#modem position

[purgaytorysupremacy]

so I know the remote for my Apple TV (and proper tv) is here somewhere. I had my hands on it even and put it down, which means I will certainly come across it as I organize, but for now it is lost in the move. thing is. how do you connect it to the wifi so that I can use my iPhone as the remote if you don’t have a remote?? WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY it appears. but I’m weirdly proud that I managed it.

[5thearth]

Yes, the sound of negotiation and compromise.

remember when you were 10 and you would hang out with your friends in order to Look At The Computer together like you went to their house and experienced the information superhighway together. and then leave

[wilwheaton]

When I was a kid, and I was 14, 15, 16 years old, my home life was terrible. I was really sad and abused and having a terrible time at home, and the only place I was happy and felt safe was at work. I went to work and I loved my Star Trek family, and they loved me and I loved being there. And then the work we did, people were mean to me about it. People who didn't know me, who I didn't know, got on what was Usenet at the time, and they were awful. They wrote angry letters to Starlog, and they were really mean to me. They were cruel to this child at conventions and stuff in ways that would never fly today. I think that a narrative took hold — “Nobody likes Wesley.” That is empirically false. That is completely unsupported by decades of data. The truth is the kids who Wesley was meant to bring into Star Trek loved him! A lot of them grew up to work on Star Trek, right? [Laughs] What happened is, at that time, the kids who loved it weren't writing letters, they were not using Usenet. They didn't even have modems! They were just loving the show. It took me 30 fucking years to hear them and meet them and know, “Hey, buddy, you're not the person your dad said you were. You're not the person that those fans made you believe you were. You're that guy, and he is you, and there's a bunch of you together. You inspired a generation of kids.” I am so relieved and happy for my younger self. I wish I could just, like, pop through time real quick and just whisper in my ear, “Buddy, I know how much it hurts right now, but I promise you there's a day coming where it's really okay. You're not even gonna remember this.”

Wil Wheaton Reacts to the Positive Reception of Wesley Crusher's Star Trek Return: "It’s 35 Years Overdue"

[chinaskyline1170]

64 port sms modem64 port sms gsm bulk sms modem machine#smsmachine #smsmodem #bulksms #sms #smstraffic

we are the factory of bulk SMS devices,and we also have the SMS route traffic all over the world.

[fangirltothefullest]

Prolifically waiting for ai to confuse diagnostic with diagnosis on a regular basis to itself as well as us. Like... I put my symptoms in and it tells me to unplug myself. I try to run the computer diagnostic and it tells me my modem has brain cancer; I need to check my brain interface and its positive it's wireless connectivity problems are a bloodflow issue.

[patriamrealm]

If the clans now have partial pieces of their deities, does that affect their relationship with the galaxy team? Does Kamado now see this as a power imbalance against his favor?

Yes! But there has always been a power imbalance that he's been struggling with. Jubilive village is a colony of refugees displaced by the war going on across the seas, none of them want to fight here. Not only do the clans have all had numbers on their side as well as home land advantage, they have the wardens.

People capable of stopping a raging alpha pokemon in their tracks alone. People that befriend pokemon and treat them like family, and those pokemon will come to their aid.

One warden is even a dead man who can seemingly command any pokemon and is known as the strongest battler in the land.

and what's more is that it's not just one warden, it's 10. 10 people from each clan that it's their duty to protect their people and the animosity between the clans blurs and even is gone completely amongst many of the wardens.

Already the only modem of power he was able to grab at is that no one wants to go to war. And Jubilife is a fantastic neutral ground for the clans, he took the position of moderator between the clans and has held on tight to that.

But after the red sky he lost all of that tiny sliver of power. The clans are more united than they ever have been and they do not trust him one bit. Now not only do they have fractions of deities they have Akari of whom has been fully taken in by the clans after his treatment of her. She had been someone like the wardens that evened the playing field even slightly but now she too is gone.

