#Network Mapping Solution

[margaret-mead]

The Crucial Importance of Network Traffic Classification for Optimizing Connectivity

Greetings from Solana Networks, the leading source for state-of-the-art Network Traffic Classification solutions. With the ability to discern between dangerous and benign actions, our sophisticated algorithms carefully examine data flows and provide organisations with insights never before possible. We ensure optimal performance and security by decoding complex network behaviours with our cutting-edge technologies. Solana Networks offers customised solutions that are suited to your requirements, whether your goals are seamless network management, threat detection, or compliance adherence. Put your trust in our experience to protect your digital infrastructure from changing threats, increase productivity, and streamline operations. With Solana Networks, discover the possibilities of network intelligence in the future.

Phone: 613-596-2557

E-mail: info@solananetworks.com

[daintilyultimateslayer]

Mapinfo Pro India

Network efficiency is not just a technical priority—it’s a business imperative. Weak signal zones and outages disrupt operations and customer experiences, making proactive monitoring and management essential. Advintek Geoscience, leveraging the powerful capabilities of MapInfo, offers advanced solutions to optimize network performance.

This blog delves into two key aspects of network performance monitoring: Signal Strength Analysis and Outage Mapping, showcasing how MapInfo’s tools transform raw data into actionable insights.

Signal Strength Analysis: Gaining Insight from Real-Time Data

Monitoring signal strength is crucial for identifying and addressing weak coverage areas. However, interpreting real-time data across vast geographic regions demands more than just conventional tools. Here’s how MapInfo enhances signal strength analysis.

Integrating Real-Time Data Feeds

MapInfo’s advanced geospatial capabilities allow seamless integration of real-time data from network devices. This integration enables:

Dynamic Signal Visualization: Network operators can view signal strength across geographic zones in real time, identifying weak spots with precision.

Customizable Dashboards: Tailored visualizations highlight trends and patterns, facilitating faster decision-making.

Pinpointing Weak Signal Zones

MapInfo’s sophisticated analytics enable precise identification of weak signal zones.

Data-Driven Insights: Algorithms analyze real-time and historical signal data, spotlighting areas needing infrastructure improvements.

Impact Assessment: Operators can correlate weak signal zones with user complaints or performance metrics, ensuring targeted interventions.

Planning Network Upgrades

With a clear view of signal deficiencies, MapInfo helps businesses prioritize infrastructure investments.

Strategic Site Selection: Pinpointing optimal locations for new towers or repeaters.

Resource Allocation: Ensuring budgets are directed toward the most critical upgrades.

By providing granular insights into signal performance, MapInfo enables organizations to maintain robust network coverage, reducing downtime and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Outage Mapping: Visualizing and Resolving Network Disruptions

Outages are inevitable, but their impact can be minimized with effective visualization and resolution strategies. MapInfo simplifies this complex process by transforming outage data into actionable maps.

Real-Time Disruption Visualization

During an outage, speed is critical. MapInfo allows teams to:

Pinpoint Affected Areas: Visualize disruptions on an intuitive map interface, showing the exact locations and extent of outages.

Overlay Critical Infrastructure: Identify nearby facilities or resources impacted by the disruption, helping prioritize restoration efforts.

Planning Maintenance with Precision

Beyond real-time responses, MapInfo’s tools support strategic maintenance planning:

Historical Data Analysis: Use outage patterns to predict and prevent future disruptions.

Resource Deployment Optimization: Strategically position repair teams and equipment for rapid response.

Enhancing Communication During Outages

Clear communication during outages is essential for customer trust.

Stakeholder Reports: MapInfo-generated visuals simplify updates to management, partners, and customers.

Outage Notifications: Geospatial data ensures that only affected users receive updates, reducing unnecessary alerts.

By integrating geospatial intelligence into outage management, MapInfo equips organizations to respond swiftly, limit downtime, and build customer confidence.

Benefits of Advintek Geoscience’s Solutions

Adopting Advintek Geoscience’s solutions powered by MapInfo provides organizations with a competitive edge in network performance monitoring. By leveraging signal strength analysis and outage mapping, businesses can achieve transformative improvements in their network operations.

Improved Network Reliability

Ensuring reliable network performance is a cornerstone of operational success. With Advintek’s solutions:

Proactive Weak Spot Identification: Organizations can monitor and address areas with weak signal strength before they escalate into significant issues, minimizing service disruptions.

Reduced Downtime: Outage mapping enables faster identification and resolution of network disruptions, significantly reducing the time customers experience connectivity problems.

Consistent Performance: Continuous monitoring ensures that networks operate at optimal levels, providing consistent service quality across all geographic regions.

Cost Efficiency

Advintek’s approach helps organizations optimize costs while maintaining high standards of network performance.

Targeted Investments: With precise data on weak signal zones and recurring outage patterns, businesses can focus their investments on areas that need the most attention, avoiding unnecessary expenditure.

Optimized Resource Deployment: MapInfo’s geospatial insights streamline the allocation of resources like repair teams, equipment, and infrastructure, ensuring they are deployed where they’re needed most.

Preventative Maintenance Savings: Predictive analytics based on historical data help reduce costs associated with reactive repairs by enabling planned maintenance schedules.

Data-Driven Decision-Making

The ability to analyze real-time and historical data empowers organizations to make informed decisions that directly impact network performance and business outcomes.

