#Java Master

[muffin-snakes-art]

So I made another Wallpaper Engine thing, this time with Mistilteinn and Magolor! Not only can you adjust how the wallpaper can be displayed, you can also squish Magolor to make him talk! By default, the particle effects will be unchecked in case your device can't handle it.

Here's the link to the Steam workshop item!

[heart-ghost-studyblr]

Getting old is interesting. I've always been a middle ground between sports (skateboarding, surfing, jiu-jitsu) and an avid student. Over time, it's clear that you can't keep trying the same tricks, just as you can't study the same way.

Today, as I'm writing an article about event-driven architectures, I realize that final exams in college were much easier, just like it's not as easy to jump the same stairs on a skateboard as I did when I was 18. In the image, you can see my favorite note-taking app, Obsidian, and my Neovim terminal. I'm diving deep into Java, and for that, I'm taking a Spring Boot bootcamp offered by Claro through the DIO Innovation One platform.

[doyouknowthisgame]

[moonfurthetemmie]

Sunfall Master post

There's individual posts but there's also this big doc with everything in it, and that may be easier if you want to read everything at once. but if you want individual bits here's the posts!

Glaze and Tempera (+ Ink)

Wren (+ Finch)

Orion

Corvus

Xena

Java (+ Cross & Error)

Aster (+ Blue)

✨Plot✨

Endings 1-3

The Maelstrom and the beasts

Random other stuff

[mohalicareerpoint12]

Master Java Programming in Mohali: Your Guide to the Best Java Training Institutes

Java remains one of the most popular and in-demand programming languages globally. Whether you're aiming for a career in software development, web development, or mobile app development, proficiency in Java is a must-have skill. If you're in Mohali and looking to learn Java, you're in luck! This city offers some of the best Java training institutes that cater to both beginners and advanced learners.

Why Learn Java?

Java is a versatile, object-oriented programming language used for developing a wide range of applications. Here’s why you should consider learning Java:

Platform Independence: Java applications can run on any platform without the need for recompilation, making it a versatile choice for developers.

Strong Community Support: Java has a large, active community of developers, providing a wealth of resources for learning and problem-solving.

High Demand: Java developers are in high demand across various industries, including finance, healthcare, and technology.

Career Growth: Proficiency in Java opens doors to numerous career opportunities, from software engineering to system architecture.

Top Java Training Institutes in Mohali

Here are some of the best institutes in Mohali where you can learn Java:

1. Mohali Career Point (MCP)

Location: SC-130 Top Floor, Phase 7, Mohali, 160059

Why Choose MCP?

Experienced Trainers: MCP boasts a team of seasoned professionals who bring real-world experience into the classroom.

Comprehensive Curriculum: The Java course at MCP covers everything from the basics to advanced concepts, including Core Java, Advanced Java, JSP, Servlets, Hibernate, and Spring frameworks.

Hands-On Learning: MCP emphasizes practical learning with real-life projects, ensuring you gain the skills needed to develop robust Java applications.

Flexible Learning: Offering both online and offline classes, MCP caters to students with different learning preferences.

Certification: On completion, you’ll receive a certification that can enhance your resume and job prospects.

2. Netmax Technologies

Location: Sector 34, Chandigarh (Near Mohali)

Why Choose Netmax?

Industry-Standard Training: Netmax Technologies provides industry-standard training in Java, focusing on both Core and Advanced Java.

Live Projects: Students get to work on live projects, which helps in understanding real-world applications of Java programming.

Placement Support: The institute offers strong placement support, connecting students with top tech companies.

3. Problab Technologies

Location: Sector 64, Mohali

Why Choose Problab?

Expert Instructors: Problab Technologies has expert instructors who offer personalized guidance throughout the course.

Updated Syllabus: The Java curriculum is regularly updated to reflect the latest trends and technologies in the industry.

Career Counseling: Beyond just training, Problab also provides career counseling to help students find the right job opportunities.

What Will You Learn in a Java Course?

A comprehensive Java course in Mohali typically covers the following topics:

Core Java: Introduction to Java, Object-Oriented Programming concepts, data types, operators, control statements, arrays, strings, classes, and objects.

Advanced Java: JDBC, Servlets, JSP, Hibernate, Spring, web services, and Java-based frameworks.

Database Connectivity: Learn how to connect Java applications to various databases using JDBC.

Web Development: Build dynamic web applications using Java technologies like JSP and Servlets.

Mobile App Development: Get introduced to Android development using Java.

Benefits of Learning Java in Mohali

Quality Education: Institutes in Mohali offer top-notch training with experienced faculty and comprehensive course materials.

Affordable Fees: Compared to other cities, the cost of Java courses in Mohali is relatively affordable, making it accessible to a wider range of students.

Growing IT Hub: Mohali is emerging as a significant IT hub, providing ample job opportunities for Java developers.

How to Enroll in a Java Course in Mohali

Visit the Institute: You can visit the institute's campus to get a feel of the environment and speak with the counselors.

Online Inquiry: Most institutes offer online inquiry forms on their websites. Fill out the form to get more details about the course and fee structure.

Contact via Phone or Email: Directly reach out to the institute via phone or email for quick assistance.

Conclusion

Learning Java can be a stepping stone to a successful career in the tech industry. With numerous training institutes offering quality education in Mohali, you can find the right course that fits your career goals. Whether you're a beginner or looking to advance your Java skills, Mohali offers the perfect environment to grow and excel in your programming journey. Start your Java training today and unlock a world of opportunities!