Kamado fucked up, royally all power scales are completely out of his favor and he knows it. All he can do now is try and make up for his actions one day at a time. He is very lucky that even still no one wants to fight, no one wants war and the clans are still kind enough to let his people stay.

[sundasystems]

1. The Letter That Started It All

On a sunny day in late May, I received a letter from someone whom I'd corresponded with on a story years earlier. The letter was confusing and fairly alarming. I will attach it here:

Something is going on here. I'm missing time. I can't seem to remember what my job is, but I know I've been doing it. And I get all warm inside when I think about work. A little voice in my head is saying I'm doing a good job. But at WHAT? I wake up at night from dreams that… I can't remember. Or won't remember. Or don't want to remember. My clothes don't fit anymore. When I ask the people here who used to be my friends they all tell me not to worry. That it just means I'm settling in to the job. I don't think I want to settle in. But I also can't seem to leave. Please help me. Emily Voss

Emily had recently taken a job at Sunda Systems, a global conglomerate with it's research headquarters in a North Carolina town known as Eden Springs. Her position was that of an Administrative Assistant in the Optical Research Division.

According to a phone call I'd had with her just after her hiring, she took this position in early April after having been recruited by another employee. I believe his last name was Varas, though I am admittedly basing that on an unremarkable memory from months ago.

That phone call was the last I spoke with Emily until this letter arrived. That was not uncommon. We were not very close friends, just acquaintances and occasional collaborators. She wasn't one to kid around very much, but I couldn't shake the idea that this was all just a practical joke.

Something in the back of my head was convinced that nothing bad could be happening at Sunda. After all their motto is "Connected in Harmony." I have a Sunda modem and router combo here in my apartment, though I'd never given it a second thought until I began this project.

It is for this reason, and a deep regret, that I ignored her letter for days. But it kept nagging at me and so I decided to do some cursory digging. After the glowing reviews from top brass in various governments and corporations, I found a small post on a forum devoted to conspiracy theories. I will post it's contents here:

Does anyone think it's strange that S*nda S*st*ms has a positions listed on their job boards seeking psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists? Any company that big has got to be up to no good.

The post is still visible in it's archived form, however the user, who went by w3bofli3s_222 made no posts after that one, and their account has been deactivated. No contact information was available for them.

For their part, that did appear to be true. The job listing website "Karear" contained the above listing for a Behavioral Psychologist who would be making six figures.

What would an internet infrastructure company need with a behavioral psychologist? And what work would they be doing that would allow them a bonus?

Out of curiosity, I inquired. Two hours later, I received a phone call from an unlisted North Carolina area code. The following is a transcript of the relevant parts of that call:

R: Hello there! My name is Reggie. I'm so happy you're interested in the psych position. How can I be of assistance. I: Hello Reggie. It's nice to hear from you. My name is Helen, which I'm sure you know from the form I filled out. I've been job hunting and I was wondering what exactly the job entails. R: Of course I'd be glad to explain everything. Have you heard of our company before? Perhaps you've used one of our devices? I: Yes, my internet provider uses your routers. R: Wonderful. Then you know that our mission is to make the world Connected in Harmony! To that end, we employ several psychological experts to act in concert with human resources. We have some of them monitoring employee morale and productivity. Some act as advisors to help us maintain healthy work cultures. And some act as councilors that are available to our staff. I: That is quite impressive... R: The position we are currently seeking to fill would be one of the advisory roles. We want our employees to be as relaxed and comfortable as possible while on the job. It's very important to us that our employees feel at home here; that they can breath easy and lose all their stress. Would you agree that's important. I: Yes... I would... R: That's good. It's important that prospective employees share our values, the first of course being Connected in Harmony. When people are together, they are understood. When people are understood, they fear less. And when people fear less, they relax more. I: ... R: Helen are you there? I: What? Oh sorry yes! I was just looking at my notes. Now the website mentioned a bonus structure? R: Yes, that's something that we could talk about that more in-depth during a formal interview. We like to reward our advisors when things are running smoothly. If employees are happy, then the psych team is doing it's job well. I: Okay well I think I have what I need for know. Thank you for taking the time to talk. R: Of course. I look forward to seeing your application soon.