Strategic Planning: Businesses can use data insights to develop long-term strategies for network expansion, ensuring maximum coverage and performance.

Performance Benchmarking: By comparing historical and real-time data, organizations can identify trends, measure improvements, and refine their operations for continuous efficiency.

Predictive Insights: Advintek’s tools enable predictive analytics, helping businesses anticipate potential issues and address them before they affect users.

Enhanced User Experience

A well-performing network is key to maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty. Advintek’s solutions contribute to a superior user experience by:

Minimizing Interruptions: Quick resolution of outages and improved signal strength ensures that users face minimal disruptions, leading to a seamless connectivity experience.

Building Customer Trust: Transparent communication during outages and rapid resolution builds trust and strengthens customer relationships.

Boosting Loyalty and Retention: A consistently reliable network reduces user frustrations and promotes long-term customer retention, helping businesses grow their customer base and reputation.

Scalability and Future-Readiness

In addition to these immediate benefits, Advintek’s solutions provide the foundation for future growth and scalability:

Adaptability to Emerging Technologies: With advanced tools like MapInfo, businesses can integrate new technologies and adapt to evolving industry needs seamlessly.

Support for Expanding Networks: As networks grow, Advintek’s tools ensure that monitoring and management remain efficient, no matter the scale.

By adopting these comprehensive solutions, organizations not only optimize their current network performance but also build a robust framework for sustained growth and innovation.

Why Choose Advintek Geoscience?

Advintek Geoscience combines industry expertise with MapInfo’s advanced geospatial capabilities to deliver tailored solutions for network performance monitoring. From signal strength analysis to outage mapping, Advintek empowers organizations to make data-driven decisions that improve operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

As a trusted partner in geospatial technology, Advintek Geoscience ensures your network stays resilient, reliable, and ready to meet tomorrow’s demands. VisitAdvintek Geoscience today to learn more about how we can transform your network performance strategies.

[cyberswift-story]

Understanding the Importance of Water Utility Surveys

Water is a fundamental resource that sustains life, and the infrastructure supporting its supply and distribution is a critical component of urban and rural development. A water utility survey plays a pivotal role in ensuring the efficient and sustainable management of water resources.

Learn more at https://www.cyberswift.com/blog/water-utility-solution-detailed-overview/

[lepton-software]

Optimizing Networks for Efficiency: Strategies and Best Practices

In the ever-evolving landscape of telecoms, network optimization is now a focus for service providing companies searching to enhance performance and offer extraordinary service quality. 

The Role of Fiber Management

Fiber Management is a cornerstone of current network optimization. As  fiber optic networks become the backbone for worldwide connectivity, managing these assets efficiently is important. Fiber management is the systematic management and control of fiber optic cable, connectors and the associated infrastructure to ensure uninterrupted data transmission.

Click to read more.

Originally published: https://leptonsoftware.com/optimizing-networks-for-efficiency-strategies-and-best-practices/

[procurement-insights]

Who Is The "ONE" Missing From The Deloitte Solution Map?

What does the term hidden in plain site mean?

Please take a few moments to closely examine the following Deloitte Solution Provider Map and tell me who you think is missing. Then, I will tell you who I think should be on it. Who is my missing provider – One Network Enterprises. Why This Provider? One paragraph—the opening paragraph from their “Our Story” page—was all it took. Sure, I did my usual digging into the company background,…

[snehaleenakashe-blog]

How to map a network drive on a Mac

What is a network drive and why I should use it?

A network drive, in essence, serves as a storage entity or server connected to a network, making its storage accessible to various devices, including your Mac. The network drive’s administrator configures accounts and establishes permissions governing reading and writing to the drive. When you log into the network drive from your Mac, you gain entry to its files, subject to the permissions associated with your account. This establishes a collaborative environment where users can access and manipulate data as permitted.

As for home use, one prevalent form of network drive is the Network Attached Storage (NAS). Typically equipped with multiple drives, NAS devices offer redundancy by mirroring data across drives, thereby safeguarding against potential drive failures. These versatile devices often support the installation of software directly onto the drive, enabling functionalities like media streaming, hosting blogs, or direct file downloads from the internet.

In contrast, office environments commonly employ network drives connected to a server on the network. Your Mac connects to this server, providing seamless access to the associated storage drive. This centralized setup enhances collaboration and data management within the office network.

Steps on how to map network drive on a mac

When preparing to map a network drive on your Mac, the initial crucial step is to identify the address of the drive within the network. This address can take the form of an IP address or a specific file path. There are two primary protocols compatible with Macs for mapping network drives: AFP and SMB. AFP, an Apple-specific protocol, is tailored for Apple devices and network drives supporting this protocol, while SMB is a universal option working seamlessly with Macs, PCs, and a variety of other devices. For most scenarios, especially on mixed networks, utilizing the SMB protocol is recommended, and the network address should begin with ‘smb://’.

In a corporate setting where you intend to map a network drive to your Mac, the simplest approach to obtain the necessary IP address or file path is by seeking assistance from a colleague or network administrator who can provide this information.

If the network drive is a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device, refer to the instructions provided by the NAS manufacturer. These instructions typically guide you on how to locate the drive on your network and retrieve its address. This process often involves accessing a specific web address through a browser, allowing the website to automatically detect and identify your NAS within the network.

Once you have the file path or IP address, follow the steps below to map the network drive on your Mac.