[uncodemytraininginstitute]

Unlock the simplicity of Java programming with our ultimate learning resource. From basics to advanced concepts, master Java effortlessly and elevate your coding prowess with confidence. Read more...

[heart-ghost-studyblr]

Very busy week because I’m moving to a new city, but coding must go on!

After countless containers and virtual machines, I finally made a repository for my dotfiles, including Neovim, Tmux, Lazygit, etc. It’s so much simpler to grab my configurations from clone a repo, instead, I was used to send via FTP or something like that.

This week, I’ve been working on a short and simple video about using Kafka with the customizer terminal and Tmux. It’s incredibly easy to manage sessions by splitting them, which we use a lot because Zookeeper server and Kafka brokers still in single window each (If is local machine).

In the picture, I’m using the Kitty terminal with Tmux and 3 open windows: Neofetch, a CLI Pomodoro timer, and Lazygit.

In the YouTube window, the title in japanese means "Hikaru Utada playlist for a rainy day" I love hear this type of playlist while studying. I’ll leave the link to the playlist in case you want to listen too, just click here.

[quaranmine]

How long does that potion last?

Hi! Here's a guide I wrote for how long Minecraft potions last in approximation with real time. This is for Java edition only, and hopefully will be useful in stuff like fanfiction.

For reference, a full Minecraft day is 20 minutes in-game. That's 10 minutes of daytime, 3 minutes of dawn/dusk, and 7 minutes of night. I will be equating 10 minutes of daytime = 12 hours of a real-life day. I'm calculating this via comparing percentages, so let me know if I have messed up the math. Potion times are from the wiki and instant potions such as healing or harming are left out for obvious reasons.

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

20-22 second potions: Potion of Slowness IV; Potion of the Turtle Master I and II; Potion of Poison II; Potion of Regeneration II

Lasts approximately 0.396 hours real-time, or 23 minutes and 46 seconds (for 20 seconds potion length)

40-45 second potions: Potion of Poison; Potion of the Turtle Master +; Potion of Regeneration

Lasts approximately 0.9 hours real-time, or 54 minutes (for 45 seconds potion length)

1.5 minute potions: Potion of Regeneration +; Potion of Swiftness II; Potion of Strength II; Potion of Leaping II; Potion of Slow Falling; Potion of Poison +; Potion of Weakness; Potion of Slowness

Lasts 1.8 hours real-time, or 1 hour and 48 minutes

3 minute potions: Potion of Swiftness; Potion of Fire Resistance; Potion of Night Vision; Potion of Strength; Potion of Leaping; Potion of Water Breathing; Potion of Invisibility

Lasts 3.6 hours real-time, or 3 hours and 36 minutes.

4 minute potions: Potion of Slow Falling +; Potion of Weakness +; Potion of Slowness +

Lasts 4.8 hours real-time, or 4 hours and 48 minutes.

5 minute potions: Potion of Luck

Lasts 6 hours real-time.

8 minute potions: Potion of Swiftness +; Potion of Fire Resistance +; Potion of Night Vision +; Potion of Strength +; Potion of Leaping +; Potion of Water Breathing +; Potion of Invisibility +

Lasts 9.6 hours real-time, or 9 hours and 36 minutes.

Tipped arrows, according to the wiki, last 1/8th the time of their corresponding potion if applicable. Since that might vary, I'm not going to calculate them all here.

Go forth and have fun writing! I wrote this post nearly 2 years ago, drafted it, and forgot about it. I hope it can be of some use for writers.

[mariacallous]

The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk.

The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell WIRED, and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.

Under any circumstances, a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell WIRED, but the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits.

“Of course, one of the big risks is not underpayment or overpayment per se; [it’s also] not paying someone at all and not knowing about it. The invisible errors and omissions,” an SSA technologist tells WIRED.

The Social Security Administration did not immediately reply to WIRED’s request for comment.

SSA has been under increasing scrutiny from president Donald Trump’s administration. In February, Musk took aim at SSA, falsely claiming that the agency was rife with fraud. Specifically, Musk pointed to data he allegedly pulled from the system that showed 150-year-olds in the US were receiving benefits, something that isn’t actually happening. Over the last few weeks, following significant cuts to the agency by DOGE, SSA has suffered frequent website crashes and long wait times over the phone, The Washington Post reported this week.

This proposed migration isn’t the first time SSA has tried to move away from COBOL: In 2017, SSA announced a plan to receive hundreds of millions in funding to replace its core systems. The agency predicted that it would take around five years to modernize these systems. Because of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the agency pivoted away from this work to focus on more public-facing projects.

Like many legacy government IT systems, SSA systems contain code written in COBOL, a programming language created in part in the 1950s by computing pioneer Grace Hopper. The Defense Department essentially pressured private industry to use COBOL soon after its creation, spurring widespread adoption and making it one of the most widely used languages for mainframes, or computer systems that process and store large amounts of data quickly, by the 1970s. (At least one DOD-related website praising Hopper's accomplishments is no longer active, likely following the Trump administration’s DEI purge of military acknowledgements.)

As recently as 2016, SSA’s infrastructure contained more than 60 million lines of code written in COBOL, with millions more written in other legacy coding languages, the agency’s Office of the Inspector General found. In fact, SSA’s core programmatic systems and architecture haven’t been “substantially” updated since the 1980s when the agency developed its own database system called MADAM, or the Master Data Access Method, which was written in COBOL and Assembler, according to SSA’s 2017 modernization plan.