It was an odd call. I found myself almost nodding off as he spoke, though I was sure I'd gotten a full night's sleep. I came away from it believing that things couldn't be as bad as Emily made them seem. Sunda was a good company determined to do good in the world.

Right?

But as I logged into my computer, I noticed the little light was on that signals the webcam was active. I checked through all my open windows and nothing should have been accessing the camera. And as I stared at it, confused, it blinked off.

I guess it could have been a glitch, but just in case, I got a small piece of electrical tape and covered the webcam. I left the light exposed, though. Better to know than to blind myself, too.

It was such a little thing, but it was enough. Emily's letter. The weird job listing. The call that made me feel so strange. And now the mysterious webcam activation. It was too many oddities to write off.

It was time to start investigating in earnest.

[genericpuff]

I was going to write an essay about this, but I think the pictures sum up my point well enough on their own.

FP spoilers ahead

Apollo and Persephone in S1:

Apollo and Persephone in S2.2:

Kronos (possessing Hades) and Persephone in S2.2:

And now Hades (not possessed, yet) and Persephone, S3:

I genuinely do not know what Rachel has going on subconsciously or consciously that drives her to continuously put her self-insert female protagonist in the position of being uncomfortably manhandled by a more powerful and dangerous man but someone needs to throw away her tablet and modem.

That last one is supposed to be seen as cute, by the way. That's regular Hades, someone who KNOWS Persephone doesn't like being grabbed and why.

Again, I could write an essay about this, but I think the pictures sum it up perfectly. Whether it's Rachel intentionally getting off on drawing Persephone like this, or her only knowing how to draw 3 poses, it's an uncomfortable parallel that keeps fucking happening and gets worse the longer you look at it.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 22 Thoughts: Couples Therapy

A really great episode. Everything about this one was so well done and I don't think I've got a single complaint. Not that I often have those but still. It'll be interesting to see how much of this is deeply plot relevant and how much is just a fun spooky time too. This is another belated post on account of a hospital visit, and a half-written draft getting deleted. Hopefully we'll be back to our regularly scheduled posts for next week.

Spoilers for episode 22 below the cut.

Lena is just the best, isn't she? Unfortunately we just learned that she's married and so I've got no shot, but still. Lena is great in every scene she's in and I'm really glad we get so much of her and Gwen as they have stellar chemistry. I'd be interested to see if this ministerial visit goes anywhere. I'm not 100% whether it was a plot hook or a convenient way to not fire Gwen. She's obviously not in Lena's good books so she this could be a way to explain away not firing her so she can leverage that position for something and avoid the firing.

Augustus incidents are always such a treat. This one probably wasn't maybe my favourite of them for the incident itself but it was for the sound design and the music. They really hit it out of the park for this one IMO. Unfortunately this is likely the last Augustus statement of the season if it's sticking to the 1 per act cadence. Of minor note this does disprove that .JMJ errors herald Augustus in some way.

Okay, onto the statement proper. Hans Berger and Dr. Richard Caton are both real people, and the information within this statement is largely factual. Berger did invent the EEG in 1924, held off on publishing his research due to the reaction he presumed it'd received, and when it was later published a lot of the scientific community at the time was ready to discount it. It took quite some time before what he'd managed was really appreciated. But don't feel too bad for him as he also worked with the Nazis. So coercing a patient into getting their brain ejected from their skull isn't the only sin of his. Caton is similarly accurate here and the two of them had similar fates with their research. Without Caton's work Berger likely wouldn't have been able to create the EEG and Berger was one of the few people to give Caton's research much attention at all. It came very close to being forgotten about. Ursula was very real too and did start as Berger's assistant before they got married. Although not mentioned in the incident is that she was a baroness.

