#the electric company 09

[abbysinterestsblog]

heres a random fact 4 a random show, theres a behind the scenes vid 4 the 2009 reboot/re-imagining of the electric company, and do u know the show won a emmy in 2010 for outstanding achivement in main title design? thats how good the intro was!

[honeybadger-hibachi]

Power’s out and it’s gonna be hot today… this is definitely gonna be a day, isn’t it? -_-

If it’s out because some asshole hit a powerline, I’m gonna kill ‘em

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[panimoonchild]

In the democratic world is "Never again", in the Russian world - "We can and will proudly repeat"

Attacked electricity generation and transmission facilities in Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Vinnytsia regions.

I urgently recommend you to watch Zelenskyy's speech. I was literally crying from the start. I even downloaded video but Tumblr once again crushed for me. I'm sorry.

Back to modern time.

At night, Russians attacked three DTEK thermal power plants. The equipment was seriously damaged.

This is the fifth massive shelling of the company's energy facilities in the last month and a half.

In the Kyiv region, 13 private buildings were destroyed and damaged as a result of the night shelling. Debris fell in four districts of the region.

In the Lviv region, the occupiers attacked a gas storage facility in Stryi district and a thermal power plant in Chervonohrad district.

An 8-year-old child was injured in Kirovohrad region. A critical infrastructure facility was damaged in the region, and 13 houses were destroyed.

At night, on May 8, at 02:42, in Kharkiv, air defense forces shot down two Shaheds in the northern part of the city. No damage and no casualties - HOVA.

About 15 settlements of the Kharkiv region were hit by enemy artillery and mortar attacks: Sinkivka, Stepova Novoselivka, Berestove, and others. Dvorichanske and Sinkivka came under aerial bombardment.

17:00 с. Kucherivka, Kupyansk district. A private house was burning as a result of the shelling.

May 7, 09:30 a.m. Cherkaski Tyshky, Kharkiv district. The roofs of two private houses were damaged as a result of hostile shelling.

Ukrainian troops repelled 16 attacks in the Kupyansk sector over the last day, including in the areas of Sinkivka, Pishchane, and Berestove in Kharkiv region.

The Ukrainian Air Force destroyed 39/55 missiles and 20/21 UAVs:

▪️ 0/1 X-47M2 Kinzhal aerial ballistic missiles;

▪️ 0/2 Iskander-M ballistic missiles;

▪️ 4/4 Kalibr cruise missiles;

▪️ 33/45 X-101/X-555 cruise missiles;

▪️ 0/1 Iskander-K cruise missiles;

▪️ 2/2 X-59/X-69 guided missiles;

▪️ 20/21 Shahed-131/136 strike UAVs.

Thanks to the Air Force, I woke up today. And I even had the luxury of not having to go to the corridor, even though my region was under attack.

Back to World War II.

Photos from AFUStratCom.

#Mordor On this day in 1941, representatives of the Allied Wehrmacht were invited to a parade in Moscow. World War II had been going on for 1 year and 8 months.

Modern time:

On this day in 2014, Ukrainian miners spoke about the torture of the Russian occupiers in Donetsk and showed a tattoo that was almost cut off by a light bulb.

Russia never changed. Russia never learned.

Total victory and liberation of Ukraine is the only possible scenario for peace.

[climatecalling]

Big Oil faces a tiny foe on the streets of Asia and Africa. The noisy, noxious vehicles that run on two and three wheels, carrying billions of people daily, are quietly going electric — in turn knocking down oil demand by one million barrels a day this year. ... The global majority doesn’t roll on four wheels. In Nairobi and Hanoi, motorcycles serve as taxis. In Mumbai, scooters can carry a family of four. In China, electric bicycles are how millions commute. “Electric bikes are quieter, much more efficient and good for the environment,” said Jesse Forrester, the founder of Mazi Mobility, which has 60 electric motorcycle taxis, known as boda-bodas, on the roads in Nairobi. “There’s a quiet revolution now in Kenya driving this transformation for the future.” .... In Darbhanga, a new acid-battery rickshaw, like the one Mr. Rai drives, sells for around 175,000 rupees, or $2,100. That’s half the price of a new rickshaw powered by natural gas. Charging the battery costs 20 rupees (25 cents), one-fourth of the price of filling a gas tank. The rebates seem to be working. Reliance Industries, India’s biggest company, is converting its three-wheeled cargo vehicles from gas to electric. Food delivery services are going electric as quickly as possible.

No paywall: https://web.archive.org/web/20231209105128/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/09/business/energy-environment/two-three-wheel-electric-vehicles.html

[darkmaga-returns]

Welcome to New World Next Week – the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:

Video player not working? Use these links to watch it somewhere else!

WATCH ON:  /  /  /  /  /  or DOWNLOAD THE MP4

Story #1: Amazon Goes Nuclear, To Invest More Than $500 Million To Develop Small Modular Reactors https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/16/amazon-goes-nuclear-investing-more-than-500-million-to-develop-small-module-reactors.html

Google Turns To Nuclear To Power AI Data Centres; The Tech Giant Says It Will Use Energy From Small Reactors To Power Its Use Of Artificial Intelligence https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c748gn94k95o

Video: Google Turns To Nuclear Energy For AI Electricity Demand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnpBr7RXX3A

“Green” Energy Is a Scam. It Isn’t MEANT to Work. https://corbettreport.com/green-energy-is-a-scam-it-isnt-meant-to-work/

Lack of Task Checking Halted Debris Removal at Fukushima Unit: TEPCO https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240904/p2g/00m/0sc/031000c

TEPCO May Resume Debris Extraction From Fukushima Reactor Next Week https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/09/eb83b885b460-tepco-may-resume-debris-extraction-from-fukushima-reactor-next-week.html

Japan’s Voters Put Nuclear Energy On Back Burner Despite Safety Worries https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241022/p2g/00m/0na/017000c

Japan Shifting Back to Nuclear to Ditch Coal, Power AI https://japantoday.com/category/national/japan-shifting-back-to-nuclear-to-ditch-coal-power-ai

Scientists Create Organic Slave Computers! (What Could Go Wrong?) https://corbettreport.com/scientists-create-organic-slave-computers-what-could-go-wrong/

Story #2: 23andMe Reportedly Faces Bankruptcy — What Will Happen To Everyone’s DNA Samples? https://activistpost.com/2024/10/23andme-reportedly-faces-bankruptcy-what-will-happen-to-everyones-dna-samples.html

Announcing the DNA Control Grid https://www.corbettreport.com/articles/20090227_dna_control.htm

Episode 118 – Who Owns Your DNA? https://corbettreport.com/episode-118-who-owns-your-dna/

DNA Shaming: Welcome to Orwell’s Nightmare https://corbettreport.com/dna-shaming-welcome-to-orwells-nightmare/

First They Came For Your Fingerprints . . . #PropagandaWatch https://corbettreport.com/first-they-came-for-your-fingerprints-propagandawatch/

The Next Threat: DNA Exploitation https://corbettreport.com/the-next-threat-dna-exploitation/

Video: Baroness Von Sketch On DNA Testing https://mediamonarchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/dna_dumbass.mp4

Man Sends Lizard Saliva To 23andMe For DNA Testing, Exposing Total Fraud Of Company’s Claims Of Human Ancestry (Jun. 28, 2021) https://naturalnews.com/2021-06-28-lizard-saliva-23andme-dna-testing-fraud-ancestry.html

Story #3: Americans’ Trust In Media Remains At Trend Low https://news.gallup.com/poll/651977/americans-trust-media-remains-trend-low.aspx

Notice on the Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/09/18/notice-on-the-continuation-of-the-national-emergency-with-respect-to-persons-who-commit-threaten-to-commit-or-support-terrorism-3/

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 8, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 09, 2024

Today, in Racine, Wisconsin, President Joe Biden announced that Microsoft is investing $3.3 billion dollars to build a new data center that will help operate one of the most powerful artificial intelligence systems in the world. It is expected to create 2,300 union construction jobs and employ 2,000 permanent workers. 

Microsoft has also partnered with Gateway Technical College to train and certify 200 students a year to fill new jobs in data and information technology. In addition, Microsoft is working with nearby high schools to train students for future jobs. 

Speaking at Gateway Technical College’s Racine campus, Biden contrasted today’s investment with that made by Trump about the same site in 2018. In that year, Trump went to Wisconsin for the “groundbreaking” of a high-tech campus he claimed would be the “eighth wonder of the world.” 

Under Republican governor Scott Walker, Wisconsin legislators approved a $3 billion subsidy and tax incentive package—ten times larger than any similar previous package in the state—to lure the Taiwan-based Foxconn electronics company. Once built, a new $10 billion campus that would focus on building large liquid-crystal display screens would bring 13,000 jobs to the area, they promised. 

Foxconn built a number of buildings, but the larger plan never materialized, even after taxpayers had been locked into contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for upgrading roads, sewer system, electricity, and so on. When voters elected Democrat Tony Evers as governor in 2022, he dropped the tax incentives from $3 billion to $80 million, which depended on the hiring of only 1,454 workers, reflecting the corporation’s current plans. Foxconn dropped its capital investment from $10 billion to $672.8 million.  

In November 2023, Microsoft announced it was buying some of the Foxconn properties in Wisconsin.

Today, Biden noted that rather than bringing jobs to Racine, Trump’s policies meant the city lost 1,000 manufacturing jobs during his term. Wisconsin as a whole lost 83,500. “Racine was once a manufacturing boomtown,” Biden recalled, “all the way through the 1960s, powering companies—invented and manufacturing Windex…portable vacuum cleaners, and so much more, and powered by middle-class jobs.

“And then came trickle-down economics [which] cut taxes for the very wealthy and biggest corporations…. We shipped American jobs overseas because labor was cheaper. We slashed public investment in education and innovation. And the result: We hollowed out the middle class. My predecessor and his administration doubled down on that failed trickle-down economics, along with the [trail] of broken promises.” 

“But that’s not on my watch,” Biden said. “We’re determined to turn it around.” He noted that thanks to the Democrats’ policies, in the past three years, Racine has added nearly 4,000 jobs—hitting a record low unemployment rate—and Wisconsin as a whole has gained 178,000 new jobs. 

