#for this media exercise anyway LMFAO

[friend-dogor]

actually wait in relation to the last post about ghibli and how it is aestheticized into bland and toothless images of comfort, it's got me thinking abt Ursula K Le Guin again

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.

(from The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, 1973, top of pg.2)

i think that the original post is guilty of this to a degree, seeking to refute the idiocy and simplicity of focusing on the "happy" themes of ghibli movies my instead shifting attention to the horrors and pains contained within the text—those which could be seen as intellectual, needing perhaps a more sophisticated understanding of environmentalism and geopolitics.

but, furthermore, i think i'm guilty of it even in trying to defend miyazaki's often returning narrative commitment to hope and environmentalism and anti-war sentiment and kindness—after the last tag, i wanted to add something about "i know that putting kindness above pursuit of power feels like a baby theme for babies" because it Does, to me. "be kind" is, like, the first and simplest rule most of us are taught as children, be kind, don't hit your brother, be kind, share, be kind.

i don't refer to this as one of his more challenging themes, of course, because why should i? we all know to be kind. of course, i refer only to topics of war and environmentalism and grief as challenging. kindness is simple!

(nevermind that one of the biggest challenges for myself and a lot of people i know is how to stop being cruel to oneself after decades of practice and learned examples and instead to learn to be kind and forgiving with one's own mistakes and failures and perceived flaws)

and i wonder two things: 1) is it possible that the self-aestheticization of miyazaki's movies (for example, the rapturous visual attention paid to food, the attention paid to soft chairs, pillows, small and pleasantly cluttered environments, with plenty of natural light, lush plantlife and endearing creatures) contribute to miyazaki's more "challenging" messages, and if so, that there's a degree of success in people remembering the thick-cut bacon and eggs on toast from Howl's Moving Castle before they think of Sophie Hatter's town on fire because of the king's war? Has Hayao Miyazaki succeeded in making war and destruction at once horrifying and banal, but a simple good breakfast fascinating and compelling? ——not to say that people who simplify the movie to Only the aesthetics are right. they still aren't. they exist in dialogue with the destruction and it's ridiculous to sever the two. but is it possible that the majority of people thinking first of the "cozy" elements of Studio Ghibli's work is not nonintellectual and reductive, but rather contributes to a larger point of attention?

2) i ought to find other examples of media which do not treat "happy" themes or "light" themes—(i struggle even to talk about the category i mean without dismissing it entirely as Simple, or mischaracterizing it. i mean things like kindness over power and compassion over fear, things like that) which do not treat the themes as childish or nonintellectual, but also do so without fetishizing violence and suffering as Special and More Deserving of Thought than Simple and Stupid Good Feelings so that i can kind of investigate this concept a little more

[ruporas]

trigunned the hades or hadesed the trigun (id in alt)

[hexcitrine]

randomly looked at this account to update my age and holy shit it's been a while since i posted here..........i have a small pile of art i have yet to post but hbhbshdbshbd too lazy

[astrxealis]

mobile tumblr's new format what the fuck!

[bunny-queen]

manifesting w placebos

first of all my loves the thing about placebos when you're manifesting is that they're....... not really placebos lmao they're just a different method for affirming and persisting, but if you keep telling yourself that they work, then they work. they would be true placebos if they didn't possess any actual effect

ANYWAY that's not the point: one of my favorite ways of persisting on something that i decided i want (and which is already mine) is integrating it into parts of my life that are constant. things i like doing, or that i do often

manifesting with placebos is nothing more than assigning a new meaning to these actions, for example:

you drink a lot of water? fun! now every time you drink water, your hair grows an inch longer

you have a favorite coffee mug? then every time you use that mug, you lose a ton of fat in your desired areas

do you like gua sha? babe, me too. every time you do gua sha, your face morphs more and more into your df

it's simple, reeeeally simple, which is why i suggest anyone who's looking for something new to try it out. for me, it's easier than just affirming all the time because by using a placebo, you're essentially giving your mind a trigger to think about what you're manifesting: drinking water becomes associated with having long hair, drinking coffee becomes associated with your ideal weight, and list goes on

here are some suggestions for placebos you can try:

showering

washing your hair

sleeping or napping

doing skincare

listening to music or a specific song

scrolling through social media

stretching or exercising

eating

looking in the mirror

brushing your teeth

basically, anything you want lmfao

you got this, baby. everything you've always wanted is YOURS and nobody else's. trust yourself. live your best fucking life <3

[shadowtraveled]

How did you get 27 for Mithrun's age? 185 divided by 5 is 37

i don't know if i clarified this but that's an estimate in tallman years (not real life human years) based on the lifespan averages in the adventurer's bible (assuming contributing factors to lifespan more or less balance out)

on one hand, tallmen live 60 years on average while elves live 400, so i divided 185 (current age) by 400 (average elf expectancy) to get .4625 (amount of life lived where the total is 1), and then multiplied that by 60 (average tallman expectancy) to get 27.75. so almost 28.

that doesn't take into account the rate of maturing vs aging past maturity, though, and since elves and tallmen reach physical maturity at different rates compared to their average lifespans, my second estimate of ~30 makes more sense to me.