SSA’s core “logic” is also written largely in COBOL. This is the code that issues social security numbers, manages payments, and even calculates the total amount beneficiaries should receive for different services, a former senior SSA technologist who worked in the office of the chief information officer says. Even minor changes could result in cascading failures across programs.

“If you weren't worried about a whole bunch of people not getting benefits or getting the wrong benefits, or getting the wrong entitlements, or having to wait ages, then sure go ahead,” says Dan Hon, principal of Very Little Gravitas, a technology strategy consultancy that helps government modernize services, about completing such a migration in a short timeframe.

It’s unclear when exactly the code migration would start. A recent document circulated amongst SSA staff laying out the agency’s priorities through May does not mention it, instead naming other priorities like terminating “non-essential contracts” and adopting artificial intelligence to “augment” administrative and technical writing.

Earlier this month, WIRED reported that at least 10 DOGE operatives were currently working within SSA, including a number of young and inexperienced engineers like Luke Farritor and Ethan Shaotran. At the time, sources told WIRED that the DOGE operatives would focus on how people identify themselves to access their benefits online.

Sources within SSA expect the project to begin in earnest once DOGE identifies and marks remaining beneficiaries as deceased and connecting disparate agency databases. In a Thursday morning court filing, an affidavit from SSA acting administrator Leland Dudek said that at least two DOGE operatives are currently working on a project formally called the “Are You Alive Project,” targeting what these operatives believe to be improper payments and fraud within the agency’s system by calling individual beneficiaries. The agency is currently battling for sweeping access to SSA’s systems in court to finish this work. (Again, 150-year-olds are not collecting social security benefits. That specific age was likely a quirk of COBOL. It doesn’t include a date type, so dates are often coded to a specific reference point—May 20, 1875, the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention du Mètre.)

In order to migrate all COBOL code into a more modern language within a few months, DOGE would likely need to employ some form of generative artificial intelligence to help translate the millions of lines of code, sources tell WIRED. “DOGE thinks if they can say they got rid of all the COBOL in months, then their way is the right way, and we all just suck for not breaking shit,” says the SSA technologist.

DOGE would also need to develop tests to ensure the new system’s outputs match the previous one. It would be difficult to resolve all of the possible edge cases over the course of several years, let alone months, adds the SSA technologist.

“This is an environment that is held together with bail wire and duct tape,” the former senior SSA technologist working in the office of the chief information officer tells WIRED. “The leaders need to understand that they’re dealing with a house of cards or Jenga. If they start pulling pieces out, which they’ve already stated they’re doing, things can break.”

[elusionpodfics]

I was reading Batman 410 and it’s just what do mean Jason became a master in computer science in 6 months

I’m about to graduate and I’m still getting errors in Java. I want those comic book adopted by a billionaire genius brains

[fir-fireweed]

If it's okay to ask, how did you learn to code your IFs? They really spark out of motivation from me!^^

Blood, sweat, tears, a couple of sacrificial goats and my first born. He doesn’t yet know his soul is no longer his own, so nobody tell him! 🤫

Lol, no but really, a lot of YouTube videos and online resources. I used Twine Chapbook for my first IF, Viatica, which I highly recommend for beginners. It’s an out-of-the-box solution, and requires no previous html or css knowledge. You literally do not have to even touch java script or the style sheet; it’s all there by default. Really, the only thing you need is to understand the way to code variables and conditional statements for the text itself, and there is a handy guide that spells all that out.

But Chapbook does have some limitations; for example, it doesn’t offer a way to make a codex or multiple save slots. But after using Chapbook, I better understand the nature of coding IFs. My new IF is built in Twine Sugarcube, which is a lot more complex. The good side is that Sugarcube is older and much more common, and there’s a plethora of resources and templates out there for it. I find it easier to start with a template and dig into the code from there—breaking it and studying it, as opposed to building from scratch.

The author of the Arcadie IFs, @sofia-d-asb has this master post if you’re looking for a place to start. This was a great help to me!

[anxhelstudies]

happy 2025 to everyone!

life has been difficult lately but i hope the new year it will be better. recently i started working as a waitress full time to save as much money as i can for a master to see if this year (or maybe next considering early the deadline for applying to uni in the uk is so close compared to the italian one) i can make it. because of this i didn’t have a lot of time to study or focus on myself since right now money is more important.

anyway here are my (study) goals for 2025

reach hsk3

pass hsk1 exam

pass hsk2 exam

re-learning korean (i will not put any level to reach because i just want to do it for fun so anything will be fine for now)

improve my english (especially my writing)

as for the more design study goals

learn blender

do a course about design and innovation patents (idk how to transla it better in english sorry)

make a good portfolio (web and pdf)

learn java

improve my drawing skills

read 20 articles of design journals

write an article about a design topic (i want to learn how to write articles like academics because i would like in the future do a phd if i have tha chance, time and money)

how is your 2025 going so far? what are your goals?

[obitinenovelwhen]

Obitine Week 2025

Day Three - Nostalgia

“You may open your eyes now, Duchess.”

