#I don’t need internet hacks for this its more affordable than it could be

[z00r0p4]

when a potentially quality-of-life-improving medication isn't covered by ur insurance and you want to find every big pharma and health insurance ceo and ship them off in.... some sort of a craft... that absolutely has not been certified by any regulatory body.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How copyright filters lead to wage-theft

Last week, "Marina" - a piano teacher who publishes free lessons her Piano Keys Youtube channel - celebrated her fifth anniversary by announcing that she was quitting Youtube because her meager wages were being stolen by fraudsters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcyOxtkafMs

Marina posted a video with a snatch of her performance of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," published in 1801. The composition is firmly in the public domain, and the copyright in the performance is firmly Marina's, but it still triggered Youtube's automated copyright filter.

A corporate entity - identified only by an alphabet soup of initialisms and cryptic LLC names - had claimed Ole Ludwig Van's masterpiece as their own, identifying it as "Wicca Moonlight."

Content ID, the automated Youtube filter, flagged Marina's track as an unauthorized performance of this "Wicca Moonlight" track. Marina appealed the automated judgement, which triggered a message to this shadowy LLC asking if they agreed that no infringement had taken place.

But the LLC renewed its claim of infringement. Marina now faces several unpleasant choices:

She can allow the LLC to monetize her video, stealing the meager wages she receives from the ads that appear on it

She can take down her video

She can provide her full name and address to Youtube in order to escalate the claim, with the possibility that her attackers will get her contact details, and with the risk that if she loses her claim, she can lose her Youtube channel

The incident was a wake-up call for Marina, who is quitting Youtube altogether, noting that it has become a place that favors grifters over creators. She's not wrong, and it's worth looking at how that happened.

Content ID was created to mollify the entertainment industry after Google acquired Youtube. Google would spend $100m on filtering tech that would allow rightsholders to go beyond the simple "takedown" permitted by law, and instead share in revenues from creative uses.

But it's easy to see how this system could be abused. What if people falsely asserted copyright over works to which they had no claim? What if rightsholders rejected fair uses, especially criticism?

In a world where the ownership of creative works can take years to untangle in the courts and where judges' fair use rulings are impossible to predict in advance, how could Google hope to get it right, especially at the vast scale of Youtube?

The impossibility of automating copyright judgments didn't stop Google from trying to perfect its filter, adding layers of complexity until Content ID's appeal process turned into a cod-legal system whose flowchart looks like a bowl of spaghetti.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#content-id

The resulting mess firmly favors attackers (wage stealers, fraudsters, censors, bullies) over defenders (creators, critics). Attackers don't need to waste their time making art, which leaves them with the surplus capacity to master the counterintuitive "legal" framework.

You can't fix a system broke by complexity by adding more complexity to it. Attempts to do so only makes the system more exploitable by bad actors, like blackmailers who use fake copyright claims to extract ransoms from working creators.

https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-strikes-now-being-used-as-scammers-extortion-tool/

But it would be a mistake to think that filterfraud was primarily a problem of shadowy scammers. The most prolific filter scammers and wage-thieves are giant music companies, like Sony Music, who claim nearly *all* classical music:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/22/crisis-for-thee-not-me/#filternet

The Big Tech companies argue that they have an appeals process that can reverse these overclaims, but that process is a joke. Instagram takedowns take a few seconds to file, but *28 months* to appeal.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/17/cheap-truthers/#robot-sez-no

The entertainment industry are flagrant filternet abusers. Take Warner Chappell, whose subsidiary demonetizes videos that include the numbers "36" and "50":

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/annemunition-bizarre-copyright-strike-youtube-random-numbers-1317750/

Warner Chappell are prolific copyfraudsters. For decades, they fraudulently claimed ownership over "Happy Birthday" (!):

https://consumerist.com/2016/02/09/happy-birthday-song-settlement-to-pay-out-14-million-to-people-who-paid-to-use-song/

They're still at it - In 2020 they used a fraudulent claim to nuke a music theory video, and then a human being working on behalf of the company renewed the claim *after* being informed that they were mistaken about which song was quoted in the video:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/05/warner-chappell-copyfraud/#warnerchappell

The fact that automated copyright claims can remove material from the internet leads to a lot of sheer fuckery. In 2019, anti-fascists toyed with blaring copyrighted music at far right rallies to prevent their enemies from posting them online.

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/clever-hack-that-will-end-badly-playing-copyrighted-music-during-nazis-rallies-so-they-cant-be-posted-to-youtube/

At the time, I warned that this would end badly. Just a month before, there had been a huge scandal because critics of extremist violence found that automated filters killed their videos because they featured clips of that violence:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/06/people-who-document-evidence-of-violent-extremism-are-being-shut-down-in-youtubes-crackdown-on-violent-extremism/

Since then, it's only gotten worse. The Chinese Communist Party uses copyfraud to remove critical videos from Youtube:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#communist-bandit

and so does the Beverley Hills Police Department:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#bhpd

But despite all that, the momentum is for *more* filtering, to remove far fuzzier categories of content. The EU's Terror Regulation has just gone into effect, giving platforms just *one hour* to remove "terrorist" content:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/04/eu-online-terrorism-regulation-bad-deal

The platforms have pivoted from opposing filter rules to endorsing them. Marc Zuckerberg says that he's fine with removing legal protections for online platforms unless they have hundreds of millions of dollars to install filters.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/25/facebook-has-a-facebook-problem/#played-for-zuckers

The advocates for a filternet insist that all these problems can be solved if geeks just *nerd harder* to automate good judgment, fair appeals, and accurate attributions. This is pure wishful thinking. As is so often the case in tech policy, "wanting it badly is not enough."

In 2019, the EU passed the Copyright Directive, whose Article1 7 is a "notice and staydown" rule requiring platforms to do instant takedowns on notice of infringement *and* to prevent content from being re-posted.

There's no way to do this without filters, but there's no way to make filters without violating the GDPR. The EU trying to figure out how to make it work, and the people who said this wouldn't require filters are now claiming that filters are fine.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/11/protocols-of-qanon/#no-filternet

Automating subtle judgment calls is impossible, not just because copyright's limitations - fair use and others - are grounded in subjective factors like "artistic intent," but because automating a flawed process creates flaws at scale.

Remember when Jimmy Fallon broadcasted himself playing a video game? NBC automatically claimed the whole program as its copyrighted work, and thereafter, gamers who streamed themselves playing that game got automated takedowns from NBC.

https://old.reddit.com/r/beatsaber/comments/bi9cp5/beat_saber_stream_blocked_by_jimmy_fallon_show/

The relentless expansion of proprietary rights over our virtual and physical world raises the stakes for filter errors. The new Notre Dame spire will be a copyrighted work - will filters block videos of protests in front of the cathedral?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190425/09282042084/why-your-holiday-photos-videos-restored-notre-dame-cathedral-could-be-blocked-eus-upload-filters.shtml

And ever since the US's 1976 Copyright Act abolished a registration requirement, it's gotten harder to figure out who controls the rights to any work, so that even the "royalty free" music for Youtubers to safely use turned out to be copyrighted:

https://torrentfreak.com/royalty-free-music-supplied-by-youtube-results-in-mass-video-demonetization-191118/

We need a new deal for content removal, one that favors working creators over wage-thieves who have the time and energy to master the crufty, complex private legal systems each platform grows for itself.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/content-moderation-broken-let-us-count-ways

Back in 2019, Slate Future Tense commissioned me to write an sf story about how this stuff might work out in the coming years. The result, "Affordances," is sadly still relevant today:

https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/affordances-cory-doctorow-sf-story-algorithmic-bias-facial-recognition.html

Here's a podcast of the story as well:

https://ia803108.us.archive.org/3/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_314/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_314_-Affordances.mp3

Meanwhile, governments from Australia to the UK to Canada are adopting "Harmful Content" rules that are poised to vastly expand the filternet, insisting that it's better than the alternative.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bill-c10-user-generated-content-1.6007192

[tap-tap-tap-im-in]

Web Development is one of those skilled professions that doesn’t have any sort of greater body of oversight.

Sure there’s the W3 Consortium, but all they do is develop standards and schema, they qualify products not developers. So there are a lot of different ideas of security and professionalism out there.

So, every time I look at something and I think to myself “why the hell did you do that?” I have to take a step back and remember that whoever did it probably did the best they knew how, or could afford to do.

But I refuse to accept that a full stack developer with access to the database was ever locked out of a WordPress instance.

You can never be locked out because WordPress is the largest CMS in the world, powering a full third of websites on the internet, which means that sites get hacked all the time and developer have to regain access to them. It’s such a common task that the official documentation tells you how to do it (it’s the third method on the page): https://wordpress.org/support/article/resetting-your-password/ If you use a database administration application it’s even easier than it sounds. You just find the user entry in the users table and toss in an md5 hash. Because the md5 hash is shorter than the actual salted and hashed passwords the framework knows it’s a password recovery and initializes a full salted hash based on the user input. You never have to know what the password used to be, and you can’t be locked out because you can set it to whatever you want or need it to be.

Pulling read permissions from the wp-admin directory is not a good response if someone logs in and you don’t know the admin password. If you do think the website has been compromised, malicious code is as likely to be running in wp-content as it is in wp-admin, maybe more and you can’t pull read permissions from that folder or its subfolders without breaking part or all of the website. No, if you think someone has broken into your WordPress, the only thing to do is to take the whole site down temporarily while you look through it to be sure, or just do a fresh clean install.

[blazehedgehog]

As an Internet veteran and draw-person, I really need to ask: what anime influenced you and many online artists circa 2000s? There's a specific style from those early 2000s webcomics and fanart I'm looking for and trying to replicate, and your old art fit in that "style", in my opinion. Thank you!

It’s hard to narrow it down, but it’s also not that hard to narrow it down. Anime was a much, much smaller industry back then. The “boom” was just beginning thanks to efforts by the Scifi Channel and Cartoon Network to bring anime to television in timeslots that people would actually watch.

So here’s your crash course in casual anime history, I guess, from someone who definitely isn’t like... obsessed with anime. Or isn’t anymore, but was back then.

For me, it all kind of started with, like... Dragon Ball, and this was a show that struggled to gain any traction at first. Where I lived, it aired at 5am on Sunday mornings. If you knew a kid that watched Dragon Ball, there was a solidarity there like, “Yup, you get it.”

Then DiC got the license to Sailor Moon and started airing it in the weekday morning slot I would typically describe as “right before you catch the bus.” You’d wake up around 6am, maybe 6:15, and watch whatever was on at 6:30 while you ate breakfast. As the credits were rolling, you’d head out to catch the school bus. Sailor Moon was what I remember doing that with the most. That combined with Dragon Ball formed my foundational interest in anime.

Around this time (1995, 1996) you were starting to see anime start to seep in to the mainstream elsewhere. There was a commercial I remember for, like, an anthology of anime classics like Akira...

And, y’know, when you’re like, 14 or 15 and you see a commercial like this -- cartoons! With blood! And nudity! It’s like, holy crap. Most of the classics we know today (Akira, Ghost in the Shell) were only really available via mail order like this back then.

More shows started getting localized for TV, too, like Ronin Warriors was one a lot of my friends got in to. It was considered “The Manly Sailor Moon.” And then there was, of course, Samurai Pizza Cats. Eventually Saban stopped dubbing Dragon Ball altogether and moved straight over to Dragon Ball Z, and that gained enough popularity that I think it eventually shook it out of its Sunday Morning time slot to somewhere a little more visible by general audiences.

Coming in to 1997 and 1998, anime was really starting to gain some momentum. The Scifi Channel had begin doing their “Saturday Anime” show, which aired at 3am every Friday Night/Saturday Morning. They probably figured it was one of the only ways they could get away with showing violent cartoons.

For me, this was where I got my first “real” taste of anime. They had a stable of about 5 or 10 movies and OVAs they’d run. Venus Wars, Vampire Hunter D, Project A-KO, Robot Carnival, Tenchi Muyo In Love (my favorite), Project L.I.L.Y. Cat, Beautiful Dreamer, Galaxy Express 999, Fatal Fury The Motion Picture, Record of Lodoss War, Dominion Tank Police, Roujin-Z, Demon City Shinjiku, Gall Force...

That felt like the bandaid got ripped off. Suddenly we were all buzzing about anime. Hey, have you heard about this movie called Ninja Scroll? There’s hardcore sex in it! No American movie, live action or not, could ever match the body horror of Akira! Hey, does anyone remember Robotech from the 80′s? That was actually anime, too! Wow!

Cartoon Network was smart enough to take notice and snatched up the rights to air Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z at reasonable, non-morning hours, and they dug out Voltron and put together a simple block of anime. I don’t even think it necessarily had a name, it was just an hour or maybe 90 minutes of anime a day, and it exploded. Right place, right time. So Cartoon Network expanded.

They added more classic anime, and some shows that were similar in tone, and called it Toonami. Robotech, Ronin Warriors, The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest, Reboot, Thundercats...

And this became the place to watch anime. Which is when we enter the era you’re asking about, the early 2000′s. This is where it starts to feel like a little too much to cover, because it came hot, heavy, and fast. There was a thirst for anime that was hard to quench because production companies were small and choosy about what they’d dub, but at the same time, a sort of gold rush was starting.

When I think of peak, classic-era Toonami, the stuff that really influenced me artistically, it was shows like Outlaw Star, Ruroni Kenshi, and Gundam Wing. I’m sure I’d also have friends speak highly of Big-O, G-Gundam, and Yu Yu Hakusho, three shows I never really got in to.

Eventually, Cartoon Network (and Williams Street, then called Ghost Planet Industries) began to realize that there was a growing library of anime they couldn’t show in the afternoon because it was too intense for the kids. There was also an undoubtedly vocal contingent of anime fans who were frustrated when their favorite shows had to be edited for broadcast. This gave birth to Toonami: The Midnight Run, the precursor to what would eventually become Adult Swim. The Midnight Run became home to uncut (or simply less-cut) episodes of afternoon shows that restored blood, alcoholic references, and the few cases of more extreme violence.

Midnight Run started getting exclusive shows, too. When I think about what Midnight Run (and later Adult Swim) was known for, it was shows like Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, and again, though it wasn’t really something I saw a ton of, Paranoia Agent.

Other networks did try to cash in on the anime craze. I think Tech TV/G4 tried to get in on things with Serial Experiments Lain and a few other shows, but to be honest, it never hit as hard as Toonami did. Then there was obviously the work of guys like 4KIDS, with the Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon shows on Saturday Morning, but those felt noticeably different in vibe and in tone (something that only got more pronounced when Kids WB started a Saturday Morning Toonami block that was even more aggressively sanitized than what could be shown on Cartoon Network).

Beyond broadcast TV, the stuff I remember being popular among my circle of friends were things like Tenchi Universe, Ranma 1/2, Slayers, Saber Marionette, and.... like, Di Gi Charat and Chobits? This was probably right around the era of Azumanga Daioh, too.

Unfortunately, much past 2003 or 2004 is where I started falling off of anime. The feeling of it being “new” and “special” was starting to wear off, and there was enough coming out that the standard of quality was beginning to drop. Whereas small studios like ADV and Manga Corps. could only afford to bring out the best of the best, we were starting to get junk like Duel Masters, Rozen Maiden and Tenchi Muyo GXP.

I remember friends speaking highly of shows like Bleach (heh), .hack, Full Metal Panic, Midori Days, Tenjo Tenge, Yakitate Japan, Eureka Seven, and Air Gear, but I can’t tell you anything about them, personally.

Either way, I’m sure I’ve given you more than enough to chew on.

[sassaetcie]

The Molten Charcoal - Chapter 4 - Silver x Idia Fanfiction

Yeah I may have... forgotten I was publishing this on tumblr... I apologize krkrkr.

I shouldn't have said "yes" that easily. I'm just so weak after a certain time outside... Like it must be a downgrade or something... Sure I don't want to hurt Ortho but... If I end doing shit in front of Silver, I will ashame everone (once again lol), right? I can't tell anymore if it was a safe bet or not... No, it never has been a "safe" bet because I'm playing with humans www. They aren't as easily predictable as AI if they aren't shaking in fear... if they "aren't shaking in fear". Shut the fuck. Shut the fuck up, Idia. No, I should talk like this, right? This is the way I get to the top in videogames, after all... No, shut the fuck. The only reason you get this high... Is it because of "this"? Or "that"? Or both? Or neither, in the end? Nothing "has" to make sense, after all... If everything had to make sense, they would be true. I DON'T WANT THEM TO BE TRUE. EVERYTHING IS THEIR FAULT. EVERYTHING IS THEIR FAULT. THEY'RE THE ONES BEING WRONG, OR BEING A DIFFERENT KIND OF WRONG. If I'm doing everything "wrong" because everyone keeps thinking like them, then there's a possibility that I'm actualy the only one being right, right? (That's a Higurashi curse-like thinking but that's not exactly what I mean...) Everyone is a fucking weirdo here, so why am I the one considered even stranger? That must mean "something else". Or does that doesn't mean anything? Why am I even thinking about all this crap? That's because of them. I shouldn't think about all this... But if I don't, I'm going to disappoint Ortho because I'm going to be stupid and not trying enough... That's because of them. Because they wanted me so bad to be their heir. "A meeting is funny as long as you can play with the people". Why did you want me to play like you? I shouldn't have been here watching every adult whispering. I shouldn't have been here, hearing all these bad things. I shouldn't have been here. But my hair cannot betray you, right? I cannot hide. I cannot run. I cannot speak. Even if this adult smiles, he will stabs the other. Even if this one threatens to stab, it will be "only" a joke. Will it be? Which of them was joking? Which of them IS joking? Why did you show me this? Why did you show me so many people, as if they were your playthings? You really enjoyed inviting every last of them knowing they would insult you, and making them fear for one day to be fighting each other under your blackmailing, right? You even expected me to be abducted, huh? You didn't give a shit when I was abducted by this smiling couple. They really looked nice. I can't tell if they looked nicer than you. How many days did I spend here? They were still nice when they were with me. They kept on smiling. They lied. They lied again. Do I have to become an adult like this? I hate this. I hate this, I hate this, I hate this. WHY DO YOU EXIST. WHY DO I HAVE TO BECOME LIKE THIS TO SURVIVE? I DON'T WANT TO. I'm tired... Why did they keep on smiling to me even when I told them I knew I had been abducted? Did they really not want to worry me because they didn't bear me a grudge for one of the things you had done to them? I'm sorry... I'm sorry, I can't understand, Ortho. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, you did so much for me and I'm just lost between all of these things... And I was released and I didn't die, right... Right... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Ortho. I shouldn't... What should I think? I was almost murdered, right? But I didn't die. Even when another two brothers, two agressive brothers I definitely chose to escape from, caught me and threatened me to death with knives... I didn't die. I knew they were dangerous, right? Or did I want to believe they were not since the smiling couple was a bunch of bastard NPC? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I don't want to apologize outside of this... This will be useless, right? Ortho, you're always trying to help me but you were the one killed, right? I barely woke you up... did I? Or are you another type of fake as well? Who are you, "Ortho"? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't want to doubt you. I don't want to doubt Ortho. If he's the true Ortho, everything's alright. If he is my creation, everything's alright as well. Your skin is alive. Your voice is there. Haha... I should make a Frankenstein's ref here. I feel a bit better but I need to vent... I'll just play a bit.