to get that, i divided 105 (years progressed into adulthood) by 320 (average span of adult elf life, since elves hit maturity at 80) for .328125 and multiplied that by 44 (average span of adult tallman life, since they hit maturity at 16) for 14.4375. then, i added 14.4375 to 16 (tallman age of maturity) which is 30.4375.

since there are so many different factors that contribute to things like average lifespan this is maybe kind of a pointless exercise lmfao but this is the closest i got to making it make sense in my brain. please keep in mind i am very bad at math i just am compelled to think about lifespans after months spent thinking about various dungeons & dragons media character dynamics (shadowgast i'm talking about shadowgast. those guys love their lifespan angst)

anyway welcome to elf math with yuri that was the elf math

[bisluthq]

I think the ED was the one she felt like she really had to go more in depth about because she knows she was thinspo for sooo many people for a long time. A lot of people either don’t know better or feel weird speculating about someone having an ED so her being like “no I was extremely sick” was really important, and not something she really owed to anyone.

I also felt that was very important of her and extremely fucking brave. Like she doesn’t owe it to anyone but if her whole Miss Americana doccie was about how fame fucked her up and how she got better it actually legit would’ve been Oscar nom worthy imo. It would’ve also legit been powerful. As is, the ED scenes were really really important.

I’m very anti “let’s not speculate on/talk about EDs” and I’ll tell y’all why: EDs are like Fight Club. When you’re inside one the first rule is you don’t talk about Fight Club. And like obviously lol because tbh at a certain point it clicks in your head your behavior isn’t normal. But if no one is saying anything and this PARADE of underweight women is being presented to you in media and they’re being praised for being healthy and you’re like… doing weird shit like the Cassie from Skins trick… and you’re hating yourself more for it because you’re like “but SHE is so HEALTHY and SKINNY why am *I* having to do this weird shit!????” and anyway the whole thing spirals and it’s bad.

So I think step one to dealing with diet culture and how it can result in mental illness is talking about it. It’s talking about how like even people who are as far as we know healthy and naturally trend to skinny - see Di Silvers, Zendaya - are not eating “whatever they want” and looking like THAT unless they’re also overexercising maybe. It’s legit work like for everyone and actually Di and Z have spoken about what they do like they don’t pretend to eat burgers and pizzas and lounge about every day.

If someone is very thin but constantly talking about food and eating that’s a whole ass red flag 🚩 so see Taylor at her worst, both Hadids, and Miss Ma’am Karlie Kloss like besties why are u lying to the class? I’ll answer lmfao: because they know it’s fucked and don’t want to admit it and Di can talk about her diet and exercise because it’s legit just a healthy maintenance plan where she can still have fun and not starve herself afterwards.

So idk like I say the “let’s not mention it in celebs” harms disordered real life people consuming the content and I feel it’s important to talk about and I’m really grateful Taylor felt that too ❤️❤️

And like not NOT SPECULATING isn’t accusing people of anything BAD. Because EDs aren’t shameful or anything. It’s just saying “Bella Hadid you did not eat all that” and such.

[szopenhauer]

Using the first letter of their name, use a word to describe your partner. meow Where’s the closest church to you?  like 10 minutes of walking 

Last thing you did that made you feel like an adult? look for a job? What’s your favorite picture of your mom? Dad? maybe What’s something exciting that’s happened to one of your friends recently? ask them Do you have any board games? If so, where do you keep them? yep, here and there What were the last things you glued together? two pages of a notebook If you have a collection of anything - where did you get most of that collection? thrift store/second hand

What was the last thing you purchased? food and t-shirt 

What are you wearing right now? pajama all day long sleeves and leggings What did you last order from a restaurant? smth disgusting that I don’t recommend And what restaurant was that from? local

Have you ever seen 50 First Dates? nope

Have you ever read any of John Green’s books? from what I remember If so, which one is your favorite? I don’t like him Are you a protective person? oh well... Does your license plate number contain the number 8? I don’t have a car Were you ever a ghost on Halloween? never Are you a fan of penguins? they’re ok Are you a good painter? meh Before buying a car, do you usually test drive it? dunno if I would  Have you ever met your favorite author? noooo Have you and your best friend ever liked the same person? sorta When was the last time someone called you babe or baby? recently  Do you have an older brother? he’s dead Do you watch Teen Wolf on MTV? I should lmfao

Do you have a movie that you have to watch during the summer every year? wtf Do you know anyone who has a flower tattoo? I believe Marta does Do you like the name Carter? not really Have you ever had a secret admirer? believe it or not but I had at least one How many different languages can you say goodbye in? 3 or more

Do you adore plaid pajama pants? why not

Can you see another person from where you are? my parents are asleep already

Can you curse in a foreign language? I can 

What was the last thing you tripped over? not sure what was last

Do you have anything to say about eels? remind me of Ariel (Ursula)

If you could have a giant swimming pool, what would you fill it with? it’s a secret ;)

When was the last time you ate cardboard? that didn’t happen, ever, in my whole life

What song is stuck in your head? Tame Impala - Borderline

What color is the carpet below your feet? there’s no carpet

Is it raining? no

What was the last thing you laughed at? smth with M.