The words came from Obi-Wan, who’d been leading Satine by the hand through a bustling lower level of Coruscant. At Obi-Wan’s urging, she’d had her eyes closed ever since since they’d dismounted his speeder bike, impatient to see the “surprise” he had promised her before the Coronet took her back to Mandalore. And despite the temptation, she hadn’t peeked—not even when she’d nearly tripped over a dent in the ferrocrete, held upright only Obi-Wan’s grasp on her waist. So when she opened her eyes to take in a vibrantly colored diner—and to see a large, four-armed Besalisk grinning broadly at her—her surprise and delight were truly genuine.

“Dex!” Satine exclaimed, rushing forward to give him a hug.

Dex’s four arms reciprocated with a firm, but not crushing, embrace. “It does this old Besalisk’s heart good to see ya’, Sat’ika. I’ve been dancing with joy here since your Ben told me you were on Coruscant, you know!”

She turned just in time to catch Obi-Wan flush slightly at Dex’s use of their private pet name. “I remembered how well you two got along, when Dex was ferrying us between planets during the war, and I thought you might wish to catch up.”

Dex’s arms released and rested on his large belly as he let out a hearty laugh. “Get along is one word for it, eh! I’ve been hopin’ all these years you two would come to your damned senses and settle down someplace together.”

Now it was Satine’s turn to flush as a few of the diners looked up from their meals. Given that she wasn’t in her regalia and was dressed rather simply in a plain blue blouse and skirt, she was unlikely to be recognized. But the sudden attention from random onlookers made her uneasy. “Perhaps we should sit for a moment, get something to drink.”

Seeming to realized that he’d put her on the spot, his mirth faded a bit. “Of course, Sat’ika. Sorry to be so blunt with you right off the start. We can all have us a booth and get some nice, cool Java Juice.”

As she and Obi-Wan moved to seat themselves in the booth Dex had indicated, Satine gave the Besalisk a smile. “You remembered?”

“Of course I remembered! Your Ben here has been a stranger to Coruscant of late, what with those damned Clone Wars and all, but he still stops by every week he’s here for my Java Juice. He’d well deny it, but I know he does it because a particular Duchess was always partial to it.”

Obi-Wan regarded Dex with a slight frown as the larger man eased himself into the booth seat across from them. “That’s the second time now you’ve used that name. I’d forgotten that you were…privy to that information.”

Dex showed them a wide, toothy grin. “Your old master and I played fools, but anyone who’d have spent five minutes watching you two would’a known you were smitten for each other.”

“We tried to keep things discrete,” Satine pointed out before Obi-Wan could argue, hoping her flush this time around wasn’t too apparent.

“Well, you see, the word there is ‘tried,’” Dex said, scratching at his stubble. “But I don’t think what you two have can be hidden for long, Sat’ika.”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow in what she knew had to be attempt—and not a very successful one, not to someone who knew him as well as she did—to appear nonchalant. “Have?”

“Yes, ‘have,’ old friend. Anyone watchin’ you two now can see there’s a spark between ya’ brighter than the suns of Jakku.”

Satine let his words settle in as a server droid set down their drinks and a plate of something warm and savory-smelling. She risked a glance at Obi-Wan, keen to gage his reaction, only to find that he was also peering at her. Their shared gaze didn’t last long—perhaps a few seconds, nothing more—but in that time she could see in his eyes the same question echoing in her mind.

Is he right?

Just a few days before, Satine had disclosed as much to Obi-Wan, let him know she’d still loved him despite all their years apart. And he’d let her know, too, in his own way, that he’d once felt the same. But now? She knew in her heart she’d love him until her dying day, but the only hint that he shared her sentiment was that she saw something shift in him when he looked at her, or when their hands accidentally brushed while reaching for their cups.

Dex, perhaps detecting the shift in her mood, lifted his cup of Jawa Juice and held it out in a toast, his wide smile returning. “To you two crazy kids! Here’s hopin’ you’ll always have each other.”

Obi-Wan and Satine shared another glance as they returned the toast. Obi-Wan didn’t say anything, just looked at her with the same look he’d given her on the Coronet, after Merrick had been killed and before they’d parted to attend to their separate duties. The same look he’d worn when they’d said farewell on Mandalore, all those years ago.

The look that said he wanted to tell her something, but couldn’t.

As they all tucked into their drinks and food, laughing and reminiscing about old times, Satine hoped that someday, somehow, he finally would tell her.

@weekofobitine

[zenia62]

Daendels and Freemason (Part 2)

Daendels was initiated as an apprentice on 27 October 1785 in the Freemason lodge Le Profond Silence in Kampen, which had been established in 1770. Later, he became a fellowcraft (gezell) in the same lodge. It is unclear whether Daendels maintained any relationship with Freemasonry later in his life.

Another thing for the record. Br. de Visser Smits says that Daendels himself was a Freemason, but did not have a good heart for Freemasonry. (...) This says that the reports about whether or not he was a Freemason contradict each other. Presumably he was.

The rule of G.G. Daendels - according to brother Dirk, who should know, he must have been a Freemason! - formed a fearful time for the Freemasons. Daendels must have suffered from certain complexes: and thought that there was a conspiracy in the Lodge against his rule. He had the movements of the Freemasons closely examined, confiscated their archives and dismissed and imprisoned several Freemasons with high positions in the government.

Daendels, although a freeman himself, was definitely not well-disposed towards the freeman. "He always maintained that there was an English party in Batavia, and that the Masons formed the core of it." (...)