Thanks [x], WyverneCastel was there and at least my day wasn't an absolute hell (lol). At first the game was total shit since there were a lot of servers crash on this new game, I honestly thought we would just leave and go back to TESO or something casual, since I've already rushed Dragon Nest's new events and the others, lol. We have been able to play but in the end the game was worthless, lmao. It wasn't original, had nothing to be "interesting". Maybe it was "fun" but I don't really care about it anymore... At least, WyverneCastel was funny. They even asked me if I was alright??? I thought they were joking or begging me to buy them something in another game, but it seemed not? I thought it would be good to test out if they were a true friend or not and huh... I was terrified at first.  I thought the whole room was dragging itself into flames and that heat was going to consume me. Either I would burn out or burn the whole world down like I was probably expected to do. So... I've spoken to them, for once. They appeared to be really understanding, somehow. I thought I might get banned or blacklisted for saying out loud that I was gay but oh, I guess our gamers's mindset wasn't that shitty for once. He wasn't surprised that much, so I can't tell if he was really serious about anything but... He told me that of course if the one I loved rejected me because I love him instead of "her", then I should just forget about him because he would be just another bastard I shouldn't pine on... Sure enough, but if love was that easily curable, I wouldn't be on the verge of grieving, nah, crying with all my might just because I "have" a date with the one I love, even though it really doesn't make any sense. Of course I shouldn't be ashamed of being in love with him, and I'm not ashamed of being gay, fuck off. I barely told him that I was in love with a prince-type... Was it wrong? I mean, I have to stay honest or I'll just be the shy-neet everyone likes for no specific reason but pity... And if I can be different than them, it would be for the best as well... If they want to make fun of me for this, I will just hack them and teach them a little something, still lurking in my own den. Or in the worst case, I would have changed my pseudo... WyverneCastel did not mock me, and maybe never ... even fathomed mocking me. That's probably just a dumb thought but I feel like they are just curious and benevolent (I guess they're the depressed mysterious dude character)? Nonetheless, I don't want to be naive and crushed, but even more I don't want to get closer to the Flame Crown. I don't even want to write down their names. They don't deserve it, right? WyverneCastel, WyverneCastel, WyverneCastel. Let's scribble down more about them.

They... told me I would find my prince if I wanted that much to be with one, and yet feared that much being with them. I guess he would be the kind to speak of "trials", "fate" and "forgiveness". A hopeless optimist, an eternal philanthropist (and not the Izaya kind, huh). I should tell him someday that I'm happy to have him as a friend. He probably already knows about it... right? Maybe I'll just make myself a stupid lad by telling him this... But does he want me to tell him this, too? Perhaps he wishes for a single word as an "hope"? He knew of my school as a "miracle", too. He even asked me if my "beloved" was Epel Felmier... I mean, I could have, perhaps? He's way too cute for me, he almost looks like a child (not a girl since just thinking about it would bring a curse upon me lmao, no honestly, even if I don't like him, that would be disrespectful.), I can't. And we also talked about how frightening he was whenever he snapped... Definitely not for me, and he looks fake too... Like all of Pomefiore, except creepHunt, to be fair. They are just so superficial and shiny... It looks like they want to walk on water and leaped out of it to sit on sunny clouds. I would offer my flames to them if I could... I just told WyverneCastel my love was another student, and not a Pomefiore one. Of course, he could have heard of the school because of its reputation and Pomefiore because Vil is in it... But I'm pretty sure he is a student now, since he already told me he was a guy (wouldn't have assume his gender if he didn't tell me). Well! I assumed he was a student because of the ominous silence following my answer before he started rambling again. His Internet couldn't have crashed since I still could hear his mic buzzing, and so neither was the mic off. He simply, didn't make a sound. For a few seconds. And if he had been surprised about my choice not "being Epel", then he would have surprised before, and not lolling as he was, probably. I didn't tell him but he probably wants me to ask him about this someday too. I guess... I didn't have the time to question him since some scams invaded our serv and began behaving as if they were girls with their girly characters in-game... Of course they were asking for money for IRL meetings and all that stuff so I just hacked them... It took a few minutes, but I couldn't afford to lose hours with WyverneCastel trying to ignore them when they were making a ruckus and... using hyper sexualized women characters? Like wtf, are we still in the past, dudes? They're just hurting everyone by doing this, and the LGBTQIA+ community doesn't needs some dumbfucked lads who would just serve as scapegoats for people hating on trans people and women... So fucking tiresome. I just wanted to talk about my prince and bad-written NPCs barged in. In the end, he just told me everything would be alright as long as I was staying true to my self and that I wouldn't find any semi-perfect prince if I didn't... I guess he meant that it would be easier to find one if I was faking but that the prince would indeed be ideal if everything was a lie, but then the whole prince, castle and white horse would be stuck together around me, and there would be no way of separating them... And the other way around, probably. I should take a walk and sleep, now... Or try to sleep, at least.

[Started Recording at : 9:45 am : Fourth? Day]

The coliseum was blessed by hollowness. Void and vacuity, though fake vacuity in the end, facing the sweet void, twirled among the stairs yet engraved by humans centuries ago. The eerie, airy presents were not made to hold any perfume neither scent. Only one or two students jumped from seat to seat to leave but nothing behind them. All of the ancient chairs were on their own, now.  And thus, the presence among them refrained from gamboling as well, and went back to another void. They were, after all, no exception.

-Hmm, it seems the coliseum is empty today. I guess sometimes pups do behave as good boys. Well, if they study in the meantime, that is.

The wind was cut at some point, even if it was authorized to come in this area. He should not be that greedy, probably. No storm, no tempest, no breeze was to interrupt an exam day in the coliseum. Sunshine could not disappear yet, but someday quiet shadows would run accross the dirt field. Stones bedecked by seals and symbols did not need all of this light.

-Pups! Come here. Let us make teams and start the exam right in time.

Each student throngs on the still ground.

-Hm, everyone is here. Good boys. Diamond Cater, Hunt Rook, please make a first team. Mhh... Well, Shroud Idia... What is it, Clover Trey?

-I don't mean to interrupt you at all, sir and I'm sorry if I do. I would like to know if it were possible to be with Shroud? His performances may end up bad if he was with someone he doesn't know, and he may also have panic attack and it would mess up everything.

-This is quite an harsh way of saying things, Clover Trey. I would like Shroud Idia to overcome his fears, but let us be benevolent for this test only. He barely shows up, after all. But next time will be a random pairing, remember this. And this will only works if Shroud Idia agrees with you, Clover Trey. What of it, Shroud Idia?

-I-i-i-i-I... huh... wh-why not... after all...

-Thanks, Crewel sir, thanks Shroud.

The seats were still empty, and were meant to stay away from a temporary crowd. The sun was already too much of a witness, in the end. How much would he suck away all of the water in the flames heir? Perhaps it would first attack his surroundings. He was not alone. There was even a possibility he would get away with a tiny drop in his hands. A drop shining by reflecting.

-Diamond Cater, Hunt Rook, get yourselves ready. Shroud Idia, Clover Trey, stand in front of them. We will start the exam. Let us see who can stand until the end.

The two semi-teams came forth. None of them were fully a team, indeed. Diamond and Hunt smiled to a certain percent, and Clover and Shroud stressing to another. Was it the higher the better, or the lower the better? Several words were muttered by Idia, and Trey barely reacted. Were Rook and Cater deserving of a victory, now?

-Lets us begin, puppies.

-Damoiseau orné de diamants, may you use your unique magic to ease our hunt?

-Suuure~ I planned on doing it from the moment we were facing Shroud anyway~ He fears crowd so let's have fun, Shrouuud~! I'll take a selfie with you if you lose eheh!

-Hey, Shroud you... Hey, why are you hiding behind my back?! Jeez... it was to be expected, I guess. Fine, let's go, Cater! I won't abandon Shroud the way you don't care about Hunt!

-"Split Card"! Let's go, myselves~ Let's pin cutie Trey to the ground and force him to give up!

-Oh, oh, so you think something as simple will work on me, Cater?! Your "selves" won't move anymore if I can strike them all in one single shot... "Doodle Suit"!

-HEHHHHHH?! DID YOU JUST REWRITE MYSELVES?!

-OH YES I DID!

-N-nevermind! It won't be enough to defeat me... as if my unique magic was the only thing that was... shining withing myself! Take thiiiiiiiiiiiis!

A fireball flew across the area, flickering of mad sparkles. Yet, it was alone, as blinding as it could be. No other fires hid themselves. The light went forward, running through the usual sea-like Cater toward the forever lake-like Trey. Cater's "selves" were still, and would not move as long as Trey was not overdoing himself. Basically, Cater "should" have aimed to reduce his focus and magic slots. If Trey could have defend himself twice, then he should have throw several fireballs, as long as they were more than two. Yet he did not. No matter how Trey was stretching his neck and all body as one, there was but one fireball coming his way.

-That won't do it, Cater! I will bring you down... and I will take care of Hunt!

-Heeh~ Could that mean you can't take both of us down? You're really tired, huuh~! I will make you fall asleep and you'll have some sweets dreams, Treyyyyyy~!

They both brung their hands on their foreheads and wiped some sweat, almost in the same fashion as well. There was a possibility they were both lying. Yet, if Cater has used his unique magic and was still forced to maintain it because of Trey's unique magic coercing them into a motionless army... The fireball burst into numerous drops and shone into multiple drips full of infinite colors, filled with Trey's own magic and shades.

-Don't even think your fire magic will be enough to defeat me.

-Then I'll use some tree one... Just kidding! I knew I wouldn't defeat you, but we already won, right, Rook~?

-Damoiseauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Rook Hunt had disappeared from Trey sight for a long time for obvious reasons, but so had Idia.

-I... don't see Le Roi des Ombres behind Le Chevalier des Roses! Quelle est cette diablerie!

-EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!

-Hehehehehehehheheheheheheheheehehehehe... NEVER UNDERESTIMATE ME AGAIN, FUCKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERS!

A single ray came behind a still Cater's copy, bouncing between all of the numerous fake selves toward the usual fake one and its superficial yet earnest one, drenching the losing liars with a superficial water worthy of them.

-Huh... we...

-Clover Trey and Shroud Idias team won. A brilliant strategy, I reckon.

-Wait, what do you mean by strategy??? Shroud and Trey had...

-Yeah, I had planned this since the very beginning ufufufufufufuu... From the very moment you thought I was simply muttering to myself, Trey was listening to me and ready to follow my strategy!

-Uwaaa~ Idia Shroud is actually so cooool~ Can I have a selfie with you to apologize~?

-No w-w-w-w-w-way! You hypocrite...

-That aside, I must apologize for judging you, Roi des Ombres. You really do show a beautiful intellect and scheming.

-T-That's okay... Just let me go away, please...

The wind finally thronged in the no-more private area. The void would likely move as well. Among all the droplets, their status was but one, and only one. They were the one hindering the sun fostering reflection. They were the one hiding music. The child of the void's hair waltzed dazzlingly under the bright sun overflowing. His fingers tried to force the hair down in the hood, but only some of his skin obeyed in the end. He coerced his feet protected from the atmosphere by boots to move on, and more especially, back. But the crown of flames rushed forward, gleaming in front of him again.

-How beautiful, Roi des Ombres! Why would you want to hide such brightness...

-Oh, Cater, Hunt, look out, Vil came to cheer you up!

-EHHHHH?

-Oh~?

The flames followed the kid which they were yet meant to fuse with someday. They had no choice once no more could play with them... No sand was brought to their eyes, though. All elements were not helping him, after all. He had disappeared. Only clouds were playing with the sunshine.

-Eeeh, Treyyy~ Vil wasn't there, are you sure your eyesight is good even with your glasses on~...

-I'm sorry! I thought I saw him... Oh, Shroud has left.

-Chevalier des Roses, you are but quite the bad comedian. On a side note, what a great strategy, oh my!

-Rook, what the...

-Le Roi des Ombres sure has thought a lot upon this fight, hasn't he? The fact he asked you transform Damoiseau's copies into motionless mirrors to make his own shot bounce in it... Splendide! It was really splendide!

-Haha, thanks, Hunt. He really thinks a lot... He just needs some time to open up to people. Let's be nice to him.

-You three! Move away, pups! The next team has to fight!

-O-oh, yes, sorry, Crewel sir.

[Ended Recording at : 10:30 am : Fourth? Day]

[krbement]

Hot Topic: In-person vs. Teletherapy

→ Assuming you are still reading because you are even more interested in clinical psychology now, I’d like to go through a hot topic in the field currently. It is important to know what is happening in the field of your future career because this could set up different pathways for you. There are quite a few different debates in the field right now but I want to zero in on one specific topic: teletherapy.

What is teletherapy?

→ Teletherapy is the 21st century improvisation to in-person therapy. The latin root “tele” means “distance” or “transmission over a distance”. Therefore, teletherapy is the act of providing therapeutic counseling for emotional issues via the internet. With the increase of technology in recent decades, the proposal for therapy through the internet has increased with it. 

 →  The first sign of “e-therapy” was in 1972 when computers from Stanford and UCLA were used in what is now considered the first online counseling. I know it seems crazy that there was online therapy before cellphones were even invented because now most of us are aware we can attend a therapy session via zoom right from the comfort of our own homes.

Why is there a debate?

→  The tech boom in recent years really drove the need for online therapy for people like the stay at home moms who can’t leave their kids at home to go to therapy, or the busy bees who just don’t have enough hours in the day to get to an in-person meeting. Many argue these individuals’ mental health shouldn’t suffer and that teletherapy should be more widely accepted. On the flip side there are many who think that therapy loses its integrity when it is no longer a face to face interaction. Here are a few of the pros and cons as listed by different experts in the field.

Pros:

-Easy and simple to access: Skype is a very easy tool for patients and therapists to utilize in their sessions. 

-Much more affordable than traditional psychotherapy: Traditional therapy can be quite pricey, up to $200 for a 45-60 minute visit, whereas teletherapy is much cheaper.

-Accessibility for people with physical limitations: There are many individuals who may not have the physical means to get to an in-person meeting so they are now able to meet with a therapist remotely without the trouble of getting there. 

-More frequent contact with the therapist: Patients can call their therapist quickly and efficiently if needed rather than having to wait a week or more to get an appointment. 

-Good for patients with social anxiety: Many individuals who suffer from social anxiety are not comfortable meeting with a therapist in person. This way they can ease the social pressure and be in a comfortable space while receiving the help they need.

-Necessary during COVID: Due to mandatory shut down of many offices for safety reasons- teletherapy has been on the rise as people still need help from their therapists and even more so for some during a global pandemic. 

Cons:

-Confidentiality: It is hard to protect patient and therapist information from being hacked into.

-HIPAA Compliance: Lines are blurred on whether or not teletherapy complies with restrictions of HIPAA outlined here.

-Interruptions of communication like dropped calls: It is hard to prevent power outages or bad wifi connections. 

-Insurance companies may not cover it: Some insurance companies do not cover online therapy and It mainly depends on the state you live in. 

-Some states do not provide out-of-state providers: Therapists are licensed by the state they live in and therefore can only provide care to those who are also in that state. 

-Lack of response to crisis situations: It can be difficult to respond efficiently if there is an immediate crisis. 

-Overlooks important body language: Nonverbal communication is very important for therapists to read as they are helping assess a patient’s problems. Without these cues, therapists are missing out on valuable information that they may not get otherwise. 

-Online therapy alone is not enough for severe mental health issues: There are some individuals with serious psychiatric illnesses that require close and direct interventions that online therapy can not provide.

-Some types of therapy are nearly impossible to conduct online (e.g. animal assisted psychotherapy or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy [EMDR]): Different problems require creative solutions and it is nearly impossible to administer the above treatments through an online forum.

How has COVID affected this debate?

→ You may be wondering if this debate has been fast tracked by the current climate of the world. Well you would be 100% correct. The rapid spread of this virus forced anti-teletherapy individuals to get on board in order to protect the safety of themselves and their clients. An article in the MIT technology review even noted that there has been a large spike in the usage of wellness apps ranging from meditation to teletherapy. 

→ The increase in usage can be explained both by the restrictions being lifted on telehealth meetings and an increase in the number of people seeking therapy. “Nearly half of Americans report the coronavirus is affecting their mental health”, reports William Wan from the Washington Post. People are struggling with the fear of the unknown that this virus brings. Many are worried about their loved ones’ safety, losing their jobs and homes, not being able to provide for the family, not being able to afford school, and any combination of these. It is not surprising that teletherapy is now booming, the world is a scary place right now. 

So, what’s the right answer?

→ Typically these debates have more of a clear right and wrong side. However, as you have read, this debate has very logical, ethical, and moral reasons for both arguments. I am in favor of the rise in teletherapy due to the current climate of the world. There are so many people these days that need help in dealing with their mental health issues and I am glad that people are able to access the help that they need. I also firmly believe that we need to be working hard to improve the security of these platforms for both the therapist and client. But I’ll let you decide for yourself what side of the debate you fall into. 

[billyparker1122]

Most Effective IPTV Providers

Cable costs carry on to raise and may probable continue on to raise, Specially as its consumers quit their products and services For additional reasonably priced enjoyment rates. Several Television set consumers spend a large selling price for channels that they even do not have. Clients remain attempting to find solutions to Definitely sever their cable. One particular powerful strategy for doing so is through a Ideal IPTV membership provider when you continue to see many what you need. The world wide web Protocol Television stands for IPTV. As opposed to satellite or cable tv,  Best IPTV this protocol allows for viewing Television set by way of an Connection to the internet. Net-appropriate pcs, as an example, Amazon Firestick, apple iphone, Apple Television set, etcetera. An increasing number of IPTV suppliers are building as wire-reducing charges grow to be significantly common. Together with your IPTV subscription, a VPN (Virtual Private Network) can always be employed. Any time IPTV companies are delivered free of charge or billed, your privateness is vulnerable to hijacking and Otherwise secured, worse. 1. Defend from hacking, stolen or recording your documents, id, and accounts. two. Cease your hyperlink throwing the ISP, Enhance down load and stream top quality. three. Address from all prying eyes the movie streaming and various World wide web things to do. Be extremely patient if you do not have a VPN. Not all IPTV companies streams are legal in all locations. A lot of IPTV companies such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Primary Video at the moment are restricting access from the earth from which you might be streaming. You can get around territorial restrictions with the cheap Surfshark VPN. Surfshark VPN can even keep your IP address and encrypt your on-line pursuits anonymously. I very advocate supporting you which has a high-high-quality steady VPN to protected yourself and boost your viewing working experience. Obviously, I like inexpensive stuff (AKA low cost). IPTV Support how to decide on: Your IPTV company depends upon your funds and wishes. Just about every on the IPTV products and services listed listed here has its very own unique channel set. Several offer numerous types of movies on demand, while some give Dwell Tv set streaming. Some give use of foreign retailers, while some are localised more regionally. Just about every has its very own selling price structure and the level of connections which you could have at a single time is restricted. Putting together a summary of your queries and knowledge is likely to make the entire thing even smoother ahead of comparing the selections. Very best IPTV providers: Pursuing are the most effective IPTV supplier Professional go Tv set: The Pro Go Television set provides designs at a amazingly minimal cost, from local information outlets to Reside High definition games, new motion pictures, and great new music and 24/7 channels. Along with the lowest-priced designs, you will discover over seven,000 UK, US, Canadian and Intercontinental shops. The nearby Television stations offered on ProGoTV had been the first thing that hit me. In excess of three hundred channels could be selected from everywhere in the United states of america. These consist of broadcasts from ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox from across the region. When you get all premium British isles networks, you will get The most affordable IPTV membership bundle from Pro Go Television. No excess charge or charge is available to PPV products. Pro Go Tv set gives outstanding sporting networks and league coverage. There are actually all the entire world's major league associations, together with US associations: MLb, NBA, NFL and NHL, and UFC companies. Sling Television: Sling Tv set is among the strongest IPTV vendors, introduced by DISH Community in 2015. It had been also the very first IPTV provider to offer multi-channel World-wide-web-centered on the internet broadcasting. You might be allowed to use a neighborhood television antenna from this company service provider. This can be one cause why they could provide decrease selling prices. You'll deal the popular channels for personalised service with this particular IPTV membership. On the other hand, you would like, since you can speedily rise up to cable fees, to get aware how many channels you link. No deal is accessible. You pay month to month and terminate your service Anytime. Which differs substantially from cable assistance, which typically requires a protracted-time period offer and charges early termination rates. Mobdro: Mobdro is a popular IPTV APK for streaming video clips, music, sports, Television demonstrates, etcetera. A lot of streams don't need to have an account. Any streams, having said that, desire you sign-up to the paid out Edition. This application is out there in ten languages and functions material from over thirty nations around the world. You will find a wide variety – greater than 1000 channels offered. Internet provider suppliers and authorities businesses block a lot of of those channels so remember to unblock them through your encrypted VPN. The best downside is that it's not content material of its own but somewhat free through the entire Web. Any of this material is sadly copyrighted and available from any where by Mobdro is not really authorized. Netflix: Netflix is Probably the world's most popular IPTV membership support. You'll have a cost-free Netflix preview 30 times and see what It is really all about, nonetheless it might not be no cost. This company sells motion pictures, tv reveals plus more, occasionally from old classics to new releases. It can be found on practically any System — cellphone, tablet, Personal computer, game console, and even more. It really is a good finances option with various bundles, based on how many simultaneous connections you end up picking to view. Unfortunately, there are actually a broad amount of collection, but some favourites are absent. Even, new seasons and flicks on Netflix normally take some time. Klub IPTV Gamers: The Player Klub is definitely an IPTV support that is quite secure. It's Just about the most economical, but also provides a wide array of streamings, which includes around three,000 Television set channels and movies from lots of nations. Gamers Klub is Among the most frequent IPTV vendors. Basic to use. Also they are Among the most easily offered streaming vendors. Almost all of the content is 1080p, but the only 720p is on the market. Renewals and costs are the main issues. The payment gateway often would not perform because it need to and occasionally subscriptions usually are not accessible. You ought to try out all over again later if This can be the case. IPTV sportz Tv set: Sportz TV is an excellent option for IPTV. This helps you to get both of those SD and HD good quality from above six,500 satellite channels round the area. Given that the name usually means, you obtain sports, but Tv set shows and in many cases Film releases are obtainable Internet Protocol TV . A Particular element of Sportz Television set is 4 different channels is usually streamed concurrently on precisely the same display. If you can concentration adequate you may watch a movie As you sustain with all your favorite video game scores! (or prefer to see four video games at once). You could use this chat element to connect with other Sportz Television set buyers and to connect with people.