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act have fueled “a historic boom in rebuilding our roads and bridges, developing and deploying clean energy, [and] revitalizing American manufacturing,” he said. That investment has attracted $866 billion in private-sector investment across the country, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs “building new semiconductor factories, electric vehicles and battery factories…here in America.” 

The Biden administration has been scrupulous about making sure that money from the funds appropriated to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and manufacturing base has gone to Republican-dominated districts; indeed, Republican-dominated states have gotten the bulk of those investments. “President Biden promised to be the president of all Americans—whether you voted for him or not. And that’s what this agenda is delivering,” White House deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian told Matt Egan of CNN in February. 

But there is, perhaps, a deeper national strategy behind that investment. Political philosophers studying the rise of authoritarianism note that strongmen rise by appealing to a population that has been dispossessed economically or otherwise. By bringing jobs back to those regions that have lost them over the past several decades and promising “the great comeback story all across…the entire country,” as he did today, Biden is striking at that sense of alienation.

“When folks see a new factory being built here in Wisconsin, people going to work making a really good wage in their hometowns, I hope they feel the pride that I feel,” Biden said. “Pride in their hometowns making a comeback. Pride in knowing we can get big things done in America still.” 

That approach might be gaining traction. Last Friday, when Trump warned the audience of Fox 2 Detroit television that President’s Biden’s policies would cost jobs in Michigan, local host Roop Raj provided a “reality check,” noting that Michigan gained 24,000 jobs between January 2021, when Biden took office, and May 2023.

At Gateway Technical College, Biden thanked Wisconsin governor Tony Evers and Racine mayor Cory Mason, both Democrats, as well as Microsoft president Brad Smith and AFL-CIO president Liz Schuler.

The picture of Wisconsin state officials working with business and labor leaders, at a public college established in 1911, was an image straight from the Progressive Era, when the state was the birthplace of the so-called Wisconsin Idea. In the earliest years of the twentieth century, when the country reeled under industrial monopolies and labor strikes, Wisconsin governor Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette and his colleagues advanced the idea that professors, lawmakers, and officials should work together to provide technical expertise to enable the state to mediate a fair relationship between workers and employers. 

In his introduction to the 1912 book explaining the Wisconsin Idea, former president Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, explained that the Wisconsin Idea turned the ideas of reformers into a workable plan, then set out to put those ideas into practice. Roosevelt approvingly quoted economist Simon Patten, who maintained that the world had adequate resources to feed, clothe, and educate everyone, if only people cared to achieve that end. Quoting Patten, Roosevelt wrote: “The real idealist is a pragmatist and an economist. He demands measurable results and reaches them by means made available by economic efficiency. Only in this way is social progress possible.”

Reformers must be able to envision a better future, Roosevelt wrote, but they must also find a way to turn those ideals into reality. That involved careful study and hard work to develop the machinery to achieve their ends. 

Roosevelt compared people engaged in progressive reform to “that greatest of all democratic reformers, Abraham Lincoln.” Like Lincoln, he wrote, reformers “will be assailed on the one side by the reactionary, and on the other by that type of bubble reformer who is only anxious to go to extremes, and who always gets angry when he is asked what practical results he can show.” “[T]he true reformer,” Roosevelt wrote, “must study hard and work patiently.” 

“It is no easy matter actually to insure, instead of merely talking about, a measurable equality of opportunity for all men,” Roosevelt wrote. “It is no easy matter to make this Republic genuinely an industrial as well as a political democracy. It is no easy matter to secure justice for those who in the past have not received it, and at the same time to see that no injustice is meted out to others in the process. It is no easy matter to keep the balance level and make it evident that we have set our faces like flint against seeing this government turned into either government by a plutocracy, or government by a mob. It is no easy matter to give the public their proper control over corporations and big business, and yet to prevent abuse of that control.”

“All through the Union we need to learn the Wisconsin lesson,” Roosevelt wrote in 1912.

“We’re the United States of America,” President Biden said today, “And there’s nothing beyond our capacity when we work together.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[cringywhitedragon]

Saw a YouTube comment on an Electric Angel cover that made me think (This is still a heavy WiP but I decided to post it early)

If you know, Meiko and Kaito are indeed companion voice banks but I find it a bit strange on why there’s a pretty big sized gap between their initial V1 releases.

In comparison, it’s pretty interesting since it lines up pretty close to when Microsoft trashed Longhorn and shifted development to the train wreak we would know as Windows Vista (Post Reset which was 2004 - 2006. (Vista was finished in 2006 and shipped to manufacturing in November but officially released to the public in January of 2007 (Almost right on February) to the displeasure of most everybody because of how infamously slow it ran on dated hardware)

(Though the real question is can Longhorn run Vocaloid)

For comparison in a timeline structure (Note: The yyyy/mm/dd format will be for known archived Post reset Vista beta builds that are online. This info comes from the BetaWiki.)

August ?? 2004: Microsoft resets longhorn’s development on what would soon become vista

2004-08-03 One of the first archived builds of Post-Reset Longhorn is compiled (Omega-13 builds)

2004-08-08

2004-08-09

2004-08-18

2004-08-26

2004-09-02

2004-09-27 (There’s a cow on this one)

November 05 2004: Meiko’s V1 voicebank releases

December 2004 - Prior to April 2005

Longhorn Developer previews release. (The wiki lists three that have unknown dates currently but fall within this timeframe)

April 1st, 2005: Vista Beta 5048 is compiled

2005-04-04

2005-04-12 Last build to have the Luna Theme

2005-04-17 / 2005-04-20: Builds 5059 and 5060 are compiled / Aero theme is introduced

2005-04-21: build 5061 is compiled

2005-05-11: build 5063 is compiled

2005-06-05 / 2005-06-04: builds 5071 and 5081

2005-06-21 /25: build 5086

2005-06-16/2005-07-20 -Final of the Beta 1 builds, IE 7 and RRS feed support are showed off here, Vista name gets finalized.

Start of the Beta 2 cycle

2005-07-02/2005-08-30 - Start of beta 2 up to the September Community Technology Preview build. More stuff was added. Games were highlighted as well.

2005-08-22/2005-10-04 - October 2005 CTP build, Aero gets showcased on a news channel, Oberon updates their games.

Nov 03 2005: MEIKO turns 1

2005-10-26/2005-12-14 December 2005 CTP build, Some more stuff is tweaked

2006

Two years have almost passed now since the folks in Redmond started reworking this would be dumpster fire of an OS. Across the pond in Sapporo, another company was getting ready to release their second vocal synth.

What has Microsoft added to the table for the new year? MEDIA PLAYER

August 29, 2006: Earliest mention of Microsoft Anna (She counts too right?)

[usafphantom2]

USAF's NGAD program will receive US$ 3.4 billion in the 2025 budget

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 13/03/2024 - 18:43in Military

The U.S. Department of the Air Force released a 2025 fiscal budget request of $217.5 billion on March 11, which includes $3.4 billion for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) family of systems to increase current and future platforms in highly contested environments.

Related to the NGAD is an investment of 14.9 billion dollars to maintain lethality in the air domain, in addition to 24.9 billion dollars to ensure the ability to carry out a global attack worldwide.

The budget requested for the NGAD project to develop an aircraft system to replace the F-22 airfield fighter was $1.6 billion in fiscal year 2023.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall declared in 2022 to the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. Air Force expects to spend “several hundred millions” of dollars per aircraft (of the NGAD system).

The U.S. Air Force previously mentioned that it plans to grant the contract to build the NGAD fighter sometime in 2024 and carry out the development of the project by 2030.

Although no contractor or contractors have been identified, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Textron and General Atomics could be likely suppliers.

One of the objectives of the NGAD project is to divide the design, production and maintenance contracts to involve a variety of companies to work in the NGAD.

In February 2024, Pratt & Whitney conducted an evaluation of its next-generation adaptive propulsion (NGAP) solution, advancing the program to finalize the detailed review of the project. NGAP intends to progress in the production of an energy plant for the NGAD game.

Pratt & Whitney, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman each received a ten-year contract worth $975 million for the NGAP program in August 2022.

The sixth-generation NGAD fighter will work in partnership with mission-focused unmanned platforms, working with advanced weapons, electronic warfare systems and sensors to ensure maximum survivability in contested environments.

Tags: Military AviationNGADUSAF - United States Air Force / U.S. Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[aurianneor]

Useful Ecology

We’re hearing about a whole range of ecological measures.

We need to buy eco-friendly cleaning products, insulate our homes, change our boilers and have a Canadian well, buy less plastic, sort our waste, drive eco-friendly cars, limit our speed on the roads, limit our water consumption when we shower or flush the toilet, limit your consumption of concrete, have a compost in our garden, limit our consumption of meat, use Aleppo soap and limit our consumption of sun creams, use a solar oven, invest in ecological energy (wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, hydroelectric plants), buy second-hand. Electricity, oil and food prices are rising under the pretext of ecology.

Mining, lithium extraction, nuclear power plant waste, large factories, construction, petroleum, intensive agriculture (soil pollution, exorbitant water consumption). Multinationals pollute far more than private individuals, and are not subject to any ecological measures to limit their pollution. The world’s richest people, especially via multinationals, are responsible for the world’s biggest ecocides: they destroy forests such as the Amazon rainforest, pollute rivers, destroy the seabed, impose conditions on farmers such that they destroy the land, which is in danger of becoming sterile due to the use of chemicals, and mistreat animals. What’s more, chemicals such as pesticides are causing the extinction of entire animal species. They should be judged internationally, not according to the laws they decide at national level in each country.

Some sectors, such as agriculture and construction, are even subsidized. Others even receive the Legion of Honor (e.g. Total).

Revealed: the 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions – The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions

90% of industrial pollution comes from manufacturing things: housing, vehicles and clothing. Obsolescence, changing standards that force people to equip themselves, and the use of consumption as a status object are all very harmful.

How Buying Stuff Drives Climate Change – Columbia University – Columbia Climate School: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/12/16/buying-stuff-drives-climate-change/

The measures mentioned at the beginning are useful for preserving the environment and limiting consumption, but they are minor measures compared to those that should be taken on a global scale.