Soo since last week I've been invested in this entire thing 😶‍🌫️ Well at least know we know that Daendels has been in the Mason stuff when he was 23 y.o but don't know if he continues w them or no. Now I do have a theory regarding this, I believe he is but as time goes he sort of forgot or js leave but never officially did 🧐 so ppl still thinks that he's part of it. In the second point, the writer seemed to be not sure if Daendels is a freemason or no which make sense since we so far only knows it from the Kampen book in the first point. I tried to find the book online but haven't found it sadly 😮‍💨

I already talked abt this topic in an old post here (shout out to @jel-randombooth for the amazing analysis as well ^^) abt how Daendels treated the freemason in the Indies n possible reasons why he behaved like that. While investigating this topic, I found similar points from the previous post that I also want to share here;

A fearful time for the Masonry on Java was the reign of G. G. Daendels. Under his leadership the activities of the Masons were closely monitored, and once even a part of the Archives was requisitioned and confiscated on the pretext that there was a conspiracy in the Lodge against the government of G. G. Daendels. Some time later Nicolaus Engelhard, Van Riemsdijk, member of the Government, Morrees, Secretary of the Government and all members of the Council of Justice, among whom also many Masons, were captured, dismissed and taken to Tjandjoer, where they were placed under the guard of the Supervisor of the Government coffee warehouse, who was ordered to shoot the prisoners if they tried to escape. (...) Fortunately the arrival of G. G. Janssens put an end to this captivity. Nevertheless the Lodges remained closed until after the installations of the English interim administration.

An example of Daendels’ distrust is his order to hand over the texts of speeches given by Engelhard and the Worshipful Masters of the Batavian lodges at their extraordinary joint meeting on 16 May 1809. Daendels himself had been invited to this meeting as a fellow Mason, but he did not show up. Although nothing offensive was found in the confiscated speeches, the tone was set.

My biggest question is how does the freemason ppl know Daendels was a mason himself? Possible explanantion is probably he knows secret symbol or gestures that they did imo 🤨 Him not attending the invited meeting tells me that he doesn't seemed interested in it. Another thing; the freemason only returned when the British came to the Indies which kinda shows that they kinda have connection w them 😬 Bcs like Janssens seemed to pity them n even released the imprisoned members, why wouldn't they js return back to normal during those time? So I guess Daendels have the right to be sus abt them.

I tried to investigate aswell abt if Daendels still had some sort of connections w the freemason outside of his Indies years, so far I haven't found anything that indicate it but I do find this signature that Daendels did in a letter after he's from the Indies; (dw I will share the content of the letter later in another post)

I remembered seeing a post abt a napoleonic figure that are in a freemason do a three or two lines in their signature (?)😭 I lowkey forgot n I couldn't find the post so pls if anyone knows abt this, feel free to tell me :D Anyway back to the pic, I think a sus part was the two dots in between the H and W. I read abt the mason ppl often use a three dots resembling a triangle in their signature n I know that in the pic it's only two so it could be js a style that Daendels did outside of his official letters since so far I mostly saw his signature in official documents in the Indies so he could've decided smth simpler instead of writing "HW Daendels" This is why I need to see his letters outside official stuff ex like letter to his friends or wife etc 🫠

God damn this is long ass post I hope y'all can read it 💀 I'd love to see u guys theories regarding this haha ✨️ That's all for now, thank you n have a great day, stay safe 🌙

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kitchensink callithump linkdump

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

With just days to go before my summer vacation, I find myself once again with a backlog of links that I didn't squeeze into the blog, and no hope of clearing them before I disappear into a hammock for two weeks, so it's time for my 21st linkdump – here's the other 20:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

I'm going to start off this week's 'dump with a little bragging, because it's my newsletter, after all. First up: a book! Yes, I write a lot of books, but what I'm talking about here is a physical book, a limited edition of ten, that I commissioned from three brilliant craftspeople.

Back in March 2023, I launched a Kickstarter to pre-sell the audiobook of Red Team Blues, the first novel in my new Martin Hench series, about a forensic accountant who specializes in unwinding tech bros' finance frauds:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

One of the rewards for that campaign was a very special hardcover: a handmade, leather-bound edition of Red Team Blues, typeset by the typography legend John D. Berry:

https://johndberry.com/

Bound by the legendary book-artist John DeMerritt:

https://www.demerrittstudios.com/

And printed by the master printer JaVae Berry:

https://www.jgraphicssf.com/

But this wasn't a merely beautiful, well made book – it had a gimmick. You see, I had already completed the first draft of The Bezzle, the second Hench novel, by the time I launched the Kickstarter for Red Team Blues. I had John Berry lay out a tiny edition of that early draft as a quarter-sized book, and then John DeMerritt hand-bound it in card.

The reason that edition of The Bezzle had to be so small was that it was designed to slip into a hollow cavity in the hardcover, a cavity that John Berry had designed the type around, so that both books could be read and enjoyed.

I offered three of these for sale through the Kickstarter, and the three backers were very patient as the team went back and forth on the book, getting everything perfect. Last month, I took delivery of the books: three for my backers, one each for John DeMerritt and John Berry's personal archives, one for me, and a few more that I'm going to surprise some very special people with this Christmas.

