#these wings are just place hilders for now

[gatitopicante]

When I first saw this fairy design, I knew I had to try and make them. This is little Hyrule from @linked-maze by @frulleboi. Their fairy form is super cute but was very hard to crochet.

They're even smaller than the minish I made.

[follyglass]

Follyglass : Crown

Each king in my family has worn upon his head a heavily jeweled crown. It started as a circlet of brass bestowed by the community hundreds of years ago, and each ruby and citrine and emerald that has been added has been earned through deeds that my ancestors deemed heroic.

Great-great-grandfather Augustus’ crown was set with the famous Eastern Sunrise ruby, because he won a battle against our former neighbor kingdom. Queen Regina’s crown was pavéed with emeralds for expanding our lands to the south across the frothing sea, acquiring verdant farmland and making our country prosperous. Then there are the adventure jewels: the Diamond Eye for killing the cyclops, and the Serpentine for taming the frightful snake-headed women.

When it was coming up on my turn to wear the crown, I thought of when I was a child, and how I admired the mighty stories and feats (many in my kingdom did, too), and was thus determined to win and affix the biggest jewel of all to our family crown: the famed Hilderic Stone.

In the leaning mountains of Slag, where light only touched the tips of the hemlocks and the granite blocked wind and sky, a whisper of madness arose in my head, and it said this: “isn’t it such a folly, this quest, all for a bit of shine?”

Crossing a mountain creek, the icy water slashing at my legs, my belly hollowed by hunger, the voice intruded again into my royal head, and it said this: “how silly to pursue something that doesn’t run and will grant you no sustenance or wisdom.”

When I finally reached Catsimet, the keeper of the Hilderic Stone, the monster greeted me from the entrance to its cavern. It resembled a tatzelwurm that I had seen in a manuscript, though I did not expect it to have wings and smell like evergreen tea and summer storms. Catsimet stretched and slithered forth, “Ah, and now I meet him who would bring history to my step.”

That the creature could speak astonished me, though I realized I had already heard its voice twice on my journey, but what it had just said caused me to shift to my back foot. I found it best to talk reason to a reasonable being, and so I said “All I need is the Hilderic Stone to solidify that I am a worthy king to my people.”

Catsimet’s three great copper eyes closed slowly, and opened just as slowly. “Mmmhm. And if I don’t give it to you, you’ll swift your great silver sharp and turn the whole of my life into your crown’s gem? A small hard thing without voice? Such alchemy is crude and beneath a Great King.”

Turn my life into your crown’s gem.

I had never thought of it that way. What was essentially a shining rock had been a symbol of many lives lost. Can you see their souls in the light of the rubies? Do the dead’s great joys and sorrows spike and glitter in the sunlight? What great book was ever written by a pebble?

Catsimet offered, purring, “Nobody in your borders knows what the Hilderic Stone looks like. You can pick any shining thing here and take it back to your royal jeweler to have it set into your crown and be the Great King.”

It was true. We had only heard of the stone described in the books of Yon as ‘dark and shining,’ and there were many dark and shining rocks pressing their harsh angles into my feet, making my stance uneven. Yes, I could grab a stone. Or even a sackful and had them affixed as spikes to my armor. Think upon how mighty and terrible I would look.

But that wouldn’t do. That is not what a great king does.

I returned to my father without the Hilderic Stone. Upon my crowning day, my father placed a hastily made circlet of oak twigs upon my head; an insult meant to signify that nothing would shine during my reign. The crowd booed at me and called me coward.

When I sent our country’s people to our far lands, it was to return the rubies and deliver proclamations of independence. We delivered supplies to the peaceful Cyclopes so that they could continue harvesting grapes and wheat and honey in their paradise. We invited the snake-headed women to write their true histories on the palace walls.

Stripped of gems, what is left of my family’s crown resembles a scaffolding of bronze, something momentary in support of building something better; stronger. Now when I think of glittering treasures, I think of the leaded glass windows in libraries full of books, I think of farmland schools teaching proper histories, I think of treating individuals on far shores with dignity.

Since becoming king, I haven’t sat on my country’s throne. Instead, there is a young oak sapling growing from it. It was the insult crown my father gave me, and now it is a great beginning of a new truth in our kingdom: to make things right is an act of greatness not restricted to those with royal lines.

[xtruss]

Meet Brittany Kaiser, Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Releasing Troves of New Files from Data Firm

— January 7, 2020

New details are emerging about how the shadowy data firm Cambridge Analytica worked to manipulate voters across the globe, from the 2016 election in the United States to the Brexit campaign in Britain and elections in over 60 other countries, including Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil. A new trove of internal Cambridge Analytica documents and emails are being posted on Twitter detailing the company’s operations, including its work with President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton. The documents come from Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser, who worked at the firm for three-and-a-half years before leaving in 2018. We speak with Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, co-directors of the Oscar shortlisted documentary “The Great Hack”; Brittany Kaiser, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower featured in “The Great Hack” and author of “Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower’s Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again”; and Emma Briant, a visiting research associate in human rights at Bard College whose upcoming book is titled “Propaganda Machine: Inside Cambridge Analytica and the Digital Influence Industry.”

