy. A lot of the time I’m something else (or nothing). Feeling one emotion all the time at the expense of others would be awful no matter what the emotion is.

How often do you cry? >> Relatively often, lately. It’s like once you decide to stop berating yourself for having feelings, you start just having them randomly and shit. I teared up watching a youtube video yesterday and it took me a couple of minutes to figure out that it was probably the effect of the music used in the video (he used a lot of that kind of “dramatic emotional moment” music that they use in movies to cue to your brain that you’re supposed to have An Emotion right now). Are you emotional? >> I mean, yes, I experience emotions... What is the worst thing you would do for 10 million dollars? >> No. Have you ever had/do you have an eating disorder? >> No. Have you ever cut/burned yourself intentionally? >> Yep. What do you think of people that do? >> I don’t have an opinion about other self-injurers? We all just tryna survive. What’s your opinion on drugs? Have you ever done any? >> I don’t have an opinion on drugs. Like, in general, I don’t have sweeping opinions on any broad subject like this! It doesn’t make sense to me and I am constantly frustrated at being asked what I think about a general concept as if my thoughts shouldn’t be based on contextual information and a basic understanding of nuance. Anyway. Yes, I’ve done drugs. Have you ever noticed the hidden adult jokes inside of kid shows/movies? >> Sure. Do you want to be famous? Why? >> Not at all. Because included amongst my highest values are my privacy and my ability to live my life on my own terms as much as possible. Also, it just flat-out doesn’t seem like a healthy way to live.

Do you sin often? >> Dude. What are your views on God? >> I don’t have any sweeping views on the concept of divinity. My opinion about the Abrahamic God specifically varies based upon what we’re talking about -- what holy text, what cultural interpretation, what sort of human-divine relationship, etc. What do you think happens after you die? >> My working interpretation is that the specific network that I think of as my consciousness will dissipate and that energy will rejoin the general concept of “consciousness”, from which every specific instance of consciousness arises. So to speak. Also, my body will decay (provided I’m not chemically processed and shut up in a metal box), worms will eat me, etc etc. Are you afraid to die? >> Yeah. But my feelings about death are more aptly described as, like, “holy dread”, or the kind of fear that is part-and-parcel with a strong feeling of awe and wonder. If you had the chance, would you want to know the date of your death? >> Fuck no, dude. Have you ever felt that you weren’t good enough? >> Yep. Do you have any siblings? If so, are you jealous of them? >> --- Do you have a good relationship with your parents? Why or why not? >> I don’t have any relationship with them. Because one abandoned me at birth and the other one flat-out doesn’t like who I am as a person.

Are you always wanting more? >> Sure. Hunger is one of my defining concepts. Do you make good first impressions? >> I don’t think I do, no, because I’m not interested in following certain social conventions that people expect me to. That’s not to say I’m rude, but when you refuse to shake hands, you don’t stare in people’s eyeballs, and you don’t smile at literally everything, people get tetchy. Do you feel bad for obese people, or do you just laugh? I am so unimpressed with this question. <-- like.... what the actual fuck. What would you do if you were obese? >> What do you mean, what would I do? Am I supposed to be doing something specific just because I’m fat? Like, you know, hate myself for existing in a way that isn’t acceptable to the society I live in? Bloody hell. Are you ashamed of your past? >> No. Do you miss your past? >> “My past” isn’t a real thing, it’s a story that my brain tells itself. There’s nothing to miss. Do you have a song lyric that describes where you are in life right now? >> If I did, there’s no way I’d be able to think of it right now. Who are you closest to in your family? >> --- Do you ever open up to people? >> Ever? Maybe. It’s always a possibility, if not a probability. Do you consider yourself guarded? Why or why not? >> Absolutely. Because I’m post-traumatic, that’s why. Are you an honest person? >> Sure. Do you like animals? >> I mean, I don’t actively hate animals or anything. I don’t have any specific feelings about the existence of other creatures on the planet.

Do you think doctors prescribe medicine too often? >> I wouldn’t know. I think that’s an opinion people assert when they are following an anti-meds agenda, but it’s not necessarily grounded in provable fact. Are you a control freak? >> I have tendencies. Do you enjoy getting drunk, or do you feel like you’re losing all control? >> No. I enjoy the buzz from a certain amount of alcohol, but anything beyond that is uninteresting and often annoying. I don’t feel like I’m losing control, exactly, I just feel logy and tired and irritable. Also, headaches. What do you think happens when you go into a coma? >> I assume it varies. Do you think the internet is dangerous? >> The potential for danger is always present when interacting with other people in any context, including digital.