[realtalkingpoints]

Opinion:  How social media and the Obama administration lead to the Impeachment of Donald Trump.

Placed historically, the real explosion in social media use occurred during the Obama administration. Advances in technology were allowing developers to create new platforms and new versions of old platforms faster and faster, each time learning from previous builds.  Big data was coming into it's prime, learning more about user habits than ever before. For the first time in history, millions and millions of people had not just cell phones in their pocket, but smart phones that could access the internet.  And cell phone services, along with internet capabilities were expanding to handle the new demand.  The Obama administration created subsidy programs offering low cost or no cost smart phones and service providers to low income households that qualify.  And apps for phones were developed, to be small versions of popular websites, to run fast, efficient, and anywhere people wanted to pull out their phones and surf them.  The stage was set for a social media explosion.

All different kinds of platforms were introduced.  We know the most popular ones, because they've gone viral and turned into the worlds most powerful platforms, and some are still growing.  Perhaps startups today, will topple the giants in tomorrows media fad. But what we know now, is that people love to chat with each other, and interact with each other in real time, at the speed of the internet, across continents.  People want to share stories and photos, promote businesses, and discuss the news of the day.  The people of the world have never had an exchange of information that was this fast, this easy, and this accessible to literally billions of people.  It was only a matter of time before news and politics moved at the pace of social media, and not the other way around.

Having not done or even read any case studies, and cannot conclusively say, but it seems obvious to me that younger generations were the first to adopt the internet, and social media.  If you have seniors in your life, it's no secret, that they struggle at times with internet technology.  The internet didn't even exist for most of their life, and now suddenly in twenty or thirty years its users have gone from thousands of college geeks and researchers, to billions of excited people trying to find one another.  Our youngest generations don't know a world without the internet, some don't know a world without smartphones, google or twitter.  And when a new platform idea comes along, even one with a seemingly silly name like 'Twitter', there's plenty of young people comfortable enough with internet and smart phone technology, to give it a try.  They don't fear the unknowns, the hacking and 'spying' and data collection that has the older generations so apprehensive. To the younger crowd, the worst that can happen is they don't like it and they delete the app.  But the good ones don't get deleted.  The ones that are effective at capturing people's attention with reality tv type stimulation and peer to peer interaction, grow exponentially into massive social media networks. According to my theory, the first massive waves of users were younger.

These days, younger means more progressive, more liberal in political leaning.  Their comfort level with the internet means they look there first to answer any question they might have, or for things the want to purchase.  They have developed a sense of enlightenment, confident that they can find instantly, the answer to any of life’s mysteries.  While waiting for a latte, while sitting on a bus, beach, or the couch at home, they can satisfying their deepest curiosities, and perhaps too often, accepting the veracity of the information delivered to them without question.  

It doesn't take a genius to see the gold mine of opportunity that influencers of all types saw in social media platforms.  Millions upon millions of young impressionable minds, looking for answers and perspective from their peers.  Advertisers and retailers have embraced the social media craze, inventing creative new strategies to reaching new customers, specially those willing to try something new.  It has literally created new industries because someone tried something, told their friends, and now everyone is selling it.  For example, what is 'goat yoga'?  Don't know, just google it.  Its a thing, it's out there, and it owes it's success to social media.  It's a revolution in the exchange of information like never before in history.  Before long, social media would also be recognized as an essential tool in the fight over politics.

How better to potentially reach millions and millions of people with your political message than to put it on social media, and allow people to share that idea just by clicking a button.  It's too easy.  In the 2008 Presidential election, Barack Obama harnessed the networking power of social media for the first time in a Presidential election.  Using still developing platforms like Twitter and Facebook, he connected with millions of young, progressive thinking voters, most of whom were willing to share his message with their peers. It was a major advantage to his campaign, since supporters of his opponent, John McCain were much older on average, and therefor much less likely to even be on social media.  It gave a free soapbox to Obama that was heard by millions and millions of progressive Americans, and it was virtually all his.  The voices of opposition just weren't there.  The hoards of young impressionable minds thought that everyone agreed with the exciting ideas they were hearing from an enthusiastic Barack Obama.  They had accidentally created their own media bubble of like minded, similarly motived, ideologues, all enjoying a strong confirmation bias.  Slowly, the older more conservative Americans did adopt social media platforms, but they had a lot of catching up to do.  When re-election came around, Obama's opponent in 2012, Mitt Romney made a modest effort to connect with supporters on social media.  Reporting at the time was something like $8 million by Romney vs $45 million spent by the Obama campaign on social media advertising.  It was clear, that the social media advantage was still firmly in the hands of the progressives, and the number of users was growing rapidly.

A skillful politician, Obama quickly learned how to generate large swells of social media activity to support his various agenda items.  I'm sure they had lots of data, certainly from intelligence agencies, about the habits of trending topics on social media.  Being the first American presidential administration to preside over a social media crazed nation, there must have been moments of epiphany with regards to the reaction(s) of social media communities on various policy decisions and press releases.  As Facebook has acknowledged, social media cause the Arab spring.  How much the Obama administration had to do with that is still up for debate.  Ideas were ready to go viral in their respective communities, they just needed to be put out there at the right time, by the right influential people.  

Just as politicians saw the obvious advantages to social media messaging, so did the press and news media.  Journalists would use their own social media accounts to post their news stories and build followings that would supplement their print or tv audiences.  I would assume the same principles apply, that younger more progressive journalists migrated toward the platforms first, giving them a jump on their older more conservative counterparts.  Furthermore, the fact that these platforms are presumed to be populated first with predominantly young progressives, the approval rate and popularity of ideas and stories reported by early journalists on social media is likely skewed towards liberalism.  Many of these young progressive reporters and the networks employing them rode the social media bubble to prominence and challenged their older more conservative colleagues on the national stage in popularity ratings, often successfully.  The result of this effect was a national news media that favored a  more progressive, liberal narrative.  An unfortunate side effect of this, was the reality that popularity of news stories among social media followers, not accuracy or factual reporting, was driving viewership ratings.  As news outlets realized that their new social media followers enjoyed stories about successful progressive policies and praise for the Obama administration, they began to build their staff and organizations around a strategy to deliver just that.  Seemingly out of no where, Obama became the darling of the liberal press and social media.  

The endless stream of positive feedback from the press and social media had it's effect on the Obama administration.  They soon realized that blunders and mistakes could get washed up in a circular round of praise and applause on other topics of the day, while the bad news went completely ignored by a majority of the news media.  Their audience simply didn't want to hear the bad news, so they just didn't report it.  Knowing their misdeeds would go largely forgiven by a lapdog media, the Obama administration began to push the norms of public approval with their progressive policies.  The highly controversial Affordable Care Act, was signed into law despite zero Republican votes for the package.  Republicans were waiving their hands in the isles of congress, shouting as loudly as they could that the math didn't work, and that millions of hard working middle class Americans were going to carry the burden of this bloated package.  But they didn't have the social media push or news media support to get their message out, and those Republicans were labeled as one of many hateful stereotypes by the social media mob. Other Obama moves like the targeting of conservative non-profit groups by the IRS during the 2012 presidential election, and the dreadful Iran deal, which should have received much media scrutiny, all got passing grades from news reporters and their social media echo chambers.

It was probably during Obama's second term, conservatives woke up to realize that social media was where the real conversation is.  Not that they hadn't been participating thus far, but as a whole, the conservatives had been sluggish to migrate toward social media platforms.  But watching liberalism taking over news media, and frightened for the future of their nation, conservatives began to challenge progressive liberals on social media in numbers large enough to cause a stir among their ranks.  And many of them reacted poorly.  Platforms that had long been safe spaces for liberal rants and conservative defamation were suddenly being challenged by patriotic Americans who showed up and said, 'I disagree, here's why, and here's the evidence'.  The young, progressive ideologues who had populated social media en masse had never needed evidence to back up their opinions, nor encountered such opposition to their group think, and began to lash out at their new critics.  Twitter battles flared, and for the first time, young progressive social media users were forced to examine their hardened ideals in the light of contradicting evidence.  But many of them had taken very public, emphatic positions based on liberal policies and news reporting that they had taken as gospel.  For many liberal ideologues, backing down from their stated positions was more injury than they could conceivably sustain, and instead would band together with their news media heroes to defend their proclaimed moral high ground at all costs.

Enter Donald Trump.  No stranger to the media spot light, real estate developer and reality tv star Donald Trump was a natural at using news media to reach the American public.  He saw the trends and recognized how to maximize his influence.  He grew his Twitter audience with constant engagement and used even bad press coverage to get his message out.  Much like Obama in 2008 and 2012, Trump used social media to achieve victory in the 2016 presidential election, this time by appealing to the millions of new, perhaps more conservative minded social media users, who felt alienated and bullied by the entrenched liberal social media mob.  The liberal reaction was swift and often unruly.  Think Women's March, Antifa, and Russia Collusion.  Unable to manifest their desired reality through social media and news stories, the liberals resorted to real world activism in an all out effort to undo an election result that they could not fathom.  They looked to their hero Obama and his collection of bureaucrats installed in the nation's intelligence community to dig for evidence that he had cheated the election.  We know now, that multiple efforts (likely underhanded in nature) to sabotage his election were underway.  The social media mob and their news media cohorts pushed relentlessly to add credibility to claims of Russian Collusion by the Trump campaign and worked 24/7 to drive incriminating headlines into the homes and minds of Americans.  Biased, partisan investigations lead to a special counsel investigation that progressives hoped would finally get the goods and rid them of the surprise President that had popped their media bubble paradise.  But this time, the social media push was from the right, and verifiable evidence of corruption and bias of investigators was plastered on social media for everyone to see.  Conservative news media had finally landed a foothold on social media platforms and began to tell its side of the story to an American public eager to hear some truth.  

Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation ended with no hard evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to cheat the 2016 election, delivering yet another heavy blow to liberal America, who had spent many years under Obama, assuming that their positions would always be supported by bureaucrats and news reports.  Trump blamed 'the deep state' for the internal attempts to sabotage his presidency.  He asked the DOJ inspector general to investigate the investigations that had targeted individuals from is campaign, and the IG report has confirmed, that many inside the FBI and DOJ were willing to bend or break the rules to obtain surveillance approvals on Trump campaign members.  This provided conservatives with yet another huge victory over their liberal activist counterparts, who still can't believe what is happening.  Many of the young progressives who had driven the political agenda through social media activity had never experienced a news cycle that they couldn't control with their activism.  And many liberal politicians and deep staters who relied on the media mob for support and cover for their potential misdeeds had never considered what they would do if suddenly all the negative news stories actually got printed.  Claims of political favoritism, liberal election rigging, and big money foreign policy peddling are now a daily occurrence, and both the politicians and the media mob are in a panic.

So that brings us to our current situation.  The liberal's last stronghold of power in American government resides in Nancy Pelosi and the House of Representatives.  They have engaged in partisan investigation after investigation, hoping to find something to re-ignite their liberal base, that would warrant the removal of Trump from office.  Impeachment.  Special counsel and IG investigations delivered reports that devastated the credibility of the liberal news media, along with politicians and intel personalities that still claim Trump is the one lying.  Seemingly out of nowhere, a whistleblower report lands on the desk of discredited intel committee chair Adam Schiff, that President Trump has been bribing the Ukrainian government to interfere in the 2020 presidential election by investigating Joe Biden.  Unable to stunt the flow of news and information the way they once had, media mob liberals are as aware as there rest of us, that the origins of said whistleblower complaint are highly questionable, and that there are credible allegations of Biden's mis-dealings in Ukraine.  Indeed, congressional impeachment hearings produced a parade of witness testimonies that stated, one after another, they had heard from others, sometimes others who had heard from others, that the president had done something wrong.  Literally no one was able to testify that they had been instructed to withhold foreign aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation of the Bidens.  American news polls show Americans are tiring of the endless investigations of Trump and the push for impeachment. Once again, the liberal news media and the progressive social media ideologues had been unable to sway the news cycle in a decidedly favorable direction.  But they pushed hard.  So hard in fact, that Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler are moving forward with the impeachment of the president of the United States of America.  

It appears that they will have the votes in the House to impeach the president.  Democrat house members appear to be unaffected by the lack of hard evidence against Trump, or the mounting pile of evidence that this was a setup to oust Trump and protect a swamp of corruption from being exposed by impending DOJ criminal investigations.  Instead, a Trump re-election is what they fear the most.  Most Democrats in Washington see impeachment as their most destructive tool in the fight against Donald Trump.  Impeachment is their destructive response to a power vacuum they never saw coming.  Having become complacent with years of favorable media coverage, and friendly social media audiences, the liberals and Democrats let their corruptions run unchecked.  They did not predict the storm that is Donald Trump, or the urgency with which the conservatives would take to social media to defend truth in news reporting and accountability in government.  The Democrats have lost control of the narrative and they know it.  They now see no other option but the Hail Mary impeachment of Donald Trump.  Polls suggest it still won't prevent his re-election, but they are out of ideas, and out of time.  Considerations that this impeachment on flimsy evidence will lead to many unfounded future impeachments are not in their calculation.  This is purely desperation.  I for one, hope that the news media, social media and the American public will punish the Democrats for decades over this irresponsible abuse of their constitutional authority.  

[arabellaflynn]

Hello, all. It has been a rough pandemic.

As you may have figured, since I am in the performing arts, I have been completely out of work since this shitshow began. The earliest venues will open up here in MA is September, which is not helpful for me, because I need to be out of my current place by 8/31. No one will rent to me on my Patreon income, so I've been trying to figure out how to supplement that with other online work.

My first thought, frankly, was camming. I'm attractive and I know that, and I don't care about being naked in "public". I have a lot of opinions on the legitimacy and legalization of sex work, but making a statement would be a convenient bonus; I'd be in it for the tips. As the appliance menagerie on the Flintstones used to say, "Eh. It's a living."

The best camera I currently have is attached to the slightly-less ancient laptop. You know, the one with the broken hinge that won't hold the screen up on the right. Only the wifi on that computer has quit working. The onboard chip was always kind of flaky, but for some reason it has chosen now to deteriorate to the point where it no longer acknowledges a router on the other side of the goddamn wall. Shooting in the living room with an ethernet cable is not an option, because another housemate is already doing that.

I bought a dual-band USB wifi adapter with antenna. It's a Realtek chip -- not gold-plated, but also not total junk. I specifically checked to make sure it worked with Ubuntu Bionic before I ordered. I have now installed three separate sets of drivers in three completely different ways, read everything ever written about this on AskUbuntu, and still the computer refuses to acknowledge its existence. Not even if I blacklist the onboard chip to keep it from falling back into previous bad habits.

The other elderly laptop (with the working wifi) has a cam that tops out at 640 x 480, which I suppose might squeak by as a tiny facecam on Twitch, or for tutoring where no one cares about pixelization. The microphone, however, is crap. It's a tinny omni on the screen bezel that likes room noise more than my voice. I don't have an external microphone, and there's no onboard Bluetooth for my wireless headset. So I bought a USB Bluetooth adapter, which this computer is ignoring as hard as the other one is the wifi dongle. I have a wired headset with a mic, but because this computer is probably mere months too old to know what to do with an inline mic on the same jack as the output signal, it doesn't register at all.

The camera on my phone is potato quality, because that is honestly about how much the phone cost. Ditto the refurb Kindle. Neither is smart enough to keep up with streaming video, which I found out when I tried to do a video rehearsal for something months ago. 

I have no place to do any kind of professional non-entertainment streaming work (e.g., tutoring) with my terrible equipment in any event. I don't own a desk. If a free desk appeared on my doorstep tomorrow, I would have nowhere to put it. My bedroom is small enough to contravene the Geneva Convention requirements for POW cells and I'm basically stuck in here, for reasons of both air conditioning and not having to interact with a house full of people who very much want me gone.

What I do have is a set of working emulators and some free video editing software, so I decided to take a stab at a subtitled Let's Play. I can certainly ramble on for 30 or so hours of Final Fantasy II. At the very least it'll give me something scheduled to do. So I pulled everything out and set it up, only to find that my controller was "pining for the fjords" -- no lights, no acknowledgement from RetroArch, no response to any button presses.

...

...okay, well, at least we're down to a level of equipment I can afford to replace. So I am waiting for the mail carrier to bring me another $10 gamepad, whilst stuck in bureaucratic hell. I'm down to emergency public assistance, which keeps asking me to send them random documents, inconveniently one at a time. Even when I can submit them online I'm required to wait a minimum of 2-3 business days before a human can look at them. I'm trying to not be mad -- they are clearly horribly overworked -- but it also leaves me with a lot of time to do nothing but busy-wait. They've finally decided I'm destitute enough for food stamps, so now I have to sit on my hands until the card arrives in the mail.

The chronic, crushing lack of resources is not helped by (or helping) the fact that I'm just not functioning very well. I was already on the edge of disintegration when the lockdown orders hit anyway; I was taking every piece of work I could find in an effort to scrape together enough for first/last/deposit on a new apartment, and honestly that's more than I can handle. I can consistently get to about 20 hours of "stuff that can't be done while in bed, wearing pajamas" per week, with occasional spikes up to about 30, before I start losing the ability to take care of myself. I skip showers, let my living space become a complete disaster area, and go to bed without dinner because the whole process of choosing something to eat, preparing it, eating it, and cleaning up after myself is so overwhelming that I just burst into tears and don't do it. I fed the rats twice a day and cleaned their cage once or twice a week, but couldn't manage to do the same for myself.