Look, I had high hopes for this book. I dote on beautiful books, my house is busting with them, and I used to work at a new/used science fiction store where we had a small but heartstoppingly great rare book selection. But these books are fucking astounding. Every time I handle mine, my heart races. These are beautiful things, and I just want to show them to everyone:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/albums/72177720318331731/

As it happens, the next thing I'm going to do (after I finish this newsletter) is turn in the copyedited manuscript for the third Hench novel, Picks and Shovels, which comes out in Feb 2025 (luckily, I had enough time to review the edits myself, then turn it over to my mom, who has proofed every book I've written and always catches typos that everyone else misses, including some real howlers – thanks Mom!):

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

Of course, the majority of people who enjoy my books do not end up with one of these beautiful hardcovers – indeed, many of you consume my work exclusively as electronic media: ebooks and (of course) audiobooks. I love audiobooks and the audio editions of my books are very good, with narrators like Amber Benson, Wil Wheaton, and Neil Gaiman.

But here's the thing: Audible refuses to carry my books, because they are DRM-free (which means that they aren't locked to Audible's approved players – you can play my audiobooks with any audiobook player). Audible has a no-exceptions, iron-clad rule that every book they sell must be permanently locked into their platform, which means that Audible customers can't ditch their Audible software without losing their libraries – all the books they purchased:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

Being excluded from Audible takes a huge bite out of my income – after all, they're a monopolist with a 90% market share. That's why I'm so grateful for indie audiobook stores that carry my books on equitable terms that Audible denies – stores like Libro.fm, Downpour and even Google Books.

This week, I discovered a new, amazing indie audiobook store called Storyfair, where the books are DRM-free and the authors get a 75% royalty on every sale:

https://storyfair.net/helpstoryfairgrow/

Storyfair is a labor of love created by a married couple who were sickened and furious by the way that Audible screws authors and listeners and decided to do something about it. Naturally, I uploaded my whole catalog to the site so they could sell it:

https://storyfair.net/search-for-audiobooks/?keyword=cory+doctorow&filter=any

These books are DRM-free, which means that no matter who you buy them from, you can play them in the same player as your other DRM-free audiobooks. You know how you can read all your books under the same lamp, sitting in the same chair, and then put them in the same bookcase when you're done with them? It's weird – outrageous even! – that tech companies think that buying a book from them means that they should have the legal right to force you to read or listen to it using their technology exclusively.

If you let your Storyfair audiobooks touch your Libro.fm audiobooks, they won't get cooties! Audible is like a toddler that won't let their broccoli touch their peas – only that toddler is also a rapacious monopolist that keeps 75% of every sale.

The fight for fair audiobooks is one of those places where the different parts of my professional life cross over: activism, digital media, art, writing the web, and breaking down complex technical subjects for a mass audience. I've just signed up to a six-year project to combine all those facets in a structured way, in collaboration with Cornell University.

Cornell just named me as their latest AD White Professor-at-Large. This is a six-year appointment that involves a series of week-long visits to Ithaca to lecture, run seminars, meet with colleagues, collaborate on research, and do community performances:

https://adwhiteprofessors.cornell.edu/

We've tentatively scheduled my first visit for early September 2025, to coincide with the Ithaca Book Festival, and we've got big plans, roping in multiple departments at Cornell, the local alternative school and local colleges, doing talks at the fair as well as at the university, and (we hope!) squeezing in a stop in NYC on the way home for a day at Cornell Tech. I'm so excited (and honored) to be working with Cornell (and getting a chance to visit Moosewood Restaurant, whose cookbooks taught me how to cook!). Watch this space.

Authorship has always been a political act, but never moreso than today, with waves of book-bans sweeping the country. One of the heroes of those bans is Maggie Tokuda-Hall, who made headlines when she publicly excoriated Scholastic for demanding that she remove references to racism from her kids' books in order to make them more palatable to reactionaries:

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/15/1169848627/scholastic-childrens-book-racism

Tokuda-Hall has stepped up the fight, co-founding Authors Against Book Bans, an org that provides training and support for author/activists so they can fight back against book bans at library board and city council meetings:

https://www.authorsagainstbookbans.com/

Authors Against Book bans is looking for members! I signed up last week, within seconds of having Tokuda-Hall give me the pitch when we ran into each other in Oakland at the Locus Awards. Are you an author? Sign up too! They're especially interested in branching out beyond YA and kids' authors (though they want those kinds of writers, too!).

Book bans affect us all. Even if you personally are never stymied when you visit your library and discover the book that you want to read has been removed by a swivel-eyed loon with terminal groomer-panic. The bans sweeping our country mean that our neighbors and loved ones are being denied literature by these cranks. There are people in your life who are losing out on the possibility of a life-changing literary adventure (which is why the far right hates these books – they want to be sure no one encounters the ideas between their covers).

The realization that you have to live in a society with people who are harmed by injustice, even if you personally escape that justice? It's the whole basis for solidarity.

Americans are living through a multigenerational project of stamping out solidarity and insisting that we only ever view ourselves as individuals, with no stake in the plights of our neighbors. That's how the US got the most expensive, least effective health care system in the world. And even if you are in the vanishingly tiny minority of Americans who are happy with their health care, you live amongst people who are being killed by the system around you.

The health system is a perfect example of how monopolization drives more monopolization, and how that comes to harm the public and workers. Health consolidation began with pharma mergers, that led to pharma companies gouging hospitals. Hospitals, in turn, engaged in a nonstop orgy of mergers, which created regional monopolies that could resist the pricing power of monopoly pharma – and screw insurers. That kicked off consolidation in insurance, which is why most Americans have a "choice" of between one and three private insurers – and why health workers' monopoly employers have eroded their wages and working conditions.