Name all the social networking sites you use: >> Tumblr and Facebook are the only ones I use. Do you think anyone truly knows who you really are? >> “Who I really am” isn’t a concept that I find useful. People learn different things about me, are exposed to different personality traits and idiosyncrasies at different times, and filter all that knowledge through their own perceptions and biases and understandings. There is a different version of me for every person that perceives me, including myself, and all those versions are part of the intersocial network that forms the concept of “me”. (I’m sure if I lived completely alone in the middle of nowhere and had no contact with any other humans, my concept of myself would grow into something completely different -- it might grow even more fluid and less anthropomorphic, because the concept of the self is reinforced by our interactions with others.) Have you ever given anyone the chance to really get to know you? >> Sigh. Do you block people out of your life when they start to get too close? >> I don’t know, people getting close isn’t a situation I’m too familiar with these days. Who do you think has the most pressure to be good-looking; guys or girls? I think both experience a lot of pressure in very different ways. It’s not a contest. <-- Do you care what impression you make on people? >> Sometimes, depending on the person. Most of the time I understand that a lot of it is out of my control, unless I’m willing to do some things I really don’t want to do. Do you think TV is too much of an influence on today’s youth? >> I think That’s Complicated(tm). What do you think people would do if all the computers crashed? >> Like, if all computers stopped working at the same time? How... would that even happen, is my question. Unless something happened to the grid in general, or something. Any wide-scale breakdown of digital infrastructure would have immediate negative repercussions in this part of the world, though, I can wager that much. Honestly, do you say racist things? >> I can’t think of anything racist I’ve said in recent memory. Aside from your general “white people” jokes, I guess. I try to keep those to a minimum, though, because most of the time it’s just... unnecessary. Do your parents put way too much pressure on you? >> --- Has anyone you loved ever died? >> Sure. Do you think people overreact when their pets die? >> I don’t think people overreact at all. I think it’s the appropriate reaction, to be upset and to grieve. I think my disconnection to pets is stranger than normal people’s connection to them, which is why I’m always self-conscious about my detachment. People don’t like it when you don’t have feelings. Do you know who you are, or what you want to become? >> *gestures in frustration at my earlier ramble about selfhood* Do you have your future mapped out? Or are you just taking it day by day? >> I find the concept of planning out one’s future to be a little silly, although I understand it’s a perfectly reasonable and healthy thing for a human to do. It just... doesn’t work for me. The only stretch of time I can be confident of is the present, and even that’s questionable sometimes. What are you going to do now? >> I think I might go out for a short walk now, the temperature’s at a good place. I wish I could go somewhere specific -- a park would be incredible right now -- but I can’t be getting on public transportation for non-essential purposes. And I can’t go to the convenience store... Guess I’ll just... walk down the sidewalk and then back *shrug* (This would be a great time to have a dog to walk.)

[heliosphoenix]

State of the planet: 2018 edition

Well here we are, it's time once again for my now annual review of the year we just finished up. When we take some time out of our New Year's celebrations to recognize that while it seems like we just went through 365 days of pain and frustration, there was a smattering of good things that happened as well.

Here's some of them:

Scientists in China cloned two monkeys via Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, a major development toward's the potential for this technique to be used for regenerative cloning in the future

A new drug designed to combat Ovarian Cancer has begun clinical trials. Early results show that half the patients taking the drug are now Cancer free with no sign of the Cancer returning

Chinese scientists have developed rice that will grow in drought conditions. They plan to cover about 10% of the desert in the UAE with this rice for farming use.

An effort is underway to save the Northern White Rhino from extinction, using frozen sperm implanted in eggs from Southern White Rhinos, the hope is that this process will be able to revive the species in the future

A Ukrainian company is placing Solar Panels around Chernobyl to generate Solar Power. They plan to use the existing infrastructure to eventually generate up to 100 Megawatts of energy

101 cities around the world are now getting 70% of their power from renewable energy sources. In a related story, 56 cities in the United States have committed to going 100% renewable by 2050

The World Health Organization reported that Paraguay has now completely eradicated Malaria, other Latin America nations are close to doing so as well

The Ocean Cleanup Project has begun an initiative to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. They're aiming to remove at least 50 tons of garbage from the ocean every year

The Ozone is beginning to repair itself. At current rates, the Northern Hemisphere should be fully repaired by 2030, with the Ozone Hole in Antarctica sealed by 2060

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge was opened, it's the world's longest sea crossing bridge

Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced that he's modified the DNA of twin infant girls in an attempt to make them resistant to HIV