Have you ever petted a chicken? yasss <3

What about a llama? I wish

Or a cow? petted a bit

Can you play pool? I tried ^^” 

Ever won a game of chess? I don’t recall

Approximately how long did this take? *shrug*

Where you a 90’s kid? I was born in 1992

What color(s) are the clothes you’re wearing? blue and grey

Where were you the last time you kissed someone? sigh...

Are you a godparent? no way

How much water do you drink in a day? 5 mugs?

Do you sleep too much or not enough? depends 

Have you ever gone a full day without interacting with another person? not possible Where were you going the last time you were on a train? Ełk or Warsaw

When you shop at IKEA, do you always stop to eat a snack/meal in the cafeteria? I did  Are there any ways in which you greatly differ from everyone else in your family? for example - I’m gay Do you have any gay relatives? speaking of the devil... Have you ever had to have a pet put down? I’m against that in most cases  Have you unfollowed, deleted, or blocked anyone on social media recently? not last days? If so, what was the reason? I block porn blogs that follow me constantly  Do you know what your vocal range is? no idea, that’s interesting When was the last time you spoke to your parents? this evening What’s the biggest financial mistake you’ve ever made? don’t wanna talk about those mistakes Do you like metal music? not a fan Have you ever turned down someone who didn’t handle the rejection well? could be worse When was the last time you went for a walk? yesterday What’s the longest you’ve ever stayed as a guest at someone’s house? counting my grandma and aunt? if not then one night  Are there any colleges or universities in the town you live in? there aren’t How bad was your acne when you were a teenager? bad Would you rather exercise on an elliptical or a stationary bike? eliptical

Do you know anyone that’s painfully, socially awkward?: ... me? How do you usually pose in your pictures?: make stupid faces to cover my ugliness XD Do you know anyone that absolutely freaks out if you try to take a picture of them?: me again Do you pick on them for it and attempt to take loads of pictures anyway?: stop! If you ever had to take care of a fake baby in family ed - were you a good mother/father?: not applicable Do any of your friends put ‘lol’ in almost every single text they send you?: I do that too so...

Do you like movies more if they’re based on actual events?: prefer fiction What would you do if your gf was hitting on someone else right in front of you?: I would be sad Can you recall the first person you ever drank/got drunk/high with?: John and arab ^ are you still friends?: I still chat on fb with J. but only rarely What did you last stretch the truth about?: hmm... Have you ever had withdrawals from something?: omg  Someone?: that as well How many nicknames can you think of for marijuana?: weed, marycha, Mary, trawka What about the police?: better keep quiet lol Do you know how to use roman numerals properly?: yep Most people who’ve slept over at your house all at once?: 5 Have you ever stapled yourself?: I’m not that clumsy Who would you like to spend the night with?: you know who... Is flirting really cheating?: it is What’s something you own that’s /only/ of sentimental value?: shitload of stuff What song would you use to torture someone?: smth that they hate  Has anyone licked you today?: lmfao  Three things you want to live without?: my problems A random stranger walks up to you and says 'you’re hot’. You say: ...

Do you wear the same shirt multiple times before washing? I might Would you rather be surrounded by maple trees, fir trees, or palm trees? definitely not palms What does your favorite bikini look like? I only own one bathsuit Do you have a balcony? we do have a balcony 

Is Friday 13th REALLY that unlucky? Do you believe in any superstitions? normal day for me (I started to worry when I typed that down - kuszenie losu)

Does your country celebrate Halloween differently than in other places? Poland doesn’t really celebrate Halloween tbh

Do you see many bats in your area? sadly not, that’d be nice

How many board games do you own? mine or family’s?

Newest musical discovery? bunch of Tame Impala songs Last thing you cleaned? washed a wooden knife What exactly do you carry around all your stuff in? I own plenty of bags/backpacks/totes etc. What is your Mercury sign?  still Aquarius Last thing you disposed of? food package and paper kitchen towel Are you good at recovering from injuries? been told How many different public restrooms have you used this week? less than 5? Do you have more piercings or tattoos? equally none What was the last picture someone sent you? selfie I asked for to make a morph out of our faces Did you hear a siren today? I did not What do you typically drink? water

[dahtwitchi]

@alaricathecat sent an ask

You’re such an amazing artist! I’m sorry if you got this question 100x times already, but what media do you use to paint your pictures? I’ve been looking for a new media type, and it looks absolutely fun (and perhaps really difficult?) to use, but I’m nothing but stubborn if I do say so myself. Lmfao. Anyway, your art is stunning, I wish I could have art class with you, because I believe I could learn a lot from you

First of all: Thank you

I’m guessing you are talking about the most common style I’m using right now?Easiest way is to show, I guess, so I documented the process of my last drawing ^^ I’ll go into detail under the cut! (there should alsobe miscellanious things under the tag #how I art)

Basically, it’s bottled ink with a few touch ups. Everything but the glass of water is in the first image (coffee, very important, and KEEP IT ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF YOUR WATER to minimise risks of inking up your coffee!!), including the sketches I did of orcas in preparation for this piece. Always find ways to nag yourself into some sketch studies whenever you manage! I hadn’t drawn orcas before, so I just set a timer to 40 minutes and drew a few of the first images that came up when googling.