AMY GOODMAN: New details are emerging about how the shadowy data firm Cambridge Analytica worked to manipulate voters across the globe, from the 2016 election in the United States to the Brexit campaign in Britain to elections in over 60 countries, including Ukraine, Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil.

Cambridge Analytica was founded by the right-wing billionaire Robert Mercer. Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon of Breitbart News was one of the company’s key strategists and claims to have named the company. The company collapsed in May 2018 after The Observer newspaper revealed the company had harvested some 87 million Facebook profiles without the users’ knowledge or consent. Cambridge Analytica used the data to sway voters during the 2016 campaign.

A new trove of internal Cambridge Analytica documents and emails are being posted on Twitter detailing the company’s operations across the globe, including its work with President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton. The documents come from Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser, who worked at the firm for three-and-a-half years before leaving in 2018. Kaiser is featured prominently in the Netflix documentary The Great Hack, which has been shortlisted for an Oscar. This is the trailer for the film.

DAVID CARROLL: Who has seen an advertisement that has convinced you that your microphone is listening to your conversations? All of your interactions, your credit card swipes, web searches, locations, likes, they’re all collected, in real time, into a trillion-dollar-a-year industry.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: The real game changer was Cambridge Analytica. They worked for the Trump campaign and for the Brexit campaign. They started using information warfare.

DAVID CARROLL: Cambridge Analytica claimed to have 5,000 data points on every American voter.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: I started tracking down all these Cambridge Analytica ex-employees.

CHRISTOPHER WYLIE: Someone else that you should be calling to the committee is Brittany Kaiser.

NEWSCASTER: Brittany Kaiser, once a key player inside Cambridge Analytica, casting herself as a whistleblower.

BRITTANY KAISER: The reason why Google and Facebook are the most powerful companies in the world is because last year data surpassed oil in value. Data is the most valuable asset on Earth. We targeted those whose minds we thought we could change, until they saw the world the way we wanted them to. I do know that their targeting tool was considered a weapon.

PAUL HILDER: There is a possibility that the American public had been experimented on.

DAVID CARROLL: This is becoming a criminal matter.

CHRISTOPHER WYLIE: When people see the extent of the surveillance, I think they’re going to be shocked.

BRITTANY KAISER’S MOTHER: And I still fear for your life.

BRITTANY KAISER: Yeah.

BRITTANY KAISER’S MOTHER: With the powerful people that are involved.

BRITTANY KAISER: But I can’t keep quiet just because it will make powerful people mad.

BRITTANY KAISER’S MOTHER: I know.

RAVI NAIK: Data rights should be considered just fundamental rights.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: This is about the integrity of our democracy. These platforms which were created to connect us have now been weaponized. It’s impossible to know what is what, because nothing is what it seems.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer to the Netflix documentary The Great Hack. Well, we’re joined right now by four guests, by the film’s directors, Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer. They’re the co-directors of The Great Hack, which was just nominated for a BAFTA today. That’s t the British equivalent of the Oscars. And it has been shortlisted for the Oscars. Jehane’s past films with Karim Amer include The Square. She also did Control Room. Brittany Kaiser is the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower featured in the film. She’s the author of Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower’s Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again. And we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Emma Briant, visiting research associate in human rights at Bard College who specializes in researching propaganda. Her forthcoming book is called Propaganda Machine: Inside Cambridge Analytica and the Digital Influence Industry.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Brittany, you have just begun to release a trove of documents from Cambridge Analytica, involves scores of countries, including the United States, including John Bolton, including Iran. Talk about how — why you decided to begin this release and what are in these documents.

BRITTANY KAISER: Absolutely. I decided to release the Hindsight Files because it’s now 2020. I’ve been waiting and working with investigators and journalists around the world for the past two years. And what I’ve seen is that we don’t have enough change in order for voters to be protected, ahead of not just November, but in 27 days the first votes that are cast for the 2020 election.

I really think that digital literacy is the most important point that I’m trying to make here. If you understand the tactics and the strategies that are being used to manipulate you, then you can protect yourself from that. And I want to be able to empower voters ahead of casting their first vote this year.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about these documents, where they came from and what’s in them.

BRITTANY KAISER: These are all documents from my time at Cambridge Analytica. I worked at the company for over three years. So, it’s internal communications and negotiations for data-driven communications projects all around the world. It’s proposals, contracts and case studies of what has been done to intervene in democracy.

And I think it’s so important for people to understand that while sometimes these tactics are benign, sometimes they are incredibly malignant. And there’s evidence of voter suppression, fake news and disinformation, using racism, sexism.

And I just want to make sure that there is real action that is going to be taken, not just ahead of this next election, but for countries all around the world. We need privacy legislation so badly. We need to regulate Big Tech and have an ability to enforce our voting laws online, because right now we can’t. And unfortunately, companies like Facebook are not doing enough to protect us.

AMY GOODMAN: So, for people who are new to what Cambridge Analytica is, why don’t you describe why it is and why you have these documents, what Cambridge Analytica’s role was in all of these countries, including the United States?

