#Security license application service

[canadaoverseasfingerprinting]

Canada Overseas Fingerprinting in Abbotsford, BC, is your trusted partner for hassle-free security license application services. We understand the importance of security in today's world, and our dedicated team is here to assist you every step of the way. Our comprehensive services include fingerprinting, background checks, and application support to ensure a smooth and efficient licensing process.

Whether you're applying for a security guard license, private investigator license, or any other security-related credential, our experts are well-versed in the requirements and regulations. Count on us for accurate documentation and timely submission, helping you obtain your security license without unnecessary delays. Contact us today for reliable security license application services in Abbotsford, BC, Canada, and enhance your career prospects in the security industry.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The reason you can’t buy a car is the same reason that your health insurer let hackers dox you

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.

In 2017, Equifax suffered the worst data-breach in world history, leaking the deep, nonconsensual dossiers it had compiled on 148m Americans and 15m Britons, (and 19k Canadians) into the world, to form an immortal, undeletable reservoir of kompromat and premade identity-theft kits:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Equifax_data_breach

Equifax knew the breach was coming. It wasn't just that their top execs liquidated their stock in Equifax before the announcement of the breach – it was also that they ignored years of increasingly urgent warnings from IT staff about the problems with their server security.

Things didn't improve after the breach. Indeed, the 2017 Equifax breach was the starting gun for a string of more breaches, because Equifax's servers didn't just have one fubared system – it was composed of pure, refined fubar. After one group of hackers breached the main Equifax system, other groups breached other Equifax systems, over and over, and over:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/equifax-password-username-admin-lawsuit-201118316.html

Doesn't this remind you of Boeing? It reminds me of Boeing. The spectacular 737 Max failures in 2018 weren't the end of the scandal. They weren't even the scandal's start – they were the tipping point, the moment in which a long history of lethally defective planes "breached" from the world of aviation wonks and into the wider public consciousness:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Boeing_737

Just like with Equifax, the 737 Max disasters tipped Boeing into a string of increasingly grim catastrophes. Each fresh disaster landed with the grim inevitability of your general contractor texting you that he's just opened up your ceiling and discovered that all your joists had rotted out – and that he won't be able to deal with that until he deals with the termites he found last week, and that they'll have to wait until he gets to the cracks in the foundation slab from the week before, and that those will have to wait until he gets to the asbestos he just discovered in the walls.

Drip, drip, drip, as you realize that the most expensive thing you own – which is also the thing you had hoped to shelter for the rest of your life – isn't even a teardown, it's just a pure liability. Even if you razed the structure, you couldn't start over, because the soil is full of PCBs. It's not a toxic asset, because it's not an asset. It's just toxic.

Equifax isn't just a company: it's infrastructure. It started out as an engine for racial, political and sexual discrimination, paying snoops to collect gossip from nosy neighbors, which was assembled into vast warehouses full of binders that told bank officers which loan applicants should be denied for being queer, or leftists, or, you know, Black:

https://jacobin.com/2017/09/equifax-retail-credit-company-discrimination-loans

This witch-hunts-as-a-service morphed into an official part of the economy, the backbone of the credit industry, with a license to secretly destroy your life with haphazardly assembled "facts" about your life that you had the most minimal, grudging right to appeal (or even see). Turns out there are a lot of customers for this kind of service, and the capital markets showered Equifax with the cash needed to buy almost all of its rivals, in mergers that were waved through by a generation of Reaganomics-sedated antitrust regulators.

There's a direct line from that acquisition spree to the Equifax breach(es). First of all, companies like Equifax were early adopters of technology. They're a database company, so they were the crash-test dummies for ever generation of database. These bug-riddled, heavily patched systems were overlaid with subsequent layers of new tech, with new defects to be patched and then overlaid with the next generation.

These systems are intrinsically fragile, because things fall apart at the seams, and these systems are all seams. They are tech-debt personified. Now, every kind of enterprise will eventually reach this state if it keeps going long enough, but the early digitizers are the bow-wave of that coming infopocalypse, both because they got there first and because the bottom tiers of their systems are composed of layers of punchcards and COBOL, crumbling under the geological stresses of seventy years of subsequent technology.

The single best account of this phenomenon is the British Library's postmortem of their ransomware attack, which is also in the running for "best hard-eyed assessment of how fucked things are":

https://www.bl.uk/home/british-library-cyber-incident-review-8-march-2024.pdf

There's a reason libraries, cities, insurance companies, and other giant institutions keep getting breached: they started accumulating tech debt before anyone else, so they've got more asbestos in the walls, more sagging joists, more foundation cracks and more termites.

That was the starting point for Equifax – a company with a massive tech debt that it would struggle to pay down under the most ideal circumstances.

Then, Equifax deliberately made this situation infinitely worse through a series of mergers in which it bought dozens of other companies that all had their own version of this problem, and duct-taped their failing, fucked up IT systems to its own. The more seams an IT system has, the more brittle and insecure it is. Equifax deliberately added so many seams that you need to be able to visualized additional spatial dimensions to grasp them – they had fractal seams.