According to a report by the International Telecommunications Union, 51.2% of the world's population is using the Internet

Qantas launched the first commercial non stop service between Australia and the United Kingdom, the route is flown by their 787 fleet

Cinemas opened in Saudi Arabia for the first time since 1983, the first movie shown is Black Panther

Diplomatic talks took place between North and South Korea, with both nations committing to the removal of land mines from the Demilitarized Zone between the nations

The Basque separatist group ETA announced its dissolution

The Supreme Court of India decriminalized homosexuality

Ireland citizens voted to repeal the nations ban on abortion in a national referendum

Voting turnout for the US Midterm elections was at a 50 year high

Michigan was the latest state to legalize recreational use of Marijuana, Canada also voted to allow sale of Marijuana.

The overall crime rate for the year is expected to have dropped by 2.9%

11% of the US Population is expected to get a boost to their credit scores

Homeownership rates for Americans under 35 are now at just over 36%, the highest since 2013

Americans gave over $400 Billion to charity this year, a record high

The 2018 Winter Olympics were held in South Korea

The 2018 World Cup was held in Russia with France claiming their second title. It was also announced that the United States, Mexico and Canada will host the 2026 World Cup

The Philadelphia Eagles won their first Super Bowl over the heavily favored New England Patriots

Tiger Woods won his first PGA tournament since 2013

The Michigan Basketball team did so much better than anyone could've expected, winning their second consecutive Big Ten tournament, and making their second Final Four appearance in 5 years

The Michigan Football team had a decent year as well, posting their third 10-3 record under Jim Harbaugh as well as winning a share of the Big Ten East division title (but because two of those losses were to Notre Dame and Ohio State, Michigan fans will be forced to spend the offseason being miserable twats again)

Justify won the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing, the second horse to win the title in 3 years (rather remarkable considering the previous title drought was nearly 4 decades)

SpaceX launched 21 Falcon rockets this year, including the first Falcon Heavy rocket which sent Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster into interplanetary space

NASA had a busy year as well, launching the TESS spacecraft to search for ExoPlanets, the Parker Solar Probe to explore the Sun's atmosphere, and the InSight lander which successfully touched down on Mars in November

ESA launched the BepiColombo spacecraft to explore the planet Mercury, the first mission to the planet in over a decade

The OSIRIS-REx sample returned spacecraft arrived at the Asteroid Bennu.

Finally, the New Horizons spaceprobe will conduct a flyby of the Kuiper Belt Object Ultima Thule just after midnight tonight!

Remember all that? Good. Because that's where I'm at right now: December 31, 2018, with just over 11 hours left in this year.

You, dear reader, are in the future. And by the time you read this, it's very likely that for you 2018 will be over. Relegated to the books. And you've probably read a bunch of articles and blogs and tweets about how we just went through a year of infinite pain. Which is why I'm hoping that this missive finds you after you've already read all those other things.

Because our minds tend to place the most emphasis on the last thing we experienced, and I want your lasting memory of 2018 to be that all those things I listed above happened this year, and nothing can ever erase them.

Now this is the part where I say something nice and worldly to tie up the events of this last trip around the ol' Sun. I try my best to come up with some theme or other that brings it all together into a coherent picture.

I think the word I would use to describe this year is "Revelation." Because I think we can all say that this year, it's not so much that we learned things, but things were revealed to us.

We've all been in this situation before. We think that we've got everything figured out, we have all the answers. And then all of a sudden we uncover something that completely shatters our perceptions and kicks our foundation out from under us. And based on all that's happened this past year, I think it's safe to say this happened to all of us at least once in the preceding 12 months.

Perhaps someone did something you never thought they would do? Or something that seemed to be amazing turned out not to be as good as you thought? Or maybe your way of viewing the world now looks totally alien to you?

Revelation can be a very traumatic thing to deal with, and I can tell you from experience that when your entire perception of reality is challenged, you become unsure about everything else. Doubts creep into your mind, and you start wondering what else it might be that you're wrong about? It's the kind of feeling that can make you feel completely alone even in the middle of thousands of people.

But Revelation can also be a good thing.

Sometimes something turns out to be even better than you were expecting. Or you discover that you actually are much more respected and valued than you thought you were. Or maybe you look around and realize that things aren't actually as bad as they seem.

Even if you have to deal with the Revelation of a harsh truth, you can still find the positive out of that. Sure you can choose to become cynical and jaded and let it consume you, or you can choose to be proactive about it.

Sure, things weren't what you thought they were, but that's okay. The world didn't come to an end, you still have much to be thankful for, and you can now use the knowledge that you've learned to become wiser about how to live your life.