7 Steps  which you need to follow to map network drive on a mac

Click on the Finder icon in the Dock on your Mac Computer.

Click on the Go menu and choose Connect to Server.

Type or paste the IP address or file path of the network drive into the text box. remembering to start with ‘smb://’ or ‘afp://’

Click Connect.

 If you’re asked to log in with a username and password, type those in and press Return.

Wait for a few seconds, and the network drive should open in the Finder

You should also see the drive in the Finder sidebar under Locations.

Additional steps in case the connection fails to the mapped network drive on mac

In case the network drive you’ve linked to doesn’t automatically display in the sidebar of a Finder window, take a simple route to access it efficiently. Click on “Network” in the sidebar and locate the specific drive within the network. Once found, seamlessly drag it onto the sidebar within the Sharing section. This process ensures quick accessibility to the network drives directly from the sidebar. This technique can be extended to any folder housed within the network drive, allowing you to promptly reach it from any Finder window.

To create an alias of the network drive on your desktop, do the following:

Click Network in a Finder window sidebar.

Navigate to the drive and select it.

Choose a volume on the drive if it has more than one.

Click the More button in the Finder window toolbar (a circle with three dots in it).

Choose Make Alias.

[fans4wga]

Writers Guild West Official: Era of Hollywood Mergers Hastened the Strike

August 10, 2023

Laura Blum-Smith, the Writers Guild of America West’s director of research and public policy, considers the strike a result of a tsunami of Hollywood mergers that has handed studios and streamers the power to its exploit workers.

“Harmful mergers and attempts to monopolize markets are a recurring theme in the history of media and entertainment, and they are a key part of what led 11,500 writers to go on strike more than 100 days ago against their employers,” Blum-Smith said on Thursday at an event with the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice over new merger guidelines unveiled in July.

She pointed to Disney, Amazon and Netflix as companies that “gained power through anticompetitive consolidation and vertical integration,” allowing them to impose “more and more precarious working conditions, increasingly short term employment and lower pay for writers and other workers across the industry.” But she sees revisions to the merger guidelines that address labor concerns a key part of the solution to prevent further mergers in the entertainment industry moving forward.

“The FTC and DOJ’s new draft merger guidelines are part of a deeply necessary effort to revive antitrust enforcement,” she added. “Compared with earlier guidelines, the new ones are much more skeptical of the idea that mergers are the natural way for companies to grow. And they focus more on the various ways mergers hurt competition, including how mergers impact workers.”

In July, the FTC and DOJ jointly released a new road map for regulatory review of mergers. They require companies to consider the impact of proposed transactions on labor, signaling that the agencies intend to review whether mergers could negatively impact wages and working conditions. FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, who was joined by agency chair Lina Khan, said in a statement about the guidelines that “a merger that may substantially lessen competition for workers will not be immunized by a prediction that predicted savings from a merger will be passed on to consumers.” Historically, transactions have been considered mostly through the lens of benefits to consumers.

The guidelines lack the force of law but influence the way in which judges consider lawsuits to block proposed transactions. They also tell the public how competition enforcers will assess the potential for a merger’s harm to competition.

Antitrust enforcers have steadily been taking notice of negative impacts to labor as a result of industry consolidation. “We’ve heard concerns that a handful of companies may now again be controlling the bulk of the entertainment supply chain from content creation to distribution,” Khan said last year during a listening forum over revisions to the guidelines, in a nod to anticompetitive conduct by studios that led to the Paramount Decrees. “We’ve heard concerns that this type of consolidation and integration can enable firms to exert market power over creators and workers alike.”

Adam Conover, writer and WGA board member, said in that April 2022 forum that his show Adam Ruins Everything was killed by AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner in 2018 when TruTV’s parent company forced the network to cut costs. He stressed that a handful of companies “now control the production and distribution of almost all entertainment content available to the American public,” allowing them to “more easily hold down our wages and set onerous terms for our employment.” It’s not just writers that are impacted by an overly consolidated Hollywood either, he explained. After Disney acquired 21st Century Fox in 2019, he said that the studios pushed the industry into ending backend participation and trapping actors in exclusive contracts preventing them from pursuing other work.

Blum-Smith said that aggressive competition enforcement is necessary as “Wall Street continues to push for more consolidation among our employers despite the industry’s history of mergers that failed to deliver any of the consumer benefits they’ve claimed that left writers and audiences worse off with less diversity of content and fewer choices.”

“More mergers will leave writers with even fewer places to sell their work and tell their stories and the remaining companies will have even more power to lower pay and worsen working conditions,” she warned. “Strong enforcement against mergers is essential to protect workers in media and workers across the country and these guidelines are an important step in the right direction.”

[piratesexmachine420]

It's a common misconception in the amateur Linux/Unix world that "Control C", AKA "intr" or "interrupt" (not to be confused with the CPU concept of an interrupt) is a keyboard shortcut. It isn't, really. Not ostensibly.

This all goes way back the very very early days of ASCII, when it was both a character set and a communications protocol. (Remember that the "II" stands for "Information Interchange".)]

ASCII defines a series of seven-bit codes, each of which has some fixed meaning. For the "printable" subset of these codes, we commonly describe this relationship as though a given code 'means' some character; but from the communications protocol point of view it's more like they 'mean' to print some character. i.e. 61h doesn't just mean 'a', it means "print 'a' and advance the cursor".