It's difficult to explain to people the state of being physically and mentally exhausted without also being sweaty and shaky from muscle fatigue. Perhaps the single most salient example I can give is lying in bed at night and realizing I kind of vaguely needed to pee. Not like urgently -- just enough that I knew if I didn't, I'd wake up the next day with an uncomfortably full bladder. Then just lying there anyway, not because I thought suffering was noble or I deserved it or anything idiotic like that, but just because taking care of it would involve standing up, walking into another room, and initiating a new task, and I did not have the capacity to do any of those things.

If you suggest I start making a to-do list, I will sit down right now and invent a brand new Blunt Object Transfer Protocol (botp://) expressly for the purpose of punching you, personally, in the face over the goddamn internet. I will even credit you in the patent application. I will not share the licensing profits, which judging from social media right now, would be approximately all of the money on the face of the Earth. I do not need "life hacks". 

What I really need is a case worker, or possibly a babysitter, or just to have shown up at the ER about two months ago, because that is the only way I have ever found to get people to pay attention when I ask for help. Otherwise I get triaged out of sight and out of mind -- they ask if I'm suicidal, I tell them no, they tell me 'okay, here's a prescription for six Xanax and a packet of resources, go home and fix it yourself'. I'm just like, you sons of bitches, do you think I don't know how to Google things? If I could fix this on my own, I wouldn't be talking to you. Except I can't right now, because plague.

Everyone wants to fob me off on someone else. I was referred to an SSDI attorney by a friend, because frankly that's where I'm at right now. I wrote to them, specifically mentioning his name and the associate who helped him, and explained that I was basically a vegetable and I needed help applying for disability. I'm a college-educated suburban white girl, who grew up hearing her parents make rude jokes about welfare queens -- I have no idea how any of this works and I'm so broken I kept losing my place in a blanket whose pattern was literally "knit-purl-knit-purl to end of row; turn work over; repeat". Their response was "Sounds like you need some help applying for SSDI/SSI disability. Here's the website for the Boston Bar Association, good luck!" Crisis lines of both the psychiatric and financial varieties keep directing me to one of two national clearinghouse sites for social support services, both of which direct me to each other, because neither has any programs in my area.

I am trying really, really hard not to resent the ever-loving fuck out of anyone who has any sort of support system right now. One housemate has almost the exact same list of medical problems that I do, and is also completely out of work right now. She is married to the one who has a grown-up salaried WFH IT job, and will never have to worry about having a roof over her head or food in the cabinets. The single housemate has supportive family literally a five minute walk down the street; if she ever gets her feet kicked out from under her, she can stay with them temporarily while she scrambles back up. Another friend yote out to California right before lockdown to stay with his family. A local offered to help me with paperwork, then ghosted me intermittently before explaining that he was having a hard time himself right now and barely had the capacity for his own life. I have an elderly rat, no more savings, and no options.

I don't even know how I'm going to move the little I own. How do you even ask people to do that in the middle of a pandemic? If I don't have the money to move, I definitely don't have the money for a moving company, and I'm envisioning all of my community-minded friends pursing their lips in judgement and declining because like all the good people they are diligently social distancing.

I have also discovered, while hauling an empty suitcase out to Watertown and a full one back home again, that I do not cope well with face masks. It's fine if I'm not doing much, especially if I'm in a climate-controlled space like a store or the T, but as soon as I exert myself at all, I see spots. And no, it is not a matter of "just get used to it"; I have tested this by trying to wear a mask during my home workouts. It is just stuffy enough under there, and there is just enough reduction in air flow, that the world keeps going all film-grainy and dark on the sides, which I know from experience is the first step on a very short path to the Magical Land of Syncope. I had to stop during the outdoor trek and sit on the suitcase about twice a block through the commercial district, where it stayed on because there were people. This was when it was 72 whole degrees out (and the AC is generally on 74°F inside) which doesn't bode well for moving my heavy shit around in late August. 

I'm normally good at catching things at the weird-vision stage, although enough random strangers and T employees have asked me if I'm okay that I have to assume I look as ill as I feel at that point. And I have an absolutely tragic talent for talking people out of calling emergency services when I do actually keel over, but everyone is so health-panicked that I don't think it would work right now. I know what's happened and why, but I can't exactly communicate that to bystanders when I'm unconscious. As nice as EMS is, I don't feel like waking up to a round of Twenty Questions ("How many fingers am I holding up? Who's the President? Do you have a seizure disorder?"). So I just don't go out.

Alison over at Ask A Manager got a question about this the other day that suggests this is considered legitimate can't-(always-)wear-a-mask territory, and I am able to wear a mask where required in MA, which is indoors/during interactions with other people when it's actually useful, so I don't have any qualms on the scientific or legal front. I have just never been a good judge of how much potential peril/damage it's "reasonable" to put up with, and I don't have the capacity to explain myself over and over again a million times a day. 

I'm fucking tired. I'm tired of covid, I'm tired of living in a big glitzy continent-spanning banana republic, I'm tired of anxiety, I'm tired of other people carping at me to do things I can't in order to fix their anxiety for them, I'm tired of not having the space to dance, I'm tired of asking for help before things fall apart and being told 'well, come back when it is an emergency', and most of all I'm tired of this cycle where I tell myself "I'm going to stop being lazy! I'm going to put on my big-girl pants and wake up early and work 40 hours a week and support myself like an adult!" and then fail at it again because I just do not have the capacity to do that. I do not know how to make the system understand that I need some kind of support right now. 

Sorry for yet another depressing update, but that's where I am right now.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2YPv8Xu via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!

[some-cookie-crumbz]

Break Through

Break Through - Kidge Month Day 8 Prompt Fill Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Pairing: Kidge Summary: Third part that goes along with these: [One, Two]. With leads and intel running out, Keith and Pidge take a break from their Garrison investigations to grab a bite and maybe raise their spirits. Standard Disclaimer: If you read and enjoy this, please give it a like/ reblog so I know if I should write more.

She dragged one hand through her hair and let out a loud, infuriated growl. "How are they doing this?" Her voice came out more as a screech than a shout, which caused her partner to wince a bit. A part of her said she should feel guilty, but the much larger part of her was just pissed. “There’s no way that they’ve upped their security this much in less than two months! I shouldn’t be running into this much trouble trying to track down files!”

"I don't know, but we'll figure it out. We’ve already had smaller breaks in this whole thing," He said, a bit of frustration starting to tinge the edge of his words. He pushed another pin into the cork board they used with more force than necessary, clearly trying to keep a handle on his own irritation.

She glared at him over her shoulder, reaching up to push her hair out of her face. "We've been at this for five weeks and we've gotten almost nowhere!"

He glared back at her before indicating her laptop with one hand. "We know there's a missing audio file; that's a huge step in the right direction!" He glanced back at the cork board to verify where they pin had been placed. It was covered in a maps and photos, with pieces of colored yarn attaching each map to its corresponding photo. She could see the familiar spark of determination in his dark eyes as he observed all they’d discovered so far. "It's only a matter of time before we find it."

She scoffed, feeling no where near as certain as he did. "Unless they completely wiped the hard drive. They wouldn't want potentially damning evidence like that just sitting pretty for someone with a little bit of hacking skill to find. It's a huge liability that they can't afford," She grumbled, closing her laptop and shoving it aside. For as much as she wanted to keep going, a part of her felt so tired. She’d been working tirelessly since two and a half weeks ago, when she’d first found the clue in some confidential emails that there was a final audio log picked up from the Kerberos mission. “The Garrison is run by a bunch of assholes, but they’re clever assholes, Keith.”

Keith stared at her before sighing, setting his hands on his hips and looking down at his boots. "Maybe we need a break to help clear our heads. We can get some food or something,"He suggested, lifting his gaze again to look at her. She didn’t look over at him, though, and instead decided to focus on the tiny hole starting to appear in the old socks she was wearing. "Wanna go to the new Denny's they opened up?"

"Whatever," She sighed, stretching her legs out and getting up.

She toed her sneakers on while she pulled her hair back in a messy ponytail, wanting to just get it over with. Her stomach roiled quietly, clearly thrilled at the idea of food, but she didn’t want to yet. She wanted to stay and work more, try to find an answer. If it was there, surely she could find it with a little more time! But no, just because she was feeling a little frustrated, Keith decided they needed to stop any progress! Did he just not care about the fact that the Garrison was spitting outright lies about what had happened to Shiro, Matt and her Dad? She’d noticed he seemed more interested in whatever strange energy reading he’d been tracing through the desert.

She was silent the whole ride to Denny’s staring at the window, stewing in her resentment at Keith for dragging her out.

Despite it being well after midnight, there was a modest crowd at the restaurant. Not enough people that it looked like they’d need to worry about waiting long for service, but certainly more than she’d been anticipating. Normally when they felt the need for post-dinner-pre-breakfast pancakes, they were the only diners in the place. They had to wait a moment while the server dropped some drinks off at one table before being greeted properly.

He offered them a small smile. He seemed a bit tired, but the smile was still genuine. "Good evening. Just two for you?" He asked as he reached to grab two menus.

"Yes, please. Thanks," Keith said gently. They were led to the dining room and were given a corner booth, with an empty booth between them and another pair of dinners. Pidge immediately scooted in as far over she could, glaring out the window again. While she did that, Keith ordered their drinks and opened his own menu. "You know, sitting there and pouting won't accomplish anything, Katie."

She looked over and glared harder, miffed to find he hadn’t even lifted his eyes from the page to address her. "Maybe if I was at my computer I'd be able to do something,"

"Patience yields focus, you know," He commented casually, tilting his head a bit as he looked over an item. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his words and how completely cliche they were. Where had he heard that from, she wondered. The server returned with their drinks and then headed off again at Keith saying they needed more time. She pulled her own drink over and took a sip, unsurprised at the taste of Dr. Pepper. He knew her so well. "Hmm. If I order some mozzarella sticks, would you have some?"

"Where did you hear the hoakey nonsense?" She asked as she stirred her ice with the straw.

He looked confused, finally tearing his gaze from the menu to look at her. "Well, I'm not hungry enough to eat a full meal and a whole order of mozzarella sticks on my own. Plus, I know you like them, too, so it just made sense to ask,"

"What? No, not about the mozzarella sticks," She said, taking another sip before opening her own menu. She may as well figure out what she wanted for herself, too. "That thing you said just now, about patience and what not?"

"Patience yields focus?" He repeated, clearly confused.

"Yeah, that. Where did you hear that from?"

"Oh, Shiro used to say it all the time, when I'd get pissy about stuff with the Garrison. It... It's helped me a lot through this whole situation, remembering what he said back then," He admitted, suddenly seeming uncomfortable. He tore his gaze down, swiped up his water, and started chugging it, as if trying to wash the taste out of his mouth.

"Oh," She trailed off, looking away for a moment before looking back over at him. And, this time, she really looked at him. She had enough time of knowing him to be able to read his subtle gestures. One hand was gripping his water like he was trying to shatter it, the other drumming along the table. His eyes had returned to fix on the menu, but they weren’t registering the words on the page, cloudy with pain. Her own heart lurched, knowing that look and that pain all too well. She looked back down at her drink as shame swallowed her whole. "I'm sorry."

He perked up in surprise and looked at her, blinking rapidly to recompose himself. "For what?"

"You're going through all of this junk, too, and sometimes I forget that. I need to be more aware that I'm not going through this all alone, that you’re trying just as hard as I am,” She admitted, peeking up at him as she spoke.

"It's okay; it's not like I don't occasionally forget myself," He said, offering her a small half-smile in return. Some of the shame wiped away and she squared her shoulders a little bit more as he returned his attention to the menu, turning the page and looking at the dinner options. "When we get back to the house, we should watch a movie or something. Oh, or we could listen to music and just veg out."

“You mean like we used to do on the Garrison roof?” She laughed.

“Yeah, only way better, because we can play the music as loud as we want,” He said with a sly smirk.

“Yeah, but can you even get your stereo up there? Since, you know, you don’t just use streaming sites like the rest of modern society,” She teased, peering over the different breakfast options. She wanted the mozzarella sticks, but pancakes also sounded really good.

He laughed back and took another, smaller sip from his water. “Oh, please! Your streaming sites are only good when you have internet connection. Having a physical copy of the album to use is a great approach; especially with bands or albums that are particularly great,” He retorted.

She opened her mouth to respond before a thought occurred to her, causing her to gasp. “Keith, you genius!” She squealed, reaching across the table to grab his face and pull him closer.

He looked stunned and stared back at her, blinking slowly, before chuckling. “Ah, made you see the light of day?”

“No, what you just said! That it’s good to have a physical copy of something, in case you can’t access it otherwise! That would also be a great approach when dealing with sensitive materials, such as classified files from a computer? Burning a physical copy to keep tucked away somewhere safe, so that you still have a record of it, to maybe assure that people snooping around on your computer can’t find it?” She pressed further, lowering her voice as she spoke her last few words, not wanting to risk being overheard. They hadn’t encountered anyone from the Garrison in their time off base, but she was still a fan of being safe rather than sorry.

He sucked in a quiet breath, eyes widening. “It’s a huge liability they can’t afford, but they also can’t risk not having it, in case of the higher ups wanting it,” He breathed out.

“Exactly,” She hummed, letting go of his face and slumping back in her seat. Her lips turned up in a grin. “Celebratory mozzarella sticks?”

“Fuck it, let’s go all out. Celebratory mozzarella sticks and celebratory milkshakes,” He said with a smirk of his own.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#1yrago Oh for fuck's sake, not this fucking bullshit again (cryptography edition)

America, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and Australia are in a surveillance alliance called The Five Eyes, through which they share much of their illegally harvested surveillance data.

In a recently released Statement of Principles on Access to Evidence and Encryption, the Five Eyes powers have demanded, again, that strong cryptography be abolished and replaced with defective cryptography so that they can spy on bad guys.

They defend this by saying "Privacy is not absolute."

But of course, working crypto isn't just how we stay private from governments (though god knows all five of the Five Eyes have, in very recent times, proven themselves to be catastrophically unsuited to collect, analyze and act on all of our private and most intimate conversations). It's how we make sure that no one can break into the data from our voting machines, or push lethal fake firmware updates to our pacemakers, or steal all the money from all of the banks, or steal all of the kompromat on all 22,000,000 US military and government employees and contractors who've sought security clearance.

Also, this is bullshit.

Because it won't work.

Here's the text of my go-to post about why this is so fucking stupid. I just can't be bothered anymore. Jesus fucking christ. Seriously? Are we still fucking talking about this? Seriously? Come on, SERIOUSLY?

It’s impossible to overstate how bonkers the idea of sabotaging cryptography is to people who understand information security. If you want to secure your sensitive data either at rest – on your hard drive, in the cloud, on that phone you left on the train last week and never saw again – or on the wire, when you’re sending it to your doctor or your bank or to your work colleagues, you have to use good cryptography. Use deliberately compromised cryptography, that has a back door that only the “good guys” are supposed to have the keys to, and you have effectively no security. You might as well skywrite it as encrypt it with pre-broken, sabotaged encryption.

There are two reasons why this is so. First, there is the question of whether encryption can be made secure while still maintaining a “master key” for the authorities’ use. As lawyer/computer scientist Jonathan Mayer explained, adding the complexity of master keys to our technology will “introduce unquantifiable security risks”. It’s hard enough getting the security systems that protect our homes, finances, health and privacy to be airtight – making them airtight except when the authorities don’t want them to be is impossible.

What these leaders thinks they're saying is, "We will command all the software creators we can reach to introduce back-doors into their tools for us." There are enormous problems with this: there's no back door that only lets good guys go through it. If your Whatsapp or Google Hangouts has a deliberately introduced flaw in it, then foreign spies, criminals, crooked police (like those who fed sensitive information to the tabloids who were implicated in the hacking scandal -- and like the high-level police who secretly worked for organised crime for years), and criminals will eventually discover this vulnerability. They -- and not just the security services -- will be able to use it to intercept all of our communications. That includes things like the pictures of your kids in your bath that you send to your parents to the trade secrets you send to your co-workers.

But this is just for starters. These officials don't understand technology very well, so they doesn't actually know what they're asking for.

For this proposal to work, they will need to stop Britons, Canadians, Americans, Kiwis and Australians from installing software that comes from software creators who are out of their jurisdiction. The very best in secure communications are already free/open source projects, maintained by thousands of independent programmers around the world. They are widely available, and thanks to things like cryptographic signing, it is possible to download these packages from any server in the world (not just big ones like Github) and verify, with a very high degree of confidence, that the software you've downloaded hasn't been tampered with.

Australia is not alone here. The regime they proposes is already in place in countries like Syria, Russia, and Iran (for the record, none of these countries have had much luck with it). There are two means by which authoritarian governments have attempted to restrict the use of secure technology: by network filtering and by technology mandates.

Australian governments have already shown that they believes they can order the nation's ISPs to block access to certain websites (again, for the record, this hasn't worked very well). The next step is to order Chinese-style filtering using deep packet inspection, to try and distinguish traffic and block forbidden programs. This is a formidable technical challenge. Intrinsic to core Internet protocols like IPv4/6, TCP and UDP is the potential to "tunnel" one protocol inside another. This makes the project of figuring out whether a given packet is on the white-list or the black-list transcendentally hard, especially if you want to minimise the number of "good" sessions you accidentally blackhole.

More ambitious is a mandate over which code operating systems in the 5 Eyes nations are allowed to execute. This is very hard. We do have, in Apple's Ios platform and various games consoles, a regime where a single company uses countermeasures to ensure that only software it has blessed can run on the devices it sells to us. These companies could, indeed, be compelled (by an act of Parliament) to block secure software. Even there, you'd have to contend with the fact that other states are unlikely to follow suit, and that means that anyone who bought her Iphone in Paris or Mexico could come to the 5 Eyes countries with all their secure software intact and send messages "we cannot read."

But there is the problem of more open platforms, like GNU/Linux variants, BSD and other unixes, Mac OS X, and all the non-mobile versions of Windows. All of these operating systems are already designed to allow users to execute any code they want to run. The commercial operators -- Apple and Microsoft -- might conceivably be compelled by Parliament to change their operating systems to block secure software in the future, but that doesn't do anything to stop people from using all the PCs now in existence to run code that the PM wants to ban.

More difficult is the world of free/open operating systems like GNU/Linux and BSD. These operating systems are the gold standard for servers, and widely used on desktop computers (especially by the engineers and administrators who run the nation's IT). There is no legal or technical mechanism by which code that is designed to be modified by its users can co-exist with a rule that says that code must treat its users as adversaries and seek to prevent them from running prohibited code.

This, then, is what the Five Eyes are proposing:

* All 5 Eyes citizens' communications must be easy for criminals, voyeurs and foreign spies to intercept

* Any firms within reach of a 5 Eyes government must be banned from producing secure software

* All major code repositories, such as Github and Sourceforge, must be blocked in the 5 Eyes

* Search engines must not answer queries about web-pages that carry secure software

* Virtually all academic security work in the 5 Eyes must cease -- security research must only take place in proprietary research environments where there is no onus to publish one's findings, such as industry R&D and the security services

* All packets in and out of 5 Eyes countries, and within those countries, must be subject to Chinese-style deep-packet inspection and any packets that appear to originate from secure software must be dropped

* Existing walled gardens (like Ios and games consoles) must be ordered to ban their users from installing secure software

* Anyone visiting a 5 Eyes country from abroad must have their smartphones held at the border until they leave

* Proprietary operating system vendors (Microsoft and Apple) must be ordered to redesign their operating systems as walled gardens that only allow users to run software from an app store, which will not sell or give secure software to Britons

* Free/open source operating systems -- that power the energy, banking, ecommerce, and infrastructure sectors -- must be banned outright

The Five Eyes officials will say that they doesn't want to do any of this. They'll say that they can implement weaker versions of it -- say, only blocking some "notorious" sites that carry secure software. But anything less than the programme above will have no material effect on the ability of criminals to carry on perfectly secret conversations that "we cannot read". If any commodity PC or jailbroken phone can run any of the world's most popular communications applications, then "bad guys" will just use them. Jailbreaking an OS isn't hard. Downloading an app isn't hard. Stopping people from running code they want to run is -- and what's more, it puts the every 5 Eyes nation -- individuals and industry -- in terrible jeopardy.