I use mechanical pencil for the sketch, a 2B 0.7 lead, which I get excess lead off of with a kneaded eraser. This help not to clog the tips of pens or brushes with all that excess, and the ink go on the paper not on top of the graphite. I rough line it with a thin waterproof ink pen (today that ended up being a 02 micron) and then use the kneaded eraser to remove the rest of the sketch. The kneaded eraser is worth gold! Get a good brand one, though, because there are some really crappy out there, and the brand ones I find don’t generally cost more in any case. They are supposed to be really soft and possible to drag out loooong very easily and quite fast. You might get stuck stretching it over and over and over and over- yeah.

Then I move on to the ink, and watercolours or gouache depending on what’s closest when I’m about to sit down. The brushes are the only thing I’ve bothered to get hold of high quality ones. I splurged with birthday money, and I’m weak they were so good! A single decent one that hold liquid well and don’t let go of it in great blobs was fine for quite a while, though.

Here come the trouble with my technique though, because what I use for paper is printer paper x’D Not the cheapest one, but step above, xerox big pack for colour print. The surface hold up surprisingly well, and I have also used it for markers as it doesn’t bleed through very fast. If can’t handle liquids well at all, though x’D Bubbling, people! The trick is, as little water as possible and let layers dry inbetween. A bit fiddly, but lower the cost a lot for these not high class artwork pieces. (also a lot of the low cost, but still far more expensive, watercolour papers actually handle water worse than these printer papers, sooo

The ink is thinned out with water, a can lid work excellently as colour cups! A dip into the ink, put it in the lid and add a some droplets of water. I use a clean moist brush, but let excess water bleed out from the brush onto toilet paper, then bring in the amount of watered down ink I want and apply. My different brushes need different ratios of water and ink in them to let go of the same amount of liquid and colour, so learn your brushes! The more expensive brushes are able to let go of practically all ink and practically none is wasted in the water glass, while the cheap brushes always have quite a bit of ink left in them despite not really letting go of more to the paper.

Then it’s layering time. But not too heavy layering, as the ink I use reactivate again. Making sure not to work the surface much, as it too easily crumbles. Oh. And getting distracted by how pretty ink in water is. Maybe dip the brush an extra time just to see the pretty swirls~

First few layers are all over, not that much confined to inside the lines. Help to create more depth and movement in the end. I try to shade the lighter areas first, as the darker colours will bleed when layering over them. The very darkest clear edges last, on perfectly dry paper, to ensure clean contrast lines. 

The shading from dark to light, I make sure to have a dipping of water sucked up high up in the brush, then relatively dark ink. When you then go from dark to light, you’ll get less and less colour. The smoother a shade you want, the more important it is to work wet and not risk the paper suck up colour and end up with sharp edges where you don’t want them. Usually with liquids, you apply water first, then add in the colour in the wet area, but you can only do that with good (expeeeeensive) watercolour paper. So, here you have to work fast and confidently.

Or. You know. Get shades in ways you hadn’t planned, and either just make it all lots darker, or pretend it’s all fine. That’s a skill to learn, too! Very important one x’D

I use maybe… 2-5 dips into the ink in total for these pieces, so a bottle of ink really isn’t very expensive compared to what I get out of it. 

When I’m happy with the ink, I add in touches of colour. Still with little water, and it will mix in with the ink. Gouache you can layer on top better, but I’m just accenting a bit, so solstice blue it was x3

Then we have the white el tip pen. That I have to stop myself from overusing completely x’D Outlining things like the weapon and dividing line between body and furthest fin to stand out more, added in on the eyes that was a tad bit too dark and adding shinies to body and such.

Lastly I go over with a ink pen again, or possible my smallest brush if I can be bothered, to just touch everything up.

And that’s it. With disturbances and cats and kiddo and all, it took about 1.5 h, preparations and digital after work (adjusting what the scanner killed, and tiny adjustments here and there, made his right pupil smaller as it was too big, for example) excluded. 

I really like working the ink and the brushes. It got such life and soul, the medium give it’s own twist on what you try to make. I did get a grip on the ink thanks to inktober, where I at least 2/3 worked with the bottled ink to prompts, so that the point became making something with ink rather than forgetting your medium in favour for motif. Sketching and exercises and time limits, those are what have made me take the biggest steps in art. Making truly elaborate pieces have been about having a bit fun with the skills you have, but the journey of growing as an artist isn’t about those anymore for me. It’s surprisingly freeing, and the day you discover hard work on sketch exercises make you suddenly able to sketch a wide variety of things just like that? It’s complete awe ^^

[raymondsecurityadventures]

Lecture 9 - Really Long Version - WIP

The first half of this week’s lecture focused largely upon revision, whilst the second half referred to a couple new theoretical concepts (that had been covered by Jazz if you attend his classes so more revision) and a taste of Adam’s lecture next week on privacy.