Actually, "cursor" is the wrong word to use here. We think of ASCII as something computers and only computers use, but this wasn't the case in the early days. ASCII is a telegraph code. Helpful for computers, yes, but built from the ground up to allow operators to control typewriters (teletypewriters, AKA TTYs) from across the world over the telegraph network.

That's why there are more than just printing codes. These are the "non-printing" or "control" codes, designed to control the typewriter on the other end. You're probably familiar with some of them: 20h, AKA "Space", which advances the type head but prints nothing; 0Dh, AKA "Carriage Return", which puts the type head back the start of the line; 0Ah, AKA "Line Feed", which advances the paper one line; and 09h, AKA "Tab", which advances the type head some configurable amount.

Some of them you're probably less familiar with. 07h is "Bell". It rings a bell on the receiving end, perhaps to wake them up and let 'em know a message is coming. There's 06h and 15h, Acknowledge and Negative Acknowledge. There's 01h, 02, 03h and 04 -- Start of Heading, Start of Text, End of Text, and End of Transmission. There are codes to turn on and off the receiver's peripherals like a tape punch recorder or reader. There are codes to delimit files and records. There's a backspace code! Everything you could want as a telegrapher in 1963.

We run into a problem when trying to type these control codes, though. By definition they don't really print anything, so what are we gonna put on the keys? Furthermore, there are a lot of control codes. Even if we figure out what should be on the keys it'll double the size of our typewriters to include them all! (I mean we can do it for some of 'em, like "Space" which already has a key, but "BEL"? "ACK"? "X-ON"?)

Fortunately, there's an existing solution to this kind of problem. Here's a picture of the keyboard of a Teletype Model 33, one of the first products to use ASCII, and it shows this solution:

See that "CTRL" key? Forget how you think it works.

Y'know how when you press "shift" on an old mechanical typewriter, it physically "shifts" the type basket down so you can use capital letters and punctuation marks? Like, shift-g isn't a "keyboard shortcut" for 'G" so much as "how you type 'G'". It selects between map layers, makes it so you don't need to have two keys for every letter.

Control does the same thing. Control-g is not a "keyboard shortcut" for ringing the bell, it's how you type "ring the bell".* Control-f is how you type "Acknowledge", control-s is how you type "turn off the tape reader", and so on and so on. All in the same way that shift-4 is how you type '$', and w is how you type 'w'.

So what's control-c? ^C is "End of Text". That's why it's used to end processes, alongside counterpart ^D "End of Transmission". You're not telling Linux you pressed "'control' and 'c'", you're telling you pressed "End of Text", and it knows "End of Text" means "end this process".†

If you take a look at the stty tool, you'll find that you can rebind some of these default actions. Maybe you want ^Y to be your interrupt instead of ^C. You can do that! Run stty intr ^Y in a terminal it'll do it. But you can't bind, say, control-9, because that's not a control character. Or control-., or control-page down, or "enter" on the numpad. The Linux line discipline has no idea what those are. It deals in characters, not keys.‡

That's why ^C isn't a keyboard shortcut.

*You'll commonly see these control characters transcribed with so-called "caret notation", where BEL is ^G, ACK is ^F, etc. The ^ means control, the letter indicates what key you'd press to type it.

†That's not to say that Linux interprets every control character like the spec says. ^W ("End of Transmission Block"), for example, is used for "word erase". Presumably because it starts with the letter 'w'. Under the hood it's still interpreting the keys you pressed as "End of Transmission Block", though.

‡You might wonder how the arrow keys work, then. You can think of them like macros. "Up" for example will type "^[[A" -- that's three characters, '^[' AKA "Escape", '[' AKA "Left Square Bracket", and 'A' AKA "Latin Capital Letter A". "Down" is "^[[B", "Right" is "^[[C", and "Left" is "^[[D". These work...sorta like printf formatting strings. '^[' tells Linux that next couple characters contain control information and not their usual meanings. Read more about this here.

[rathayibacter]

Rath's TTRPG Post!

Hey yall, been long enough that I should really write another of these. I'm Rath and I make weird tabletop games! I've got a lot of games already out there, and even more in the oven, so this post exists to help organize them all and give you a jumping-off point if you want to check out my work. Without further ado,

[BXLLET>

BXLLET is a post-apocalyptic cowboy game about the nature of violence. It hands players incredibly lethal characters, then asks those characters to try and find their way in the world. If all you have is a hammer, how do you stop seeking nails?

Every BXLLET character begins with a single bullet on their person, and can always spend a bullet to kill someone. Collecting more bullets unlocks your archetype's unique powers, making you an increasingly imposing threat—and juicy target. However, even as you become bloated with potential violence, you'll find plenty of problems escape easy solutions. Sure, you can always kill, but can you cut out the rot that runs deeper than any individual bandit, warlord, or capitalist? In a world fighting to rebuild itself from disaster, are you a wandering hero, or just a murderous tool of the old age? Can you help build a better future, or are you doomed to haunt its outskirts?

Thanks to two game jams and a whole lot of love, BXLLET also has a ton of additional modules, spilling over with scenarios, archetypes, factions, mechanics, and alternate settings. Here's a big list of them! Check them out, they're fucking incredible.