BRITTANY KAISER: Absolutely. So, Cambridge Analytica was one of the companies under the SCL Group, Strategic Communication Laboratories. This is a company that has been around for over 25 years, and they started by using data-driven strategies in order to understand people’s psyche, how they make decisions and how they can be persuaded to take certain actions or to prevent people from taking certain actions.

AMY GOODMAN: It was a defense contractor.

BRITTANY KAISER: Originally they started in defense, yes. And once they found out how successful that was — that was actually in the Nelson Mandela election in ’93, ’94 in South Africa, they were preventing election violence for a defense contract — they realized that that was very useful in elections. And those strategies developed over two-and-a-half decades in order to no longer just do good things and good impact work, but, unfortunately, to undermine our democracies.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a clip from the documentary The Great Hack. In this clip, the British journalist Carole Cadwalladr talks about Cambridge Analytica’s parent company SCL. We also hear the voice of former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, who was previously a director of SCL.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: SCL started out as a military contractor, SCL Defence.

ALEXANDER NIX: We have a fairly substantial defense business. We actually train the British Army, the British Navy, the U.S. Army, U.S. Special Forces. We train NATO, the CIA, State Department, Pentagon. It’s using research to influence behavior of hostile audiences. How do you persuade 14-to-30-year-old Muslim boys not to join al-Qaeda? Essentially communication warfare.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: They had worked in Afghanistan. They had worked in Iraq. They had worked in various places in Eastern Europe. But the real game changer was they started using information warfare in elections.

ALEXANDER NIX: There’s a lot of overlap, because it’s all the same methodology.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: All of the campaigns which Cambridge Analytica/SCL did for the developing world, it was all about practicing some new technology or trick, how to persuade people, how to suppress turnout or how to increase turnout. And then, it’s like, “OK, now I’ve got the hang of it. Let’s use it in Britain and America.”

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s a clip from The Great Hack. We’re going to go to break and then come back. We’re also joined by the directors. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Stay with us.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

— DemocracyNow.Org

[loveclareeety]

The COMPLETE ALE Experience AKA the best people

Maayong Adlaw! Here are some of the best memories/photos I had during our review days towards becoming full-pledged Architects! All of us passed! Meet Glen, Trish, Jem, Angela, Matt, Jas, Erika and Carl. Hope you love them as much as I do. They are the best people I’ve ever met in my life and I’m so lucky and blessed to have gone through all of the past challenges towards achieving our dreams altogether.

*Photos are either from my phone or Angela’s or other people’s feed. Yep, I’m a photo snatcher. I’m sorry, dear friends. I collate memories!

Me and Angela somewhere in a chicken wing place in Maginhawa, it was the only place that was still open at that time coz our class finished at 10:30 pm that night.

Glen being his usual self - NARCISSIST! Lol, kidding. See that guy in the back? Trish accidentally hurt his foot, it just so happened that while she was trying to sit the arm chair suddenly lifts causing one of its foot to land on the guy’s foot. 

Trish and me!!!! She looks like Adi here. Adi is the guy working in Starbucks P. Noval whom I have a not-so-secret happy crush on.

Glen, Trish, Clar, Angela, Carl and Jas! Review days are never boring bec of these people! Swear!

Prof: Okay, you can take a picture of the powerpoint slide... Everyone: ......

The time Angela, Matt and I went to Manaoag on a whim to ask for God’s blessing and also for a little roadtrip going up North. Carl was supposed to be with us but I was super nag-iinarte at that moment of our “friendship” plus I also was still unsure of him so I didn’t ask him to come, no matter if he was going to agree or not, even if Angela and Matt was super okay of him to join us. That day, I asked him if would he come if I asked/invite him last night, and he said “probably”. Damn. I just can’t stand (yet) being alone with him or just being “partners” with him - like walking alongside etc., even just sitting with him in the car freaks me out! I regretted it though. He should’ve come with us.

Throwback to when we had SamgyupsabahayNiAngelaGuiao and Jem’s Birthday celebration as well! (L-R) Angela, Jem, Jas, Carl, Clar, Gelo, Matt and Glen! Super super fun night! They also slept over that night and the day after, we were all late for class. Also, the day after.... jokeeee... private!

(Top: L-R) Glen, Erika, Clar (Me), Matt, Carl; (Bottom: L-R) Jem, Sir Jeje “Ang Alamat” Queddeng, Angela, Jasline, Trish and Mark

THE BEST PEOPLE ON EARTH!! This was taken during our Final Coaching of Sir Jeje. Best Night of the review experience! Sir Jeje was such a good mentor.

Dinner at Mister Kabab as a tribute to our first dinner together! We had one last dinner together before we go on to separate review sesh and Carl is already going up to Baguio because that’s where he’d take the board exam. And I’m not happy with that.

(T-B;L-R) Matt, Carl, Angela, Sir Jeje, Trish, Hilder, Me, Glen, Jas, Jem, Erika, Aileen and Mark

Medal Moment as if we would become Topnotchers! As much as I would like to experience all of these once again, we’re already past these and HEY! WE’RE ALL ARCHITECTS NOW! Thank you, Lord! These people will always be in my heart. <3