How companies blame you for climate change – BBC: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220504-why-the-wrong-people-are-blamed-for-climate-change

But most of the pollution is still to come. Developing countries want factories, energy, cars and meat. If we don’t help them, this will happen with highly polluting coal-fired plants, petroleum and intensive agriculture (sometimes carried out in deserts, which sucks up all the water the population needs). We need to look at ecology on a global scale, and not just take measures in developed countries, otherwise the ozone layer will suffer and the air will become unbreathable.

“If left unchecked, climate change will cause average global temperatures to increase beyond 3°C, and will adversely affect every ecosystem. Already, we are seeing how climate change can exacerbate storms and disasters, and threats such as food and water scarcity, which can lead to conflict. Doing nothing will end up costing us a lot more than if we take action now.” Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts – ONU: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/climate-change/

We must help developing countries to develop in a way that is healthy for humanity.

This is difficult. It’s not a question of sending money, because experience shows that the money would be diverted to corrupted individuals. It means that having people on the ground to check that the ecological work is being done is necessary. People need to be educated about ecology and given the means to put ecological measures in place. For developing countries to become low-emission countries like those in Europe, $2,400 billion a year would be needed. At present, fossil fuel subsidies total $5,000 billion a year. Switching to renewable energies would cost half as much as maintaining fossil fuels. António Guterres, attacked the use of subsidies in May 2024, declaring, “What we are doing is using taxpayers’ money – which means our money – to boost hurricanes, to spread droughts, to melt glaciers, to bleach corals. In one word – to destroy the world”. Taxes subsidize the destruction of the planet instead of saving it. This is one of the topics to be discussed at COP 29 from November 11 to 22, 2024.

Money, money, money: Financing plans for the climate transition – i4ce: https://www.i4ce.org/en/publication/financing-transition-multi-scale-challenge-climate/

After Bonn and towards COP 29: the battle on finance and the role of financing plans for the transition – i4ce: https://www.i4ce.org/en/after-bonn-towards-cop29-battle-finance-role-financing-plans-transition-climate/

How do we rein in the fossil fuel industry? Here are eight ideas – The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/14/how-rein-in-fossil-fuel-industry-eight-ideas

Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Remain Large: An Update Based on Country-Level Estimates – IMF: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509

China and Russia invest in developing countries without any ecological conscience. We need to be diplomatic with these countries to get them to take ecology into account.

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

Ecologie efficace: https://www.aurianneor.org/ecologie-efficace/

Eficiencia ecológica: https://www.aurianneor.org/eficiencia-ecologica/

Fund: https://www.aurianneor.org/fund-according-to-the-latest-international/

Juste une question de culture; et de politique…: https://www.aurianneor.org/juste-une-question-de-culture-et-de-politique/

Ecoterrorism: https://www.aurianneor.org/ecoterrorism/

The richest 1% are at war with the rest of the world: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-richest-1-are-at-war-with-the-rest-of-the-world/

My hormones want admiration: https://www.aurianneor.org/my-hormones-want-admiration-i-want-to-shine-im/

Protecting water: https://www.aurianneor.org/protecting-water/

Peru, biodiversity in danger: https://www.aurianneor.org/peru-biodiversity-in-danger/

Consumption: Dream & Reality: https://www.aurianneor.org/consumption-dream-realitymore-love/

Bright idea of the century: https://www.aurianneor.org/bright-idea-of-the-century-the-light-bulb/

Stop the all-concrete approach: https://www.aurianneor.org/stop-the-all-concrete-approach/

Tomorrow – Chap 2: L’énergie: https://www.aurianneor.org/tomorrow-chap-2-lenergie-demainlefilm/

40 ans, un risque maîtrisé?: https://www.aurianneor.org/40-ans-un-risque-maitrise-votez-pour-defendre/

Tomorrow – Chap 1: Agriculture: https://www.aurianneor.org/tomorrow-chap-1-agriculture/

Nano Confiance: https://www.aurianneor.org/nano-confiance-affaire-des-oeufs-contamines-les/

Meat and environment, is that possible?: https://www.aurianneor.org/meat-and-environment-is-that-possible-no-if/

Solar Oven: https://www.aurianneor.org/solar-oven/

Clean Clothes: https://www.aurianneor.org/clean-clothes-shirt-on-your-back/

The eco comfort, a way of life: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-eco-comfort-a-way-of-life-how-to-use/

Hydrogen-powered aircraft: https://www.aurianneor.org/hydrogen-powered-aircraft/

Healthy Road: https://www.aurianneor.org/healthy-road-be-healthier-with-fewer-traffic/

Piste scooter / Moto: https://www.aurianneor.org/piste-scooter-moto-healthy/

Le Paon Scooter: https://www.aurianneor.org/le-paon-scooter-good-for-your-budget-compared/

The artistic blur of ecological cars: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-artistic-blur-of-ecological-cars-i-what-this/

Zero emission transport: https://www.aurianneor.org/zero-emission-transport/

Free public transport: https://www.aurianneor.org/free-public-transport/

Healthy Hair, The advice of a Wookie for hair: https://www.aurianneor.org/healthy-hair-the-advice-of-a-wookie-for-hair-and/

Healthy Skin: https://www.aurianneor.org/healthy-skin-wikipedia-aleppo/

Le savon: https://www.aurianneor.org/le-savon-le-meilleur-desinfectant-le-meilleur/

Healthy Tan: https://www.aurianneor.org/environment-health-perspective-sunscreens-damage/

Sun Cream: https://www.aurianneor.org/sun-cream-differences-entre-ecran-solaire-mineral/

[thebumblecee]

I see a lot of critique for 9-1-1 and 9-1-1 Lone Star that is either “this is so unrealistic” or “this happened in XYZ show” well I get to be the nerd that tells you a lot of what happens in the show is based on real life events and fictionalised (like a lot of shows). So the same storylines come up again and again.

This nerd is going to make a list because real life really is stranger than fiction.

Lonestar

Things that actually happened in real life plus their Lonestar episode:

(Some of these are on IMDB so I’m using the direct quotes)

01x01 - Pilot: A manure factory fire that kills the original 126

Real life: The opening incident at the agricultural-products facility is based on the real-life ammonium nitrate explosion at West Fertilizer Company in West, TX, on April 17, 2013. Fifteen people died in the fire and explosion, including ten firefighters from the West Fire Department. (IMDb)

01x02 - Yee Haw: a man poisons sandwiches with mercury.

Real life:

01x03 - Texas Proud: someone gets trapped in a grain silo, sucking them down.

Real life:

01x04 - Act Of God: tornados in Texas

Real life: The tornadoes are based on the 1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak that occurred on 27 May 1997 that resulted in 27 fatalities around Central Texas. (IMDb)

01x05 - Studs - fire in a bull semen factory

Real life: The explosion at the bull factory was inspired by a real-life event in Victoria, Australia. (IMDb)

01x 06 - Friends Like These - a dog alerts the 126 of its owners farm accident

Real life:

01 x 07 - Bum Steer - runaway bull causes havoc in a car dealership

Real life: (happened in Scotland lmao)

01 x08 - Monster Inside - a rattlesnake infestation in the basement of a house. The dementia storyline was too sad I’m not researching it. Son refuses to accept his mother has passed.

Real life: this one is self-explanatory and there was too many examples and now I’m getting adverts for anti snake traps. America you scare me. (Although I’m reading texas houses don’t have basements the more you know). The last one is a common motif in shows this Criminal Minds episode did it too and so did the film Psycho.

01 x 09 - Awakening - gender reveal party goes horribly wrong plus a caving disaster.

Real life: here is an article about gender reveal party accidents and here is the wiki about John Edward Jones’ tragic death in Nutty Putty Cave

01 x 10 - Austin, We Have A Problem - solar storm fries the electricals

Real life: In the year 1989 in Quebec, Canada, waves of energy called a coronal mass ejection or CME wreaked havoc on the power grid for 12 hours. These CME's are the result of an explosion on the surface of the sun which has released powerful bursts of electromagnetic energy into the solar system. (IMDb)

Season 2

[jazzreloaded]

Play On! By Talawa Theatre @Belgrade Theatre 26 / 09/ 24

Review by Vidal Montgomery

The press night performance of Play On! - A Broadway Blues with a twist on "Twelfth Night" - was not undersold in terms of bums on seats ( because it was a full house, and based on this showing it deserves a full house everywhere it goes!), but in terms of spectacle; because for the near-three hours running time, it was thoroughly engaging, spectacularly entertaining and, despite dealing with some serious subject matters ( such as how a misogynistic Harlem resists change, made all the more relevant with the recent revelations around Music Moghul Sean Comb's recent indictment), it was joyful for the audience from start to end, evidenced by the raucous laughter, gasps and applause throughout.

The title "Play On!" may also refer to the four year development process to get a work of this magnitude and depth and craft and intimacy and nuance in front of a live audience; it is no mean feat that this splendid work of Ellingtonian excellence by Liam Godwin and Benjamin Burell is finally in front of an audience, and with a truly magnificent cast from top to bottom:

Although the dramaturgy obviously has its focal characters, the dancers / understudies / supporting cast acquit themselves equally well, and the audience is gifted with over a dozen amazing voices ( of which Lifford Shillingford was my personal favourite ), who perform comparably, shouldering the responsibility of energetic dance, tense drama and soulful song, and carrying the narrative along. This for me is the most captivating thing about this show. Tanya Edwards as Miss Mary and Llewellyn Jamal as Jester deliver stylish and soulful performances late on into the second act just I thought the show had probably reached its peak - boy was I wrong!

The core story of Play On! revolves around the day Duke Ellington loses his muse, and the lengths- and distance! - one lucky lady will go to to help him get it back; Earl Gregory, Koko Alexandra, Tsemaye Bob Egbe, and Cameron Bernard Jones play the four pillars of the love quadrangle that is "The Duke", his old flame ( lady Liv ) , his new muse ( Viola "Vyman" ) and Rev, the manager of the Cotton Club clutching at straws and clasping his hands in his hopes of keeping the four together as exemplars of Ellingtonian Excellence - and also keeping the show on the road...

Sadly the live band - directed by the unassuming Ashton Moore and delightfully driven by the delicate drumming of Empirical's own Shane Forbes - are not featured as characters in their own right - I am sure that later productions in the three month run will attend to this oversight.