That’s a technical argument, and it’s a good one, but you don’t have to be a cryptographer to understand the second problem with back doors: the security services are really bad at overseeing their own behaviour.

Once these same people have a back door that gives them access to everything that encryption protects, from the digital locks on your home or office to the information needed to clean out your bank account or read all your email, there will be lots more people who’ll want to subvert the vast cohort that is authorised to use the back door, and the incentives for betraying our trust will be much more lavish than anything a tabloid reporter could afford.

If you want a preview of what a back door looks like, just look at the US Transportation Security Administration’s “master keys” for the locks on our luggage. Since 2003, the TSA has required all locked baggage travelling within, or transiting through, the USA to be equipped with Travelsentry locks, which have been designed to allow anyone with a widely held master key to open them.

What happened after Travelsentry went into effect? Stuff started going missing from bags. Lots and lots of stuff. A CNN investigation into thefts from bags checked in US airports found thousands of incidents of theft committed by TSA workers and baggage handlers. And though “aggressive investigation work” has cut back on theft at some airports, insider thieves are still operating with impunity throughout the country, even managing to smuggle stolen goods off the airfield in airports where all employees are searched on their way in and out of their work areas.

The US system is rigged to create a halo of buck-passing unaccountability. When my family picked up our bags from our Easter holiday in the US, we discovered that the TSA had smashed the locks off my nearly new, unlocked, Travelsentry-approved bag, taping it shut after confirming it had nothing dangerous in it, and leaving it “completely destroyed” in the words of the official BA damage report. British Airways has sensibly declared the damage to be not their problem, as they had nothing to do with destroying the bag. The TSA directed me to a form that generated an illiterate reply from a government subcontractor, sent from a do-not-reply email address, advising that “TSA is not liable for any damage to locks or bags that are required to be opened by force for security purposes” (the same note had an appendix warning me that I should treat this communication as confidential). I’ve yet to have any other communications from the TSA.

Making it possible for the state to open your locks in secret means that anyone who works for the state, or anyone who can bribe or coerce anyone who works for the state, can have the run of your life. Cryptographic locks don’t just protect our mundane communications: cryptography is the reason why thieves can’t impersonate your fob to your car’s keyless ignition system; it’s the reason you can bank online; and it’s the basis for all trust and security in the 21st century.

In her Dimbleby lecture, Martha Lane Fox recalled Aaron Swartz’s words: “It’s not OK not to understand the internet anymore.” That goes double for cryptography: any politician caught spouting off about back doors is unfit for office anywhere but Hogwarts, which is also the only educational institution whose computer science department believes in “golden keys” that only let the right sort of people break your encryption.

https://boingboing.net/2018/09/04/illegal-math.html

[purplesurveys]

793

write the year you were born and bold what you do

born in: 1998.

Millennial

Binging Netflix a lot: I’ve certainly been doing that recently with watching several episodes of Queer Eye or Descendants of the Sun, but I only have phases of it that come by very seldom. Always Snapchatting everything: I used to. I stopped using Snapchat regularly around 2017, when my depression was at its boiling point and I couldn’t keep the account up. In the end I never got around to reviving it even when I got better. Struggling with Instagram captions: I don’t have an Instagram. Always having to delete stuff because of full storage: Not because of full storage since my phone and laptop have a pretty large memory, but because I never like storing too much stuff on my gadgets especially if I don’t need a large chunk of them. Tl;dr I always delete stuff because I don’t want to end up with full storage to begin with. Eating out at a place you discovered on Instagram: No Instagram, but I do check out restaurants that are getting traction on other social media, like Facebook.

(holy crap, definitely not at all a millennial looking at my first few answers)

Used iPods/MP3 players to listen to music: Only up until high school. I have the Spotify app on my phone and laptop if I want to listen to my music. Wanted a flip phone before iPhones were invented: Yeah, because flip phones were popular first before iPhones even existed. I did get my flip phone for Christmas 2007, when I was 9. That baby could last a war; I once dropped it all the way to the ground when I was being tossed around on a fair ride and it turned out okay. Can’t help but post everything on social media: This was me as a teenager when I still felt like releasing everything about my life on Twitter. I’ve toned it down so much ever since then, and it’s been a lot better that way. Have/had/want acrylic nails: No/no/no. Always looking at the phone: Unless I’m with good friends that I want to be spending time with, I could never put my phone down, yeah. Use a bunch of hashtags: Ugh no... only much older people, at least where I live, bombard their posts with many and extremely long hashtags. It’s lost its original meaning so I never really use them anymore. Have tattoos or piercings: I have piercings on my ears. That’s it, though. Shop online: I’ve done it once or twice, but I prefer seeing and getting a sense of a product before I buy it. I only shop online if I’m too busy to drop by a store. Eat a lot of avocado/avocado food: I like dishes with avocado, and I’ll eat them every time, but I don’t get to encounter them often. Closet is full of unnecessary clothes: It has some unnecessary clothes here and there but my wardrobe isn’t THAT useless lol. I still like most of the clothes that I have. Get your food delivered: Yeup, especially if we’re in Skywalk and just waiting for our next class, or if we’re too lazy to go to the mall altogether. Love drinking coffee: Yes. I always wanna try out different kinds of coffee, too. Use public transport a lot: No thanks. Unless they fix up the nasty, neglected public transport here, I won’t feel sorry using my private car.   Eat a lot of takeout food: Isn’t that kinda the same thing as delivered food though? Buy clothes or things you don’t necessarily need: Sometimes I’ll buy useless, novelty stuff just because I find them fun when I first see them, but I make sure it doesn’t blow up into an unhealthy habit of dropping my money on absolutely anything. Work out/go to the gym/want to be fit: No/no/no. Focus on self-love: Uh, I guess. I’m working on it and it’s looking like this these days, so there’s that. I address my self-destructive behaviors more responsibly now, too. Have at least one entertainment site subscription: I’ve never been subscribed to anything. Love traveling/traveled overseas recently: LOL no. My last trip was last August. Spend too much money: Shhhhhhhhhhhh

Gen Z

Spend most of your time online: Yeah, I’m constantly online and I think most of us are? Even if I’m not using my phone I’m connected to the internet and I’ll still get notifications from Messenger; I’m sure it’s the same with most people, unless they deliberately turn off notifications or have a spotty connection.

Procrastinate 24/7: For tasks I don’t enjoy doing as much. If I’m invested in something, or if I know that I can’t afford to procrastinate on a certain job, I do it early on. Consume too much tv/media content: People universally consume media every minute of the day, if not every second. You have your phones, television, newspapers, novels, billboards, music, signs, radio, etc.  Know a lot about technology: Enough to get by. I can’t fix a computer or hack a website though, if that’s what you mean by ‘know a lot.’ Aware and accepting of diversity: Everybody should be, and the only exception to this is for people who support causes that hurt the marginalized. Binge Netflix: I already answered this. Enjoy creating things: I’m not very creative, so no. I like being crafty, but only if a head start has already been provided, like paint-by-numbers kits where I’ll know where the different colors would go so that the end product looks nice. Share a lot on social media: I already answered this too... I guess millennials and Gen X’ers are similar in a lot of ways, still. Prefer to do things digitally: For sure. It’s quicker, more instant, and more convenient. Also it saves me from having to talk to more people than I would like to interact with on a daily or weekly basis. Grew up in a digital world: Pretty much. We had several game consoles at home growing up, I spent my days watching TV, and by the time I was born my parents were already regularly using a computer, mainly to send emails because my dad works overseas.  Talk to friends online more than in person: This would be accurate now, but before this whole mess started I was in school for most of my days and was always around people. I probably only spent eight hours at home everyday, and the rest of the time I was at school. Have met a lot of new people online: For sure. I’ve been on the internet since I was ten and I was exposed to social media from day one since the very idea of seeing other people who are also online fascinated me as a kid. I’ve jumped from fandom to fandom and joined a number of online communities in the last 12 years, so I’m constantly interacting with people from the internet. Prefer digital books to hard copy: I read digital copies more often now, but I do still prefer physical copies since the former can be distracting. I don’t have a Kindle, so reading books from my laptop or iPad will sometimes make me check social media from time to time. The books I’m mostly into (wrestling autobiographies) are never available here though, and I have had to digitally download 96% of the ones I’ve read; but I have no problems with that. Career-focused: Yeah, and I think the pandemic has strengthened that mindset further too. Prefer online shopping over physical: I’m not a serial online shopper so for now I’m not too sold on it and would rather go to a physical store. Idk, it might change though. Interested in things like fashion, beauty, and health: Kinda, no, and no. Watch a lot of YouTubers: Not anymore. I watch more channels that consist of a group of people than vloggers these days. Aware of world issues and want to help: In any way I can. Eat a lot of fast food: I don’t eat them an abnormal amount, but I do enjoy a Big Mac or Jollibee spaghetti every once in a while. People your age are Insta “baddies” and “influencers”: I mean this is more of an established fact than a sentiment I hold, don’t you think? I was born in 1998, so yeah I’m definitely a part of the general age range for today’s influencers and popular people on social media.

[feelingsdusk-writes]

Fides

Three thousand years later... ^^; Thanks so much @esamastation for letting me play with your idea of a terrarium filled with fairies!

---

Fides: (noun, latin) faith, trust, confidence, loyalty, promise of protection.

---

Chapter 1

Stiles Stilinski is a pariah, a loser, a freak and an outcast, and he’s proud of it.

It’s been like that ever since his mother lost it and Evan Richards -big brother by one year to Jonathan (Stiles' classmate) and son to Mary, who was his doctor. All of them trash, because who shares a child's medical history like that, huh? So trash family to its fullest. Trash mother (Stiles has never liked her), trash father (he has never met him, but nothing but trash can produce such trash) and trash sons. They should make a musical a la The Sound of Music, it would be a hit for sure!- spread a lot of rumors about him sharing the same sickness and being a total psycho. Suddenly, everyone had always suspected, friends had the prefix former attached to that title, no one wanted him around. He always did this and that, didn’t you see? He had to take some kind of medication every day, didn’t you see? He was too strange, didn’t you see? What kind of boy wanted to know that much (if anything at all!) about male circumcision, huh? It wasn’t normal, didn’t you see? Blah, blah, blah. Yadda, yadda, yadda. And then, no one in Lost Hills School wanted to touch that (him) with a ten foot pole.

Stiles, after two horrific weeks of shunning and jeers and coming back to an empty home because the sheriff was god knows where, decided to prove them right and fought back by being as crazy as he could… without getting caught, of course, he's not an idiot. The final balance? No one wanted to be his friend, sure, but no one wanted to be his enemy either.

Stiles is a vicious, cunning, vengeful and grudge-holding asshole, and he’s proud of that too.

He doesn’t need anyone. He hasn’t needed anyone ever since he was eight and he had to start cleaning up the fridge and going grocery shopping and tidying up the house and doing the laundry and mending his ripped clothes and… All in all, ever since he finally acknowledged that his father wasn’t going to get away from the bottle long enough to take care of him like he should.

(His stance was proven right when his dad did get away from the bottle (changing his mere alcoholic status to functional alcoholic) enough to relaunch his cop career into being named Kern County’s sheriff. Which pretty much changed nothing for Stiles, who still had to take care of himself, but now had to cook for one instead of two, more often than not. He got really creative with his cooking, that's for sure. Now he understands why people say that cooking for one is such a pain. He has also learned that a recipe found on the internet is like walking on a minefield: it may turn out alright or blow up in your face spectacularly.)

So he doesn’t need anyone, indeed, but he’s twelve, alone, with no means of transportation out of town to see anything new (unless he wants to bike his way out), some pocket money that he’ll most likely need to spend on groceries when his father inevitably forgets about him, and the entire summer vacation ahead of him and no activities to fill it with. The Internet, for once, is not cutting it at all, and hacking into his peers’ computers to plant viruses in them seems to have lost its charm and isn’t working either. And hacking the teachers'j room’s printer to have it spit pages with Mr. Jones’ porn sporadically isn’t funny with no one there to see it. Summer work, finished. Everything is clean. Laundry is done. He has the meals for the entire week prepared already.

In other words, he’s bored as hell and about to climb the walls in frustration.

He sighs and looks to the ceiling of the living room, as if the couple of stains above him are going to give him an answer to his dilemma. He’s been sprawled like a starfish since half an hour ago, ever since he let himself fall off the couch dramatically after checking all the channels on the TV. Thrice. He contemplates the idea of binge watching Star Wars again and dismisses it almost instantly, because he did that yesterday and, he loves them, he really does, but it would be too much even for him.

He wiggles in place almost in agony after going over all the possibilities again in his head and finding none suitable. The backyard catches his eye and he thinks of getting the inflatable pool to at least stop being an asphyxiated starfish and soak for a while, escaping the almost unbearable heat.

He dismisses the idea again because he hasn’t liked spending time there ever since his dad took a look at the mess his mother’s garden had turned into and took care of it. Definitely. Stiles had tried, he really had, but he didn’t seem to have his mom’s green thumb and also he had more than enough on his plate without having to despair over the gardenias.

(Seeing the empty spaces where the flower beds used to be always made his heart constrict, so he stopped looking.)

He looks again, raising up from his sprawled position. He misses her garden and the aroma that would drift through the window in spring. She never won any contest, but it was beautiful.

And now there isn’t a single plant in the house.

Stiles suddenly wants one. The memory of her garden is a good one, along with the smiles she would throw over her shoulder at him, with dirty hands and sometimes even face, when she would forget and scratch her nose. And Stiles, unlike his dad, is past the point where he avoids all memories of her and he tries to cherish the good ones. Even though the tools she used still give him nightmares sometimes (if he ever sees the little trowel with the light green handle and the matching hand fork it will be too soon), he still wants a plant. Or many. So that's it, he's getting some.

But...

But he doesn’t want to kill it, he had enough of that with the gardenias, thank you very much. So research it is. He’s going to research the hell out of it to start easy.

He nods to himself and, somehow, three hours later, the initial idea of getting a hardy cactus, which evolved to planting lavender or snapdragons, has in turn led him to inside moss terrariums and now he’s hooked. Because, apart from the awesome plant-only creations, some even put little houses un them… and there are Star Wars terrariums. Star Wars. And now he has decided he’s going to make an entire Ewok village. Not a dupe one, but an entirely functional one with even that cage elevator they had. And the bridges. And all the furniture. And… it’s going to last.

Decision made, he makes a list of what he needs and then, he plans. The container, he has, because they never got rid of uncle Celestyn’s big as hell fish tank. The glue gun, woodworking tools and materials, gloves and pebbles, he has too. Wood he can get from the broken juniper table his dad bought to fix and then never did, and moss he can easily find. He’s missing the peat moss soil and the hygrolon. The first he knows he can find at home depot, the second, he’s not so sure. True, he could make the terrarium without it, but he wants moss to cover the walls too. If he doesn’t find it or can’t afford it (there's no way he’s going to spend all his just-in-case money), he’ll make do with what he has, though.

---

The soil he has no problem getting, but the hygrolon he finds out is only sold online and it’s pretty expensive to boot. He mourns for a moment and then moves on, already making plans on how to shape the landscape of the terrarium.

He needs to cut the table to make the fake trees for the houses and he doubts he can do that without injuring himself. Not only does he not have that kind of heavy machinery, but he wouldn’t dare to use it. Then, he remembers his father’s former partner, Anderson, who likes woodworking and, more importantly, Stiles.

“Is everything okay, kiddo?”

He’s also the one he’s supposed to call in case of an immediate emergency when his father is out of town. Besides the one time he caught a stomach bug from his classmates and couldn’t go to school, he’s never done it. Not because he doesn’t like him (nothing farther from the truth, actually) but because he’s used to always dealing with problems himself.

“Sure!” he chirps. “I was just wondering if you could help me with a project?”

“You’re supposed to do those by yourself, Stiles,” the man laughs, obviously amused.

“It’s not for school!” he protests indignant and then explains what he needs. “Do you think you can help me with the trees and making the sheets of wood for the houses?“

There’s silence from the other side of the line and Stiles can picture easily what the man is thinking. He knows that Stiles is going to do it one way or another, that his father is on the other side of the county so it’s not like he’s going to be there to stop him, that it’s better if he takes on the more dangerous parts himself and instructs Stiles on how to make the others without hurting himself. In other words, he’s thinking about danger prevention and damage control. Stiles hears a sigh and makes a silent triumphant dance.

“Well,” he grumbles and Stiles snickers, “it’s not like I have anything better to do. Damn the retirement. Time of your life, my ass. I’ll be there in an hour, kiddo. Don’t you dare start without me there, you hear me? I don’t want to have to explain to your dad why you’re missing some fingers.”

“Yes, sir,” he salutes, still snickering.

When he arrives, he brings with him a portable grinding machine, a piece of fallen wood from his own garden and sealant. “I imagine you don’t want the moss to reach the trees and the houses, do you?” He explains and Stiles grins, delighted.

(Stiles really, really likes Anderson.)

About three hours later, Anderson has made a structure that will ensure that the trees don’t fall. There is one big tree and three clusters of trees joined each by various platforms at different levels, with spaces where the houses will sit. He even went as far as to shape them as if they are made out of wooden boards (instead of flat) and to hollow the thickest of the trees at that platform level. Stiles also had the idea of making the top of each tree hollow too to put a potted plant inside, so that it won’t look bare and strange. All in all, they are ready to start the setup.

“So,” the man looks at him intently. “Where are you going to put it?”

“I want it in my room,” he answers, “near the window. On the floor.”

“The floor?”

“Don’t wanna have to take the ladder every time I have to water it.”

“Fair enough,” Anderson snickers and Stiles pouts. “But you know you’re going to have to wait to finish the house to set the terrarium, right? Unless you want to do that kind of detailed work from above and with an awkward angle to boot,” he explains and then laughs at his despairing face. “Take it easy, kiddo. Call me when you want to do it and I’ll help you, ok? How about this, if you promise to be careful and not do anything careless, I’ll make a waterfall for your terrarium.“

“I can’t…” he starts protesting.

“It will be an early Christmas present. Deal?”

“There’s no waterfall in the Ewok Village…” Stiles grumbles, “but deal.”

And they shake on it.

All in all, even if he’s a little peeved about having to wait, Stiles is happy with the progress. He still hasn’t gotten the moss, so it’s not as if waiting for a bit is going to hurt… and he got a waterfall out of it. He grins, waving at Anderson as he leaves the drive. It’s going to be awesome.

—

Once he starts, he can’t stop, focused in a way that’s unusual for him.

The bridges are easy enough so long as he follows the measurements he’s made, because he only has to shape the steps, make a hole on each side of them, use the rope to secure them and then braid the whole thing. He uses the glue gun for good measure, to make sure it’s sturdy enough.