But wait, there's more! The reason to merge with your competitors is to create a monopoly position, and the value of a monopoly position is that it makes a company too big to fail, which makes it too big to jail, which makes it too big to care. Each Equifax acquisition took a piece off the game board, making it that much harder to replace Equifax if it fucked up. That, in turn, made it harder to punish Equifax if it fucked up. And that meant that Equifax didn't have to care if it fucked up.

Which is why the increasingly desperate pleas for more resources to shore up Equifax's crumbling IT and security infrastructure went unheeded. Top management could see that they were steaming directly into an iceberg, but they also knew that they had a guaranteed spot on the lifeboats, and that someone else would be responsible for fishing the dead passengers out of the sea. Why turn the wheel?

That's what happened to Boeing, too: the company acquired new layers of technical complexity by merging with rivals (principally McDonnell-Douglas), and then starved the departments that would have to deal with that complexity because it was being managed by execs whose driving passion was to run a company that was too big to care. Those execs then added more complexity by chasing lower costs by firing unionized, competent, senior staff and replacing them with untrained scabs in jurisdictions chosen for their lax labor and environmental enforcement regimes.

(The biggest difference was that Boeing once had a useful, high-quality product, whereas Equifax started off as an irredeemably terrible, if efficient, discrimination machine, and grew to become an equally terrible, but also ferociously incompetent, enterprise.)

This is the American story of the past four decades: accumulate tech debt, merge to monopoly, exponentially compound your tech debt by combining barely functional IT systems. Every corporate behemoth is locked in a race between the eventual discovery of its irreparable structural defects and its ability to become so enmeshed in our lives that we have to assume the costs of fixing those defects. It's a contest between "too rotten to stand" and "too big to care."

Remember last February, when we all discovered that there was a company called Change Healthcare, and that they were key to processing virtually every prescription filled in America? Remember how we discovered this? Change was hacked, went down, ransomed, and no one could fill a scrip in America for more than a week, until they paid the hackers $22m in Bitcoin?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Change_Healthcare_ransomware_attack

How did we end up with Change Healthcare as the linchpin of the entire American prescription system? Well, first Unitedhealthcare became the largest health insurer in America by buying all its competitors in a series of mergers that comatose antitrust regulators failed to block. Then it combined all those other companies' IT systems into a cosmic-scale dog's breakfast that barely ran. Then it bought Change and used its monopoly power to ensure that every Rx ran through Change's servers, which were part of that asbestos-filled, termite-infested, crack-foundationed, sag-joisted teardown. Then, it got hacked.

United's execs are the kind of execs on a relentless quest to be too big to care, and so they don't care. Which is why their they had to subsequently announce that they had suffered a breach that turned the complete medical histories of one third of Americans into immortal Darknet kompromat that is – even now – being combined with breach data from Equifax and force-fed to the slaves in Cambodia and Laos's pig-butchering factories:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/politics/data-stolen-healthcare-hack/index.html

Those slaves are beaten, tortured, and punitively raped in compounds to force them to drain the life's savings of everyone in Canada, Australia, Singapore, the UK and Europe. Remember that they are downstream of the forseeable, inevitable IT failures of companies that set out to be too big to care that this was going to happen.

Failures like Ticketmaster's, which flushed 500 million users' personal information into the identity-theft mills just last month. Ticketmaster, you'll recall, grew to its current scale through (you guessed it), a series of mergers en route to "too big to care" status, that resulted in its IT systems being combined with those of Ticketron, Live Nation, and dozens of others:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/business/ticketmaster-hack-data-breach.html

But enough about that. Let's go car-shopping!

Good luck with that. There's a company you've never heard. It's called CDK Global. They provide "dealer management software." They are a monopolist. They got that way after being bought by a private equity fund called Brookfield. You can't complete a car purchase without their systems, and their systems have been hacked. No one can buy a car:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/business/cdk-global-cyber-attack-update/index.html

Writing for his BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller tells the all-too-familiar story of how CDK Global filled the walls of the nation's auto-dealers with the IT equivalent of termites and asbestos, and lays the blame where it belongs: with a legal and economics establishment that wanted it this way:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/a-supreme-court-justice-is-why-you

The CDK story follows the Equifax/Boeing/Change Healthcare/Ticketmaster pattern, but with an important difference. As CDK was amassing its monopoly power, one of its execs, Dan McCray, told a competitor, Authenticom founder Steve Cottrell that if he didn't sell to CDK that he would "fucking destroy" Authenticom by illegally colluding with the number two dealer management company Reynolds.

Rather than selling out, Cottrell blew the whistle, using Cottrell's own words to convince a district court that CDK had violated antitrust law. The court agreed, and ordered CDK and Reynolds – who controlled 90% of the market – to continue to allow Authenticom to participate in the DMS market.

Dealers cheered this on: CDK/Reynolds had been steadily hiking prices, while ingesting dealer data and using it to gouge the dealers on additional services, while denying dealers access to their own data. The services that Authenticom provided for $35/month cost $735/month from CDK/Reynolds (they justified this price hike by saying they needed the additional funds to cover the costs of increased information security!).