Despite this, the mix of moods and blues and beats and grooves from the bandstand become the main character, and for me ( as a musician! ) this is the star of the show: Ellingtonian Classics like Mood Indigo, I got it Bad, It Don't mean a thing, Black Butterfly Rocks In My Bed and In a Mellow Tone are turned inside out and taken back from the trash heap of Abersold Appropriation,and are played in a way that suits the strengths of individual artists, and balances temperaments of their characters as a whole as they play moves towards reaches its climactic reveal; at this moment the only other disappointment was that the band was not as big as, say, the English Touring Opera's for the recent run of "The Rakes Progress" : With this amount of dramatic tension in the stage, and with the audience in the palm of the band's hands the Ellington Big band, really needs to be a BIG band.

As it was, on the night Kaz Hamilton and Alexander Polack acquited themselves very well, making a myriad of moods that were both historically authentic and stylistically de jour. And the commitment to shared seat of Chris Hyde / Josh Vadivello on Double bass ( NO electric big band era please! ) brings gravitas authenticity and sensuality to the greatest american songbook in a way that only a Double Bass can. This show is all about that bass!

Having recently sat through the often turgid and salacious KAOS, a reworking of the mythology of Orpheus and Euridice, ( which was not a patch on Marcel Camus Seminal 1950's classic ) and also attended the afforementioned reworking of Igor Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress" ( often not my sense of humour, albeit markedly less turgid and salacious than Charlie Covell's Netflix Production ) I was far from convinced that , per se, " A reworking of Twelfth Night " was going to as vivacious, contemporary , and nourishing to the soul as it turned out to be. But on this occasion I was rewarded for my bravery ( And by "bravery" I mean only braving the inclement British weather ) , and I will forever regard Play On! as somewhat of a late birthday present - ( or maybe early Christmas gift? )

Ironically, whilst sipping free Prosecco and listening to a(nother) jazz function band in the reception area after the show , I had the good fortune to speak with one the trustees of the Talawa Theatre and we discussed how important it may be to not label Play On! as ( simply ) a "jazz show", because of how many people may miss out on an amazing contemporary socially and culturally relevant human experience, simply because they do not know or have not yet been sold the depth and breadth of the jazz canon.

But Play On! is "Jazz Hands" in safe hands. And I can say with confidence that Talawa Theatre have a winner on their hands; it is Black Joy. And "Black Joy" may turn out to be a better euphemism for the vibrancy we expect "Jazz" to bring to us. Congratulations on the fully immersive experience that Director Michael Buffong brought to the Belgrade Theatre tonight.

PS: As with many theatre shows, the stupidly difficult train schedule doesn't really support the 2+ hour format, but I can only say that on this occasion it was worth missing our last train to catch the "A Train" one more time...

Talawa’s Black Joy season presents:

Play On!

A new Jazz musical

Based on Shakespeare’s

“Twelfth Night”

Conceived by Sheldon Epps

Book by Cheryl L.West

Music by Duke Ellington

Produced by Talawa Theatre Company and The Belgrade Theatre

Co-produced with Birmingham Hippodrome, Bristol Old Vic, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and Wiltshire Creative

Artwork by Feast Creative

For the full programme, click or scan the image below:

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cleantech has an enshittification problem

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

EVs won't save the planet. Ultimately, the material bill for billions of individual vehicles and the unavoidable geometry of more cars-more traffic-more roads-greater distances-more cars dictate that the future of our cities and planet requires public transit – lots of it.

But no matter how much public transit we install, there's always going to be some personal vehicles on the road, and not just bikes, ebikes and scooters. Between deliveries, accessibility, and stubbornly low-density regions, there's going to be a lot of cars, vans and trucks on the road for the foreseeable future, and these should be electric.

Beyond that irreducible minimum of personal vehicles, there's the fact that individuals can't install their own public transit system; in places that lack the political will or means to create working transit, EVs are a way for people to significantly reduce their personal emissions.

In policy circles, EV adoption is treated as a logistical and financial issue, so governments have focused on making EVs affordable and increasing the density of charging stations. As an EV owner, I can affirm that affordability and logistics were important concerns when we were shopping for a car.

But there's a third EV problem that is almost entirely off policy radar: enshittification.

An EV is a rolling computer in a fancy case with a squishy person inside of it. While this can sound scary, there are lots of cool implications for this. For example, your EV could download your local power company's tariff schedule and preferentially charge itself when the rates are lowest; they could also coordinate with the utility to reduce charging when loads are peaking. You can start them with your phone. Your repair technician can run extensive remote diagnostics on them and help you solve many problems from the road. New features can be delivered over the air.

That's just for starters, but there's so much more in the future. After all, the signal virtue of a digital computer is its flexibility. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing complete, universal, Von Neumann machine, which can run every valid program. If a feature is computationally tractable – from automated parallel parking to advanced collision prevention – it can run on a car.

The problem is that this digital flexibility presents a moral hazard to EV manufacturers. EVs are designed to make any kind of unauthorized, owner-selected modification into an IP rights violation ("IP" in this case is "any law that lets me control the conduct of my customers or competitors"):

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

EVs are also designed so that the manufacturer can unilaterally exert control over them or alter their operation. EVs – even more than conventional vehicles – are designed to be remotely killswitched in order to help manufacturers and dealers pressure people into paying their car notes on time:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

Manufacturers can reach into your car and change how much of your battery you can access:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

They can lock your car and have it send its location to a repo man, then greet him by blinking its lights, honking its horn, and pulling out of its parking space:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

And of course, they can detect when you've asked independent mechanic to service your car and then punish you by degrading its functionality:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2024/06/26/two-of-eight-claims-in-tesla-anti-trust-lawsuit-will-move-forward/

This is "twiddling" – unilaterally and irreversibly altering the functionality of a product or service, secure in the knowledge that IP law will prevent anyone from twiddling back by restoring the gadget to a preferred configuration:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

The thing is, for an EV, twiddling is the best case scenario. As bad as it is for the company that made your EV to change how it works whenever they feel like picking your pocket, that's infinitely preferable to the manufacturer going bankrupt and bricking your car.

That's what just happened to owners of Fisker EVs, cars that cost $40-70k. Cars are long-term purchases. An EV should last 12-20 years, or even longer if you pay to swap the battery pack. Fisker was founded in 2016 and shipped its first Ocean SUV in 2023. The company is now bankrupt:

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker called its vehicles "software-based cars" and they weren't kidding. Without continuous software updates and server access, those Fisker Ocean SUVs are turning into bricks. What's more, the company designed the car from the ground up to make any kind of independent service and support into a felony, by wrapping the whole thing in overlapping layers of IP. That means that no one can step in with a module that jailbreaks the Fisker and drops in an alternative firmware that will keep the fleet rolling.

This is the third EV risk – not just finance, not just charger infrastructure, but the possibility that any whizzy, cool new EV company will go bust and brick your $70k cleantech investment, irreversibly transforming your car into 5,500 lb worth of e-waste.

This confers a huge advantage onto the big automakers like VW, Kia, Ford, etc. Tesla gets a pass, too, because it achieved critical mass before people started to wise up to the risk of twiddling and bricking. If you're making a serious investment in a product you expect to use for 20 years, are you really gonna buy it from a two-year old startup with six months' capital in the bank?

The incumbency advantage here means that the big automakers won't have any reason to sink a lot of money into R&D, because they won't have to worry about hungry startups with cool new ideas eating their lunches. They can maintain the cozy cartel that has seen cars stagnate for decades, with the majority of "innovation" taking the form of shitty, extractive and ill-starred ideas like touchscreen controls and an accelerator pedal that you have to rent by the month:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price

Put that way, it's clear that this isn't an EV problem, it's a cleantech problem. Cleantech has all the problems of EVs: it requires a large capital expenditure, it will be "smart," and it is expected to last for decades. That's rooftop solar, heat-pumps, smart thermostat sensor arrays, and home storage batteries.

And just as with EVs, policymakers have focused on infrastructure and affordability without paying any attention to the enshittification risks. Your rooftop solar will likely be controlled via a Solaredge box – a terrible technology that stops working if it can't reach the internet for a protracted period (that's right, your home solar stops working if the grid fails!).

I found this out the hard way during the covid lockdowns, when Solaredge terminated its 3G cellular contract and notified me that I would have to replace the modem in my system or it would stop working. This was at the height of the supply-chain crisis and there was a long waiting list for any replacement modems, with wifi cards (that used your home internet rather than a cellular connection) completely sold out for most of a year.

There are good reasons to connect rooftop solar arrays to the internet – it's not just so that Solaredge can enshittify my service. Solar arrays that coordinate with the grid can make it much easier and safer to manage a grid that was designed for centralized power production and is being retrofitted for distributed generation, one roof at a time.

But when the imperatives of extraction and efficiency go to war, extraction always wins. After all, the Solaredge system is already in place and solar installers are largely ignorant of, and indifferent to, the reasons that a homeowner might want to directly control and monitor their system via local controls that don't roundtrip through the cloud.

Somewhere in the hindbrain of any prospective solar purchaser is the experience with bricked and enshittified "smart" gadgets, and the knowledge that anything they buy from a cool startup with lots of great ideas for improving production, monitoring, and/or costs poses the risk of having your 20 year investment bricked after just a few years – and, thanks to the extractive imperative, no one will be able to step in and restore your ex-solar array to good working order.

I make the majority of my living from books, which means that my pay is very "lumpy" – I get large sums when I publish a book and very little in between. For many years, I've used these payments to make big purchases, rather than financing them over long periods where I can't predict my income. We've used my book payments to put in solar, then an induction stove, then a battery. We used one to buy out the lease on our EV. And just a month ago, we used the money from my upcoming Enshittification book to put in a heat pump (with enough left over to pay for a pair of long-overdue cataract surgeries, scheduled for the fall).

When we started shopping for heat pumps, it was clear that this was a very exciting sector. First of all, heat pumps are kind of magic, so efficient and effective it's almost surreal. But beyond the basic tech – which has been around since the late 1940s – there is a vast ferment of cool digital features coming from exciting and innovative startups.