Culture - Just Culture, Excellence Culture, Feedback Culture and everything in between

Just Culture

Contrasted against blame culture, just culture seeks to take a more holistic outlook upon placing fault for an incident in the event of one and tries to steer away from placing blame upon the last person to interact with the subject of the incident or ‘shooting the messenger’ and addressing the incident as the product of multiple issues. Since Australian airline Qantas’ adoption of this culture and its subsequent success, just culture has seen widespread, occasionally forced, adoption.

Many credit just culture’s success to the relative lack of aversion that individual employees have toward participating in incident and safety reporting related events, meetings and hearings as just culture places assurances to protect said participating employees from any unjust recourse, a la shooting the messenger style, and incentivises issue reporting.

Lessons To Learn from Traditional Engineering 

Security engineering is a relatively new field compared to traditional engineering disciplines, so it seem to follow that security engineering could draw from traditional principles such as:

Implementing codes and methodologies to follow in times of crisis 

Attempting to falsify everything; i.e. continually testing systems to examine potential issues 

Culture of excellence; taking pride in your profession. Deadlines are important but so is delivering quality code and the former shouldn’t come at the cost of the latter. 

Fix agile; it’s fast and agile but that’s pretty much it. Pretty awful about security 

Associations; there are medical, engineering, accounting and law related associations such as the various bar associations, accounting and actuarial practice associations, Australian Medical Association etc. etc. that enforce rules of practice. Make one for software engineering.

Closing the Loop: Feedforward Systems

Feedforward neural networks tend to struggle classifying more difficult to things to classify, as the lack of feedback from deeper layers causes learning difficulties. This is remedied in various ways, however, the simplest of these remedies is to simply create a feedback loop and allow feedback from deeper layers into previous layers.  Which is also commonsense in the real world; educational systems, security systems, government systems etc. all require methods of gauging the success of their policies in order to identify areas of improvement. Thus, apparatuses to channel feedback should exist and should probably be better than MyExperience.

System Properties and Design

Object Oriented Programming Principles 

Loose coupling good, tight coupling bad: Steven Bradbury video with one member of a group of tightly coupled falling over causing other athletes to fall over and the Australian coming last because sucked - and thus loosely coupled to the group - wins gold.

Issues and Benefits of Automated Systems 

Issues:

Predominantly their inability to cover edge scenarios. Such a system will always have to have a method of operating outside its parameters and artificial intelligence isn’t so advanced that systems are able to do so. So human interference is pretty much always necessary.  

Benefits:

Removes the human element from decision making, which is ideal because humans are bad at a lot of things as seen in every cognitive bias ever

Systems Designed by People Suck

We spend 1bn dollars every election, but democratic systems still fucking suck because non-critical infrastructure programmers are building them rather than actual critical infrastructure programmers.

End-to-End 

End-to-end security refers to security that stretches the entire length of a system, and is equally robust at all parts. Obviously, people tend to slack off and their cognitive biases may convince them or lead them to believe a particular area is more secure or less critical than is in actuality. 

This is particularly true in the case of the US electoral system and only recently have its vulnerabilities been brought to light. Such as system operates in the following manner: 

Elections:

People making up their mind about who to vote for 

The announcement of voting

Propaganda everywhere

Establishing voting infrastructure

People go to the polls

The votes are counted

The results are announced

We know that the Russians knew step 1 was particularly weak, took advantage of existing information transfer systems (social media specifically) and used them to spread misinformation and Donald Trump won lmfao. 

Really Loosely Related Section

I’m including this section for completeness’ sake but it won’t be written up properly and I doubt it will be of any relevance in the exam. 

Free Speech? The n-word? Conflicts of interest?

You want all free speech except that's critical of you. When you believe in free speech, you have to believe in free speech that disagrees with you.

Self-Driving Cars: issues with hackermanz

Google: 'no it's fine lol, we have top people working on it. Self driving planes are a thing already, why not cars'.  Proceeds to try to convince us that robots will be better than humans because humans are drunk, brash idiots. Proceeds to try and misdirect us:

Misdirection: Ethical dilemmas that computers have to make: would the car rather swerve into a young person or an old person?

Fails to address the magnitude of an incident involving systemic failure in computers v individually driven incidents such as terrorist attacks:

Terrorists are small in number.

Computers are not.

Security Analysis of that nuclear silo site in that Wargames film clip:

Features:

Random location in the middle of nowhere - obscurity

Inconspicuous location in Wisconsin - obscurity 

Single way mirror so people wouldn't accidentally find it - security by obscurity

Sign on system

Dual authentication: two people to check codes. Defence in depth? Multiple points of failure? 

Two keys required: forgot the protocol name

Large distance between keys

Case Studies to Read/Watch Up On:

3 Mile Island

Chernobyl

China Syndrome

Trust

A bit that our tutors elaborated upon but Richard himself failed to. 

Importance of trust:

Makes things work. Trust makes processes efficient as people are able to let down their paranoia and focus upon doing what they specialise in, rather than trying to build 1000 walls to protect what they do and obtaining their own food and shelter rather than relying on specialists such as farmers, builders etc to obtain necessary goods/food/shelter.