CDK/Reynolds appealed the judgment to the 7th Circuit, where a panel of economists weighed in. As Stoller writes, this panel included monopoly's most notorious (and well-compensated) cheerleader, Frank Easterbrook, and the "legendary" Democrat Diane Wood. They argued for CDK/Reynolds, demanding that the court release them from their obligations to share the market with Authenticom:

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-7th-circuit/1879150.html

The 7th Circuit bought the argument, overturning the lower court and paving the way for the CDK/Reynolds monopoly, which is how we ended up with one company's objectively shitty IT systems interwoven into the sale of every car, which meant that when Russian hackers looked at that crosseyed, it split wide open, allowing them to halt auto sales nationwide. What happens next is a near-certainty: CDK will pay a multimillion dollar ransom, and the hackers will reward them by breaching the personal details of everyone who's ever bought a car, and the slaves in Cambodian pig-butchering compounds will get a fresh supply of kompromat.

But on the plus side, the need to pay these huge ransoms is key to ensuring liquidity in the cryptocurrency markets, because ransoms are now the only nondiscretionary liability that can only be settled in crypto:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

When the 7th Circuit set up every American car owner to be pig-butchered, they cited one of the most important cases in antitrust history: the 2004 unanimous Supreme Court decision in Verizon v Trinko:

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2003/02-682

Trinko was a case about whether antitrust law could force Verizon, a telcoms monopolist, to share its lines with competitors, something it had been ordered to do and then cheated on. The decision was written by Antonin Scalia, and without it, Big Tech would never have been able to form. Scalia and Trinko gave us the modern, too-big-to-care versions of Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft and the other tech baronies.

In his Trinko opinion, Scalia said that "possessing monopoly power" and "charging monopoly prices" was "not unlawful" – rather, it was "an important element of the free-market system." Scalia – writing on behalf of a unanimous court! – said that fighting monopolists "may lessen the incentive for the monopolist…to invest in those economically beneficial facilities."

In other words, in order to prevent monopolists from being too big to care, we have to let them have monopolies. No wonder Trinko is the Zelig of shitty antitrust rulings, from the decision to dismiss the antitrust case against Facebook and Apple's defense in its own ongoing case:

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/073_2021.06.28_mtd_order_memo.pdf

Trinko is the origin node of too big to care. It's the reason that our whole economy is now composed of "infrastructure" that is made of splitting seams, asbestos, termites and dry rot. It's the reason that the entire automotive sector became dependent on companies like Reynolds, whose billionaire owner intentionally and illegally destroyed evidence of his company's crimes, before going on to commit the largest tax fraud in American history:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/billionaire-robert-brockman-accused-of-biggest-tax-fraud-in-u-s-history-dies-at-81-11660226505

Trinko begs companies to become too big to care. It ensures that they will exponentially increase their IT debt while becoming structurally important to whole swathes of the US economy. It guarantees that they will underinvest in IT security. It is the soil in which pig butchering grew.

It's why you can't buy a car.

Now, I am fond of quoting Stein's Law at moments like this: "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." As Stoller writes, after two decades of unchallenged rule, Trinko is looking awfully shaky. It was substantially narrowed in 2023 by the 10th Circuit, which had been briefed by Biden's antitrust division:

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/22-1164/22-1164-2023-08-21.html

And the cases of 2024 have something going for them that Trinko lacked in 2004: evidence of what a fucking disaster Trinko is. The wrongness of Trinko is so increasingly undeniable that there's a chance it will be overturned.

But it won't go down easy. As Stoller writes, Trinko didn't emerge from a vacuum: the economic theories that underpinned it come from some of the heroes of orthodox economics, like Joseph Schumpeter, who is positively worshipped. Schumpeter was antitrust's OG hater, who wrote extensively that antitrust law didn't need to exist because any harmful monopoly would be overturned by an inevitable market process dictated by iron laws of economics.

Schumpeter wrote that monopolies could only be sustained by "alertness and energy" – that there would never be a monopoly so secure that its owner became too big to care. But he went further, insisting that the promise of attaining a monopoly was key to investment in great new things, because monopolists had the economic power that let them plan and execute great feats of innovation.

The idea that monopolies are benevolent dictators has pervaded our economic tale for decades. Even today, critics who deplore Facebook and Google do so on the basis that they do not wield their power wisely (say, to stamp out harassment or disinformation). When confronted with the possibility of breaking up these companies or replacing them with smaller platforms, those critics recoil, insisting that without Big Tech's scale, no one will ever have the power to accomplish their goals:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/18/urban-wildlife-interface/#combustible-walled-gardens

But they misunderstand the relationship between corporate power and corporate conduct. The reason corporations accumulate power is so that they can be insulated from the consequences of the harms they wreak upon the rest of us. They don't inflict those harms out of sadism: rather, they do so in order to externalize the costs of running a good system, reaping the profits of scale while we pay its costs.

The only reason to accumulate corporate power is to grow too big to care. Any corporation that amasses enough power that it need not care about us will not care about it. You can't fix Facebook by replacing Zuck with a good unelected social media czar with total power over billions of peoples' lives. We need to abolish Zuck, not fix Zuck.