By nature, I'm the kid of person who likes these digital features. I started out as a computer programmer, and while I haven't written production code since the previous millennium, I've been in and around the tech industry for my whole adult life. But when it came time to buy a heat-pump – an investment that I expected to last for 20 years or more – there was no way I was going to buy one of these cool new digitally enhanced pumps, no matter how much the reviewers loved them. Sure, they'd work well, but it's precisely because I'm so knowledgeable about high tech that I could see that they would fail very, very badly.

You may think EVs are bullshit, and they are – though there will always be room for some personal vehicles, and it's better for people in transit deserts to drive EVs than gas-guzzlers. You may think rooftop solar is a dead-end and be all-in on utility scale solar (I think we need both, especially given the grid-disrupting extreme climate events on our horizon). But there's still a wide range of cleantech – induction tops, heat pumps, smart thermostats – that are capital intensive, have a long duty cycle, and have good reasons to be digitized and networked.

Take home storage batteries: your utility can push its rate card to your battery every time they change their prices, and your battery can use that information to decide when to let your house tap into the grid, and when to switch over to powering your home with the solar you've stored up during the day. This is a very old and proven pattern in tech: the old Fidonet BBS network used a version of this, with each BBS timing its calls to other nodes to coincide with the cheapest long-distance rates, so that messages for distant systems could be passed on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet

Cleantech is a very dynamic sector, even if its triumphs are largely unheralded. There's a quiet revolution underway in generation, storage and transmission of renewable power, and a complimentary revolution in power-consumption in vehicles and homes:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/12/s-curve/#anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-eventually-stops

But cleantech is too important to leave to the incumbents, who are addicted to enshittification and planned obsolescence. These giant, financialized firms lack the discipline and culture to make products that have the features – and cost savings – to make them appealing to the very wide range of buyers who must transition as soon as possible, for the sake of the very planet.

It's not enough for our policymakers to focus on financing and infrastructure barriers to cleantech adoption. We also need a policy-level response to enshittification.

Ideally, every cleantech device would be designed so that it was impossible to enshittify – which would also make it impossible to brick:

Based on free software (best), or with source code escrowed with a trustee who must release the code if the company enters administration (distant second-best);

All patents in a royalty-free patent-pool (best); or in a trust that will release them into a royalty-free pool if the company enters administration (distant second-best);

No parts-pairing or other DRM permitted (best); or with parts-pairing utilities available to all parties on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (distant second-best);

All diagnostic and error codes in the public domain, with all codes in the clear within the device (best); or with decoding utilities available on demand to all comers on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (distant second-best).

There's an obvious business objection to this: it will reduce investment in innovative cleantech because investors will perceive these restrictions as limits on the expected profits of their portfolio companies. It's true: these measures are designed to prevent rent-extraction and other enshittificatory practices by cleantech companies, and to the extent that investors are counting on enshittification rents, this might prevent them from investing.

But that has to be balanced against the way that a general prohibition on enshittificatory practices will inspire consumer confidence in innovative and novel cleantech products, because buyers will know that their investments will be protected over the whole expected lifespan of the product, even if the startup goes bust (nearly every startup goes bust). These measures mean that a company with a cool product will have a much larger customer-base to sell to. Those additional sales more than offset the loss of expected revenue from cheating and screwing your customers by twiddling them to death.

There's also an obvious legal objection to this: creating these policies will require a huge amount of action from Congress and the executive branch, a whole whack of new rules and laws to make them happen, and each will attract court-challenges.

That's also true, though it shouldn't stop us from trying to get legal reforms. As a matter of public policy, it's terrible and fucked up that companies can enshittify the things we buy and leave us with no remedy.

However, we don't have to wait for legal reform to make this work. We can take a shortcut with procurement – the things governments buy with public money. The feds, the states and localities buy a lot of cleantech: for public facilities, for public housing, for public use. Prudent public policy dictates that governments should refuse to buy any tech unless it is designed to be enshittification-resistant.

This is an old and honorable tradition in policymaking. Lincoln insisted that the rifles he bought for the Union Army come with interoperable tooling and ammo, for obvious reasons. No one wants to be the Commander in Chief who shows up on the battlefield and says, "Sorry, boys, war's postponed, our sole supplier decided to stop making ammunition."

By creating a market for enshittification-proof cleantech, governments can ensure that the public always has the option of buying an EV that can't be bricked even if the maker goes bust, a heat-pump whose digital features can be replaced or maintained by a third party of your choosing, a solar controller that coordinates with the grid in ways that serve their owners – not the manufacturers' shareholders.

We're going to have to change a lot to survive the coming years. Sure, there's a lot of scary ways that things can go wrong, but there's plenty about our world that should change, and plenty of ways those changes could be for the better. It's not enough for policymakers to focus on ensuring that we can afford to buy whatever badly thought-through, extractive tech the biggest companies want to foist on us – we also need a focus on making cleantech fit for purpose, truly smart, reliable and resilient.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

Image: 臺灣古寫真上色 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raid_on_Kagi_City_1945.jpg

Grendelkhan (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ground_mounted_solar_panels.gk.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[aishangotome]

Main Story Chapter 18-09: Among All of Nature (在萬物之中) | Light  and Night 光與夜之戀

Chapter 18-07

♡———♡

Who would have guessed that Spider II is actually a spider, and its mount - also its favorite spot - is an electric scooter parked in the landlord's granny's woodshed.

I sat on the back seat, hugging Charlie's back, the wind whistling in my ears. Electric scooters have many advantages, they're discreet and can avoid rush hour traffic.

You: Charlie, when did you learn to drive an electric scooter?!

Charlie: Charlie is omnipotent, how many more times do I have to prove it to you?

The wind tears our voices into shreds. We drive on the electric vehicle lane, the main road next to us is blocked, the traffic is at a standstill, and the endless lights illuminate the entire street.

As we pass by them, the bored people in the car windows turn their heads to look, as if giving us a salute.

Charlie: Fiancée, do you feel like we're surveying our territory?

You: Yes!

Charlie: I'm the king of the world!

He shouted, and I was also infected, shouting along with him, which really attracted everyone's attention.

The spider is Spider II, the electric scooter is the king's mount, the whole city is our territory, and with Charlie, no matter what kind of day it is, it will become wonderful.

Suddenly, I felt a little relieved. I should trust him more, he knows how to adjust himself, and how to turn this difficult time into a part of a magnificent imagination.

-

Finally, we arrived at our destination. The electric scooter stopped in front of a somewhat dilapidated two-story building. The building was quiet, and it seemed that no one was there anymore.

You: Are you sure this is the place?

Charlie: I'm sure.

Charlie parked the scooter, took off his helmet, walked closer, and couldn't help but frown when his eyes fell on the building.

Charlie: Lao He said that this organization has been silent for quite some time, and it seems to be true.

A man walked out of the dim doorway, wearing a common shirt and trousers, looking about forty years old, with a serious and tired expression. He stopped in front of us.

???: Mr. Chen?

Charlie: Yes, that's me.

The man extended his hand and shook hands with Charlie.

???: I am the president of the Drug Safety Assurance Association, my surname is Shen. And this is?

He looked at me, and I quickly prepared to speak, afraid that Charlie would say "This is my fiancée," which would completely expose us.

As if guessing what I was thinking, Charlie turned his head slightly, with a half-true, half-false reproach in his eyes, meaning something like "Am I that stupid?".

Charlie: This is my... like-minded partner.

-

President Shen maintained his scrutinizing gaze, slowly nodding and leading us into a corridor filled with various objects. At the end of the corridor was a heavy fire door. President Shen pushed it open and spoke again.

President Shen: Mr. Chen, when you contacted me, I suspected you were sent by a pharmaceutical company.

Charlie: And now you don't?

President Shen: You must be a doctor, or at least you were once.

Charlie didn't deny it.

Charlie: How did you figure that out?

President Shen: Intuition.

Charlie: I think it's because you were also a doctor once, so you recognize your own kind.

Charlie: Just now when you pushed the door, you used your elbow.

Your elbow? I was a little confused. Charlie seemed to be explaining to me as he continued.

Charlie: Long-term aseptic procedures can lead some doctors to develop this habit, not touching things with their hands if they can avoid it.

Charlie: President Shen, your habit remains, but the calluses from the scalpel have faded.

Charlie: I'm a little curious, why did you give up being a doctor to establish the Drug Safety Assurance Association?

Charlie asked very seriously. President Shen looked at Charlie with a new expression, then turned his head away.

President Shen: The reason for establishing it... is the same as the current goal. I hope NOVATEN Pharmaceuticals will be punished.

President Shen: If possible, all pharmaceutical companies that conceal side effects should be punished.

President Shen: Nineteen years ago, NOVATEN killed a girl.

President Shen: They sent the father who insisted on appealing to a mental hospital.

President Shen: The young doctor who prescribed the medicine at the time became the scapegoat and was forever expelled from the medical field.

This young doctor is probably President Shen, I thought. Charlie's arm was very close to mine, and I felt his body tense for a moment, as if he had heard this story before.

President Shen: I took a lot of detours in the process of exposing NOVATEN. Now DEA is my biggest opportunity.

President Shen's originally lifeless eyes lit up. At this moment, he looked at Charlie as if he was looking at a lifesaver.

President Shen: I can tell from the phone that you know NOVATEN very well.

President Shen: If you're willing, please be sure to cooperate with me.

President Shen: We've arrived.

-

President Shen took a deep breath, his tone calming down. He stopped in front of an office door. In the small space, several people were sitting in front of computer screens, probably also association members.

We followed President Shen to his seat, receiving several wary glances along the way. President Shen took a photo out of a drawer and handed it to us. The picture showed a hedgehog nestled in a blanket.

You: A hedgehog?

President Shen: I know what I'm about to say will be unbelievable, but please hear me out.

President Shen: Mr. Chen, you mentioned that there was a patient at the First People's Hospital who experienced bradycardia after taking DEA.

President Shen: This is him.

You: He's a Spirit? *from spirit clan

President Shen looked surprised, but then relaxed.

President Shen: So you know, that's even better. I went to great lengths to contact him.

President Shen: He told me that he was suffering from a disease, and DEA seemed to accelerate its progression.

President Shen: The dizziness caused by bradycardia is only part of the symptoms.

President Shen: After using DEA, it's difficult for him to maintain his "human" form.

President Shen: Of course, people like him... are not common, and he didn't dare to confess his condition to the hospital.