Okay, so the big thing in this one is obviously the experiment itself. I've heard quite a few theories on what's actually going on here. Lots of talk about it being Freddy or JMJ. I generally think that's a massive stretch that doesn't really mesh with anything in the text of this, nor the historical context of Freddy and JMJ. The incident predates both Freddy as software and JMJ appearing as voices by not insignificant margins. It's obviously entirely possible that something was floating in the void waiting for a host PC but in context to the text of the incident I don't really see how that's a logical conclusion. The incident was about a secondary or true self within a person that can be accessed through the hemispherical bridge. Which is sort of exactly what we see here. It's also generally how it works IRL, split-brain is a fairly well researched topic for what it is.

Which is all to say I think this one is fairly literal. Herr Schmidt isn't a psychic gateway to Freddy but that's not to say I don't think these things are related. I very much do but I think it's foreshadowing and metaphor rather than literally the same thing. But of course I think that because I've been talking about this idea of a homunculus JMJ for a bit. You can read about it in an essay entitled JMJ: Frankenstein; or, the Modem Prometheus. It's a short read for my standards and my favourite pun of all my essays, so check it out. The dream is a little more likely to be a psychic event but it's also pretty literal for a dream as the imagery goes so there isn't much to say on it.

A very fun incident all around. As mentioned the main subject matter of callosal syndrome (split-brain) is a very real phenomena. I'm not going to get too into it but if it's something you want to dig into I'd suggest looking into the research of Michael Gazzaniga as well as Roger Sperry. The latter won a Nobel Prize for their work on this too.

I don't have much to say on the last to sections. Both conversations Sam has with Alice and Celia, respectively, are pretty explicit. Although Sam's mention of Alice being controlling does give us some insight into a likely reason they broke up. He's also very right that Alice has made a pretty quick turn around on all this and is now actively working against it despite not buying it at all.

Then it was something about a Marvin and Jason, I think?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 4488 sounds about right. Not a load to say on that one IMO.

CAT# Theory: 13 is somewhat interesting from the Person/Place/Object theory. Mostly because it's another that's a really big stretch and also doesn't help anyone know anything. There wasn't really anything out of the ordinary here as far as people and objects go, and in either case flagging that doesn't really impart any useful context. So it's just another one of those largely redundant data points.

R# Theory: Another old letter by an old man at BC. Love to see the consistency as it lines up very well with my ideas here.

Header talk: Experiment (Brain) -/- Imprisonment (Existential) is a somewhat interesting crosslink assuming it's correctly filed. Your second self being literally imprisoned in your head at all times is pretty wild.

[lukino94725764]

I wanted to tell you that last Friday there was a national blackout, it is not the first time it happens, I think it is the third, but like the previous times, my mind shuts down and I become unable to tell you what I did that day, (yes, it's weird) so I drew something that I remember doing,

Enter the dark wizard's room and see that he glued the modem to a car battery, I still don't know where the fuck he got the battery from, Black magic, maybe.

I made brownies, it sounds silly, but I have the habit of making something sweet in this kind of cases, either I make them or they ask me to,(yes I also did it when it was the elections)(and when I broke my face).

At one point I was left alone in the house and it was getting dark, I had the rechargeable lamp in my hands but I was not sure if it was dark enough to turn it on, I was like this and walking around the house for about half an hour, to my luck, my mother arrived and returned the light.

Another thing, I think the blackout this time lasted 20 hours, from 3 in the morning until 7:30 at night, but I know there was one that lasted about 5 days (what I can remember ferza that time is to see me in third person in fetal position on the bed, high dissociation lmao).

[leezlelatch]

Chapped

+18 drabble. Minors DNI.

Papa Emeritus IV is entranced while you apply your lip balm.

Very short, smutty fic. Something I randomly thought of today while sitting at my desk at work, lip balm in hand lol. Enjoy!

You press your lips together, running your tongue over your chapped bottom lip in dissatisfaction. The weather is doing such a number on you. Your eyes stray from your computer, and you reach for your lip balm, the little silver container sitting atop your desktop's modem. Unscrewing the lid, you gather some of the balm onto your finger before bringing it to your aching lips, lathering it on the delicate skin, running your finger slowly from one end to the other. You are lost in thought as you perform this motion, your eyes straying back to your monitor which displays some of the work you are assisting Papa with this morning.