KATABASIS

KATABASIS is a tactical combat afterlife-crawl, where spirits fight using weapons and armor made of their emotional baggage to try and escape a surreal concrete afterlife. It's all about putting together strange builds to face off against bizarre monsters, all while meeting other stranded spirits and exploring the tangled world you're trapped in. If you delve deep enough, fight hard enough, maybe one day you can find a way to return to life.

KATABASIS is a work in progress, with the full game still a ways off. I'm currently working on the next update, The Highway Down, where players will fight their way across perilous highways tangled through a hanging city. Even so, the game's already packed with characters, equipment, monsters, and maps.

So go! Gather your painful memories, bare your petrified heart, kill the psychopomps and shatter the gates of hell. There might be no escape, but we'd rather die a thousand times more than give up looking.

Disparateum

Disparateum welcomes you to the Named City, a place at the edge of our world and the center of all others. Residents of the Named City wander across the full spectrum of possible worlds, visiting them as one might visit another neighborhood. Like KATABASIS, it's also a work in progress, but already contains pound-for-pound more raw ideas than anything I've ever written. It's a dense, strange, silly, and colorful game, and a gushing love letter to roleplaying in general.

Disparateum is a game for a Knight, a Thief, and a Seer, who explore the Named City in search of adventure and change. Here, shared dreams settle over the city at night; here, our reflections plot revenge from the opposite side of every mirror; here, dragons hold court to debate ownership of stories; here, museum corridors tangle their way through the past and into other histories; here, spiders weave a network of WiFi connections and host dense egg sacs of websites; here, sprawling statue gardens grow beneath our souls. Welcome to the Disparateum. Enjoy your stay.

Unskilled Labor

Unskilled Labor is a game about struggling to get by in the rotting corpse of capitalism. But this time, you have superpowers!

Unfortunately, the superpowers will not let you steal back the time you wasted in dead-end jobs, nor will they let you topple the system and fix everything singlehandedly. But, hey, did you really expect them to? The work to make a better world remains to be done, and maybe now it'll be slightly easier. Manifest a customer service persona to fight your friends' landlord, use perfect timing to escape the cops, coordinate supernaturally disruptive protests of an oil pipeline. Play using resumes as character sheets and calendars as battlemaps. Manage your well-being (as much as you're able), struggle against the tides of Western society, and spit in the face of authority. It's not a glamorous power fantasy, but hopefully it reminds you not to give up the fight.

Charcuterie

Charcuterie is a series of zines, each about 40 pages long, collecting various little experimental games, writings, and doodles. The first two have five ttrpgs each, four being updated versions of games I'd previously released and the fifth being exclusive to the zine. The third is instead a collection of poetry and short stories, though I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a streak of game design through it all anyway.

IMMORTAL Pop!bat 2: funK.O. (Definitive Edition)

Have you ever wanted a miniatures wargame with thirteen thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine unique statblocks? Have you ever wanted to microwave your friend's limited edition metallic blue Batman Funko Pop, but lacked the game mechanical justification to do so? Have you ever wanted to waste an entire paycheck on a terrible idea? IMMORTAL Pop!bat 2: funK.O. (Definitive Edition) has you covered. With two pages of rules and sixteen hundred pages of Pop!batants, with IP!b2:fK.O.(DE) you'll be making terrible life choices in no time.

Stationkeeping

In Stationkeeping, you've inherited a run-down satellite from your late aunt. Slowly you'll patch it up, add new rooms, and fill it with memories. The game's contained entirely on a small stack of handwritten index cards which you can carry around with you, slowly progressing the game by going out of your way to enjoy the little things in your day-to-day life.

And More!

I've got even more stuff over on itch, and I sneak occasional glimpses at my current projects into the #ttrpgs tag here on tumblr. Keep your eyes peeled!

And of course, I'm always happy to chat. If you're ever curious about something I've made or am making, if you enjoyed something or had thoughts on it, if you just wanna say hi, please reach out! Games are my passion, and I love nothing more than to talk with other passionate people. Until then, I'm signing off!

[embodiedfutures]

nov 9 - nov 13 readings

hi! this is reaux (she/they)! as many of you know, BFP is slowly waking up and will be undergoing a full makeover in the coming months. in the mean time, to help get back into the pattern of posting and to continue to share resources, i want to start posting what i read each week!

without further ado, here is everything i've been learning from and engaging with so far just between last saturday night [nov 9, 2024] and right now [wednesday afternoon, nov 13, 2024]! i tried to post this on tiktok @/edgeofeden.17 (go check me out for cool political talks and reading recs!) with my reactions as well, but they said it violated community guidelines :(

journal article: The House on Bayou Road: Atlantic Creole Networks in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

wikipedia: Plaçage

wikipedia: Signare

paperback book: Africans In Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth-Century

article: Why Is Gen Z So Sex-Negative?: A prehistory of the Puriteen.

article: Policy-makers must not look to the “Nordic model” for sex trade legislation

article: Sex workers face unique challenges when trying to unionize: Anti-sex work stigma and labor status create roadblocks in sex workers’ fight against the industry status quo

wikipedia: Decriminalization of sex work

short youtube video: "Decriminalization of sex work does not mean the decriminalization of human trafficking."