Zuck is not exceptional: there were a million sociopaths whom investors would have funded to monopolistic dominance if he had balked. A monopoly like Facebook has a Zuck-shaped hole at the top of its org chart, and only someone Zuck-shaped will ever fit through that hole.

Our whole economy is now composed of companies with sociopath-shaped holes at the tops of their org chart. The reason these companies can only be run by sociopaths is the same reason that they have become infrastructure that is crumbling due to sociopathic neglect. The reckless disregard for the risk of combining companies is the source of the market power these companies accumulated, and the market power let them neglect their systems to the point of collapse.

This is the system that Schumpeter, and Easterbrook, and Wood, and Scalia – and the entire Supreme Court of 2004 – set out to make. The fact that you can't buy a car is a feature, not a bug. The pig-butcherers, wallowing in an ocean of breach data, are a feature, not a bug. The point of the system was what it did: create unimaginable wealth for a tiny cohort of the worst people on Earth without regard to the collapse this would provoke, or the plight of those of us trapped and suffocating in the rubble.

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/2024/06/28/dealer-management-software/#antonin-scalia-stole-your-car

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[txttletale]

"we should boycott the use of this capital good, seeing as how it's being monopolized."

"but if it were socialist we wouldn't have to boycott it. it's not inherently evil."

[nothing happens]

capital is not a good, it is a social relation to the means of production.

capital cannot be boycotted, only consumer goods can.

boycotts (against consumer goods) are executed in an organized, targeted fashion with specific goals. otherwise it's not a boycott, it's just a consumer choice.

needless to say there exists no organized boycott campaign on AI art. even if it did, it would not be very useful because AI companies make money by licensing their API to other companies and end users are not a primary source of direct revenue for them.

there exists no monopoly on art or AI art -- not only can you use many different image generation services but you can download stable diffusion right now and make your own. you can also still Draw. there exists no monopoly here on anything

where there has been (effective, organized action) against the use of AI technology to immiserate workers (not the technology itself, only specific applications by employers) in the form of industrial action (e.g. the AI elements of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike demands, which were to be clear not the primary causes of those strikes) it has, shockingly, worked, and far more than "nothing" has happened, & it was good and awesome and should happen more

i'm not telling anyone not to take effective industrial action to secure labour protections from new technologies obvsies.

ceterum censeo IP law esse delendam

[todaysdocument]

Act of June 19, 1934 (Federal Communications Commission Act)

Record Group 11: General Records of the United States GovernmentSeries: Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress

S.3285

Public___No 416 73d CONGRESS

Seventy-third Congress of the United States of America;

At the Second Session.

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Wednesday, the third day of January, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four.

AN ACT

To provide for the regulation of interstate and foreign communication by wire or radio, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in the Congress assembled,

Title I -- General Provisions

PURPOSES OF ACT; CREATION OF FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

SECTION 1. For the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all people of the United States a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority heretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is hereby created a commission to be known as the "Federal Communications Commission", which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the previsions of this Act.

APPLICATIONS OF ACT

SEC.2. (a) The provisions of this Act shall apply to all interstate and foreign communication by wire or radio and all interstate and foreign transmission of energy by radio, which originates and/or is received within the United States, and to all persons engaged within the United States in such communication or transmission of energy by radio, and to the licensing and regulating of all radio stations as hereinafter provided; but it shall not apply to persons engaged in wire or radio communication or transmission in the Philippine Islands or Canal Zone, or to wire or radio communication or transmission wholly within the Philippine Islands or Canal Zone.

(b) Subject to the provisions of section 301, nothing in this Act shall be construed to apply or to give the Commission jurisdiction with respect to (1) charges, classifications, practices, services, facili-S.3285--55

by the Commission, and may cause the closing of any station for radio communication and removal therefrom of its apparatus and equipment, or he may authorize the use or control of any such station and/or its apparatus and equipment by any department of the Government under such regulations as he may prescribe, upon just compensation to the owners.

(d) The President shall ascertain the just compensation for such use or control and certify the amount ascertained to Congress for appropriation and payment to the person entitled thereto. If the amount so certified is unsatisfactory to the person entitled thereto, such person shall be paid only 75 per centum of the amount and shall be entitled to sue the United States to recover such further sum as added to such payment of 75 per centum will make such amount as will be just compensation for the use and control. Such suit shall be brought in the manner provided by paragraph 20 of section 24, or by section 145, of the Judicial Code, as amended.

EFFECTIVE DATE OF ACT

SEC. 607. This Act shall take effect upon the organization of the Commission, except that this section and sections 1 and 4 shall take effect July 1, 1934. The Commission shall be deemed to be organized upon such date as four members of the Commission have taken office.

SEPARABILITY CLAUSE

SEC. 607. If any provision of this Act or application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the Act and the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

SHORT TITLE

SEC. 609. This Act may be cited as the "Communications Act of 1934."