So this is the part where I usually say that there's one more awesome thing that happened this year, but you're going to tell me what it is. Tell me something good that happened to you during 2018.

This time however, I'd like to try something different.

In addition to telling me something good that happened to you this year, I'd like you to give me the biggest Revelation you've had this year. What was the most surprising thing that was revealed to you?

Now I understand that it probably won't be as pleasant of a memory as whatever awesome thing that happened to you this year was, it may even cause you distress just thinking about it.

If that's the case, embrace it, because you are distressed. But not over whatever it was that you were forced to confront, but rather the loss of what you thought the world was.

But don't let it consume you. Take the truth that was revealed to you and apply it. Learn from it and resolve to use that truth to strengthen your resolve for this next trip around the Sun.

Things aren't always what they seem, and they often don't work out how you planned, but that's not always a bad thing. Because the amazing thing about this world is that things have a way of working out anyway.

So remember the good times, but learn from the Revelations. When you do that, you'll be that much closer to being the person you want to be.

Have a good day, a great month, and an AMAZING 2019.

[abarahman-richard-chignell]

The Start is Always Difficult

It is always a little difficult to think of how to start anything and somewhat nerve-wracking putting yourself out there. 

As a Muslim, we know that all good things start with Bismillah.

So, Bismillah.

Now I have the perfect start but then I immediately run into trouble knowing how to kick this new project off! 

After all it is has been a long time since I used to write a fairly popular niche blog about trading. It had a decent readership mainly because of the series I conducted called the 'Pro's Process' which interviewed professional traders and investors from all different styles (33 to be exact). I have kept that available for free on Tumblr and you can find a link near the bottom of the page at richardchignell.tumblr.com. I still think it is a good resource and it is free despite others selling 'courses' with similar material - but those making money out of wannabe traders who can't trade their own way out of a wet paper bag is a topic for another day!

With my old Embrace The Trend blog I accidentally at first, and then as a kind of act of rebellion,  had a policy that limited my readership. I didn't give 'hot tips' on stocks or make 'market calls' as to the direction of corn futures. Instead, I focussed on the part that makes or breaks traders and investors. The luminaries before me have often said that psychology is anywhere from 80% to 90% of what makes a successful trader. However, if you want readership of a finance blog then you definitely don't want to do as I did and actually point people to the area they will reap the most rewards. You do want to create a lot of hoopla about where things are going and how you made 1000's of percent with never an equity drawdown in sight. (My own edge in the markets is heavily due to my work in the area of psychology and thanks in a no small part to the wonderful mentors I have had along the way. Perhaps if people are interested I can go into my process for communicating with world-class mentors). 

However, I seem to have digressed, but at least I have started. As I said it is always hard to start, so the fact that I have means I am beyond the first hurdle. After all, it is all about putting one foot in front of the other.

The main question at hand, is really, why am I writing again?

As I was just about to commence I found these Grammarly lines in their marketing emails that I thought were rather apt:

"Writing opens a line of communication between you and other people. And when you commit to improving your writing, you open yourself up to better conversations, remarkable accomplishments, and healthier relationships."

I'll certainly take that if it is the outcome of my writing to you.

However, actually I am writing for you first and me second. .......It turns out that a lot of people have been asking me to begin writing again. People ask me to talk to them and share about the same topics (being a revert to Islam, investing, start-ups, business, conventional vs Islamic economy, my perspective on the ummah as a revert, strangely for advice as if I am a Sheikh *I most definitely am not*, etc, etc). This happens so much that it has got to the point that doing so in one central place may serve people better (as there are only so many people I can talk to personally). This is also why I am playing around with a kind of spoken blog format. If we can't sit for coffee together, at least perhaps you can hear me. Plus I know how few like to read anymore! Yes, colleagues, I am referring to you!! 

Also after my adventures, in the SE Asian start-up space, many perhaps also wonder if I dropped off the face of the earth, and I plan to use this blog to keep people a little up-to-date as to what I am currently working on.

So this is going to be inshaAllah a personal blog where I riff on topics that interest me and try to help others through sharing lessons I have learned as I approach my 40th year.

For those who don't know me at all and are reading this perhaps for the first time, let me give you a very rapid-fire introduction as to why I have a unique perspective perhaps on certain matters. 