short youtube video: What About Legalization? Decriminalization is the only solution

short youtube video: Dis/Ability and Sex Work Decriminalization

short youtube video: "Helping people through police is inherently coercive." - Gilda Merlot

wikipedia: Page Act of 1875

essay: Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power by Audre Lorde

wikipedia: Erotic Capital

long youtube video: KATHERINE MCKITTRICK: Curiosities, Wonder, and Black Methodologies // 09.14.20

journal article: Black life is Not Ungeographic! Applying a Black Geographic Lens to Rural Education Research in the Black Belt

journal article: Black matters are spatial matters: Black geographies for the twenty-first century

journal article: Unspoken Grammar of Place: Anti-Blackness as a Spatial Imaginary in Education

short video: Chicago Works | Andrea Carlson: Shimmer on Horizons

zine: Evaluating What Skills You Can Bring to Radical Organizing

diagram + workbook?: The Social Change Ecosystem Map (2020)

essay: How to Build Language Justice

guide: Anti-Oppressive Facilitation for Democratic Process: Making Meetings Awesome for Everyone

radical resource library: Center for Liberatory Practice & Poetry

short essay: The Short Instructional Manifesto for Relationship Anarchy

essay/blog post: Access Intimacy: The Missing Link

i think that's everything? whew. let's see how i finish off the week! if you need PDFs for anything i didn't directly link, lmk and i'll find a way to get it to you. might upload it to my google drive or something!

--

topics: Louisiana Creole history + heritage, women of color + erotic capital, sex work decriminalization, Black geography, revolutionary organizing, language, relationship anarchy, disability, intimacy

[really-angry-dolphin]

I am doing a survey in different social network to understand more clearly what is the public opinion on different platforms

Please let me know your opinion and send this to your friends in order to know what's the opinion around here.

[cyberswift-story]

GIS-Based Solutions for Efficient Telecom Network Management

The telecom industry is undergoing rapid transformation, driven by the increasing demand for seamless connectivity, efficient network management, and improved customer experience. As networks become more complex, the need for innovative solutions to manage these networks has never been greater. Geographic Information System (GIS)-based solutions have emerged as a game-changer in the telecom sector, offering a robust platform for managing, analyzing, and visualizing network data. This blog explores how GIS-based solutions can revolutionize telecom network management, ensuring efficiency and reliability.

Learn more at https://www.cyberswift.com/blog/telecom-utility-solution-a-brief-overview/

[ghostlyangels1204]

Soap the flower girl

Cont: I got his idea after seeing a TikTok of something similar to this, at that moment this was all I could think of omg. Soap is the perfect man istg, teeth-rotting sweetness. Brace yourselves.

You wrung your hands together, the sweat pilling there becoming exceedingly more uncomfortable as time passes. You had the whole day, hour to hour, minute to minute, mapped out in your mind. Every detail filed down to a fine pointed edge- not even a speck of dust could evade your wrath. Not today. Johnny had his fair share of missions for work, but this one was his biggest. The day he would legally bind the two of you, your promises exchanged with rings and sealed with a kiss.

Everything was perfect, your support network were all there- fawning over you, surrounding you with all the love you could possibly imagine, and then some. Johnny was in his own room, the three men he dedicated his life to for years, right there with him. But then, just as Johnny was hyping himself up, with Price and Gaz by his side, Ghost had walked into the room with less-than-ideal news. Johnny’s niece, the sweetest little girl you had ever met, had come down with a bad sickness bug from nursery and was currently stationed at home in bed. Needless to say- you didn’t have a flower girl.

“Ach’ shite…”, He huffed out, his hand finding its way to his face in a feeble attempt to soothe the contracted muscles. “Ay’e, what the hell am’ I gonnae do now? We get married in ten minutes!”

“Alright buddy, it’s just some flowers on the aisle. Bet no-one will even notice…” Ghost’s poor attempt at relaxing the sergeant resulted in two pairs of eyes from Price and Gaz being launched his way. He really wasn’t made for being a wedding planner.

Price turned back to him, a hand coming down to clasp his shoulder, “Right mate, let’s just get you downstairs yeah, and we’ll see if anyone fancies stepping in?” With a final pat on his back, they all moved downstairs as a unit, Johnny walking about ten paces faster than the rest.

In the time it took for everyone to be seated, people had asked around if anyone could step in. But to no avail, as all the other kids were either too shy or too stubborn to step in.

“Nah we need a flower girl… fuck,” The three men looked on in concern, convinced Johnny was about to drop dead from a heart attack right then and there. And they couldn’t leave you as a widow before you even married the man. “Johnny… its flowers… some petals that are more littering than decoration”, “Aye’ shut your trap LT, it matters okay! It might not matter to me or you, but it matters to them…”

Just as he was about to give up and face the loss, Johnny’s eyes widened. A flicker of light beaming in those baby blues that both relieved, and scared the other men around him. “AYE I’M A GENIUS!” He all but yelled out in joy, hands coming up to shake Ghost’s shoulders. “I’m not wearing a tutu Soap…”, “Shut up LT,” On any other day, Ghost would’ve reamed him for speaking to him like that- but he decided to give the man a day off. Just this once.

“Right, here’s the plan. Music- ON. Gaz, walk. Price, walk, Ghost, walk. All the bridesmaids, walk. Ring bearer, as long as he isn’t sniffling into a tissue too, WALK. And then me…” His smile was so wide his face could’ve split into two parts. They all looked baffled at each other, “Soap mate, that’s great but… that doesn’t solve your flower girl issue?”, “Wait and see Gazalicious… just you wait!” They watched as he ran off back into the building behind him, temporarily getting lost as he darted in one direction then came back sprinting in the other.