It allows society to be society.

The Trust Dilemma 

Protocols that rely on trusted third parties. Don't roll your own v allow a third party to do it? Are some things to be trusted? Everything has backdoors.

My Future

Richard tries to convince us of the holistic value of his course. Richard also justifies the strange range of topics to be presented in the portfolio:

Community is important: useful to build off each other's ideas. Something Einstein standing on shoulders of giants

Self-directed learning :- something awesome project. Helps you learn what is important, what you find interesting, constantly update knowledge because security is always changing

Exercise:- do CTFs…'noone's gonna check if you don't do it but do it anyway because you'll learn'. It’s important to stay in shape

Professionalism: plenty recent-ish security related professions growing so we need to do what's right for the profession

[krazeechick]

5/17/20

So I ended up calling off work again last night the pain was unbearable. Today’s plan is to go outside walking, which I’m doing. I wonder why I never liked doing this before? Too out of shape probably.

I’m really hoping doing this everyday will help me sleep. I’m enjoying it so far too. Since I work from home I’m starting to try to make it a thing to get outside atleast once a day. I’m trying to fill in my watch rings. Just concerned about the exercise and move rings that’s all. I can do this. Plus fresh air really does feel nice.

I guess after my most recent loss I’m just over all trying to be healthier in general and eating also. I lost a lot of weight back a few years and then I gained it back with the losses and eating habits. So if I kee this up I’m hoping it can only help me right? Plus I live in a neat area for walks and such it’s nice and quiet.

I plan on going to Walmart to get some NyQuil and something for pain. Yesterday was oh so bad. I never want to experience that again.

Having no social media is like a whole different life it’s very peaceful and I have a lot more time to spend doing other dumb bullshit it’s cool. I never realized how much time I was spending on Facebook until now. Do I miss it? Nah no one bothers really with me on there anyway. My “friends” didn’t even bother to tel me happy birthday on my birthday on the 5th. Lmao how fake is that? Me against theworld I guess. Not sure why I am such a shitty person but 🤷🏼‍♀️it’s life I guess. I’ve been hurt more than one can possibly imagine but yet my head still stands high these days.

I thought it was also cool when my dads work is done he wants to start walking with me starting in 8 days. That’ll be nice lol. My dad is so nice. He knows my plans as mentioned above/below. Next time I am pregnant he wants to know right away so that way we can all work together to help it survive somehow. I’m getting a start though with exercising and getting fit ahead of time. Gotta be if imma chase a little one around one day right?🤗☺️

It’s neat to look back on this. I really find this therapeutic. No social media I have more time for whatever else and it’s just so peaceful. this right here is so cool to look back on and see how much my life has changed and how I thought about certain things and it’s just nice for me to look back on personally and reflect.

Like 😂I can’t believe I thought CT was so perf lmfao let’s all laugh together. Funny lmao. I also thought I would never fall in love with my ex again. I will say it again and again I honestly thought we were the most perfect couple in the world. But I guess we have different views on life and I know what I want in life. I literally just want my uterus to work and have a mini me. Someone to take care of. I would love to have my own place with a man and a child but at this point I don’t see me having a man anytime soon I’m over dating anymore. I’m too hurt who knows what will happen in the future though. I just wish I could change people mind but I can’t. I really thought we had it all. And wanted it al too.

Do I miss him? Ofcourse I do. I just still can’t believe it. I literally want to get my family started. That’s all I want in life, all I’ve wanted in life him me & baby. Happily ever after. But he just wants to look at other girls I guess and go to concerts and some drugs and stuff which is fine but ugh im just so sad we definitely don’t want the same things in life. Here I go again about to cry. Enough enough

I took some NyQuil and pain meds earlier and not gonna lie. I slept soooo good. It was amazing. I can’t wait to try taking NyQuil tomorrow too hoping it works again. If it keeps workin I will so keep buying. Although I did wake up I did go back to bed right away, felt like I fell asleep right away too.

Anyways. Here’s a few cool pictures from my walk today.

[brehaaorgana]

Those are the type of ppl who scream, "goD is DEAd" at funerals and have anime girls as avatars on social media

I think um Well PERSONALLY I have always had a lot of feelings about religion and belief in God/a higher power and my belief is sort of...well fundamentally the universe exists, and whether or not God exists or is dead or whatever else, we exist, the universe exists, and our interpretation of that existence is a lot of where our theology comes from. When you get past the mire of Christianity, then the dichotomy of belief/disbelief is less dramatic and alarming. These nu atheists out here like "religion is a balm for the problems of reality!!! It's just to relax you!!! And distract from the pain of the world!!" Like...no shit y'all lmfao. People do things that make them feel good sometimes! ...one of the things that attracted me to Judaism and that came up in my final conversion meeting (Beit din) was how there's such a diversity of understanding, reacting to, and processing whatever it is we call G-D. The rabbis asked me if I could talk about g-d and how I defined that, and I was straight up like "Look, the exercise of defining G-d is going to fail. I *can't* define g-d, because a single definition limits what g-d is or can be, and if I could understand the limits of g-d I would BE g-d." It's undefinable!! It means vastly different things for different people and it could be the natural beauty of science and atoms or it could be some elderly guy image you relate to or it could be nothing at all! Anyways I told the rabbis this, and talked about how I reject the idea that I'm too dumb to understand/comprehend g-d or something but I also feel like I don't want to limit the possibility of g-d to only my personal conception/perception and they were like "oh yeah, true. Very [medieval Jewish scholar name] of you." ...SO WHATEVER maybe for some people God is dead and for others it's...not that big of a deal either way.