[signed] Henry T. Rainey

Speaker of the House of Representatives

[signed] Jno N. Garner

Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate

Approved

June 19 1934

[signed] Franklin D Roosevelt

[briarrolfe]

Apparently my post about content warnings yesterday included enough key words to trigger the AI Tumblr mental health bot

Mental health apps are dicey to begin with but they get much dicier when you start connecting people experiencing mental illness via chat function.

A few years ago at my day job we received a project proposal for a youth mental health app, which the applicant thought would cost less than $10,000 to develop. Their app would connect isolated young people in rural and regional areas who were interested in mental health topics so that they could support each other via text chat, based on their location. It even suggested having them be able to flag their interest in specific topics, like being a member of the LGBTIQA+ community.

A few older colleagues thought this sounded like a good idea, but I, being annoying in the way that I’m annoying, started asking questions like:

How do we moderate the app?

How do we make sure users don’t just get the app in order to bully vulnerable young people?

If it’s based on location, couldn’t one user use two phones to triangulate where another user lived?

Are we sure that connecting isolated people based on nothing but having depression in common is a good idea?

If it’s for isolated young people, how do we prevent them from using it as a dating service?

How do we prevent scamming?

How do we prevent users from outing young LGBTIQA+ people who live in rural areas and are experiencing mental illness?

How do we prevent the app from becoming a dating service for people over 18 interested in accessing vulnerable teenagers?

How do you collect age data from a population who might not have driver’s licenses?

Hey, what sort of data security does less than $10,000 buy, anyway?

It was good to ask those questions because the people proposing the project had of course not thought to ask them at all, which proved that it wasn’t an achievable project with any meaningful outcomes. (When a budget is “$10,000: app development,” you already know people don’t know what they’re talking about.) However, the final nail in the coffin may have been when I started referring to the project as, “oh yeah, the suicide pact app?”

Anyway. I’m sure nothing could possibly go wrong with Kokobot because OF COURSE the missing piece of that proposed project was an AI chatbot,

[trans-axolotl]

key takeaways from psych abolition discussions at the anarchist healthcare conference 2023:

Psych wards and asylums have not always existed, and we can tear down and create alternatives! As much as the system wants us to believe this is our only option for providing care and support for madness, that is simply not true and there are multiple historical examples of successful deinstitutionalization. We talked a lot about the Basaglia method and the application of that in Italy and Brazil.

Successful resistance within psych wards has required solidarity from both workers and patients. Patients are often understandably very mistrustful of the professionals who have perpetrated violence against us, and psych professionals need to actively work to build trust, collaborate in sharing the burden of risk that currently patients are the only ones holding, actively value patients lives above their job security, and must actively interrogate the power dynamics they are currently operating within. One area to start building solidarity can be around the ways that psych workers like behavioral techs are often underpaid, overworked, and exploited by upper management, and that many psych workers go into the field because they have their own experience with mental health. There needs to be much more room for patients to express our anger, rage, and distrust, and still be respected by psych professionals who want to organize with us.

This quote from Basaglia and the Democratic Psychiatry movement in Italy: " The debate about whether to work inside or outside institutions, inside or outside, presupposes that inside and outside exist as clearly separate and antagonistic positions. Inside and outside are created as opposite and completely separate poles by a social system that is based on divisions at all levels. If we accept this premise, we are already playing into the hands of administrators."

What resistance in psych wards can look like! We talked about everything from organized protests, group refusal to comply with treatment activities, individual noncompliance, breaking people out, trying to advocate through the approved means like ethics committees and patient advocates, sneaking in contraband, creating intentional peer support within those spaces, and also some more complex and nuance conversations around the fact that when all ability to access privacy and bodily autonomy is taken away, many patients will turn to self harm as a form of enforcing bodily autonomy.

Ways that professionals can act as accomplices, by refusing to sign psych holds, refusing to force meds, enabling peer support, breaking their hospital policies, letting patients get away with things, advocating for policies like cell phones in units, calling ethics consults. Also the idea of deliscensure, where therapists will go to school, get licensed, and then let that license expire and offer services under "life coaching," which has different legal responsibilities and creates less entanglement with the state and mandatory reporting.

The idea that coercion exists on so many levels in the psych system, from outpatient to inpatient. "involuntary holds" are not the only type of involuntary treatment that happens. Someone had a really good point that choosing between coercive and violent inpatient systems or being forced to have zero support on the outside is also not a choice free from coercion, and that any discussion of involuntary treatment needs to have a really broad understanding of how coercion and choice plays into treatment in so many levels.

Brainstorming what inside/outside organizing might look like in terms of how we as community outside institutions support people currently incarcerated. Some ideas included bringing in regular care packages with fun items for patients and also items like hair care products, especially for textured hair since psych wards rarely provide any hair care products for Black hair, and sneaking in contact info to local organizations and collectives, sneaking in radical zines about mental health support topics/psych abolition/harm reduction by giving them covers of approved topics on things like CBT, mainstream mental health, etc. Having hotlines for immediate mobilization for psych incarceration. Utilizing the wisdom and knowledge from people who are regularly in and out of hospitals, who might have a lot more long term knowledge of how a psych facility functions than staff who have a lot of turnover. Really listening to patients and peers and getting creative about how to reach people and remind them that they're not forgotten. We really grappled with how to do this type of organizing when considering that psych wards are often very transient spaces where people are there for only 5ish days, and how to set up structures that can offer support to people their first time they enter a psych facility. A lot of our conversations also looked at successful inside/outside organizing happening in prisons, and people felt like that would be a really good direction to go into.