You: This symptom should be the degradation of Spirits, right?

President Shen: You know about this disease?

Charlie: Being knowledgeable is the least of my partner's virtues.

Charlie: President Shen, as far as you know, is this situation after taking the medicine an isolated case?

President Shen: I haven't heard of any other cases.

President Shen: But I have a feeling that they must exist, I just haven't been able to grasp them yet.

If what President Shen said is true, that DEA accelerates the degradation process... I hesitated.

You: Degradation is a common problem faced by Spirits, logically speaking...

Charlie: Logically speaking, all Spirits who take DEA should experience bradycardia and accelerated degradation.

Charlie paused, his gaze falling on President Shen's face. That touch of purple was sharp, making it impossible to lie.

Charlie: Tell me, if this drug is only harmful to those uncommon people you mentioned, would you continue your investigation?

President Shen closed his eyes, as if recalling something. After a moment, he nodded.

President Shen: They also suffer from the side effects and want justice. That's no different from ordinary people.

Charlie smiled.

Charlie: To thank you for the information you provided, I'll also provide you with one.

He took something out of his pocket and lightly weighed it in his palm. I recognized it as the pillbox the landlady gave him.

His other hand, holding my wrist, gave it a gentle squeeze. His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

Charlie: If I can't maintain an elegant standing posture later, remember to support me.

Before I could react, Charlie had already torn open the aluminum foil with one hand, poured out a small pill, crushed a quarter of it with his thumb, and swallowed it.

I hurriedly grabbed his sleeve, but it was too late to stop him.

You: Why are you taking medicine randomly?!

Charlie: Don't worry, I'm just tasting a little bit--

Before he finished speaking, his face suddenly turned pale, and his forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat.

I felt a downward force from the hand he was holding, and I struggled to support his arm, feeling him leaning heavily on me.

For a moment, I seemed to hear the sound of wings spreading.

You: Cha-- Are you okay?!

After a few short but long seconds, Charlie Su seemed to recover. He raised his head, steadied his breathing, and looked at President Shen's shocked face with unusually bright eyes.

Charlie: I'm fine.

Charlie: It seems we've confirmed that DEA can indeed affect all Spirits.

President Shen was silent, and an expression of admiration and gratitude gradually appeared on his face.

President Shen: Thank you, Mr. Chen. I will continue to investigate the effects of DEA on humans.

President Shen: After all, before Spirits and this so-called degradation disease are widely recognized, human cases are easier to use as evidence.

-

After saying goodbye to President Shen, Charlie and I left the association. I tried to start the electric scooter, but failed several times. It was probably low on battery, so I had to push it.

Charlie's steps were still a bit unsteady. I couldn't bear to let him push the scooter, so I took it from him. We walked along the moat, one behind the other. I was still thinking about what he had done earlier, feeling a bit upset.

Charlie: Fiancée, my head is so dizzy, can I sit on the scooter?

You: It's a borrowed scooter, sit wherever you want.

He swung his long legs over and sat down unceremoniously, making it so heavy that I couldn't push it at all.

Charlie: If my fiancée isn't happy, I won't go.

I turned around angrily. He effortlessly kicked down the kickstand with his foot, looking like he was being unreasonable, but the smile on his face was gentle.

Charlie: My father is human. I'm not fully Spirit, so degradation won't hurt me.

You: But you didn't have to just take the medicine like that. Who knows if this President Shen can be trusted? This is gambling.

Charlie: I believe what he said, including his hatred for NOVATEN, is true.

Charlie: At that moment, I even felt like I should have done something, but I didn't.

He let out a sigh of relief, as if he had found something he had lost many years ago. This was probably a piece of history that I didn't know about.

Charlie: Whether I believe him or not is not important. What's important is that he must believe me and think that I have information he doesn't know.

Charlie: That way, he will share information with me without reservation.

Charlie explained slowly. When he was thinking, there was a depth between his brows that reminded me that he had been struggling in this world for several years longer than me.

Charlie: Besides, I'm really curious if DEA is effective on other Spirits.

Charlie: Fiancée, is this a reasonable explanation?

When he said that, the last bit of urgency I had dissipated. I could only sigh and look away embarrassedly.

You: Well, I hope you can always be so thoughtful.

Charlie: If there's one thing about me you don't need to doubt, it's my abilities.

You: I thought it would be your dazzling looks.

But with all his gear on, he did cover up his dazzling looks.

I made a joke in my mind and was about to push the scooter to continue walking when Charlie's phone rang. He smiled when he saw the sender's name.

Charlie: Just in time, the information Uncle Ji found has also arrived.

You: You're still in contact with Uncle Ji?

Charlie: I ran into Uncle Ji before I left home.

Charlie: Maybe my father anticipated that I would go and sent him to stop me.

You: But Uncle Ji let you go?

Charlie: Yes, he even said, "Master, please be careful on your journey." He's really a rigid old butler.

Charlie's tone was light. He clicked on the message, which contained a document.

It was a document, not very long, about five or six pages, with the words "NOVATEN Confidential Clearance" printed on the margins. Uncle Ji helped Charlie get a confidential document?

Many thoughts flashed through my mind. I knew it wasn't good to think this way, just like I shouldn't suspect President Shen for no reason, but these days, every second was nerve-wracking.

You: Charlie... Have you ever thought about what Uncle Ji will say to your father?

After much hesitation, I finally said it, feeling very uncomfortable, like I was being the bad guy. Charlie might have already considered this, but I couldn't help but ask.

Charlie's fingertips, which were tapping on the screen, paused. He looked up at me, cupped my face, and his knuckles brushed against my eyelids.

Charlie: Don't worry. Just by looking at Uncle Ji's face, you know he's at most stubborn, not two-faced.

Charlie: I did a lot of things my father didn't allow when I was young, and he always covered for me.

Charlie: He told me bedtime stories, waited for me after school when I had classes, and took me for walks. Back then, he was more like a father than my father.

Charlie: I choose to trust him. Besides you, he's one of the few trustworthy people worth taking a risk for.

His fingers were warm, as if saying, "Don't torture yourself over these things." I closed my eyes, feeling a sense of peace in my chest.

You: So what did Uncle Ji send?

Charlie: It's the truth about the ingredients in DEA.

I looked at the document with him, and I couldn't hide my surprise when I saw the first line.

The report said that NOVATEN had successfully isolated the root cause of Spirit degradation through experiments. There is a factor within Spirit power that inhibits Spirit power production and consumes Spirit power, named the D factor.

Under normal circumstances, this inhibitory factor and the A factor that promotes Spirit power growth are in balance, ensuring that Spirits don't experience Spirit power outbursts. In recent years, the degradation of Spirits is due to the uncontrolled growth of the D factor.

The D factor extracted from various Spirits has the same structure and can therefore be transferred and used, while the A factor is specialized and related to each Spirit's own genes.

Experiments have shown that the extracted D factor can also quickly suppress some physical symptoms in humans, and current drug component tests cannot detect it.

The report ended there, and I couldn't recover for a long time.

You: This is... degradation? Are these results reliable?

Isn't Spirit power supposed to be something invisible and intangible? How can there be factors within it that can even be extracted?

Charlie was silent for a moment.

Charlie: If it's reliable, it means my judgment was also wrong.

Charlie: Director Qi's fainting earlier wasn't necessarily due to the lethal effect of DEA's anesthesia.

Charlie: It was accelerated degradation.

Sariel's coma, accelerated degradation... Yes, that explains everything. The patient with bradycardia, Charlie's symptoms after taking the medicine, it all makes sense now.

We walked slowly, each needing time to digest this information. Charlie seemed to have fully recovered and took the electric scooter from my hands.

You: Making this ingredient public would cause a huge uproar, wouldn't it?

Charlie: Yup.

You: Besides suppressing symptoms, does it have any other effects on humans?

Charlie: It doesn't seem so at the moment.

A hint of purple eyes peeked out from above his sunglasses, the color heavy and stagnant.

You: Charlie, what are you thinking?

Charlie: I'm thinking about whether I should send that WeChat article to my landlady.

Charlie held the opened pillbox in his hand, turning it over and over. I understood. There was no such ready-made article online. He was considering whether to advise the grandmother to stop using DEA.

Charlie: NOVATEN is promoting DEA in a charitable way. This isn't normal.

Charlie: They didn't label the new ingredient. Are they unwilling to expose the existence of Spirits, or is there another reason?

You: It doesn't make much difference, does it? Since your father's actions are suspicious...

Of course, we should advise others against using the medicine. It's natural to think that way, isn't it?

But Charlie looked conflicted.

Charlie: The old lady's arthritis is already very severe. She has taken many kinds of painkillers, and the effects are all very weak.

Charlie: DEA allows her to briefly feel no pain and get a good night's sleep.

Charlie: But if it causes her serious side effects, I will not hesitate to advise her against it, advise everyone against it.

Charlie: Right now, I can't be sure if this side effect actually exists.

Charlie: Besides telling Spirits not to use DEA...

Charlie: What I should do now seems to be to complain to the drug regulatory authority that NOVATEN has concealed the drug's ingredients and contraindications.

Charlie: And then, wait for a result. It seems that the worst that can happen is that the company will be ordered to relabel.

Charlie: Fiancée, there's a difference between methods. The difference lies in whether I choose to abide by the rules or not.

My heart trembled. I thought of Sun Tai Zhong, of that night when Charlie said the world would be better off without him, and of him saying he could no longer be a doctor.

Doctors shouldn't use scalpels to kill, just as they shouldn't discourage patients from using medication based on some unfounded suspicions. Ultimately, we just don't trust his father, we don't trust NOVATEN.

Should NOVATEN conceal the ingredient, even if it's not understood by humans? Of course not. But how should we fight back?

Suddenly, a terrifying possibility that had repeatedly played out around us came to mind.

You: What if there's actually nothing wrong with this medicine...

What if his father was just exploiting Charlie's rebellious and questioning nature?

Charlie: I would be causing pain to people who shouldn't be suffering.

Charlie: But if there's something wrong with it, I'll also save people who might be victimized.

What harm would those who might be victimized suffer? What pain would those who shouldn't be suffering endure? Can these be compared, weighed, and then an optimal solution found?

The answer is no, this is just...