[dem-khuya]

03242019:2034

hello good evening. it has been busy and i haven’t had much time to write, so i’ll try to fit this one in before bed. lately it has been hard to sleep without taking melatonin. i keep thinking too much. i use it i guess to deaden whatever it is that creeps up on me in the evenings

this weekend we had the annual china leadership summit between two universities--mine and our ‘rival’ (it’s so dumb using tht word but i guess thts what they are). it was wonderful. tiring but really eye-opening experience

i took so many notes at the keynotes/seminars i attended. here are a couple that stood out, as well as what i’d like to remember from them: 

* joanna chiu. i really enjoyed hearing her reports on china, though i have a lot of mixed feelings towards her career trajectory. i am always quite skeptical of those who report heavily on chinese human rights violations, as if the west were a better example of human rights...hah. anyway. one important point she shared was never to underestimate the role of social media, even when it is barely considered “real” news. wechat is how she reached many ppl while she was in china as well as observed the downfall of various dissidents and activists. another interesting person she mentioned was a woman named hooligan sparrow, a woman who used viral images to attract attention to sexual assault/abuse of young women and girls. 

* lina benabdallah. one of my favorite, favorite talks. she spoke on china-africa relations. her opening question was “what first comes to your mind when you think about china-africa relations?” and obviously many people responded, “neo colonialism, debt traps, exploitation.” it was so funny because lmao as lhiftya said, it was truly the pot calling the kettle black. as if america and europe has never colonialized or exploited africa. : ) in any case, she spoke on china’s human resource contributions to african nations, esp. government scholarships, training seminars/workshops, employment opportunities, medicine...a lot of people were rendered speechless (mostly non-chinese hah hah hah!) because they honestly did not even consider those things. one of my favorite points she mentioned was that china thinks in the long-term with regards to its relationship to african countries, never the short-term, and is more willing to offer long-term help and aid and relationships...additionally their human resource contributions are what make them more favorable than western countries because. well. obviously. lol. really enjoyed her talk and will make a note to request her powerpoint because there were some invaluable statistics in there.

* matt turpin: i don’t like the guy. i also disagree with almost everything he talked about. but it was really interesting to learn more about how shitty us foreign policy was. he said that there were 3 main segments on US foreign policy in china: national security, human rights, as well as economy/commercial. the US believed that by prioritizing commercial/economic relationships with China, it would be able to coerce china into “improving” human rights and “becoming less of a security threat.” long story short, they only realized that they were wrong in 2013, and until now have not developed any new foreign policy towards china because china was proceeding in a direction that was not predictable by US/western standards (according to him, the US considered it a non-normative country, which is equivalent to...terrorist organizations lmfao. can you fucking believe?). other notes that he mentioned: spheres of influence (china respects their own) vs universal norms (obviously they are western norms), competitive approaches, military strength towards china...china becoming not normative but also not a non-normative power...etc. very funny stuff. insightful but quite...ruinous

* david wertime: wonderful...a great way to set the mood for our final day. he mostly emphasized the power of social media and reporting on china. idk what he does now but he was a prominent journalist for a long time, usually translating information from weibo before. he had such wonderful advice for us starting our careers--he said, we should select a career where our strengths are considered strengths, and not weaknesses. we should be in a job where we feel like we can “kick ass”. and he said, when making life-long decisions, always know that the negatives are perceivable in the present (should be written in pen) while the positives, while not predictable, can potentially greatly outweigh the negatives (should be written in pencil). everyone wrote those words down! he also wrote an article about a chinese-adoptee named “jenna cook”, who returned to wuhan to search for her birth parents. she didn’t find them, but she found over 50 mothers and fathers who had abandoned their own baby girls in the same bridge in wuhan, and wished that she was their daughter. i hope to read this story soon

* jessica teets: also wonderful. she reported on china’s ever expanding surveillance system, the social credit system, and xi jinping’s differences from his predecessors. i would also love the ppt on her work as well as recs for think tanks to potentially work at haha...i love the use of big data in china, and i really think the use of digital surveillance as a method of policing people is both scary and ... incredible. i will always admire that china will hold everyone accountable regardless if they are a normal citizen, an actor, a politician...everyone is the same before the law. obviously this is a gross exaggeration but the extent of which chinese government will go out of their way to enforce such methods against all people from walks of life is quite admirable. i hope that the social credit system improves, and that chinese government continues to improve in “fairness” (i’m tired so i’m keeping this short and somewhat incoherent)