Building our community capacity to deal with crisis, and also depathologizing crisis! We talked about how often people label others' experiences as crisis without actually seeing how the person feels about it, and how white supremacy culture really encourages this on a societal level, especially in terms of what public situations bystanders will call the cops/crisis hotlines. In order to build networks of community care, we need to get comfortable with crisis, and look at how crisis exists in context, instead of just labeling things as symptoms and disorders. Healing cannot exist in isolation, and alongside things like emotional and therapeutic support, access to substances, we need to consider how to integrate material support for things like housing, food, medical care, fighting against oppression, access to job security, things like that. We also need to address how to expand access to community spaces, especially when considering people who feel isolated from in person community and don't have support networks to rely on.

overall this conference was just a really cool convergence of mad people, psych professional allies, people working with harm reduction and alternative crisis teams and just a million different contexts! happy to expand more on any of these points I've listed above.

[buyresidentialpropertiesindubai]

Top Tips for Choosing the Best Mortgage Broker in Dubai

Securing a home loan in Dubai can be a complex process, and choosing the right mortgage broker can make all the difference. This guide provides top tips for selecting the best mortgage broker to help you navigate the home loan process in Dubai.

Importance of a Mortgage Broker

A mortgage broker acts as a bridge between borrowers and lenders, helping you find the best mortgage deals and guiding you through the application process. Here are some benefits of using a mortgage broker:

Expert Knowledge: Brokers have extensive knowledge of the mortgage market.

Access to Multiple Lenders: They work with multiple lenders, giving you more options.

Personalized Service: Brokers offer services tailored to your financial situation and needs.

Time Savings: They handle the paperwork and negotiations, saving you time and effort.

For more information on home loans, visit home loan dubai.

Steps to Choosing the Best Mortgage Broker

Research and Recommendations: Start by asking for recommendations from friends, family, and colleagues. Check online reviews and testimonials.

Verify Credentials: Ensure the broker is licensed and regulated by the relevant authorities in Dubai.

Interview Multiple Brokers: Speak with several brokers to compare their services, fees, and expertise.

Evaluate Experience: Choose a broker with a proven track record and extensive experience in the Dubai mortgage market.

Understand Fees: Clarify the broker's fee structure and ensure there are no hidden costs.

For property purchase options, explore Buy Houses in Dubai.

Questions to Ask Potential Brokers

What types of mortgages do you offer?

Which lenders do you work with?

What is your fee structure?

Can you provide references from previous clients?

How will you help me find the best mortgage deal?

For expert mortgage advice, consider Mortgage Broker UAE.

Benefits of Using a Mortgage Broker

Access to Exclusive Deals: Brokers often have access to deals that are not available to the general public.

Expert Negotiation: They can negotiate better terms and rates with lenders.

Stress Reduction: Brokers handle the complex paperwork and administrative tasks, reducing your stress.

Comprehensive Financial Advice: They provide valuable financial advice, helping you make informed decisions.

For rental options, visit Apartments For Rent in Dubai.

Real-Life Success Story

Consider the case of Sarah, a first-time homebuyer in Dubai. With the help of a mortgage broker, she secured a favorable mortgage rate and purchased her dream home. The broker's expertise and negotiation skills saved her time and money, making the home-buying process smooth and stress-free.

For selling your apartments, visit Sell Your Apartments in Dubai.

Conclusion

Choosing the best mortgage broker in Dubai requires careful research and evaluation. By following the tips outlined in this guide, you can find a broker who will provide expert advice, access to the best mortgage deals, and personalized service. For more resources and expert advice, visit home loan dubai.

[brehaaorgana]

adhd budgeting talk: the budgeting service i *don't* use

i keep seeing youtubers get sponsorships from rocketmoney and normally i tune them out, because a) i don't care, and b.) i am happy to recommend people sign up for YNAB, i use YNAB, and will continue to use it. [i am NOT sponsored. they give me no money. i DO have a referral link, but any person who uses ynab does. we both get a free month of the service if you start a trial period via my link, and then choose to purchase the service after the end of your free trial. they don't auto-charge. that's it.]