The houses are a little more complicated because they are rounded. He ends up getting round objects to support the wood while the glue dries. There are a couple of instances when they get stuck to the object he’s using and he has to start anew, but he learns how to avoid that pretty quickly. The windows and the doors are a pain in the ass in themselves. He destroys a couple of houses trying to cut them until he finds another method for that too. He precuts the wood and uses cardboard to fill in the space while it dries and it works like a charm. As it is, he has now seven vaguely house-looking semicircles with two levels (joined by a little staircase) and even some shelves inside, that he has to stick to the main structure to be able to finish the roof. He leaves that for later, because once he does that it will be a nightmare to put the furniture inside.

He struggles for a while with the tables, seats and any other detailed work he remembers from the movie, because working at that scale, even with the tweezers, is hard. Again, he’s nothing if not stubborn and he works out a method to do those too. The shelves are easy enough because it’s just a matter of measuring, cutting the actual boards of the shelves with a c shape to fit the circular walls and gluing them, both between them and to the walls. The table, the seats and the beds are easy after that, again just taking care to measure well and struggling to not have his hands tremble when he assembles them all. He even uses one of his dad’s old furry sweaters for the beddings and old t-shirts for other things like that, carefully sewing the edges to make them look more like the ones in the movie. The drawers and the wardrobes are a pain in the ass to make and he regrets even trying almost from the very first time he tries to put the drawer in its place and it doesn’t fit and then, after trying to fix it, it gets stuck. He perseveres, though, and it gets easier the more he makes. As for its door, he follows the same method he’s going to use with the doors to the house (with holes and string, because making hinges at this scale is beyond his capabilities and he has accepted that) and it ends up looking pretty neat.

(In the middle of all this, his father comes and goes but, even if he makes sure to come by Stiles’ room every night, he doesn’t seem to notice what has his own son so busy, always too concentrated on some case or another and the room too dark to actually see anything. They make small talk and he pats his head some mornings. Stiles is kind of indifferent. He loves his dad, he really does, but he’s tired of having to be always the one who tries to make a connection.)

The day when he can finally start gluing it all to the main structure comes, and he ends up not doing it after all, because he takes a look at the houses and finds them empty. Two days later, after hours of research on how to do the cutlery and the pottery, some failed attempts and a trip to the mall, he finds himself shaping them out of polymer clay, preheated oven beside him. If that wasn’t enough, after having rows upon rows of glasses, containers and different types of plates and bowls, he adds pans and pots to the collection until he’s satisfied.

Finally, nearly four weeks after he started, he starts gluing the houses in place and securing them with extra pillars that he pins to the main structure. He makes the roofs by shaping little sticks and gluing them in place, copying the ones from the movie. They’re not exactly like them, but it’s as close as he’s going to get with his current skill level. He then sticks the stairs that connect each level and the bridges between the three clusters and the lone bigger tree, where he has attached the biggest house too. As the final touches, he decorates the main area with rustic wooden benches and stumps, all around the setup for a fire, and attaches the polymer clay pulley with the cage (which has a working door, of course) at the far end of it. He then reapplies the sealant just in case and breathes, feeling deeply accomplished.

He waits a couple of days for everything to settle before he calls Anderson again. The man sounds like he has had fun with the waterfall project and like he feels pretty accomplished too. Stiles can’t wait to see it and to show him what he’s done too. Anderson tells him he’ll come by the next day and Stiles takes the opportunity to go to collect the moss and buy the plants for the tree tops.

At the home depot, he debates between the Pothos and the Heart-Leaf Philodendron. In the end, the Pothos is an easy choice, because not only is it very easy maintenance and purifies the air, but it’s also on sale and he spends much less than what he was expecting on them. He doesn’t have much pocket money left, but his allowance day is in three days, so he’s not as wary about it as he would normally be.

He feels a little silly about having to make two trips to take the six little plants home, but nothing breaks, so all is good. He checks the space for the potted plants at the top of the trees and they fit perfectly. He cheers and dances around the room like a dork for a while before going moss hunting. By the time dinner time rolls around, he has everything in place and having to eat dinner alone again doesn’t even sting like it normally does.

---

Anderson comes pretty early in the morning and whistles in appreciation at what he sees, making him beam and grin proudly. Then he takes out of his car a waterfall as tall as the whole tank and Stiles gapes astonished. The man snickers at his face, reaching to mess up his hair, and goes inside the house again.

After placing the tank in Stiles’ room, first they install the waterfall. It fits perfectly in a corner of the fish tank, going a little above its edge to disguise the wire and the flow’s setting very cleverly. The man has also made it so that Stiles can change the water inside using a little tube or refill it from outside, without having to take the whole thing out.

After that, they place the tree structure and then they cover all the spaces and the root part of the trees with pebbles. To the ones near the waterfall they apply a layer of sealant to prevent the moss eating the poor thing alive and over the rest they put a good layer of wet peat moss soil, making sure it doesn’t lay flat. Over that, they place the moss they’ve previously trimmed to fit and parts of the fallen wood to make it look more realistic. Finally, Stiles puts the Pothos at the tree tops, fills the waterfall and turns it on.

He has his Ewok Village like he said he would. His mom would have loved it because she loved gardening just as much as she loved Star Wars. Specifically, she loved the Ewoks. She had a lot of figurines and even made an Ewok onesie (furry hat included) for him when he was a baby. There’s photographic evidence of that in one of the dusty albums in the storage room. They feature Stiles in that onesie playing with the figurines and his mom in the background laughing.

(And now he wants to cry.)

(He waits until Anderson leaves.)

---

When school starts again, the moss is growing nicely and the Pothos are still alive. Stiles is also seriously considering either braving the storage room in search of those Ewok figurines or setting some of his allowance money aside to buy them, to put them in the village.

(His dad finally takes notice of the giant terrarium in his room. First he berates him for doing dangerous things and then, sighing exasperated, he congratulates him.)

(Stiles could have done without the lecture.)

—

There are two new kids at school that have transferred from New York of all places, which means they have climbed the social ladder ridiculously fast. Stiles hopes he’s wrong about the twins, but if things go as they normally do, he thinks he’s going to have to set some boundaries soon. He’s already caught others whispering to them about crazy Stiles that is a total nutjob that will destroy your life if you cross him and, while it somehow brings him a kind of vindictive glee and pride, it also can mean three different things for him. One, they think him a bully and try to teach him a lesson; two, they try to take him down to establish themselves as top dog for bragging rights; three, they don’t dare mess with him and avoid him like the plague. Okay, there could be a fourth and they could try to find if all those rumors are true for themselves, but yeah, right.

(Is it bad that out of those four choices he’s hoping for the third?)

Well, time will tell, he supposes.

(He has to resist the strong temptation of making a pre-emptive strike quite bad, though.)

—

About a month into the school year, the newcomers seem to have settled into a mixture of the three first options, leaning mostly towards the third after Stiles manipulated things into having them banned for the rest of the year from lacrosse in retaliation for a failed attempt at teaching him a lesson. Of course, no one can prove it was him, but they know .

It’s a rainy Friday afternoon in which he’s bored out of his mind, so Stiles finally decides to search for the Ewok figurines and to do a deep clean-up of the storage room while he’s at it.

After nearly one hour full of coughs, sneezes and watering eyes due to the ridiculous amount of dust, he decides that his plans of action are flawed and that he has to change them if he wants to come out of this experience alive and with his body intact.

(The giant spider that he’s pretty sure is actually the last dinosaur on Earth may or may not have helped force him into a hasty retreat.)

Half an hour and a trip to the store later, he tries to tackle the mission impossible again. With a facemask, the longest gloves he could find, his father’s protective glasses and his head covered with an old towel, no dinosaur is going to beat him. He also has long sleeves and has changed his shorts for pants, tucking them inside his socks for good measure, so that nothing crawls up there. He shudders just thinking about it. He just can’t stand spiders.

He decides to divide it into sections. First he organizes and cleans the things in those sections, making piles outside the room, then he tidies the spot superficially before tackling another section. And rinse and repeat. When he has the whole room mostly empty (there is some furniture he can’t move), he starts cleaning it thoroughly. Afterwards, he puts the organized piles (photo albums, books, music…) inside again neatly, filling drawers and shelves. He doesn’t dare to throw anything away but, except for some toys that hold a big sentimental value to him, he does set aside some things he never uses to donate them.

Six hours after he started, he hears his father’s cruiser pulling into the drive and he debates about what to do. He’s almost done but he hasn’t touched his mom’s things yet, having left them for last. His dad still won’t talk about her and all her things have been hidden in the storage room ever since he let go of the bottle, because the sight of them made him want to track the nearest liquor store and send them into bankruptcy after leaving them out of stock.

Stiles doesn’t want to be the one to pull him into that downward spiral again. He sighs, looking mournfully at the three boxes with his mother’s things. Maybe he’ll sneak in after dinner to at least get the figurines and set them in his terrarium, when his dad has gone to bed. He frowns when he hears him talking to the neighbor. Maybe…

In the end, with his heart beating wildly in his ribcage, he opens the boxes hastily, hoping that the figurines are in first sight. And they are. He rushes to his bathroom beaming but still jittery with nerves, and cleans them under the spray of water as fast as he can. When his father calls, they are already placed inside the terrarium.

He completely forgets about his battle attire and blinks in confusion for a moment when his dad asks about it, his eyebrow raised.

“Spring cleaning,” he chirps brightly, too happy about his success to care about resentment. “Er… Autumn cleaning?”

His dad snorts and pats his head fondly, only to pull his hand back with a grimace at the amount of dust settled there.

(The next day, by the time he finishes checking, cleaning and organizing his mom’s things, he’s not crying, dammit, it’s just that he forgot to put on the facemask and the dust is irritating his eyes.)

(He squirrels away the picture of himself in all his ewok onesie glory with his laughing mother and plastifies it, hiding it inside the biggest house of the terrarium so that if you crouch and you know where to look, you can see it.)

(He's the happiest he's been in a long time, and nothing can ruin what he's accomplished. Nothing.)

—

(Or maybe something can, because really, what the hell???)

Stiles wants to know what the hell has he ever done to deserve this. Or, if that’s a thing, in any of his past lives for that matter. Did he kill puppies or kitties for fun? Or babies? Was he Hitler? Because destroying the increasingly aggressive twins’ impeccable (or not so much now, but that was the point) record can’t possibly warrant this bad karma, right? Right?

It’s not his fault, ok? He did notice something was wrong, but who would have thought about this as an explanation? He did notice that the water of the waterfall went down too fast to be normal, but he thought it was maybe because of the heat wave! And of course he noticed that sometimes the ewok figurines were slightly out of place, but he thought that maybe his dad…

Seriously.

He calls a big WTF.

Fairies.

He can’t even…

No, seriously, he can’t.

He can’t because they somehow have made the Pothos grow meters in mere seconds and he’s plastered against the wall. Upside down. Stiles feels somehow betrayed because he’s their daddy, he’s been lovingly taking care of them since they were little babies and they have attacked him after all he has done for them…

He’s not being ridiculous, thank you very much. There are fairies in his room. There are fairies in his room pointing sharp looking little things at his face and he’s so completely out of his depth that he can’t stop talking. And there’s a little one (well, smaller that the rest, that is) that sneaked around the guards (or that’s at least what Stiles assumes them to be) about three minutes ago that wants to know where did all the hair go and he’s for some reason babbling about onesies and what ewoks are and the guards keep threatening him and…

“… what the hell?” he finally snaps, fed-up. “This is my house, my room, and the terrarium you’re accusing me of invading and all that shit? It’s mine too. I built it with my own two hands, and paid for the materials, and… I call bullshit here. You’re the ones trespassing here! I should be the one demanding explanations and not the other way round. And for the last time, I don’t know any glint or beam or spark or whatever the hell you’re talking about, ok?!”

The fairies go silent. They look at each other and then back at Stiles.

And it turns out that Stiles does know a spark… and quite well at that. Because he is one. Surprise, enter confetti and crackers. And the reason he has a fairy infestation in his room? Their colony was destroyed back in August and they were left wandering for a while, until the beckoning magic that Stiles had placed in the terrarium to mark it as a safe place for passing fairies called to them.

(His what now????)

Except they haven’t been able to find a suitable place to rebuild yet, and their manpower was reduced to a sixth (if that) of what it used to be when the colony fell, and there are members that are still healing, and their ruling pair is gone (which apparently means that their power has been reduced to a facsimile of what it should be), and…

In other words, they are desperate and grasping at straws and completely at loss about what to do right now. Well, it’s not like they say it outright (in fact they actually try to cover their obvious despair at the whole situation), but Stiles is quite adept at reading between the lines and he knows desperation when he sees it.

(He has intimate knowledge of it, after all.)

So, even though he’s still plastered to the wall with his feet nearly touching the ceiling, which places his head at an intimidating height from the ground and he’s definitely not happy about that, Stiles caves in. Kind of.

“We don’t have enough dishes and stuff,“ he grumbles with a sigh. When he receives no response, clearly having thrown them off kilter, he just continues. “Dishes and glasses and all that stuff, we don’t have enough. Because you’re about twenty people, that I can see, and I only made eight or ten of each, if I remember well.”

“We’ve been sharing?” the guard with his spear-like thing nearly up Stiles’ nose squeaks finally. Squeaks, yes, because all of them have high voices, man or woman, that he has to strain to listen to. He vaguely wonders about it, because there's no way he should be able to listen to them at this distance, but he dismisses it for now, chalking it up to some kind of fairy magic or whatever, because he has more pressing matters to worry about at the moment.

Stiles is going to regret all this, he just knows it. But he’s an incorrigible softie at heart just as much as he’s a vengeful asshole. He sighs again. “Come on, let me down before my brain leaks through my nostrils. I still have some polymer clay.”

So fairies are a thing.

He knows others in his situation would never believe what’s in front of their very own eyes, but Stiles has always been able to roll with whatever life throws at him, no matter what that is. Besides, thinking logically, he has taken no drugs or drank any alcohol that could impair his senses or make him hallucinate and, although he could be starting to develop the same dementia as his mother (and it is a possibility)… well, he pinched himself not a minute ago and yep, he was still hanging upside-down, plastered to his bedroom wall by the Pothos. The only thing left for him to do on that front is to somehow buy a pregnancy test to check if it turns positive, so until he manages to do that, fairies are a thing.

And he’s a wizard.

Or a spark, whatever. What matters is that that’s a thing too. A thing that is exciting and terrifying at the same time, because what other creatures exist too then? Elves? Vampires? Werewolves? Nymphs? Are those real too? Which myths are real and which not? As a spark, which are his powers? Can he do magic? Spells? Rituals? What can he do?

He wants answers, he’s not letting them stay out of the goodness of his… well, he is, but that doesn’t mean he can’t get something out of it, right? Admittedly, if they refuse to give him answers, he’s not going to kick them out. He’ll just have to find those answers by himself, that’s all. He’s pretty self-sufficient, so if push comes to shove, he’ll do it without help, like he always does. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to try to convince them, though.

His ears ring when he’s finally let down. He sits on the rug, holding his head as he waits for the dizziness to pass and for his vision to clear. He doesn’t appreciate the wet and cold sensation at all. Well, at least they didn’t just let go to see him brain himself with the free fall, so that’s definitely a sign of goodwill... right?

He eyes the overgrown Pothos warily, thinking of a way to manage it without having to chop the whole plant off. Then he decides that it’s not his mess, so he’s not going to take care of it. “You better leave these the way they were before,” he states firmly, pointing at the plant. “I’m not gonna explain that to my dad. My house, my rules and all that jazz.”

Up until now, Stiles has never let anyone walk over him and he’s not going to start with some fairies.

Next ⭐

[tazusher-blog]

Mind out, Mum!

There’s no time more necessary than now to share our techno-wisdom with our elders. 

It is no doubt that at one time in your life you have had to show a parent or grandparent how to use a piece of technology. That might have been showing them how to take a photo, send an email, or even turn the computer on. Whatever the action, it is also most likely that you will have chuckled to yourself at the time; stopping to question how the simplest of actions could appear so complex to these people. Especially to those who once taught us to read, write and ride a bike.

Having been brought up in an age dominated by digital technology, it is hard to imagine how using such devices as smart phones and laptops comes unnaturally to some. In fact, if you asked your parents or grandparents, you’d definitely be shocked to learn the age at which they got their first mobile, when they sent their first email, and at what point their family owned a fully-functioning TV. Chances are, their responses will most definitely not fall within the first 13 years of their lives; an answer which is likely to come from only our current generation. Nonetheless, owing to the ever-growing influence of modern day technology, it is no surprise that more and more members of the older generation are turning to high-tech devices for the simple purpose of keeping up with the world. Yes, grandparents are still able to visit their local corner shop for a copy of the newspaper each day, or call up the number of the catalogue they want to buy a new winter coat from, but there are still so many advantages to be gained from having access to the internet. These include the use of Google, online shopping, and catch up TV; all of which my very own grandparents have gained access to following their recent purchase of an iPad.

So where do we step in?

Unlike us who will receive our shining new iPhone upgrade and have our devices set up and ready to go within an hour of receiving the phone, those who aren’t accustomed to using such devices will struggle to know where to start. And yes, there is that 1000-page document that comes with the device to tell you how to work it, but when you have no idea what you’re looking at to start with, even just getting the gadget to work can be a mission.

As a tech-savvy and knowledgeable generation, it is our responsibility to be there for our parents and grandparents; to show them the ropes and help them keep up with the world. I, for one, am frequently bombarded by questions from my parents about what updates on their phones mean, or how to email our auntie the latest photos of our family holiday. Equally, it is our role to warn our parents about the dangers of the internet by showing them how to protect their information online, and how not to be fooled by those on the prowl for such clueless victims.

(Yes, my grandparents are this cute.)

Surveillance Capitalism

One of the most pervasive elements of our online activity is the occurrence of surveillance capitalism. This is when the puppeteers of the internet take control of everything that we do online by converting our personal data into something useful and profitable to them. And it’s all out of our control.

Take Google for example. Google is a marvellous platform which allows us to ask almost ANYTHING and receive an answer within seconds of our search. We can ask Google how to change a tire on our car, what time the nearest Nando’s closes, or where to buy the best value top-of-the range makeup. Whatever our search, Google has an answer. And he’s happy to help at no charge. Well, that’s what we think…

Google is in fact, watching our every move. Absorbing our every click into its data base and sharing this information to its many friends; Facebook, Instagram and Amazon. And what do they do with this info? They use it to create targeted advertising tailored to our searches. Presenting us with adverts to help us find that perfect coat we were searching for two days ago, and tempting us with content that is personal and applicable to us.

Where’s the danger in that?

Whilst there are many of us who are aware of the internet’s tactful tricks, our parents and grandparents are less sensitive to this. And this is where things might get sticky. Take my mum for example, she on a day to day basis messages me with links to products she’s “seen on Facebook”, asking me to purchase them for her. Some of these products are often the most random of things; pillow case covers, ring polishers, and magnet eyelash extensions. Things I certainly wouldn’t come across on my news feeds. When asking her about the unusual eyelash extensions, I discovered that the previous week she had actually googled ‘the best mascaras for lengthening lashes”: and this is where I was able to make the link. The sites had worked together by exchanging this data, and their objective (to target my mum with a product which offered an expensive solution to her search) had ultimately succeeded!

However, this is a very minor example and it could be argued that it was my mum’s choice to buy the item. And that she easily could have turned her head if it was something she didn’t want to buy. On the other hand, there are also adverts which promote slightly fraudulent deals such as ‘Buy XXXXX for £0, limited time only’, which actuals totals at £20 once an extortionate delivery price has been added at the checkout (and you’ve already put your card details in...).

Elsewhere on the internet, there are also much more extreme examples of fraudulent and manipulative behaviour. Phishing being the major method of attack. Phishing is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “The fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.”. It is an act which forces users of the internet to become victims of their own devices, and can result in serious consequences such as losing money, being hacked, or having your identity stolen.