Gaz, Ghost and Price readied themselves behind the doors, waiting for the music to begin and to walk down the aisle themselves. “He doesn’t have any C4 on him does he?” Price whispered to Ghost, extremely concerned for his undisclosed, ‘genius’, solution. “Screened him, from his bags all the way down to his boxers… got nothin’ mate.”

The speakers scratched and the music began to play. Your bridesmaids surrounded you, ensuring everything about you looked as polished and perfect as you planned. Air filled your lungs as you took a deep breath, you were in no way nervous or doubtful in your decision. You just prayed you wouldn’t fall down that goddamn aisle.

You watched through tearful eyes as you saw the members of 141 each take their turn. Walking towards their positions towards the front of the ceremony. His best men.

All your bridesmaids followed, your maid of honor planting a kiss on your cheek for good luck, pinkies crossing together. “I hope you enjoy the surprise babe,” she giggles, and before you can ask, what the hell is that supposed to mean, she takes her turn. Surprise? What the hell?

All of a sudden, the music changes to something you hadn’t planned. Oh my god, it’s all going wrong. You cast a glance towards the start of the aisle, through a different door than you were at, where Johnny should be walking down. And then you spot him. Immaculately dressed in his tux, which he refused to let you get a sneak peek at if you didn’t let him see your dress. “It’s only fair, bonnie”. Not a strand of hair out of place- definitely Ghost’s work.

But, he’d added some accessories…

A pair of huge sunglasses frame his face with a basket of white and pink petals slung on his arm. He stands there, shoulders wide, serious look plastered on his face. He turns his head from one side, to the other, and starts to walk.

Ever so delicately, for a man of his size, he grasps pinches of petals before dashing them down the aisle. Sprinkling the flora down to his feet with the grace of a ballerina. Gleeful laughs erupt from your family and friends at this ‘surprise’. He’s even got the officiant laughing. With another handful of petals, he twirls around in place, before launching the flowers to his left side, and then some to his right. Petal after petal is scattered as he makes his way down towards the arch. The final handful is blown gently from his hand, into poor Ghost’s face. The lieutenant can’t help but laugh along with him, all his moodiness still intact. Johnny places the basket down, before turning around, and the four of them gather in a group hug, cackling away to themselves as cheering surrounds them.

Silently, without asking or worrying you, Johnny had fixed a problem you didn’t even realise you had. You’re about to marry the best man you’ve ever met, and you couldn’t be happier.

Word Count: 1129

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 18, 2025

Dialogue mechanisms between astrocytic and neuronal networks: A whole-brain modelling approach. Ali, O. B. K., Vidal, A., Grova, C., & Benali, H. (2025). PLOS Computational Biology, 21(1), e1012683.

Dorsal hippocampus represents locations to avoid as well as locations to approach during approach-avoidance conflict. Calvin, O. L., Erickson, M. T., Walters, C. J., & Redish, A. D. (2025). PLOS Biology, 23(1), e3002954.

Individualized temporal patterns drive human sleep spindle timing. Chen, S., He, M., Brown, R. E., Eden, U. T., & Prerau, M. J. (2025). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(2), e2405276121.

A synapse-specific refractory period for plasticity at individual dendritic spines. Flores, J. C., Sarkar, D., & Zito, K. (2025). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(2), e2410433122.

Rescaling perceptual hand maps by visual‐tactile recalibration. Fuchs, X., & Heed, T. (2025). European Journal of Neuroscience, 61(1).

A solution to the pervasive problem of response bias in self-reports. Grimmond, J., Brown, S. D., & Hawkins, G. E. (2025). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(3), e2412807122.

Nonresponsive Neurons Improve Population Coding of Object Location. Haggard, M., & Chacron, M. J. (2025). Journal of Neuroscience, 45(3), e1068242024.

Saliency Response in Superior Colliculus at the Future Saccade Goal Predicts Fixation Duration during Free Viewing of Dynamic Scenes. Heeman, J., White, B. J., Van der Stigchel, S., Theeuwes, J., Itti, L., & Munoz, D. P. (2025). Journal of Neuroscience, 45(3), e0428242024.

A combinatorial neural code for long-term motor memory. Kim, J.-H., Daie, K., & Li, N. (2025). Nature, 637(8046), 663–672.

Spontaneous slow cortical potentials and brain oscillations independently influence conscious visual perception. Koenig, L., & He, B. J. (2025). PLOS Biology, 23(1), e3002964.

Coordinated representations for naturalistic memory encoding and retrieval in hippocampal neural subspaces. Kwon, D., Kim, J., Yoo, S. B. M., & Shim, W. M. (2025). Nature Communications, 16, 641.

Geometry and dynamics of representations in a precisely balanced memory network related to olfactory cortex. Meissner-Bernard, C., Zenke, F., & Friedrich, R. W. (2025). eLife, 13, e96303.3.

Recurrent activity propagates through labile ensembles in macaque dorsolateral prefrontal microcircuits. Nolan, S. O., Melugin, P. R., Erickson, K. R., Adams, W. R., Farahbakhsh, Z. Z., Mcgonigle, C. E., Kwon, M. H., Costa, V. D., Hackett, T. A., Cuzon Carlson, V. C., Constantinidis, C., Lapish, C. C., Grant, K. A., & Siciliano, C. A. (2025). Current Biology, 35(2), 431-443.e4.