A new study in American Economic Review: Insights puts some quantitative spine in this tale, tracking the relationship between hospital mergers and skyrocketed health-care prices:

https://harris.uchicago.edu/news-events/news/consolidation-hospital-sector-leading-higher-health-care-costs-study-finds?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

The researchers investigated 1,164 acute-care hospital mergers, finding that while the FTC only challenged 1% of these, they could – and should – have challenged 20% of them, based on the agency's own criteria for merger scrutiny. The researchers blame the rising costs of hospital care directly on these mergers, and point out that Congress has historically starved the FTC of the budget it needed to investigate these mergers. The annual additional costs to the American people from these mergers exceed the entire annual budget of the FTC.

It's not just hospitals: the entire investor class is hell-bent on spending their way to monopoly. Nowhere is that more true than in AI, where hundreds of billions are being poured into bids to attain permanent dominance through scale. Writing for their excellent AI Snake Oil newsletter, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor inject some realism into the AI scale hype:

https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/ai-scaling-myths

Narayanan and Kapoor challenge the idea that throwing more data at large language models will make the better: "With LLMs, we may have a couple of orders of magnitude of scaling left, or we may already be done." They are skeptical that this can be fixed with synthetic data (whose use is limited to "fixing specific gaps and making domain-specific improvements"). They also point out that if returns from data slow, then returns from adding more compute or making bigger models might also be throttled.

They reserve their most skeptical take for "AGI" – the idea that LLMs are going to achieve consciousness. This is a fundamentally unserious idea, one that they unpack in detail in their forthcoming book:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691249131/ai-snake-oil

One thing I'm hoping for from the book is some analysis of the material usefulness of AI hype – what purpose does the hype serve? I mean, obviously, hype is useful if you're looking to suck up investor capital, or flip an investment to a greater fool. But there's a specific character to AI hype: namely, the claim that AI will displace labor, which is really a claim that a bet on AI is a bet on the increasing wealth of capital at labor's expense.

In other words, AI is a bet on oligarchy. In America, that's a pretty safe bet, and the odds just got even better, thanks to a string of brutal Supreme Court decisions that legalized bribery, banned most regulatory enforcement, and made being alive and unhoused into a crime (Poor Laws 2.0):

https://prospect.org/justice/2024-06-29-whos-gonna-check-supreme-court-chevron-separation-powers/

But amidst all those gimmes to the rich and powerful, there was one notable exception: the SCOTUS ruling on the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy. Purdue was the family business of the Sacklers, a multigenerational dope-peddling dynasty that went from super-rich to stratospherically rich by kickstarting the opioid epidemic with their blockbuster drug Oxycontin.

The Sacklers sold mountains of Oxy the old fashioned way: by lying. The lied about its efficacy and they lied about its safety, and they helped kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. Eventually, this caught up with them, and Purdue lost a bunch of court cases and was forced into bankruptcy.

That's where things get gnarly: the Sacklers took the already-sleazy world of elite bankruptcy to a whole new level, with a set of breathtakingly sleazy maneuvers that ensured that their case would be heard by the one judge in America who would let them off the hook:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

That judge was Robert Drain and the Sacklers were the blow-off to a long and shameful career in public "service." The Sacklers incorporated a subsidiary in White Plains, NY (in Drain's turf) precisely 181 days before filing for bankruptcy, then claimed that this empty small-town office had been the company HQ for more than six months. Then they hid machine-readable metadata in their filing that tricked the court's database into assigning the case to Drain:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#shoppers-choice

The reason the Sacklers were so horny for Drain? He was a notoriously generous source of "nonconsensual third-party releases." These would allow the Sacklers to permanently end every lawsuit against them without having to declare bankruptcy. Instead, they could take their (ruined, hollow) company through bankruptcy, throw a small fraction of their personal fortunes into the pot, representing fractional pennies on the dollar of what they owed to their victims, and walk away with tens of billions and eternal protection from any future suits.

In other words, they could stiff their creditors and keep the loot. Which is exactly what Robert Drain gave them – before retiring from the bench to get a two-orders-of-magnitude pay raise at a white-shoe firm that specializes in representing corporate mass-murderers like the Sacklers.

That's where it would have ended, but for a surprising ruling from the Supreme Court, which threw out the nonconsensual third-party release deal and put the Sacklers back on the hook to pay the victims of their many, many crimes.

As ever, the best source of analysis and explanation for elite bankruptcy shenanigans is Adam Levitin of the Credit Slips blog:

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2024/06/purdue-pharma-decision-a-big-win-for-mass-tort-victims.html

Levitin has a prediction for what's going to happen next. He rejects the predictions of Sackler apologists, who say that this is going to add years or decades to the already too-long wait for compensation that the Sacklers' victims have endured. Instead, Levitin says that the Sacklers will almost certainly transfer billions more from their personal fortunes to the settlement pot and beg for consensual releases from their victims. In other words, they'll go from dictating terms to asking for them.

So the settlement will stand, but it will be larger, and victims who don't want to take it won't have to – they'll be able to sue. In other words, this ruling "does not prevent deals in bankruptcy. It just changes the terms of what those deals."