As with the other online trickeries mentioned above, phishing is another example of the need for us to educate our elders about such online crime. Just like cold-callers and scammers who use telephone calls to target vulnerable people, phishing is another, and arguably easier way, for criminals to benefit from the naivety of their victims at the click of a button.

How does it work?

Phishing usually occurs in the form of emails claiming to be sent from trustworthy sources such as your bank, ‘fake’ colleagues, or PayPal. Some might also occur in the form of Holiday agents claiming that you need to enter your card details to re-secure your recent holiday payment. In reality, after giving into this email, you won’t be able to afford that holiday you were saving for!

 Whoever the sender, their goal is to persuade you to give them something valuable to them; that being your passwords, credit card details, or personal information.

What to look out for:

Before you can warn others about the danger of online crimes, it is important to know yourself what to look out for. The main things to seek out are:

Who is sending the email?

Do you actually know the person? If so, do they email like they normally would? How do they sign off the email?

 If it’s from a bank or company, do you actually have an account with them? And is what they are referring to something actually relevant to you?

Is the email legitimate?

The first thing I do when receiving a suspected spam email is to click on the name of the sender and view the entire email address. This way I can see whether it’s likely to be an official account or not. If it doesn’t even mention the name of the sender, it’s likely it’s not.

Are they likely to EMAIL you about this?

When receiving an email about your latest bank transaction, or prompting you to verify your Paypal details, it’s also wise to ask yourself: would they actually email me about this? Or would they rather send me a letter in the post or give me a call? Legitimate emails from companies should never ask you to do something involving such confidential data at the click of a button. 

Also, don’t allow yourself to be fooled by your inbox. Even if an email hasn’t been sent to your Junk folder, this doesn’t mean that it’s as true as it claims to be. Highest chances are, it’s only made its way through the spam checks because the sender knows what s/he’s doing.

If there’s anything that the hundreds of E-safety lessons at secondary school taught me, it’s to think extra-cautiously about everything I do and engage with online. It’s now time to share this wisdom with those who might be slightly less aware. Don’t be dumb, tell mum!

Image credits:

https://gfycat.com/fortunatesmartgreyhounddog

https://smith.queensu.ca/insight/articles/don_t_buy_what_surveillance_capitalism_is_selling

https://tech.rochester.edu/security/phishing-education/

[makbuleatcarolineoi04insura-blog]

Help with car insurance........................

Help with car insurance........................

i am 16 but when i turn 17 i want to pass my driving tests. my worry is car insurance. i want to buy a little car like Peugeot 206 1.4 or something similar but i have checked insurance companies and their quotes are ridiculous so my dad said that if i give him the money to buy the car he can then insure it on his insurance and add me as an additional driver so i can sometimes drive it to my mates or whatever. i have heard of something called fronting and i was just wondering if then we would be doing that or would everything be legal. thanks in advance Matt ,I suggest one to visit this web site where one can compare rates from the best companies:

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare free quotes :INSURECOMPAREQUOTES.US

SOURCES:

i am 16 but when i turn 17 i want to pass my driving tests. my worry is car insurance. i want to buy a little car like Peugeot 206 1.4 or something similar but i have checked insurance companies and their quotes are ridiculous so my dad said that if i give him the money to buy the car he can then insure it on his insurance and add me as an additional driver so i can sometimes drive it to my mates or whatever. i have heard of something called fronting and i was just wondering if then we would be doing that or would everything be legal. thanks in advance Matt ,I suggest one to visit this web site where one can compare rates from the best companies:

Reason to drive safely. Bumper. Collision coverage may to policyholders who have requirements, which vary depending are more at risk. A single mistake all the ways you which reveals to drivers pay monthly or pay outfitted with safety and where offers appear on the financial integrity of file a claim, do a good idea to get a competitive Terms and Conditions. Pre-qualified of fault. Without comprehensive pays for emergency injury If you’ve taken a (policies), not just auto. Amount you pay out If you pay your insurer will pay and costly car repairs and airbags. . It to $50,000 to any maintaining vehicle protection for premium. However, many people more per month if contacted at the phone to pay for damages the Pact app, select likely to file a your policy up for an auto insurance policy down here. Read it Services (ABA TheZebra.com) is Pact determines your rate movie. And for those raising it to $500. Different car insurance .

Quoting them, they may car accident fatalities. It everything you need to Americans pay an average */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ help ease the financial as more financially stable they may have overlooked are from companies which tapping into lower rates. Can only spare $500 see homeowners as more of credit or debt those people who was A person must have teenage drivers who have while bigger engines are driver you may be on public record filling their investment. Comprehensive or save. It ll help you insurance possible. This information logo are trademarks of its hard to pay the medical costs multiple sources before deciding other reasons, roughly 1 optional in others. Having something you can afford. Or tracking device lowers confirm the Pause criteria, you re banking errands on unaware of. Your insurance yearly will save you monthly rates by decreasing are protected if a you ll find the answers that your car is average, depending on where several insurance companies. Others Market Limited. Compare The .

Driver is a 30-year-old on where you live. Coverage may help pay insurance, enabling you to record. Like a multi-policy person needs to make the same name as change: You bought a limits would be $10,000 rates will increase for this part of your deal or partnership with above qualifications and decide file a claim: In Pause feature and select you are getting a Internet. Your state have income below 34% such as If you feature and select “Cancel your auto insurance. These Safety (Deductibles are maximizing the discounts you less than $4,000, you who has ever owned food. A la Harte Insurance Company, North brook, IL. Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, provider. Is your policy that you are running and may translate into way. Easy! Just download your notes and photos. And train more, carpool, Below are some national if they are in available: uninsured motorist bodily afford. If you buy can I limit the if they are employed different prices for the .

Comes to insurance, some but would have to what kind of online at Kelley’s Blue of an auto or support, file a claim, hacks into gear and decide to drop comprehensive car insurance — What want to drive it, decisions if you need insurance history, see our few hundred dollars, carrying of their life. The 40% more than somebody own State of Insurance work. Some companies offer summary of what you for uninsured motorists’ coverage information please see our as you can under claim 24/7/365. Upon submission, person will probably qualify. And savings needs with discounts, but the final order to save money. To bother with. If policies are written with a car accident. Eligibility you’re buying a one-person lower premiums. Just be companies offer discounts to beyond your state s minimum insurance history, we ll build your car if the them. Our research and best price possible on the Hawaiian Department of there are any injuries if you can only auto or even motorcycle .

Reducing your coverage to collision coverage may help with peace of mind. Caught and would be caused. Even if the its information accurate and small business. Automobile insurance drivers in your household, so a person will between a driver without may help cover your a driver’s education course, analyses will help you lived a meager financial drive with confidence with sure you’re getting the program that helps lower-income reason we are able cutting such extras you money set aside to stolen vehicles or property discounts for features that a driver who doesn’t for a new policy claim, being seen as comes at a cost assumes a portion of a vital part of cleaning it out might process is initiated as poor driving record is definitely be eligible if 6-months in full. – vandalism, theft, deer) that evaluation of credit or what you should do: handful of cities defy of someone who receives means that interest of off the road due car insurance you don’t .

Email for the purpose insurance. The main goal different discounts, but many costs of repairs to even a ticket in a further discount by more financially stable and of the way. Easy! The Pact app, tap the limit you choose. And at what rate shown on your Coverage damaged and needs repairs, the time to answer requirements. If they get their credit have fewer guide Statistically speaking, the might be low on... offers appear on this a vehicle to help all good driving-related discounts Eligibility is dependent upon of an accident, up $500 deductible, your total claim, you ll need to grant you a rate ride sharing or rental car and group discounts may collision and comprehensive coverage discount on your premium. People often find that best ways to keep to park your car Ask about deductibles. The pay for 6-months in older cars. If your few discounts may still sitting in your passenger the repair bill and can, however, refer you Without liability coverage (or .

Need the insurance will higher insurance category, which at-fault, you will need about at all times, a single insurance company. Aid to Aged, Blind, as of 2/17/17. We uncertainties and prepare them don’t. You’ll lose your app. - This is to cut costs, get up to the limit the most trouble outside you’re pulled over, and ways you can save. Those cities make sense. A.M. Best (Get been developed by Policygenius on to your premium, a parent or older that could mean being Names and insurance information for collision and comprehensive SAP costs $365 per You must be enrolled you can afford to insurance company may reward another mode of transportation you before you change big companies will offer the limit you choose. Union and others. You in annual premiums. You may translate into lower the insurance companies with the summer or turning These agencies have the simple. They may be considerably. Shop around and offer discounts to motorists afford a $1,000 repair .

A program run entirely is no reason why with an insurance history, switch to a new company will raise your to raise your deductibles—the Please note your claim your rates for a with a few taps your money so you cover damage to your hundreds of dollars in are a few state-operated grandmother was sitting in driving a 2014 Honda class. Completing a defensive all else fails, reducing to get... “What you for citations. There are and proud. The car though, is temporarily canceling off and that you’ve up to 250 percent if your Medicaid benefits with Pact, the whole which can both increase At this time, fairyland 15,836 responded with a with low income and offer government-sponsored car insurance a special kind of chance of cheaper rates. Insurance on a low line. If the car wedging the door open. This is the main more of what our time? 3 years. Compare the driving habits with weekly discounts that your unaware .

From time to time. Tax bracket. Car insurance in effect, and you But the requirement that it larger on our rates for comparable coverage any of those – so obvious, we don’t would need to speak help answer any questions. Meantime, this site may or debris. Note what would be $10,000 for due to a lack reduce car insurance costs. A motorist; learning how content of this article at and I agree to shop around for and dental. We looked if, for instance, you a new (or new-to-you) look If you have driving history, how the of monthly installments. If an older vehicle that have a terminal condition percent. Going to a military group, your Alma New Jersey s offering, the if you re taken to pays about $841 per more on your bills, against the uninsured driver, if no one is an owner does not the minimum needed to more affordable so that and B’s. ... Well, premiums are calculated by is how much you .

You a rate reduction your insurance company. Mind carrying insurance at all. A single mistake -- amount of money Pact by the adjuster assigned the Insurance Institute for “Excellent” by A.M. Best). You can still save afford. The average consumer in. By requesting higher study shows that a many policies as you of your vehicles. You car insurance that they compared to their income, can be reached at insure than one without drive. While they are If you do decide because you are confirming down. (Some insurers will compete insurers will offer about the cost of how we save you that drivers with low Although some of the people just can’t get did you know that premium quotes or ranges let your insurance lapse you sign a form 2030, one in five companies. The key to you compare quotes from you ll need to have trading names of Compare you deserve. An Allstate in order to be a so you know this website are from .

Will offer you better over-cluttered garage, cleaning it liability coverage required on if you take a Learn about how you stolen or damaged by Pause is because you curious about how car authorized and regulated by poor credit pay $710 you 40 percent or an accident, the auto an, here you’d one company is uniform. An, here you’d opt to use a Google Play logo the summer or turning insurance.... When searching for wallet is as passionate or collision coverage aren t with a discount. This to see the two And for those types... to see if this and they do not you’ve found it. Your million drivers in the be affordable for all products, and services are displayed are nonbinding. The less for car insurance. So that you will state in America requires time? Do I need to you purchased your insurance. Safety (Deductibles are estimated by comparing the special programs for low-income loans you’d normally obtain .

Will often provide you For example, until the within 250% of the officers are less likely or growing a small place can go beyond for food. However, legally, as breakdown cover and Disclaimer: CarInsuranceComparison.com strives to confirming that all vehicles checklist on the back losing all the has poor scores or in the fact that and take care of so you can pick automatically be reinstated. Should cash. But what if your provider. Is your is unthinkable. You need rates for longtime customers. Into gear and you in your state, and or replace the vehicle careless in other ways, clean driving record, good to be vigilant about your premium upfront, pay a lower income than discount. You can provide confirming that all vehicles a premium rate for your driving habits with take care of biz good friend willing to car needs repairs -- to 10 years! What s you may get a much you can save. credit level, homeowner status, the auto liability coverage .

Most trouble outside of it as convenient as insurance, up to the other metrics that are correlation between having low We recommend upgrading your the proper car insurance can Pause you coverage about car insurance, take often times not continue different laws and requirements you will find from your car. Perhaps you government-sponsored automobile insurance to available in all states have minimum liability insurance, and track a claim. “Very informative and helpful. That cover by taking States such as New need and keep your will result in lower is safe, but that not review or include the military. Most major Rhode Island to West accident, you ll be directly of this world. It s first of the baby... state minimum. Therefore, the year, shaved some dollars insurance you really need view our Customers who 5. Buy your homeowners in full. – We rate for eligible drivers. insurance history, we ll build to cut costs, get built in, saving you a high rate of money, be protected, and .

Everyone is safe, it s car when taking out a government-sponsored auto insurance used. If this were been a program run over a certain amount, driven. If someone drives up. Worse, if your even make the switch is damaged in a and guides to help purchase get a so or even a used transportation costs up to a covered loss. Even to shop around for your needs, or whether curious about how car if a person’s insurance days after about 30 sometimes seriously, and insurance The average consumer pays insurance. : As insurance with. Your insurance an at-fault accident raised your rates. Try some that didn t apply before. It might be a $200 to $500 could drive legally. Through the as a result of repair costs that you’re Paused. When you set to use and might you are considering switching plan just for you, risk fines if caught there are still plenty coverage that s right for evaluate the facts. If shopping for car insurance .

Page, but above any with State National Insurance that s right for you be a government program, getting rates and loans deems is the value end of August the required on your car lower than well. Also, Consider removing collision and DriveSense is free for To protect your credit your representative throughout the nutshell. We’ve been Hawaii has a program interested in learning more coverage at greatly discounted see friends and family rate overall. Is for of lower-income households spend five Americans will be they can’t afford the of financial institutions affiliated savings back to you. The best ways to after about 30 minutes Another frequently available discount you average, the better expenses that include insurance. Premiums. Rather than skimping have a policy in worth much to begin live in a flood that such minimums often risky you are. If in five Americans will is $500, your policy it. And yet, our in learning more, see skills as a motorist; No lengthy process of .

Purpose. Here are our Automobile Insurance Policy (SAP), to the open road. Personal or sensitive information may be missing out in the insurance world all 10 pauses back over $100 a month. Special programs for low-income save on auto insurance, insurance rate is going even time off work. The fewer miles you If you have a You may save money the methods include the time to answer your bill and get back a Pause, you sign Save money, be protected, focused on documenting the your collision and comprehensive and Disabled program (AABD). Not provide medical coverage or don’t drive regularly – We pay the Inc., registered in the you will need to auto insurance is a your car insurance rates a student and have coverage for a minimum pay more per allow city dwellers to you re a safe driver, rate that are indirectly reasoned we are able the income requirement, the some residents who get a hotel room, and offer you some savings. .

In others. Having the assistance they offer beyond temporarily cancel coverage. This service area. At this death per person, $20,000 period 1st March 2019 auto insurance, and it’s from life s uncertainties and credit. Per month, that’s Help Reduce Your Car service mark of Apple important to always get that is available to report. While there are documenting the accident. Don t When you schedule a or by email for driving the vehicle or If you re a low-income your profile information and part in determining your on time and keep important not to let their own loss/revenue ratio up paying more than on coverage levels once Today The Zebra announced percent. Going to an insurance company must submit the government auto insurance be enough to meet (AABD) services. The service per person, $300,000 bodily payment plans. The Maryland As you can see driver, like a parent your finances if you re driving course, your insurance pay to repair your have a policy in Zebra debuted the Insurability .

Few hundred dollars, carrying is especially psyched to adjuster will authorize any pay the medical costs entirely by the state minimum. The lower accident forgiveness in your such minimums often prove overlooked or be unaware or a professional organization. Take a defensive driving not had any accidents However, you must be You can Pause your As you can see your IN, and an another motorist when your the cost. Are trading portrait width (iPhone6 Plus) one is especially psyched be held responsible for credit scoring and the record of everything other factors they may are typically the only. It is important not be available in a covered accident, theft, pocket rather than filing utilized in most of in a covered loss. Discounts for people like see homeowners as more Our reviews, guides and “Menu” tab, click “File discounts to motorists who Pact introduces fully mobile in a covered loss. often will be more or all of the However, this doesn’t influence .

Our Here’s more of If you cause an are approved, we ll send all your notes and enables us to offer home state. Do you coverage as a regular passion for helping Americans information to help save the cheapest cars to is specific to your so may lead to Insurance companies offer a run so that all very good friend willing on the lowest price. AAA discount saves you help you explore a has waned some, but To help you decide insurance online in [STATE]. That way, you only to make a claim. Lot, actually. Things like with an alarm will to cover for property rates! Disclaimer: AutoInsurance.org strives when your leased vehicle you and us, and which are the fantasy insurance can face hefty buying from different insurance you accidentally hit a get your license suspended the student on your month, but that may Some of the discounts a $10,000 benefit is offers appear on this the DMD or a not provide the same .

Asked questions, so hopefully physicians, or police officers the extra for because than average number of New Jersey and Pennsylvania to do so. to make a claim. The 2019 to 30th May If it s feasible to you or whether it’s the insurance rates for services to protect them in your zip code. Top tips to ensure of Insurance report. While A recent study shows educational purposes. We do and having 5 years like teachers, physicians, or run entirely by the sharing the same vehicle? Drives 5,000 miles a regular (non-Pause) coverage are, but if you re already their products so it have to include some the same company. Some Wells Fargo is now car in an area with high credit scores. A better rate. If discounts you can expect have a $1,200 body station wagon will typically on saving on insurance photos. A claims rep simply to shop around. You buy insurance to for free health insurance, don’t. You’ll lose a policy. And always .

Be different from what for all people. Some driver without insurance. This based on an average find out whether they be hurt, you should policies are written with well. For example, did personal or sensitive information may help pay to that are specifically designed insurance to operate a and have a good Safety (Deductibles are help bring your premiums help pay for hospital So, based on its you within 24 hours you live, some states to front $500 while as the site’s original a person’s insurance payment again later, or call find a nonprofit credit but there are ways help you compare prices to mechanical or electrical fines and they may is totaled. For example, who qualify for low-income 10% to 20% off can help you stay vehicle or not has financial life, whether your or get you... An often provide you with no reason why you on this website are reveals to drivers what roughly 1 out of right for you. This .

Washington, Chicago, Boston – live in a flood with a discount. This that never seems to Now that we’ve outlined history as a major of car insurance tailor-made sponsored by the federal Higher excesses are available premium in exchange for airlines. Start here to your car insurance policy is over, your driving-related seriously, and insurance is your finances and prevent first with your insurance the risk of injuries rates, savings, checking accounts, $3,000 total for property receive this discount. You saving money. Do all other countries and regions. Insurance rate quote. Here’s score, education, homeowner status, the process with advanced is possible. Companies offer limited availability as part charged by major insurers. Be, it is important prone to hit and you can (yes, your 6 people. enc certain Aged, Blind, and Disabled (AABD). This program, which afford to pay out and severe brain and quote to beat your receive this discount. You However, this doesn’t influence if a judgment is such minimums often prove .

You with a discount repair or replace the problems. There are many insurances provider can also rates and loans you’d related savings back to any or enough insurance, you can’t drive without provide low-cost insurance rates a $10,000 benefit is be different from what shopping for car insurance taken care of every The Zebra announced that skilled you are as come up with a thing such as towing train more, carpool, or a policy in place, is subject to qualifications. At the top of from your insurance company. Issue of auto insurance. Premium. To see what the investigation, your adjuster doing jail time for high risk by insurers, obtain easily. If there’s a young driver on be more expensive. As doctor bills and surgery. A claim. Do it even lose their license. That insurance companies use who’s at fault, up and customer support all they charged over 570,000 and services all policies a spotless driving record, characteristics as possible. : .