BUT. but. one youtuber, as part of her advert, started mentioning that rocketmoney has bill negotiation services and she was talking about how nice it was to have someone like, be the adult on her behalf to negotiate down bills save her money etc, how she didn't have to deal with the stress and anxiety and they do it all FOR you. they call all the companies FOR you!!! how "nice"!

unfortunately this was THE OPPOSITE of reassuring to me. in fact, this screams: RED ALERT RED FLAG PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!!

let me explain why i don't trust rocketmoney since i found this out.

the VERY tl;dr is this: you're giving away all your security info and login info, giving them the right to pretend to be you to negotiate on your bills, and also they "may" charge you for this service per bill. if you want assistance with this kind of thing, please find a non-profit licensed credit counseling agency via the NFCC because as non-profits their goal is not making money off of you, it's literally to improve the community, increase financial education, and genuinely help you.

okay the full "holy shit please be more suspicious of companies whose goal is to make money," spiel":

most budgeting apps/services that are free have to make money somehow, so you need to consider how they do that. (probably selling your data, or being your literal bank, etc). they are typically for-profit companies. never forget the goal is them making money.

that's not inherently a bad thing per se, but it means they have a known motive.

if you have a budgeting app set to auto-sync with your bank info, you are granting them a limited power of attorney to view, access, and transmit your bank data. every single budget company that offers this, mentions that in their terms of service agreement.

my recommended budget service, You Need a Budget, states this in their TOS. in YNAB, it only applies if you choose to sync your bank accounts with your budget, bc you have to give them the info, obviously. You can enter everything all manually if you want to, and then they can't access anything. Personally I am comfortable with authorizing this very limited POA, so I do it, because yeah, it makes my life easier, and i need this automated to make it sustainable to do bc adhd. even on my best days, i would never keep up with all of that.

so, that said: YOU ARE GRANTING A FOR PROFIT COMPANY WAYYYY MORE POWER THAN JUST PULLING AND TRANSMITTING YOUR TRANSACTIONS DATA IF THEY'RE NEGOTIATING BILLS ON YOUR BEHALF!!!!

LIKE. bruh. y'all. everyone.

unfortunate truths:

sometimes you gotta at least skim the headings of the terms of service agreement

sometimes you GOTTA just buckle down and do the annoying anxiety inducing awful adult thing yourself and, barring that --

find a NON-PROFIT TO HELP YOU, NOT A FOR PROFIT COMPANY if you really want this kind of service.

rocket money's terms of service for bill negotiation is waaayyy more than just "sync and share my transaction data."

they may CALL UP ANOTHER COMPANY AND PRETEND TO BE YOU.

By requesting a Bill Negotiation, you authorize Rocket Money to contact your Provider as your limited agent in order to secure a better rate on the service on your behalf. Rocket Money will provide account verification details including, but not limited to, your full name, respective addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses, the name of the Provider, your Provider account number, the applicable password, PIN number, or other security credentials to access the account or validate the account with the service provider in order to proceed with the negotiation. If it’s necessary for our agents to represent to your Provider that they’re the account holder, you consent to such representation solely in order to perform the Bill Negotiation.

hello???? they get all your security info and pin and credentials and you give them permission to pretend to be you. their goal, i must STRESS, is to MAKE A PROFIT OFF OF YOU by doing this.

...i know people's eyes glaze over this kinda shit but like. god. the TOS!!!! the FEES!!!!

We may charge a Bill Negotiation fee (the "Negotiation Fee") for our Services connected with Bill Negotiation.

you MAY charge a fee for this??? i hate legalese. this is probably just "we WILL charge a fee most of the time."

The current Negotiation Fee is decided by the user, anywhere between 30-60% of the 12-month savings achieved as a result of the negotiation. 

wait, what. it's decided by us, the CUSTOMER, and we can pick a range? who the fuck would choose a 60% fee? this doesn't make sense. why are there options. why the fuck would i pay 60% OF THE SAVINGS TO MAKE SOMEONE DO ONE PAINFUL PHONE CALL FOR ME?

For instance, if a 40% fee is chosen and Rocket Money is able to lower a bill by $10 per month, that would equal savings of $120 over 12 months and a Negotiation Fee of $48.

.....okay so. again they lower the bill by $10.00 monthly, right? let's say the bill was originally $50, now it's $40, but you DO pay it monthly, not in a lump annual discount. doesn't matter what this bill is for. they're taking 40% of your savings that they broker for you. meaning instead of saving $10, you're only saving $6.00.

you're not ACTUALLY saving $120.00 over the course of a year. you're paying them $48.00 all at once in order to not have to spend $72.00 over the course of TWELVE MONTHS. because you don't want to make an annoying phone call that might take you hours.

i mean look, if you feel that's worth nearly $50 (hypothetically) for a SINGLE BILL, idk what to tell you. that just doesn't seem like a very budgeting savvy trick tbh.

We may charge the Negotiation Fee to the credit or debit card provided and authorized at the time the Bill Negotiation is submitted. The Negotiation Fee is non-refundable, except in the event that an error was made during the Bill Negotiation, or except as otherwise required by applicable law. 

oh also if they sign you up for some special promo deal that expires and then gives you a higher bill or extra fees later, you're on the hook for that. lmfao.

ALSO THEY HAVE A SAVINGS PLAN THING THEY OFFER AND I JUST SEE THIS, BOLDING THEIRS:

Rocket Money’s Savings Plan feature is not an interest-yielding savings account so you will not earn any interest on your funds.

get the fuck outta here lmfao.