This has implications for other mass-murderers and corporate criminals, like Johnson and Johnson (who tricked women into dusting their vulvas with asbestos):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

And the Boy Scouts of America, who let pedophiles abuse children for decades:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/05/third-party-nonconsensual-releases/#au-recherche-du-pedos-perdue

Both J&J and BSA carved out nonconsensual third-party releases in the mold of the Sacklers' deal, and both briefed the Supreme Court, warning that if the Sacklers were forced to pay what they owed, J&J and BSA's victims would also be entitled to far larger sums. Go ahead and threaten us with a good time, why doncha?

The Sackler decision is a real bright spot at a dark time for corporate impunity. It's always nice to see big corporate bullies getting a bit of a comeuppance. Another one of those comeuppances was just delivered thanks to a classic fatfinger error.

A Microsoft engineer accidentally released the sourcecode to Playready, the company's flagship DRM product:

https://borncity.com/win/2024/06/26/microsoft-employee-accidentally-publishes-playready-code/

Microsoft's DRM doesn't do anything to protect the interests of creative workers or even the companies that employ them. As a Microsoft rep admitted on stage at a presentation in 2006, the purpose of Microsoft DRM is to prevent small startups from entering the market, ensuring that Microsoft and its "rivals" can safely divide up the world without worrying about disruptive competitors:

https://memex.craphound.com/2006/01/30/msft-our-drm-licensing-is-there-to-eliminate-hobbyists-and-little-guys/

I was there that day and reported on the remarks, prompting both Microsoft and its rep to furiously deny that they'd ever said this, despite multiple witnesses who heard it. This was just a couple years after I gave a viral talk at Microsoft about why the company shouldn't use DRM:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

By 2006, it was clear that the company was all in on DRM, and today, DRM is the centerpiece of Microsoft's anticompetitive strategy, and Playready is the centerpiece of Microsoft's DRM. The source-code leak is doubtless going to give rise to lots of grey-market tools for stripping DRM from all kinds of media:

https://security-explorations.com/microsoft-playready.html

You love to see it! Now I'm doubly looking forward to this summer's security conferences, including Defcon, where, for the first time, I'll be emceeing the charity poker tournament to benefit EFF:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/betting-your-digital-rights-eff-benefit-poker-tournament-def-con-32

This should be very fun – and funny – especially given how little I know about poker (I have been specifically selected on that basis, for the comedy value). Every player gets a custom EFF poker-deck, and the winner gets a treasure chest filled by EFF board member Tarah Wheeler, including "emeralds, black pearls, amethysts, diamonds, and more."

I like to close these linkdumps with something fun and uplifting, and I'd planned to end things with the poker-tournament, but then my pal Raph Koster announced that his game studio Playable Worlds had dropped its first announcement of Stars Reach, an open-world MMO like no other:

https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/06/28/announcing-stars-reach/

Raph is a legend in MMO design circles, whose credits include Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. He wrote the definitive text on how games work, A Theory of Fun, that's does for games what Understanding Comics did for comics:

https://www.theoryoffun.com/

Stars Reach is stupidly ambitious. It consists of truly open worlds, modeled to an absurd degree of fidelity:

We know the temperature, the humidity, the materials, for every cubic meter of every planet. Our water actually flows downhill and puddles. It freezes overnight or during the winter. It evaporates and turns to steam when heated up. And not just our water — everything does this. Catch a tree on fire with a stray blaster bolt. Melt your way through a glacier to find a hidden alien laboratory embedded in the ice. Stomp too hard on a rock bridge, and watch out, it might collapse under your feet. Dam up a river to irrigate your farm. Or float in space above an asteroid, and mine crystals from its depths.

The game is fundamentally a climate story, whose lore has humanity seeded around the galaxy by a powerful alien race called the Old Ones, only to have humans bust through the planetary limits of every world they were given. Now the Old Ones are giving humans another chance to try smarter ways of sustaining ourselves on new worlds, with the aid of powerful robots call "Servitors."

Because this is a Raph Koster game, it's got a bunch of extremely satisfying play dynamics:

A classless skill tree advancement system, where peaceful play matters just as much as combat

An intricate player-driven economy where players can craft their way to fame and fortune

An accessible yet deep combat system, where you can choose whether to play using action aiming or more forgiving homing shots or lock-on targeting

In-world player housing that lets you build and customize your home and form towns… and enough room for everyone to have a house

A single shardless galaxy, with both space and ground gameplay… in fact, you can build that house on an asteroid, if you want

The ability for a group to govern a planet, and define its laws, whether you want a peaceful home or a PvP free for all

Stars Reach is not playable yet, but the company's looking for gamers to give them feedback and steer the development:

https://starsreach.com/

OK, that wraps up the week's links. I'm gonna get one more edition out on Monday, god willin' and the crick don't rise, and then I'll be off for a couple weeks. Enjoy your summer!

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/29/pasticcio/#professor-at-large

Image: James St John https://flickr.com/photos/47445767@N05/40894047123

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

[mybeingthere]

Jumaadi (born 1973) moved from East Java, Indonesia to Sydney in 1997 to study at the National Art School. He graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Fine Art, and in 2008 he received his Masters in Fine Art.

1994 to 1995, Jumaadi was an Art Educator at the PPLH Environmental Education Centre in Seloliman, East Java (Indonesia).

From small, poetic gouache on paper works to large scale drawings which can exceed 3 x 20 metres, his paintings are comprised of mixed media [water, acrylic and oil etc.] executed on plywood, timber, cloth, canvas and buffalo hide. Jumaadi is also recognised for his sculptural works in wood and metal, as well as installation and performance work.