A recurrent neural circuit in Drosophila temporally sharpens visual inputs. Pang, M. M., Chen, F., Xie, M., Druckmann, S., Clandinin, T. R., & Yang, H. H. (2025). Current Biology, 35(2), 333-346.e6.

Central amygdala NPBWR1 neurons facilitate social novelty seeking and new social interactions. Soya, S., Toda, K., Sakurai, K., Cherasse, Y., Saito, Y. C., Abe, M., Sakimura, K., & Sakurai, T. (2025). Science Advances, 11(3).

Tactile edges and motion via patterned microstimulation of the human somatosensory cortex. Valle, G., Alamri, A. H., Downey, J. E., Lienkämper, R., Jordan, P. M., Sobinov, A. R., Endsley, L. J., Prasad, D., Boninger, M. L., Collinger, J. L., Warnke, P. C., Hatsopoulos, N. G., Miller, L. E., Gaunt, R. A., Greenspon, C. M., & Bensmaia, S. J. (2025). Science, 387(6731), 315–322.

Understanding the neural code of stress to control anhedonia. Xia, F., Fascianelli, V., Vishwakarma, N., Ghinger, F. G., Kwon, A., Gergues, M. M., Lalani, L. K., Fusi, S., & Kheirbek, M. A. (2025). Nature, 637(8046), 654–662.

The integration of self-efficacy and response-efficacy in decision making. Yang, Y.-Y., & Delgado, M. R. (2025). Scientific Reports, 15, 1789.

Critical Avalanches in Excitation-Inhibition Balanced Networks Reconcile Response Reliability with Sensitivity for Optimal Neural Representation. Yang, Z., Liang, J., & Zhou, C. (2025). Physical Review Letters, 134(2), 028401.

Sustained EEG responses to rapidly unfolding stochastic sounds reflect Bayesian inferred reliability tracking. Zhao, S., Skerritt-Davis, B., Elhilali, M., Dick, F., & Chait, M. (2025). Progress in Neurobiology, 244, 102696.

[torchship-rpg]

The concept of ‘Local Space is the place that has Aquillians all about’ has been in my brain these last couple days. Its a very simple but elegant solution to a question that can often have very arbitrary definitions. A question tho, to get a sense of scale, if you put it on a map of the galaxy would it be more like a small circle or a big wedge of it?

On the game side, is Boldly Going outside of Local Space a basic/common thing to do, or is exploration mostly focused on areas inside it?

Local space is about 2-3k light years in diameter, more or less, but like everything in torchship speaking in terms of diameter isn't accurate because of the spiderweb-like nature of exploration and settlement in space. most of what star patrol is doing is 'filling in the map' of areas that fall within not just that 2-3k range one might use for 'local space', but just the 1000 light year radius claimed by the Aquillian Empire, most of which is now considered by most powers to be de facto Star Union territory.

It's hard to get beyond local space right now not because it'd take too long to travel there, but because the FTL beacon routes there aren't under Union control. Basically all your rivals are interacting with 1-2 extra powers who don't have a presence in Local Space, though most of them are much smaller than the ones in Local Space because all of those are piggybacking, one way or another, off the enormous economic machine that was the Aquillian Beacon Network

[solarpunkbusiness]

Are solar power systems prone to cyberattacks?

“Like any technological revolution, digitalisation presents incredible opportunity, for example, energy system cost savings of €160 billion per year,”

“It also comes with new challenges, like cybersecurity. We didn’t need anti-virus protection for a typewriter - but we do need it for our laptops. As a responsible, forward-looking sector, we have mapped the cybersecurity challenge, and we’re rising to meet it with clear, comprehensive solutions.”

The report, written by risk management organisation DNV.

Europe’s move away from an energy system dependent on a few high-impact targets to a more decentralised system offers clear energy security benefits, the report states. Ukraine has learnt this in a particularly brutal way, following repeated cyberattacks on its power grid by Russia.

But to realise these benefits, cybersecurity laws, which focus on old, centralised infrastructure, need to be updated, the experts say. New legislation must address the specific security needs of distributed energy sources, like smaller rooftop solar installations.

Though on a much smaller scale than the strikes on other parts of the energy sector, the solar sector has faced attacks and interference, too.

In 2023, a group of Romanian solar customers modified mandatory inverter settings - which convert DC electricity generated by panels into the AC electricity used by homes - to disable the voltage-active power function. 

This function is required by the grid operators to reduce active power at high grid voltage, in order to keep the power system running efficiently and safely. 

Modifying this grid support function enabled the customers to make more money by not limiting their solar systems during high-voltage events, potentially jeopardising grid integrity as a result.

In a more pernicious incident, pro-Russian hacktivist group Just Evil stole credentials for 22 client sites in Lithuania and posted them on the Dark Web last year. This opened up access to the management portal of these solar sites, although access was not used to carry out further attacks on that occasion. 

Analysing risk, the report found that these large utility-scale solar installations are more secure, since they are often managed by experienced utilities and covered by the EU’s Network and Information Security (NIS2) Directive.

Small-scale solar systems, meanwhile, which are often rooftop installations on people’s homes or businesses, lack strict cyber rules. They are connected to the clouds of manufacturers, installers, or service providers. 

And while the impact of compromising a single installation is low, when grouped together for power system efficiency, they become virtual power plants of significant scale.