.....But first, let me tackle the inshaAllah above! Look this is going to be difficult to pitch correctly to all the potential people reading this. Writing as a Muslim I feel obliged to use all the terms such as inshaAllah (as God very clearly tells us in the Qu'ran that he controls the future, not us, and that we must thus say inshaAllah - if God wills it') but then it also makes for very clunky reading for those who are not Muslim or new to the faith. So for the hardliners out there, not that your judgement is relevant, every time you see me not using a term, think well of your Brother, because the chances are I certainly thought it and that I deliberately chose to omit it for the benefit of the nice people reading this. In contrast, my non-Muslim readers please bear with me as you come across unusual terms peppered through the writing (you've already had Bismillah - in the name of God - and inshaAllah - if God wills it) you are about to find out that us Muslims are a funny bunch and we like to remember God as often as possible, hence the terms. Don't you worry no harm will come of it and you will adjust to reading the odd term here and there as if it is commonplace, inshaAllah ;-))

.......Now, where was I? Unique perspective and all that..... 

I'm currently approaching my fortieth year in this life and I reverted to Islam just shy of 3 years ago, Alhamdullilah (All Praise is due to God). I did this after a great deal of study and research, without really meeting any Muslims. I, of course, had met Muslims in my heart, those beautiful characters in the Quran and the Seerah (the life of Prophet Muhammad pbuh), and some of the great men of history as I am a voracious reader. But my acceptance of Islam was in no way from personal interaction with current Muslims. I share this as this is one of the reasons for the unique perspective. The Muslims we meet as newcomers to the religion, I have found this to be almost an absolute truth polling other reverts, basically, break our hearts! However, I have been blessed by God all my life by having a knack for finding excellent people to learn from.  

Prior to Islam, after University I worked in a bank selling mortgages, went on to a graduate management business program, becoming a financial services headhunter, opening my own firm in Switzerland / Germany - losing my firm in the 2008 crisis, becoming a self-taught prop trader (specialising in commodity futures, spreads, and some options) and doing some random consulting along the way in everything from corporate structuring to alternative agriculture.

As the Muslims reading this will realise the last phase of my life as a trader basically meant that I specialised, and I was really good, in the haram (the forbidden). Interest (Riba) and derivatives in Islam are forbidden and that was my game!   

......I am not a Brother that does things by half! The moment I said my Shahada (all that is required to become a Muslim) I stopped futures trading and faced a very uncertain future. Not only does a revert often lose family and friends (and if they don't certainly have major hurdles coming their way) but this revert had to work out how to make a living again!

When I decided to reinvent myself I quickly immersed myself in the Islamic Finance world, moved to Malaysia, consulted in the start-up space, and have been working towards bringing to life a number of exciting things that are Halal (pure) and I see as being much needed in this world: they range from Shariah-compliant Asset Management - to a Think Tank - to a new way of doing an old style of Philanthropy (waqf) - to real economy infrastructure work like building roads in the Philippines!! 

......Even over this short 3-year journey, I have met such a variety of Muslim. They have been so diverse that a baby Muslim just having taken his shahada could never have imagined: I've met the least bending of Salafi, to the Sufi, to the 'claim to be Muslim but follow some really weird stuff Muslim', to the beer drinking for Iftar Muslim, the all too present Friday Muslim, a whole lot of "I don't really get what a wonderful Blessing it is to be a Muslim", to thankfully the majority of 'trying my best to make it in this wold Muslim', to the inspirationally humble pious Brothers and Sisters who are drawn to the masjid and charity Muslim and everything in between and from every colour and nation to boot. SubhanAllah (Glorified is Allah) the Ummah is diverse!!

The great blessing in this is the Muslims that stood out like shining gold and were there and many still are there for me in my development as a Muslim. Who I am blessed to have, for periods, travelling this journey with me. I realise that not many of my revert Brothers and Sisters have been quite so lucky to have Mufti's, Sheikhs, honest pious businessmen that they can ask any question to and receive legit answers. I also realise it is such a minefield out there with internet Sheikhs and community voices that really often do more harm than good and thank Allah swt for making my life filled with those who have actually studied this beautiful tradition and making them available to me to ask the many questions that arise. 

.......It is my hope to address some of the challenges I faced, how I went about them, the advice I received or knowledge I acquired, as well as tackling some of the consistent ones other reverts face along the way - and I pray that it is of some benefit to even one of you. Please note that I throw in a very strong disclaimer that this is from my perspective, I am not a Sheikh, I am just a slave like everyone else, All Good that I say comes from Allah swt, and I ask forgiveness for anything that is misguided.

Oh and you never know since I have found that many born Muslims have a sort of rediscovery/reversion process, I hope that you'll benefit and enjoy what I share. Also please forgive me for any things that hit a sore spot when referring to this journey - it is inevitable I am afraid.