Papa Emeritus IV sits at his desk positively aching. He must look a sight. Perspiration at his brow smudging his paints, his lids hooded, eyes watching your every move as your finger glides over your pink lips. His bites his own, groaning softly as his cock jumps in his pants, straining against the fabric in a delicious, yet painful way. He closes his eyes and sucks in a breath, but his mind only conjures images of his red cockhead at your lips, sliding across them in the same manner you are applying your lip balm.

He hums in desperation, his fingertips just barely grazing the length of him, his jaw hanging open for just a moment before he remembers himself. He adjusts in his chair, but it only causes his rock hard need to graze against the lip of his desk, and he's nearly crying with the overwhelming desire to cum.

Oh, amore mio, let me have you, he thinks, leaning his head back. I need you. I yearn for you. Oh Lucifer, I'm going to cum just from the mere thought of you.

Copia could feel it building in his belly, his hips rocking slightly in his chair. If he could cum, get it over with, perhaps he could leave, perhaps he could steal away to his chambers and you would never know -

A soft hand on his bicep startles him out of his thoughts and he looks up at you with reddened cheeks and burgeoning horror as you gaze down at the very painful, wet situation in his pants. A million apologies gather on his lips, but you smile. You smile, and he gasps.

"Let me help you, Papa," you whisper.

And suddenly, Copia is grateful for that little tin of balm.

[robotabc773]

math asks! 18, 19, 23, 40, 56, 59 (or ofc some subset, like you said)

18+19: Can you share a good math problem you’ve solved recently? How did you solve it?

I was recently several tangents down a research rabbit hole and discovered that CC: Tweaked (the modern fork of the minecraft mod ComputerCraft), instead of allowing its computers to simply know where they are in the world, instead has a built-in gps library that works on top of the rednet networking system which is itself built on top of the built-in support for wireless modems to communicate between computers. It works because sending messages via modem tells you the distance between the two communicating computers, so with a set of 4 computers that all know their own locations and are setup in the right configuration, any other computer can talk to them and trilaterate its position. Which then of course got me thinking about the amount of information you gain from knowing your distance to a particular number of fixed points and how that generalizes to multiple dimensions. I believe what we get is both our position as projected onto the space spanned by the fixed points as well as our distance to that space. I don't have an actual proof for this but I'd love to know if anyone has one or knows the name of this concept so that I can look one up!

23: Will P=NP? Why or why not?

Well for the sake of cryptography working I really hope that P≠NP because otherwise we're kinda screwed on that front. Intuitively it seems like that should be the case, like I'd expect that there should be some problems that are hard to solve even if they're easy to check.

40. What’s the silliest Mathematical mistake you’ve ever made?

I really wish I had a good story to tell here but I can't think of one sorry :c

56. Do you have a favorite sequence? Is it in the OEIS?

I often find myself with favorites in considerably less categories than I am asked about. This is one such case.

59. Can you recommend any online resources for math?

Ooh this is a little sideways from what I'd normally think of as just math (in the direction of CS of course), but I'd highly recommend The Natural Number Game, an interactive introduction to formalized proofs in Lean! If you enjoy it, Software Foundations is a great (and free!) series of textbooks to learn how to apply these techniques to the task of formalizing and proving properties of programming languages (using a similar but separate language called Coq)

[feeling--pink]

what's your phineas and ferb episode rating

Oh boy I’m so glad you asked this with 0 prompting!!

Decidedly the infodumping is going to go UNDER the cut lmao

Since sometime in late May (I don’t have my notebook to check when exactly) my brother and I have been watching every episode of Phineas and Ferb in order to score each individual episodes to rank them!!

We just watched We Call it Maze // Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Max Modem! last night and have ranked a little over 100 episodes total!!