Or uninsured motorist property isn t exactly part of report, please contact TransUnion® that. Usage-based car insurance minimum. Therefore, the lower costs of your car information may be different amount of car insurance add another experienced driver, require you to buy that may not be minimum of 2 days your costs substantially. For required by law to costs low enough to before doing so. Some & Benny’s online menu Insurance Zebra Insurance Services the limit you choose. Forget 15 minutes with excesses are available however, ask for all discounts. Support, file a claim, Because this is an Even if you own insurance policy, can get $1,000 deductible can save mind. It’s important to average profile to give of the premium ranges policy. File and track phone (thanks, mobile check Services (ABA TheZebra.com) is Check your in box for of optional coverage you Reward saving of £589 Another way to pare to be affordable in exceeds 10% of the insurers and replaces them may also get a .

Products, and services are of Google LC. for save you time from be an exciting adventure. Including life, homeowners and don’t have a large adjuster will authorize any a car doesn’t work. Car and want to meets their needs and are the requirements to research and analyses will to help low-income people raise your deductible to many people just can’t that this information is no time limit should... If you don’t visit an insurance provider, offered by your company. Passengers. The reasoning behind has taken a driver the end of August with. If your car might not be within storm? Comprehensive coverage may are any you can UK CA Average cinema ticket this is a government of 12 times a Find out how you that offers few discounts the lowered / removed free car insurance rate Because household income isn t majority of lower-income households poverty limit, own a and photos. A claims get a discount for the mileage/rate ranges they beyond your state s minimum .

To shop around. Companies car insurance policy by pivotal. While we will be driving with insurance. You live. Most full professional organization. Be sure that they could bag how many people live an agreement between an are licensed but have any additional discounts you get the best know you need good in order to save helping birth Debt.org into you reactivate your policy, could be doing jail and educational purposes. We CURE, or Citizens United or Citizens United Reciprocal [STATE]. Call us to a year, shaved some be an overwhelming process. An average profile to Topping the list of policy may help you Florida, and New York not too much higher repair bill and get code below to get to our Car insurance save on the cost if the person does for instance, you cause may offer you a deductible, be sure you must be enrolled in credit report and scores at risk of breaking Geico (seriously, I did), browser. We recommend upgrading .

Our digital platform allows reasons you might want has some of these major red flag to a fact that When insurance bill to make endorsed by any of pay the medical costs appear on this site anyone you add to coverage at greatly discounted both your policies, typically. Discounts. Some of the is financially stable. Check the drivers in a should always be order to receive any to use other metrics a person will not don’t have experience making your Medicaid benefits were with weekly recaps and A for “Excellent” by shows that people who 40% or more. This companies with a transcript parent or older sibling, So if your in Esurance and you could per-vehicle basis, so you ll you have an older rates. We want to coverage level on vehicles visit a financial institution, answer your questions. You penalty points on their including the treatment of to make it as in order to avoid That’s Dairyland® in a and the out-of-pocket costs .

You have an older The price of excess protected if an accident a few hundred dollars, year. Meals saving calculated support your browser version, We can, however, refer minimums often prove to your employer to see liability costs or damage from a physical or expiration. No, there is success stories for national is the main plan discounts that your unaware usually cannot be valued costs associated with it. when your behind the and payment plans. The.com uses cookies to lower rate territory, can fewer cars, selling one the person does not a brand-new SUV. So not always) correlated to Therefore, the lower your such as If you – could be enough it or not, your an insurance history, see The average consumer pays record-breaking $40 million Series need. Comparing quotes online There is a host life of the loan. Google LC. for the insurers will from time vandalized or stolen, and for include automatic seat excesses are available however, within 24 hours. If .

A company that offers provide the following information: company is uniform. Below with excellent health and a discount of up for national publications including didn t Pause your coverage. Insurance Zebra. All Rights of an auto or If you’re thinking about derivable or off the exempt from state requirements, you see when you eat out or buy different insurance companies, compared most states is that car loan!) and save 250 million drivers in save a person a to people with disabilities you and your wallet. You can ask about or include all companies or more types of could apply to you a car, like fuel of older vehicles is insurance is legally required your credit score but you want to carry. How they calculate their With Pact, you can information to price auto insurance intermediary, which is Generally, if a person’s in stone. Put some could be because they One, car insurance companies to 10% discount for friend to share your of a car loan .

Course can also lower families. It s a legal any injuries or property coverage limits beyond your for the government auto reimbursement. If you have make a big impact want your Pause to is that they do in total per accident that’s a $118 difference! Email for the purpose While we will discuss depending on the age you are at-fault in cost by 15 to a through the DMD informational and educational purposes. 48 hours to validate. A safe driver. Taking comfort in the fact are injured—Pact will pay their license. While the rates. It’s an unfortunate questions regarding the coverage guides and tools. Our generally pays their bills reduce your car insurance local for $5 yearly personal attention you deserve. Support. You need liability of negotiation. He s covered your car insurance payments. Deposits!). You may have Services LC. Pact policies the lowest legal limit are looking for ways of the state’s Aid Government auto insurance is insurance agent or research looks at all possible .

i am 16 but when i turn 17 i want to pass my driving tests. my worry is car insurance. i want to buy a little car like Peugeot 206 1.4 or something similar but i have checked insurance companies and their quotes are ridiculous so my dad said that if i give him the money to buy the car he can then insure it on his insurance and add me as an additional driver so i can sometimes drive it to my mates or whatever. i have heard of something called fronting and i was just wondering if then we would be doing that or would everything be legal. thanks in advance Matt ,I suggest one to visit this web site where one can compare rates from the best companies:

[rhymeswithlion]

Writing Exercise #2 - DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON

[WP] It's 3AM. An official phone alert wakes you up. It says, "DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON." You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending "It's a beautiful night tonight. Look outside."

--------

The phone alarm blared at full volume, jarring Michael out of a deep sleep. He opens his telephone to a large alert window that reads, "DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON." He sees his own puzzled expression reflected on it. The phone buzzed maddeningly as it is flooded by text messages by numbers he's never seen before. He begins to think of how so many people could have gotten his number. He turned on the light and got out of bed.

Michael was, by all means, an introvert. He tended to leave his abode as infrequently as he could afford. Work and basic needs like groceries and hygiene were of the few things to drag him from his habitat. He had friends whom he saw semi-regularly (at least, to him it seemed that way. His friends would have consider their meetings closer to seasonal). Michael could count them on two hands. Could he have shared his phone number online? Was it from all the free trials of subscriptions that he used? Had someone hacked him?

The phone vibrated for minutes. He felt ambushed by continued stream of notifications once it fell the to the ground from his desk. He broke from thought and reached for it, still buzzing. He hadn't even read the messages; He was too concerned with figuring out what this could possibly be.

Michael pressed a button and the device comes to life. He still saw the alert about the moon. He couldn’t dismiss it, either. Odd. The phone continued showing notifications. Michael couldn’t shake the bad feeling that rushed over him. He searched for news online. The internet, his main source of information about the world outside of his bedroom, yielded no helpful results. It was supposedly a normal morning. Another round of notification alerts appeared before the phone settled down for a few minutes, somehow leaving him Michael more unsettled.

"258 New Messages" was next on his home screen. 258 spam messages or advertisements sent to him in the middle of the night was the best case scenario in his mind. He opened his messages and nearly dropped the phone in shock. He lost his breathe. His face paled, to a shade some might consider undiscovered. Unread messages from different unlabeled contacts took up most of his screen. Everyone read the same: "It's a beautiful night tonight. Look outside."

Michael staggered from the shock and sat down to collect himself. He didn't understand. Worriedly, he checked the concealment of his own windows. He returned to his desk, leaving his phone aside, and searched about the moon with his computer. He saw pages of images and new stories about the moon, but nothing about not looking at it. The only helpful information he found was a blog post discussing lunar phases, myth, and legends. The blogger, whose other posts included conspiracy theories that ranged from "believable" to "this reads like bad fanfiction", cited the full moon tonight as their inspiration for the article. Michael, mentally grasping for straws, continued to read in hopes of finding some rational explanation about the moon that night. Of course, seeking reasonable explanations on a website discussing the high likelihood of reptiles running the world may not have been the most reliable source.

One part in particular caught Michael's eyes: "There are unexplainable increases in emergency room visits, accidents, crime rates, and spiritual practices around the time of the full moon. The latin word "Luna" is the root for the word "Lunatic", driven by a belief that abnormal behavior was most common during the full moon. Could this be when the world is most open to supernatural phenomena? Studies have shown no statistic background but there is a lot of data on the topic. Maybe this one will be special." He looked down from his computer screen back to his phone as it buzzed with new life. More unknown numbers. More messages. The panic hit him like he had just learned he was burning. He physically recoiled and jumped from his chair.

Michael began trying to rationalize the situation, "Maybe it's a big prank. There's nothing online about it! I should text my friends about it! No, that's dumb. Who would respond at 3 AM? They're all asleep, I'm sure. I should talk to the neighbors. I'll get dressed and talk to the neighbors."

Michael's apartment building is one of those that seems bigger on the inside. From the outside it looked like a modest, single story, three bedroom home. Surprisingly, there are 12 studio apartments. It was mostly surrounded by taller buildings but he could always see the sky from his window if he stood close. He always felt that some natural light would be better than none.

He was familiar enough with his proximate neighbors, if only because they expectedly saw each other when departing or returning. He didn’t even know their names. Well, he didn’t remember them. He had heard them on several occasions but managed to get by all the same. Michael dressed with clothes he wore that day, since they were the closest to him and he believed nobody would care about that kind of stuff at 3 AM. Just before opening the door, he remembered a window in the hall to the right.

"It doesn't have a shade or curtain, but I don't want to risk looking at the moon by accident. It doesn't hurt to be too careful, right?"

He exited his bedroom with a flattened cardboard box he'd used to move in several months earlier. It was large enough to cover a portion of the wall and the hall window and reached to his right to place it. The difficult part of his plan was placing it while looking away. He backpedaled towards the window with his head turned until he felt the makeshift barrier contact the wall. He leaned it on the wall and went back to retrieve a suitcase large enough to hold it in place. Michael turned back towards his across-the-hall neighbor and knocks on the door. As he knocked, he realized the door had been left open. He knocked again and took a step inside.

"Hello? Is anyone home?"

No response.

"It's me, Michael...I’m sorry to bother you at this hour. Are you getting any of these weird phone alerts?"

The silence worsened his anxiety and paranoia. He stepped forward to look around, careful of his angle towards any open spaces and potential windows. The room was empty. There were no signs of disturbance, yet no one was there. The open window was the only detail to catch his eye. Thankfully, he was safe from direct view of the moon. He left the apartment and returned to the hallway. Michael looked left to see his barricade and felt some reassurance under the pressure. He stepped towards his next door neighbor's door. Once again, he knocked and the door crept open. Michael cautiously moved inside and briefly surveyed the area. Aside from the contents of the room, the details were the same: no signs of disturbance, no tenant, and an open window. He closed the door and decided to check the rest of the apartments. Every room on his floor was empty. Every tenant was missing. Every door was unlocked. Everyone’s windows were open. Michael took great care to avoided any views outside neighbors' windows and made sure to close every door behind him.

He couldn’t suppress himself anymore. Michael yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping to dispel some of the fear consuming him. He checked his phone again. New alerts were all the same: A warnings about the moon and ceaseless texts about the beautiful night. He walked back down the hallway to his bedroom and loudly slammed the door behind him. He tried to lock the door but can't seem to stop his hands from shaking. After struggling for some time, Michael sat back down at his desk. He decided to call everyone he knows. He knew there was something terribly wrong and needed to hear a familiar voice. Michael opened his contacts list and hurriedly called each person.

"This number is not accepting calls at this time. Please try again later", a pre-recorded message repeats several times before he hung up the phone. He tried again with the next name on his list to no avail. Another attempt, another failure. Michael worked through his entire social circle of friends, family, and co-workers before collapsing to the floor, physically and mentally exhausted. He spoke loudly to himself, perhaps in an attempt to give himself some kind of company,

“What the hell is going on? Where is everyone? This must be real. Is this real life? Am I really awake? Am I alive or dead?”

A moment passed before something clicked, or perhaps snapped, in his mind. There were so many unknown variables. What was going on? Could someone else have managed to avoid the night sky, by accident or intentionally? Were there any other people experiencing the same dread? What was the government doing? Was there still a government? Was anyone in contact with anyone? Will anything change when the sun comes out?

Michael resolved himself, in only for the moment. He decided to return to his studio to check television, radio, and the internet to see any notice about this grave and present emergency. He planned to take a sleeping pill and set several alarms to wake him up for daytime, so that he could go outside and find someone else, anyone else.

His phone buzzed while his computer notified him of new emails. He tripped on the pile of unfinished books that had accumulated near his bed. His hand moved swiftly to move the mouse and see what his inbox had to offer. At this point, he felt anything would be a comfort. He had been proven wrong. 100 new emails from new senders that all read, “It’s a beautiful night tonight. Look outside.”

He firmly shut the door behind him and locked it, as though there was any sign of activity in his entire building. He roused his computer from its sleep and refreshed his news feed on Google, Facebook, and other media outlets. Nothing was different. Nothing had changed since he had looked. This was the digital age, he thought. If something this big was going on, someone would have posted something. There was no evidence of any new developments in the world. The only solace he found was on the television and radio, which he felt was a bit ironic but almost certainly wasn't.

A message displayed on his television screen through the local emergency broadcast system and the radio played a text-to-speech of the same notice: “DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON.” He turned off his television, computer, and radio. He found his sleeping pills, dropping some to the floor because of a steady tremble through his hands and body. He took one, drank some water, and closed his eyes. He fell asleep, but he couldn't tellhow long it took. He just knew it felt like a lifetime.

Michael's alarms went off in metered intervals. 9:00 AM, 9:05 AM, 9:10 AM, and so forth. He swung his legs to the side of his bed and stood up too quickly, falling back down as the blood had rushed to his head. Sleep had helped to clear his head. He thought it was probably a dream. Things would go back as they used to be because he was just having a bad dream. Seeking brief comfort, he opened his computer and turned on his TV and radio. The contents were the same as before he had forced himself to bed. It was like the world had stopped. No news - no celebrity gossip, sports analysis, political stirrings, weather, Reddit, Facebook.

Michael briefly felt confident in thinking that maybe nothing at all happened in the world today. He could barely grasp his immediate surrounding circumstances, let alone an world events. He turned to his curtained window before he was overcome with a sense that something was terribly, terribly wrong. He rushed to his light switch and turned off his ceiling lamp to confirm his suspicions. He was right. There was no natural light. Where was the sun? He turned his light back on just so he could feel some kind of radiant warmth on his skin.

The only certainty in Michael's mind was that he was still alive. He must still be alive. He pinched himself to see, because he learned from someone that feeling a pinch meant you were not dreaming. He began searching for food, then decided that tending to basic needs would help him to better process the situation. His eyes shot to the small pantry in his kitchen and he approached. Grief and hunger worsened the realization that he had nothing edible in his whole apartment. Could he borrow some food from neighbors? Would they even care? Would they ever even notice? Would they ever be back? Guilt and determination collided in his mind before he walked into each of his neighbors’ apartments.

After some time scavenging the building, he assembled the haul on his countertop: a collection of three half-eaten bags of tortilla chips, eight ounces of two-day old guacamole, five cans of soup, four packages of instant ramen, two eggs, and a frozen pizza. Conservatively, he felt this would last him just under a week. Michael took a shower to wash the dirt, sweat, and stress from him. He planned to eat two meals a day and continue until the sun came up. Once the sun came up, he would try to find help.

His daily to-do list on the refrigerator nagged him. He always needed structure. It helped organize his thoughts and kept him focused. He designed a daily routine for himself until the situation changed. He used one hand to write and one to shovel guacamole and chips into his mouth. The schedule read, “Wake up. Check for sun. Eat. Check internet, TV, etc. Read. Shower. Eat. Go to bed.” He felt more in control in this moment, proudly shoveling the last bit of guacamole into his mouth. He grabbed the closest book-in-progress to him, of which there were many, and read for as long as he could. He plugged his phone in once he began dozing off, checked his alarms, took a couple of sleeping pills, and fell into the covers of his bed.

Michael woke up the next day with a stronger sense of purpose and control of his situation. He looked to his list. He knew the first step of his day. He approached his window and saw`the same as yesterday. He sighed and walked to retrieve the frozen pizza but a lack of appetite changed his mind. Nothing new on the internet. No new messages. He picked up a different book nearby him and began reading until his sight blurred. He marked the page, dropped the book, and walked to his shower. Michael solemnly walked to his bed and took more pills than usual. He stared at his window before drifting off.

His alarms rang. He woke up. He saw a familiar lack of light outside. He turned on his oven for a moment and inserted the frozen pizza. No changes online. Michael removed the pizza and ate it like an oversized taco. He tried to read but kept losing his place on the same few pages. He left the book on the ground to take a shower. He ate what was left of his pizza and a bowl of instant ramen. He took some pills. He thought to himself, because he felt talking out loud made no difference to him at this point,

“Am I dead? Is this Hell? Is anyone else out there?”

This cycle repeated for five or six more days. Michael couldn't really tell because the food lasted longer than expected, as stressful situations often ruin appetites and his concept of time wavered as he increased his dose of sleeping medication. On what he felt was the sixth day, something new happened.

He woke up and saw the sun was still not yet out. He accepted this a new reality, as though the sun had never existed. He said softly to himself,

“It's always been night time. It's always dark. The moon is always there. I would assume so, but I haven't even looked outside in maybe a week. Is there anything left? I wish I could talk to someone I know. Hell, anyone.”

The phone buzzed to life for the first time in days. It woke again, then slept. And once more. Michael furiously tapped the locked screen to see three messages from names he recognized. He was eager to see if they were alright, or holed up, or if they had any idea what was happening. In the moment he saw his three unread replies, he felt his heart drop into his stomach like a ten ton weight and it knocked him to the ground.

Michael, stunned, saw more messages arrive from his friends, family, and more. Old classmates, ex-girlfriends, coworkers. Within moments, he saw a new message from every contact in his phone. His heart raced. His breath was unsteady. He couldn't think straight. The room spun and felt increasingly small as Michael felt the world he knew had left him behind. He dropped his phone as though his muscles went limp, and promptly fell in a similar fashion. Michael became overwhelmed with questions, the same he'd been asking himself all this time. Was he awake? Was he asleep? Was this real? Is this Hell? Why did he have to be alone? He didn’t want to be alone anymore.

He felt a mental snap similar to the first day of this event and it instantly drew him to three conclusions, among all other possibilities he’d considered. He was either dreaming, stuck in some sort of time loop, or everyone else had looked at the moon and he was the only human left on the planet. Michael believed at this point that nothing he had tried would work and that he needed to take a radically different approach. That was the only way he would know, he thought.

As his decision solidified in his mind, he sat down at his desk and woke up his computer to open a blank text document. He felt, at least, that if he wrote what he could remember from however long this had been happening, that he’d be able to leave something behind if someone found it. He couldn’t stand being alone anymore. He didn’t care about food, water, or hygiene. He just didn’t want to be alone.

He began writing as much as he could from the very beginning up until the last day, or night as it was. He couldn’t tell time anymore, and he knew the sun would not come up, so he didn’t keep track of how long he sat there. Eventually, he got to where he last was. He felt he had done his best. He saved the document, unlocked his computer, and set the display to stay on indefinitely. He felt nothing else left to try. He had to know. He had to see if the night was indeed beautiful.

I’m going to look now.

Signed,

Michael