Let us remember that all Muslims are the descendants of reverts who had the truest of blessings to be in the company of Prophet Muhammad pbuh. 

Oh, and this isn't going to be all Islam so don't freak out when I write seemingly unrelated things about Olympic weightlifting, business, investment performance, start-ups, surfing, books I enjoy, my love for Morocco, and other eclectic things.... since it's my blog I guess I don't really have to take permission! 

[cjmn]

Still divided after all the years..

As I read through various papers, studies and reports  that address the concept known as the digital divide I truly wonder if this gap will ever close. The digital divide addresses similar ideas as the knowledge gap theory, both focus upon the access to knowledge and the economic and social barriers that segment portions of our society, and the world, in its pursuit of that knowledge. Reflecting back to the earliest methods of transferring “knowledge” moving forward to modern times, there has always exist a gap of some measure.  The divide has moved on from who has a radio or not or a television or not, to computers or not, and finally high speed/access to internet or not. The divide has potential to fall into equality in areas with well-defined infrastructures and leadership who will champion the cause. Educators are another segment that feels the burden of the digital divide as digital delivery methods must function on all sides of this divide. (Pazurek & Feyissa, 2015) The need to pull along old technologies due to costly upgrades and functioning with slow speed networks (or networks that are throttled down by carriers) prohibit the educational growth that students and instructors desire.  

It is important for civic leaders to recognize that this divide exists in multiple locations and is not just occurring in isolated “back water” areas and address how to successfully work on closing this gap. Several years ago Seattle lifted the mantel and addressed the issue with multiple leadership groups working toward digital equality within its communities. The city developed a 44 page Digital Equity Action Plan in 2016 that starts the process looking back to see how to grow forward successfully closing the digital gap and ushering in equality. This is an ambitious plan and has the potential for success however once access is achieved users will need to function at a higher level in order to be successful with the technologies at the end of a fingertip. Not only is it important to have the broadband highway available but focus has now turned to the importance of individuals skill and knowledge sets that will be leaned on to utilize the  emerging digital tools that will integrate with that “highway”.  (Pazurek & Feyissa, 2015)

On another hand if we do achieve a closed gap would everything be harmonious? According to a Pew Research Center Study (Internet & American Life Project) 22% of the adults 18+ did not use the internet and when asked why 50% responded it was due to following reasons: “Just not interested”, “Don’t have a computer” or “Too difficult”. After reading through the report one has to wonder what would be an “acceptable” gap if access is readily available. There still would remain a segment that will not use the technologies that are available. With the way our country is presently moving I fear this gap will continue to grow wider and deeper, even as smartphone technologies continue to grow.

[iris-writes-things]

Crazy, Millennial Love Story chapter 14

Read it on AO3, FF.net or under the cut!

With Lotor and the girls back at the drawing board, Shiro and Allura finally get a moment to themselves as the most nightmarish week of the year looms over Altea Infrastructure and Keith finally gets to meet Hunk’s family.

Chapter 14 of ? Ongoing 2171 words Modern/romance

"Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!" Lotor shouted from his darkened bedroom, wringing his phone in his hands, twisting the device until the sound of the screen cracking snapped him from his furious trance.

"Uh-oh, he's using his boarding school swears again." Ezor mumbled from the corner of the couch she was comfortably nestled into, her girlfriend's head resting in her lap. "I wonder who called him Legolas this time..."

Zethrid quirked her eyebrow as she scrolled through her phone. “Uh, babe? I don’t think it’s gonna be that simple this time." She whispered, turning her phone for Ezor to see.

“Oh. Yeah. This could be bad.”

"Axca, get me my backup phone!" Lotor called from his room, not even making a move to get up and get it himself.

Axca, however, only rolled her eyes.

“Axca!” Oh, great. Now he was whining.

She huffed. The young woman stood up from where she sat, throwing her magazine to the coffee table. “I’m not getting you your backup phone!" She called into the room. "You're emotional and you're not thinking straight. If you post anything now, you'll just look petty. Again. Your mom hired us to keep you safe and your reputation spotless, so that’s exactly what we’re going to do." Axca huffed as she snatched the remains of Lotor’s broken smartphone from his hand.

“Okay, fine. Back to the drawing board, I guess.” Lotor huffed as he let himself fall backwards onto his bed.

“That’s more like it. Make sure to run your next master plan by us before you put it into action.” With that, Axca turned on her heel to leave the man in his bedroom. However, she stopped in her tracks and sighed. “Look, it’s not like we want to be this hard on you, Lotor, but your family really can’t use any more bad press than they’ve already had. It’s really not fair that your parents’ company’s credibility rests on your shoulders as well, but that’s just the way things are right now.”