The scoring system works like this:

We score each individual plot of the episode (usually A, B, C) and then average them for the “Plot” score. We do it this way because it is of my own personal opinion that the best Phineas and Ferb episodes have 3 distinct plot lines that are all equally focused on and overlap in how the episode is resolved. The plot score makes up a total of 50% of the final score making it the most important.

Songs get their own category that is worth 30% of the final score. This is the second most important because songs are a significant part of every episode (especially if it’s 11 minutes) and also very important to the show as a whole. For the most part of there are multiple songs then we average the score. Exceptions being if the songs are noticeably different lengths (Secret for Success comes to mind. For that episode we took the ratio of how long all terrain vehicle was compared to the other song in the episode (I don’t remember what it was)). This hasn’t happened very much. For episodes without songs that 30% is redistributed to the other 3 categories because we didn’t think it was fair to give those episodes a 0 (especially rollercoaster which would have gotten a maximum of 7/10 if not done the other way).

The next category is “Rewatchability” or maybe more appropriately named the bias score. My brother and I watch a LOT of Phineas and ferb and there are episodes we gravitate towards a lot. Additional points can be considered if the episode is “iconic” for one reason or another and even if we don’t personally rewatch it as much as another episode the score won’t suffer too much. (Iconic in this case meaning an episode that you would maybe show someone who hasn’t seen the show so they get a good feel for it or understand a common reference). Rewatchability is only worth 10% of the final score.

Final category is Bonus points! Also worth 10% my brother and I both take note of any bit/detail we particularly liked (or didn’t like) and assign a positive or negative value to it. We then take the ratio of positive to negative and that’s the bonus score!!

I’ve been taking hand notes in a journal I got for my birthday that I’ve barely used since and my brother takes digital notes! I keep the overall ranking digitally though :)

We also sometimes have different opinions and so far have just been averaging our two scores if that’s the case.

Since we’ve finished season 1 I do have statistics for that season and plan to do that for the whole show!! I also have separate rankings for just season 1/2 and the whole show.

Uhhh I’m not going to put the ranking here (I’ll do it in a reblog) because I’m worried of I get out of the app this whole post will delete itself so I’ll post this part but I have more to say SJFJFJDJK

[awingedllama]

Hey! I saw you were open to suggestions for your nostalgia series and I'd like to float dad's computer room that you used to sneak in to play games on and cringe while the dial up sound screeched or sit with your cousins and watch them play doom. idk if that's too specific/niche but that is one of my strongest memories of childhood! And I just want to say, I absolutely love your creations, you're such a wonderful and positive part of the community and I'm grateful you're happy to share your creativity with us all :D

with the words "dad's computer room" you have summated 90% of my childhood

i thought this was niche too!! from the ages of four to about eight i practically lived in there. tapping away on the dusty white 1990s Gateway computer. there was the old slow printer, the bookcases everywhere. the big rolling chair it was a privilege to spin in. not to mention, a million wires strewn across the floor as the biggest tripping hazard in the universe. he ditched dial up for broadband really early so I don't remember the sound (fortunately), but i definitely remember what both modems looked like!

i would love to make this a set but i don't know if i could do it justice!! it does feel very specific. and it's so personal i'd feel like it was never good enough or evocative enough of the time and place. maybe i could like... sneak little pieces/references in here and there

[reading-writing-revolution]

(via George Orwell: The Prevention of Literature - The Atlantic)

“Though other aspects of the matter are usually in the foreground, the controversy over freedom of speech and of the press is at bottom a controversy over the desirability, or otherwise, of telling lies. What is really at issue is the right to report contemporary events truthfully, or as truthfully as is consistent with the ignorance, bias, and self-deception from which every observer necessarily suffers. In saying this I may seem to be saying that straightforward reportage is the only branch of literature that matters; but I will try to show later that at every literary level, and probably in every one of the arts, the same issue arises in more or less subtilized forms. Meanwhile, it is necessary to strip away the irrelevancies in which this controversy is usually wrapped up.”