Charlie: This is gambling.

☼ Light: Ask him what will happen if he loses.

☾ Night: Tell him that you'll always be his bargaining chip.

☼ Light: Ask him what will happen if he loses.

You: What will happen if you lose this time?

Charlie: I don't know.

Charlie: I've always preferred having everything under control rather than gambling.

Charlie: Maybe it's because I met you.

He opened his palm, his gaze becoming distant, as if remembering something. I remembered this gesture; back then, he had two capsules, one red and one blue, in his palm.

Charlie: Those two pills on the plane, I thought you wouldn't take them. That was the first time I lost.

Charlie: It seems that losing isn't so scary after all.

His expression was strange, somewhat relaxed, as if he was joking, yet also resolute, as if he was using a joke to express some kind of determination.

☾ Night: Tell him that you'll always be his bargaining chip.

I held his hand.

You: Charlie Su, if the world is a casino and everything is a chip, there's at least one thing I guarantee you won't lose.

Charlie Su held my hand back, his calloused fingertips brushing against my palm.

Charlie: What if?

You: Then she'll grow legs and run back on her own.

Charlie: When did my fiancée become so good at sweet talk?

I felt his grip tighten on my hand, and Charlie Su shook his head.

Charlie: But the premise isn't quite right. You're not a chip, and I won't treat you as one.

Charlie: A genius gambler like me can win everything even without any chips.

His expression was strange, somewhat relaxed, as if he was joking, yet also resolute, as if he was using a joke to express some kind of determination.

You: So...

Charlie: So I'm going to write a WeChat article and send it to the old lady. The title will be "Dangerous DEA and its mysterious ingredient."

Charlie: Contact Lao He and tell him not to prescribe DEA unless absolutely necessary.

Charlie: Also, write a letter to the drug regulatory authority, informing them about the issue of DEA concealing its ingredients.

Charlie: As long as they accept it, even if they can't investigate it thoroughly, it will at least delay the drug's launch.

You: You plan to do this first... then what?

It was completely dark, and the first star appeared in the night sky. Charlie looked at the horizon.

Charlie: Then, although it will take some time, I will reveal their hand.

In an instant, many things flashed through my mind. The blood-stained scalpel, the narrow alley, the wonton stall, the headaches, the WeChat articles, his thinner silhouette, and the words "not a doctor."

He overturned 28 years of his life, took the risk of trusting Uncle Ji, and experimented with DEA on his own body. Charlie was so resolute when gambling with himself, yet he hesitated when it came to gambling with others.

How to deal with this hesitation? We had proven many times that on the road to pursuing the truth, through twists and turns, we would always stray further and further away from our original lives and principles.

I felt a bit scared and confused, and suddenly wanted to ask him.

You: Charlie, do you still want to go back to being a doctor?

Charlie's gaze shifted from the horizon to the river. The night river wasn't pure black; ripples on the water shimmered with light, but he didn't look at me.

Charlie: Fiancée, I've been thinking.

Charlie: Maybe I don't want to be a firefighter, or a journalist, or even...

He paused, as if the next word was difficult to say.

Charlie: ...a doctor.

Charlie: I just want to save people.

The evening rush hour we saw on our way here was over, and the kingdom of Charlie and I was no longer there. I wondered if what he said was really true.

The early autumn wind swept through every corner of the city indiscriminately, then disappeared beyond the city limits.

-

In the past, the candlelight on Ling Island always went out early. Nowadays, perhaps the island's residents are unwilling to let go of even a moment, keeping the lights on all night, making one dark house stand out in stark contrast.

Sariel woke from his dream, the sounds of wind, howling, and the clash of weapons echoing in his ears. He had dreamt this dream thousands of times, so it was easy to notice the changes within it.

He saw clouds appear in the sky, the fluttering banners torn, the sound of hooves approaching, no longer monotonous. The smell of smoke and flames followed closely.

The figure in the red robe was no longer standing with her back to him. She was riding a horse, galloping towards him, her hairband blown away, her messy hair flying in all directions.

She reached him, and with a proud air, circled him before reining in her horse. Her face was blurry, but her posture was vivid and lively, much like someone he knew well.

The dream became more and more vivid, less and less like a dream, but more like... an actual memory.

-

Sariel gazed at the beams above, belatedly realizing that a peculiar aura surrounded him. This wasn't Guangqi City.

A massive dragon head poked in through the doorway. Seeing him awake, its whiskers instantly bristled.

Qi She: Lao Qi, you're awake?! You, you... how are you feeling?

Sariel sat up, swaying slightly. His arms were weak, and a dull ache throbbed in his head.

Sariel: I'd feel better if you asked fewer obvious questions.

Qi She: That's good, that's good. Still the same Lao Qi, your head isn't damaged.

Sariel: What do you mean? Explain clearly.

Qi She looked at him in surprise, then a worried expression crossed his face.

Qi She: You don't remember anything? Oh dear, I know this is also an obvious question.

Qi She: Well, last night, you were still fiddling with that bird of paradise in the courtyard.

Qi She: Suddenly, I heard a "thump" outside the door. I called you, but you didn't answer.

Qi She: When I went out to check, I saw you lying on the ground. I was so scared that I quickly carried you and came to Ling Island.

Bird of paradise... Sariel rubbed his temples. There was such a thing.

He had been trying to save that bird of paradise with its broken stems and leaves, but with little success. At most, he could keep it alive, but new leaves wouldn't grow.

He tried to activate his talent again, and this time, there seemed to be a surge of Spirit power within his body. However, in the next second, his consciousness faded.

His golden eyes lowered slightly, and Sariel's face was expressionless.

Sariel: Why did you bring me to Ling Island?

Qi She: Do you even need to ask? You fainted on stage before and were sent to the hospital. Your face looked exactly the same as it does now.

Qi She: I figured this must be related to degradation again. You're always reluctant to let me find that bird doctor to treat you.

His hands and feet regained some strength, and Sariel got out of bed.

Sariel: This place isn't much better.

???: Making bold claims as soon as you wake up, Sariel. It's definitely you.

An aged voice came. Qi She moved his massive body aside slightly, revealing two figures standing at the door: Mr. Kui and the Grand Elder.

Their expressions were unclear in the shadows, but their shoulders relaxed slightly for a moment.

Mr. Kui: Seeing how energetic you are, you must have rested well.

Sariel: Did you treat me?

Mr. Kui: Not really. We hadn't gotten around to it yet. We just let you lie in bed for a day, and you woke up on your own.

Sariel nodded at him, smoothed out the wrinkles on his clothes, stood up, and walked towards the door.

Sariel: Qi She, let's go.

Qi She: Hey, don't rush. Let them take a look first--

Before Qi She could finish, a cane blocked Sariel's path. It was the Grand Elder's cane, but Sariel didn't remember him needing it before.

Mr. Kui: Where are you going?

Sariel: Where I should be.

Mr. Kui: The place you should be right now is here.

Sariel frowned, a hint of coldness in his eyes.

Sariel: I'm awake, and I didn't rely on your help. I should still have the freedom to come and go.

Mr. Kui snorted softly and placed a few herbs on the table.

Mr. Kui: You're speaking too soon. I only said we hadn't gotten around to treating you, not that you don't need treatment.

Mr. Kui: But then again, with your degradation to this extent, there's not much difference whether you're treated or not.

Mr. Kui: Your Spirit power is long gone, isn't it?

His golden eyes turned to Qi She, as if he already knew that he had spilled the beans. The white dragon looked a bit guilty, shrinking his head and pretending he didn't exist.

After a glance, Sariel looked back at Mr. Kui, his expression calm.

Sariel: So what? I'm still alive.

Sariel: And without Spirit power, there's no further room for degradation. It's simpler this way.

The Spirit healers and the Grand Elder exchanged glances, both falling silent for a moment.

Grand Elder: Spirit power is the lifeblood of Spirits. Degradation for Spirits is like draining their blood. When the blood is gone, there's naturally no further room for decline.

Grand Elder: Qi She said there was a time when you suffered greatly from degradation, and soon after, you lost all your Spirit power and couldn't use your talent.

Grand Elder: But the discomfort of degradation lessened, and you became like an ordinary human. Is that true?

Sariel: I never knew you were such a chatterbox, telling everyone everything.

Qi She: I was just worried about you...

Qi She's voice was small, and although there was a hint of guilt in his tone, there was no remorse. He knew that Sariel wasn't really blaming him, even if he was, it was just a little bit.

Grand Elder: But you're both wrong.

Grand Elder: Sariel, you're still standing here because another source of Spirit power appeared within you at some point.

Grand Elder: It just happened to offset the Spirit power you lost, allowing the symptoms of degradation on your body to disappear.

Grand Elder: However, this kind of perfectly balanced equilibrium won't last long. Yesterday was the limit.

As he spoke, the Grand Elder observed the expression of the person in front of him. Those golden eyes only showed a momentary fluctuation at the beginning, then became as still as a deep well.

Suddenly, the old man understood something.

Grand Elder: Are you truly unaware of this, or are you deceiving yourself?

Sariel didn't answer his question directly and looked away.

Sariel: You're speaking so definitively. Have you already figured out the source of this Spirit power?

Grand Elder: Haven't you thought about it?

Of course, he had. Ever since he became an "ordinary person," new content had appeared in that dream, as if something was surfacing from the depths of his heart.

It reminded him of that war, that war that ended unclearly but was exceptionally tragic. He had lost his power, lost his memories, and lived on like a wandering soul.

Sariel: It's the seal.

Grand Elder: Indeed. Mr. Kui just examined you. The seal within your body has loosened, and a slight amount of Spirit power is leaking out.

Sariel: So, it started yesterday?

Grand Elder: Yes, you fainted again due to degradation, indicating that the balance has been broken.

Grand Elder: You don't have much time left.

The Grand Elder was surprised to find that upon hearing this, Sariel actually curled his lips into a smile.

Grand Elder: What are you smiling about?

Sariel: Nothing. It's not the first time someone has said this to me.

The Grand Elder's cane struck the ground heavily.

Grand Elder: But it could be the last time!

Grand Elder: If you want to survive, you must break the seal and release the Spirit power within. This is the only way.

The only way. Sariel had heard similar words from the Grand Elder many times, and it was getting tiresome. He asked a different question.