afterwards i went out with jing to get onigiri and talked with her a lot...she mentioned something about the panama canal, which xi jinping was also involved in, but became censored in china later. the censorship in china is somewhat worrying. i’m not chinese so i have no other say in it except that. i really loved talking w jing and hope i can see her again soon. i met so many wonderful people and reconnected with great friends (mohit!!) and it was a good reminder to me that i must make time in my schedule to meet friends and spend time with them 

once the bus took jing back to her uni, an older man approached me asking if i knew where a piano recital was, i told him i didn’t but we went looking for it together and i wound up attending it. it was so wonderful...i love music concerts and i really liked meeting this stranger. we talked for a while. he told me a lot about his wife and it made me wonder if perhaps his wife passed away. one poignant thing he said was that he isn’t really a music or artistic person but his wife was and that was how he started attending concerts, buying art pieces. i liked him quite a lot. his name is ralph : ) i got his email and i hope i can send him pics of my taipei trip (he’s going to beijing in the fall!). 

all in all a good day but i’m feeling the emptiness coming back. lhiftya mentioned that i am probably depressed and you know what maybe she’s right. i’ve always ignored the possibility because i don’t have the same episodes as she does--i can relate to the deep hopelessness she feels but for me it goes away quickly so i never considered myself depressed but when i read my older diary entires it seems that such hopelessness never really does leave me. it goes away and it always, always comes back. how sad...i don’t know what will become of me but i hope that i can keep exercising and seeing friends and maybe i can finish out this year alive and half-healthy

[harshita-the-sassmaster]

rn im in a hotel room and i’m going to twitter tomorrow for a program i applied for.. and to think a year ago was BALL. time goes by so quickly. things are so different...i’m still w Colin?? I’m happy with myself. i hope for more self-growth because I feel like a happier person. 

i am so much more grateful for everything in my life -- my health, my family, the opportunity to get an education, the caring and supportive peers/ friends that i have, and just myself too. 

i’ve really grown to really love myself, and i’m definitely not as sensitive as i used to do be. ofc, i know i could be smarter. i know i could be more efficient at studying. i know i could focus more. but i think i’m really just trying to live my life with a balance. my mental health is at a good place because i feel like most of the time, i feel good or ok about my life. yes, i stress a lot and get anxious easily, but that’s lowkey my personality i realized ( lol) i say this as i sit chilling in this chair @ hotelzelos!! but like i know i’m just trying to find a balance. 

yesterday was the first time i was ever lit at a frat event, and ngl it was soo much better lmfao like what did i do being sober at all the frat things i went to in the past. this really good looking guy ( with a nice ass body omg) told me i was sexy but i was like i have a boyfriend!!! still a good compliment. he asked me if my bf was white and i was like yeh! and he laughed and iwas like why is that funny!! and he was like you’re into white guys. funny story, he transferred from ucla? like wow??? anywho i kept saying the boyfriend thing lols. THIS other beautiful girl came up to me and called me pretty and honestly that was so kind i love girls who are loving. at a certain point i came across this guy who was in my math and cs classes first quarter who used to always (lowkey or highkey??) look at me and i think he called me hot?and i quote, he said, “ oh shit, girls notice?” like homie idk about others but i’m p damn transparent. 

i talked to my mom about struggles i’ve been having with colin today, and she did the most wonderful thing. she just listened. she didn’t say anything about her disapproval. she kinda just listened and it was so nice to trust my mom. 

i’m actually pretty sad about not having an internship, but IM A SWE OFFICER! for next year :))) <3 i’m excited. also hope it entails more opportunities. but i hecka need to practice my coding next year. 

what i realized is that honestly, things do happen for a reason. the one thing i get really nervous abotu sometimes is about the 3 years of engineering ahead of me, but i need to realize that i can do it. i’ve withstood bullying, no self esteem, anxiety/ depression, endless fights w parents during my terrible teen phase, and fucking long distance, and 11 fricking ap exams. gotta keep my gpa at a 3.4 tho lol. this quarter, that might be a strug lol. gotta stay above at a 3.1 at least LMAO. life gets a little hard academically for my sometimes tho. hopefully i did ok on my physics test (lol). it was rlly hard but i gave it my all. despite sickness and allergies :))))))))

side note. thursday night rohan and this other girl im friends w were at late night and relationships and long distance came up. and honestly i had a realization that distance isnt rlly working out for me. and like i think that i love colin, but it doesn’t feel the same anymore. idk if its the stress but we’re gonna have to “reevaluate” during the summer if i can’t be more affectionate? which frankly idk if i can do, so let’s see what happens. i just feel like we could never have a clean, drama-free breakup. i feel like there would be some sort of blocking on social media. some sort of we can’t see each other at social events. idfk what im doing w my life. eric and ananya are still doing distance? so are holly and boris? idk. why am i so interpretative of this. anyways. 

i rlly should get back to math soon. i miss going to the gym. goals when i get back: make sure to go to the gym and play bball! exercise is good for me. might help w my sleep anxiety. 

don’t you sometimes wanna know how your life works out? because i sure do. college and academic wise. relationship wise. 

i rlly hope my mom has her own house by the end of this year. that’s honestly something that would be so amazing.