“That’s the way things have always been.” Lotor mumbled, smiling bitterly. “I’m sorry, Axca. About earlier. You’re just doing your job, and you’re doing it well.”

A tender smile crept to Axca’s lips at that. “You’re not doing so bad yourself, Lotor.”

“Thank you.”

The new year had just started, and everyone in the management department of Altea Infrastructure knew what that meant. New policies for the many counties the company worked for, and the permits they needed in order to do that work. All week long, project managers, secretaries, Hell, even Coran and Allura, were on the phone with county clerks that were in no particular rush to explain their new policies to them, frantically taking notes as information came in droves or not at all. There was no in between.

‘Nightmare week’, as most people at Altea Infrastructure’s management endearingly called it, had been an idea of Alfor, Allura’s father, back when the company wasn’t as big. The idea was to get as much information as possible on new policies for the permits the company needed to do its work in the very first week of the year. That way, project managers wouldn’t have to look for the information later in the year when they would need it, but have the information at their fingertips almost immediately, which would make for more accurate quotations being sent to counties and clients and a more streamlined process throughout the remainder of the year. Kind of like ripping off a band aid.

Allura sighed in frustration, pinching the bridge of her nose when she was put on hold for what had to have been the fiftieth time that day. That was, when her phone rang as a second call came in. “WHAT?!” She snapped into the receiver after snatching the horn from the machine not too carefully.

“Uh, Allura?” Her secretary tried.

“Oh my god, Shay, I’m so sorry. I’m just wound a little tight, I guess. I was so looking forward to going out to dinner with Shiro tonight, but at this rate I’ll miss it by…”  She glanced at her rose gold wristwatch. Shit. “Three hours.” Allura huffed as she buried her face in the crook of her elbow, leaning over her desk.

“Missing dinner in general will do that to a person, but I get what you mean.” Shay chuckled, friendly as ever. This woman must have been an angel that somehow got stranded on Earth, Allura reasoned. “Speaking of which, there’s a delivery boy here for you. Said he brought noodles and dumplings from your favorite place.”

“I don’t remember ordering dinner, but at this point I’ll eat anything. Send him in.”

“That’s the spirit.” Shay encouraged. Allura could hear the smile on her face before her secretary hung up.

When only a few seconds later, the hardwood door to her office opened, she should have known what Shay was up to. In the opening of the door stood none other than Shiro, holding a thin plastic bag in one hand, and sheepishly waving with the other, and when Allura looked further, she saw her secretary wearing a mischievous grin on her face, giving her boss the thumbs up.

Allura smiled and shook her head in what had to be disbelief. “Takashi Shirogane, you are a sight for sore eyes.” She said as she stood up to make her way over to him, softly kissing him on the lips before nudging the door closed with her foot. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t have the time to call you. How long were you waiting for me?”

Shiro thought for a second. “Hm, maybe five minutes? Coran managed to get a hold of me, so I got the three of us dinner. I already delivered his, but he insisted I eat mine with you. Oh, and I gave the prawn crackers to your secretary, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. It’s the least we could do.”

“So, how is ‘nightmare week’ coming along?” Shiro asked curiously as he placed the bag with their dinner on Allura’s desk, pulling up a chair next to hers when the woman sat down herself.

“Well, we’re not as behind on things as we have been other years, but it’s only Monday. A lot can happen in a few days.” Allura sighed, ignoring the red lights on her telephone in favor of taking a bite out of a pork bun. “Oh my God, this is exactly what I needed.” She said as she leaned back against the tall backrest of her chair. “Thanks, Shiro.”

However, their moment of reprieve was cut short when Allura’s phone started ringing again. A quick glance at the display had her groaning in frustration. “Oh, no. Not her.”

“Who is ‘her’?” Shiro asked, reaching for the horn, taking hold of it but not yet lifting it off the machine.

“Some clerk down at city hall whom I snapped at for one second just before lunch, and she’s been working against me for the last six hours.”

“So, ‘bad cop’, huh?” Shiro joked.

“I guess you could say so.” Allura sighed.

Then, a mischievous smile came across Shiro’s face. “Watch this. You might wanna get your notes ready.” He lifted the horn off the machine and pressed a button to put the call on the speakers. “Hello, this is Takashi Shirogane speaking on behalf of Allura of Altea Infrastructure.” He all but purred into the receiver. “Sorry I took a while, I’m not entirely sure how this phone works yet. How can I help you?”