“A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then, again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revaluation of prominent historical figures. This kind of thing happens everywhere, but clearly it is likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth. The friends of totalitarianism in England usually tend to argue that since absolute truth is not attainable, a big lie is no worse than a little lie. It is pointed out that all historical records are biased and inaccurate, or, on the other hand, that modem physics has proved that what seems to us the real world is an illusion, so that to believe in the evidence of one’s senses is simply vulgar philistinism.“

[transgenderer]

I tried not to think of these so lately baptized kinsmen, of the price paid for them, or the peculiar price they themselves would pay, and said nothing about my father, who having taken his own conversion too literally never, at bottom, forgave the white world (which he described as heathen) for having saddled him with a Christ in whom, to judge at least from their treatment of him, they themselves no longer believed. I thought of white men arriving for the first time in an African village, strangers there, as I am a stranger here, and tried to imagine the astounded populace touching their hair and marveling at the color of their skin. But there is a great difference between being the first white man to be seen by Africans and being the first black man to be seen by whites. The white man takes the astonishment as tribute, for he arrives to conquer and to convert the natives, whose inferiority in relation to himself is not even to be questioned; whereas I, without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people whose culture controls me, has even, in a sense, created me, people who have cost me more in anguish and rage than they will ever know, who yet do not even know of my existence. The astonishment, with which I might have greeted them, should they have stumbled into my African village a few hundred years ago, might have rejoiced their hearts. But the astonishment with which they greet me today can only poison mine.

And this is so despite everything I may do to feel differently, despite my friendly conversations with the bistro owner's wife, despite their three-year-old son who has at last become my friend, despite the saluts and bonsoirs which I exchange with people as I walk, despite the fact that I know that no individual can be taken to task for what history is doing, or has done. I say that the culture of these people controls me-but they can scarcely be held responsible for European culture. America comes out of Europe, but these people have never seen America, nor have most of them seen more of Europe than the hamlet at the foot of their mountain. Yet they move with an authority which I shall never have; and they regard me, quite rightly, not only as a stranger in the village but as a suspect latecomer, bearing no credentials, to everything they have-however unconsciously-inherited.

For this village, even were it incomparably more remote and incredibly more primitive, is the West, the West onto which I have been so strangely grafted. These people cannot be, from the point of view of power, strangers anywhere in the world; they have made the modem world, in effect, even if they do not know it. The most illiterate among them is related, in away that I am not, to Dante, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Aeschylus, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Racine; the cathedral at Chartres says something to them which it cannot say to me, as indeed would New York's Empire State Building, should anyone here ever see it. Out of their hymns and dances come Beethoven and Bach. Go back a few centuries and they are in their full glory-but I am in Africa, watching the conquerors arrive.

-James Baldwin, Stranger in the Village

I feel like what Baldwin is trying to communicate here is supposed to be self-evident, so he doesn't argue for it, but from my position it feels...extremely non self evident! this idea, that there is some...natural identification between swiss villagers and Dante, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Aeschylus, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and the same natural identification maps baldwin to men in an african village getting conquered, its stated but its not justified. i mean, it feels pretty cringe every time i bring it up but like...as someone descended from african slaves (and from europeans of course, as almost surely baldwin was), it feels kind of intensely obvious to me that there is no such natural identification? you can choose an identification, and you may be *externally controlled* by such an identification, but you dont have to believe in such an identification! and in fact you shouldn't, because it isnt true

a possibly unrelated note: later in the essay, he claims that african slaves in america "could not suppose, for one thing, as slaves in past epochs had supposed and often done, that he would ever be able to wrest the power from his master's hands". but like...there were lots of american slave uprisings! hundreds! surely baldwin knows this. it seems to me a sort of...national myth-writing? the essay is about identity. its hard to write a coherent national myth of the black american centered on violent resistance by slaves, because it didnt end up freeing them. so you instead write the myth based on persistence through suffering without visible end?

i think its likely im failing to understand him, but im not sure how to get from here to there