Sariel: Why did the seal loosen?

Mr. Kui: I can't see any signs of human intervention. Perhaps it has deteriorated on its own.

Mr. Kui: The seal was formed by the caster's power. Over time, the power inevitably weakens, especially after thousands of years.

Mr. Kui paused, as if he had already anticipated Sariel's next question.

Mr. Kui: But precisely because it's been thousands of years...

Mr. Kui: It's not easy for the crack to widen again and release enough Spirit power to counteract your degradation.

Sariel: Have you already mastered the method to break the seal?

Mr. Kui: Two days ago, a spell appeared on the stone wall. Now you're here. Its meaning is self-evident.

Grand Elder: As long as you agree, we will try it for you immediately.

"Try it for you," "agree"... These words were new. Sariel's gaze swept across the Grand Elder's face.

Sariel: I was unconscious for a day. With your unscrupulous style, shouldn't you have seized the opportunity?

Sariel: But you're only now seeking my consent. Why?

Grand Elder: There are two reasons. First, this method cannot succeed without your cooperation. Second...

A complex expression flashed across the Grand Elder's face, then it became stern again.

Grand Elder: For the sake of the Spirit race, I hope you will live and regain your former power.

Grand Elder: But beneath the seal lie your memories and talents. No one knows what the consequences will be once it's unsealed.

He coughed a few times, his hand tightening on the cane, revealing prominent veins.

Grand Elder: The stone wall hasn't given further instructions. Before that, think carefully.

With that, the two elders turned and left, and Qi She turned his head to see them off.

-

Sariel walked to the door and saw that the courtyard looked like a typhoon had passed through, with broken wood and debris everywhere. The huge dragon body coiled there was covered in wounds, and there were even a few withered leaves embedded between its scales.

Since the degradation last year, it had been a long time since Qi She had shown such severe symptoms.

Sariel: You just degraded again?

The dragon head nodded, looking somewhat tired.

Qi She: Whether you're a lizard or a human, I couldn't lift you, so I had to transform into this.

Qi She: Maybe I used up too much Spirit power at once.

Qi She: You gave me a hard time yesterday. In the future, please try to worry me less.

Qi She drawled out his words, and Sariel paused, wanting to retort but ultimately swallowing his words.

He looked at the receding figures of Mr. Kui and the Grand Elder, his voice not loud but carrying through the night.

Sariel: Wait a moment.

Grand Elder: What is it?

Sariel: I don't need the medicine that suppresses degradation, but Qi She does.

Sariel: There's never been any animosity between him and Ling Island. You don't need to make things difficult for him.

Mr. Kui and the Grand Elder stood there for a while. Mr. Kui let out a few laughs, but they seemed forced, somewhat desolate.

Mr. Kui: There's no medicine left. There hasn't been any for a long time.

Mr. Kui: Didn't you hear what the Grand Elder said? There's no other way to treat your degradation, only that one path.

Mr. Kui: And for others, there isn't even that path.

The figures of the elders disappeared into the lush forest, leaving only Sariel and Qi She in the courtyard. The moonlight spread like water, covering the ground.

Sariel: How long has it been since you took the medicine?

Qi She: I can't remember clearly, it's been quite a while.

Qi She: When I came to Ling Island a few months ago, Mr. Kui said the same thing, that there would be no more medicine.

Qi She: Do you think it's because everyone's degradation is too severe, and the medicine's effect isn't good anymore?

Sariel: I don't know.

Sariel seemed to be pondering something. After a moment, he reached out and plucked a broken scale from Qi She's body.

Qi She remembered that during the thousand years of companionship with this taciturn fellow, when boredom struck, they would pass the time by picking at the scales that were about to shed from his body. He raised his head and sniffed his slightly sore nose.

Qi She: If there's no medicine, then there's no medicine. At worst, it's just death. At this point, who's afraid of dying?

Sariel: You're not afraid? Every time you degrade, you eat a bunch of supplements. I don't even know if they work.

Qi She: I do have some beautiful expectations for life. But after being afraid for so long, you get used to it.

Qi She: This degradation thing is like that sword humans talk about... what's it called?

Sariel: The Sword of Damocles.

Qi She: Yes, that's it. I know it's hanging over all Spirits' heads, and one day it will fall.

Qi She: It's just that sometimes, while living, you forget it's still there.

Sariel let out a soft snort, but even he didn't know if it was agreement or disagreement.

How could he forget this sword? He shouldn't forget it either. But late at night, there was a silly bird staying up in his studio, drawing, and falling asleep on the desk.

He casually draped a blanket over her, counting her breaths under the dim light. At least at that moment, he was used to not thinking about death.

Qi She: Lao Qi, when you turned into an ordinary person, I was really happy, truly.

Qi She: Your sword disappeared. I thought your fate would be different from ours from then on.

Qi She: You were always a standout... no, a fox standing out among the Spirits.

Sariel: That's what you thought. I was never any different from you all.

Qi She: So you knew very early on that becoming an ordinary person didn't mean the degradation had stopped?

Sariel shook his head.

Sariel: Not that early.

Back then, the girl squatted beside him, eagerly waiting for him to heal that significant bird of paradise, but he was powerless, and unexpectedly, a sense of helplessness arose within him.

But they ate together, and the girl looked so happy when he ate more, no matter what he ate, she would also take a portion of the same.

Bandaging wounds, sweating from the heat, this kind of thing should have been annoying, but with someone else there, it suddenly became somewhat interesting.

When the night-blooming cereus didn't bloom, she would only say, "It seems my luck hasn't turned around today, but it's not bad to have Sariel being unlucky with me. Besides, the buds are also beautiful."

The haze of degradation was gradually lifted from his life, so he deliberately ignored all the unreasonable things, until...

Sariel: On Kunlun Mountain, I absorbed some of the Spirit power from the Ganoderma tree and was able to use my talent again.

Sariel: After I used it up, I returned to the so-called ordinary human state.

Sariel: I haven't changed. I'm still a Spirit, I can't escape it.

Qi She seemed to have finally exhausted his energy, his form shrinking into a small lizard lying on the broken stone table.

Qi She: But you still have a way out, to break the seal, don't you?

Sariel: Why do you think I would do that?

Qi She listened carefully and realized that Sariel's tone wasn't rhetorical; he genuinely wanted to know the answer.

Qi She: Why... You used to be so lifeless, but now you're much better.

Qi She: I'm not saying you're smiling radiantly or anything, it's just a feeling.

Qi She: Don't you want to keep living this kind of life?

Sariel didn't speak, and Qi She seemed to have thought of something.

Qi She: Oh, I get it. You're afraid that if you break the seal and regain your memories, things will change again?

Sariel: No.

Qi She: No?

Sariel: If one day the seal breaks on its own, then it's time for it to break. I won't stop it.

Sariel: As for what I'll become after regaining my memories, it doesn't matter.

Qi She sighed. After spending so many years with Lao Qi, sometimes he felt he was really easy to understand. For example, when he saw something he liked, his expression would soften; when he saw something he didn't like, he wouldn't even bother.

But sometimes, he couldn't see through him at all, like now.

Qi She: Then what other reason is there not to take a gamble, to exchange for a chance to live?

Sariel looked at the moon, the moonlight washing over his pupils, making their color appear lighter. His voice was soft, almost a murmur.

Sariel: Why should I live?

Qi She: Isn't that simple? Just think about how heartbroken the girl would be if you were gone.

Sariel: She'd cry for a few days, maybe a week, maybe half a month, but she'll eventually get better.

Qi She: You underestimate yourself too much. Even I, an outsider, know better than you.

Qi She curled his lips. He knew that Sariel wasn't actually unclear; he was probably just being stubborn.

Sariel: She's not as fragile as you think. She's strong and brave.

Qi She: But she'd definitely be happier if you were by her side.

Qi She's tone became excited. This was obviously something so obvious, why couldn't this person see it or admit it?

Sariel raised his hand, gently brushing across his chest, as if to smooth out the remaining wrinkles on his clothes, or as if something was weighing on his heart.

He thought of that dream again, but there was more. A hundred-year-old manuscript brought plagiarism disputes, a thousand-year-old war brought shadow-like enemies, and a stone wall left two people's memories incomplete.

Sariel: I would bring heavy burdens to her. There's nothing good about that.

Sariel: The longer it goes on, the more she'll feel it.

His words were still so negative, but unlike before, he didn't seem indifferent. Instead, it was as if he had considered it, making it even more frustrating.

Qi She: Are you saying that it would be better for her if you left sooner rather than later?

Sariel: No.

Sariel thought about Kunlun Mountain and the feeling of unwillingness he had experienced for the first time. Sometimes he felt this unwillingness was good, and sometimes he felt it shouldn't exist.

He lowered his eyes, and the breeze in the courtyard ruffled his hair, making him look somewhat lost.

Sariel: Because death also has no meaning.

If it weren't for the lingering aftereffects, the lizard would have wanted to jump up and knock on Sariel's head. What kind of talk was that? How could someone neither want to live nor want to die?

But he remembered that for a period of time, Sariel was indeed half-dead, and even he was driven away in frustration.

When he returned, a long time had passed. Sariel was sick and alone in his room, which was dark and suffocating, just as he had described, heavy.

He had talent, so why was he sick? He could open the curtains, so why didn't he? These questions remained unanswered even now. Qi She only knew that it was somehow related to certain chapters in his long life.

Later on, Sariel changed, becoming more distant and indifferent. He concealed it well, and this heaviness gradually became less apparent to others.

But it was always there, only perceptible to those who were closest to him. Qi She rested his head on his paws, feeling that the road ahead was uncertain. What would happen after they discovered it?

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Chapter 18-11

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[seoul-bros]

David Bowie - King of Prose and Performance

This is the music which saw me through my teenage years and has kept me company ever since. David Bowie anchors me to my musical roots. He was and will always be a legend. His infinitely layered lyrics, are cradled in unforgettable rock solid music and expressed through electric performance. His stage personas are colourful and varied but they all express his truth and reflect his introspection and vulnerability. Jimin sometimes reminds me of him.

Here he performs Rock 'N' Roll Suicide as Ziggy Stardust for the last time at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973.

Post Date: 29/09/2023

[bighermie]

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