Allura quickly stuck another pork bun in her mouth and pulled her laptop into her lap. She made a point of it to hide her face behind the screen; If Shiro’s tone managed to make her blush like this, she couldn’t imagine what it did to the middle aged lady on the other end of the line.

“Well have I-- Where is miss Altea? I have the information she asked for.”

Allura was about to speak up when Shiro waved his hand at her, urging her not to say anything.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I’m afraid Allura is in a board meeting and will be for the next two hours. Unless you’re prepared to wait that long, I’m sure I could relay the information to her. Let me just get my notes real quick, miss…?” Shiro trailed off, gesturing for Allura to take the notes she needed.

“Mrs. Sanda.” The clerk emphasized.

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t as into Shiro’s attempts to get in her good graces as they thought she was, but nevertheless, Shiro got Allura farther than she came with the woman on her own.

“Sorry, mrs. Sanda. Wouldn’t want to make your husband angry.”

“Wife.”

Oops. “Alright, I have my notes.” Shiro looked up when Allura handed him a sticky note with questions. Nodding, and reading them off one by one. “So, how exactly is your permit policy changing, and will it have any impact on our scheduled maintenance work on the internet cables running under Park Avenue?”

Shiro let out a deep sigh as he placed the horn back on the machine, roughly an hour later. “Wow, I don’t think I can remember the last time I’ve been on the phone with someone for so long.”

“That’s what you’re surprised about?” Allura asked, eyes wide with disbelief. “I can’t believe you got through to her!”

Shiro laughed and shrugged. “You can be bad cop all you want, but if there’s no good cop to even things out, you’re not going to get the answers you need. First lesson at the academy.” Though the smile on his face quickly dissipated when his eyes fell on the bag of food that was still standing on Allura’s desk, cooling down. “I think our food is as good as cold.”

“No need to worry. Ko’s food is still pretty great after it’s cooled down. Here.” Allura said, offering Shiro a soup dumpling between her chopsticks.

Shiro smiled broadly as he ate the dumpling off of her chopsticks, leaning further to give her a quick peck on the lips, only to pause. “Holy shit, this is amazing.” He spoke through a full mouth.”

“Told you.” Allura giggled. “I still have three more calls to make. Would you mind sticking around to help me with those as well?” She asked as she flashed Shiro an apologetic smile, holding up a potsticker for him.

He let out a hearty laugh. “Yeah, of course.” He said as he took the dumpling Allura offered. “By the time we’re done, we should be all out of dinner.”

“Alright, let’s do it then!”

Keith nervously stood in front of Hunk's family's front door, holding a bouquet of colorful flowers for the other man’s mother. That was normal, right? Keith had never had dinner with a boyfriend’s family before. Truth be told, he never thought he would. Up until a month and a half ago, Keith wasn’t even sure he was capable of love at all!

He sighed as he finally brought himself to ring the damn doorbell. A few moments, there was nothing. Then, he heard the door to the hallway open, followed by stumbling and the playful laughter of children. Oh boy, this would be a handful.

Eventually, the door was opened by a pair of girls. Twins, ten to twelve years old. They looked like the rowdy, tomboyish type from what Keith could tell. They each wore bandanas around their foreheads, matching Hunk's. They had to be his little sisters.

“Henry! Your boyfriend's here!" The one on the left called into what Keith presumed was the living room.

"'Henry'?" Keith snorted, hiding a smile behind his hand. Was that really Hunk's name? It wasn’t long until the man himself came to the door.

“Thanks, Hannah.” He said as he carefully nudged the girl out of the way and pressed a quick kiss to Keith's cheek. "Hey Keith."

"Hey Henry." Keith joked, making the girls chortle, a dopey grin spreading across his own face as he patted the man's chest.

"And thanks for reminding me why I always introduce myself as 'Hunk’." He chuckled. "Come on in!" He said as he ushered Keith inside and closed the door behind them. “So, you’ve already met Hannah and Heidi.”

“Hi!” The girls said in unison, each raising a hand to greet Keith.

“Yeah, I’m not gonna be able to tell you guys apart.” Keith admitted, scratching the back of his neck apologetically.

“That’s okay. Most of our teachers can’t, either.” The one on the right (Heidi?) said as she patted Keith’s shoulder reassuringly.

“We usually react to the other’s name too.” The one on the left (who by principle of elimination had to be Hannah) finished, giving Keith a big smile and a thumbs up.

Hunk only smiled, placing a hand on Keith’s hip. “Ready for the rest of the family?”

"As ready as I'll ever be." Keith smiled as Hunk took his hand, leading him into the living room.