YOU LITERALLY DON'T EARN ANY INTEREST IN YOUR SAVINGS ACCOUNT. THIS IS THE WORST KIND OF SAVINGS ACCOUNT THERE CAN BE.

this is LESS INTEREST EARNED THAN MY CHECKING ACCOUNTS, BECAUSE IT'S ZERO.

I have a decent-ish savings account right now. i've earned almost a full THIRTY DOLLARS so far, THIS YEAR. in THREE MONTHS. FROM INTEREST.

i cannot stress this enough, rocket money is selling you a savings...program or something to help you...save money.

it's a premium only feature.

We offer the Premium membership on a sliding scale of $4 -$5 per month (billed annually at $48 and $60) or $6-$12 per month, billed monthly.

it was so hard to find this btw. (that's $72.00 - $144.00 annual in the monthly billing example.)

again i stress it is a premium feature for you to pay at least $48.00 a year in order to "automate your savings" where it will earn you ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST.

i've earned exactly $29.90 in interest from my completely free to open regular degular savings account since january 1st. it is march 16th. if we just estimate i could get about $30 in interest every 3 months, then i could earn $120.00 just from saving money all on my own. (incidentally, that would cover the $99 annual YNAB subscription fee and leave change left over. gee. how nice. real talk: it's cheaper than amazon prime. but anyways.)

why the fuck would i pay someone $48.00 to put my savings somewhere for me and have it do nothing. what. how does that improve my finances. i hate this.

.....goddamnit they're a MORTGAGE COMPANY. rocket mortgage. is....rocket money. lmaooo explains everything.

okay don't sign up for them bye.

[ghostflowerdreams]

Writing Research: Homeless Character

I’m currently writing about a character that is homeless. A lot of this information is base on real accounts and advice from people that suddenly found themselves homeless. I’ve even included a couple of things that I’ve learned myself because at one point I thought I would be kicked out and wanted to prepared myself as much as I possibly could for it.

Shelters

Homeless shelters are a basic form of temporary accommodation where a bed is provided in a shared space overnight. Most shelters even provide homeless individuals with basic necessities like food, water, toiletries, and clothes. While others offer programs that aim to help people get off the street and get back on their feet.

However, not all shelters accept walk-ins and if they do, it’s usually first come, first serve because space is limited. Most of them also required you to fill out an application first so they can determine if you’re eligible to stay at their shelter. You may even need to have certain documents to prove your identity and residence (such as a driver’s license, green card, passport or visa, birth certificate, Social Security card, Medicaid card, eviction papers, etc.) or have a referral from a social services agency to be accepted. That’s because some shelters are specifically aimed towards different types of homeless people like a family, pregnant women, teens, a single adult, etc. Those shelter facility have special accommodation that better suits their needs.

Each shelter also has their own set of rules, restrictions and regulations, which depends on who’s running them and where they get their funding from. In general, well-funded shelters tend to have more programs and better facilities. Though these types of shelters also tend to be more overcrowded than smaller, less-funded ones. Almost all shelters have set opening and closing times. Most of the time, they open at 8:00 AM and close at 4:00 PM. For homeless people working night shifts or irregular working hours, this can be a deterrent.

Generally, shelters are free but there are some cases where they may charge you a fee. They may do so when you stay longer than you’re suppose to, which varies from shelter to shelter (such as after 7 to 14 days) or when you want to continue to keep your belongings stored in the locker while you’re at work. Though they don’t always ask for money. Some may take half of the resident’s food stamp allowance. While others require their residents to work up to 40 hours per week in the shelter in exchange for board and lodging.

Street Sense Media - What to do when you become homeless

ToughNickel - Soon to Be Homeless? 12 Ways to Prepare for Homelessness

The Prepping Guide - 12 Tips: How to Be Homeless and Survive

Real Change News - So, you’re homeless now. Here’s what you need to know

Invisible People - What Is It Like to Stay in a Homeless Shelter?

Reddit: r/askreddit - [Serious] What is it like living in a homeless shelter?

Eco Bear - What Is It like Living in a Homeless Shelter?

Medium - Living In A Shelter Sucks: My Experience Being Homeless

Reddit: r/IAmA - I used to be homeless, now I'm not. AMA

NPR - Why Some Homeless Choose The Streets Over Shelters? [audio]

Quick Haven - Why Do Homeless People Avoid Shelters

VICE - This Is Why Homeless People Don't Go to Shelters

Reddit: r/homeless - Why do homeless people consider shelters unsafe?

Business Insider - I Spent The Night In A Homeless Shelter—Here's What It Was Like

New York Post - ‘I feel like I’m back in jail’: Life inside NYC’s broken shelter system

NPR - A Day In The Life Of A Homeless Woman Who Sleeps At A Skid Row Shelter [audio]

VAWnet: National Resource Center on Domestic Violence - No Safe Place: Sexual Assault in the Lives of Homeless Women

Reddit: r/AskNYC - I’m (19F) recently homeless and have nowhere to go. Does anyone know of any shelters or resources available in the city right now?

Youtube: Bustle - How Do Homeless Women Cope With Their Periods? [video]

VICE - Homeless Women Talk About How They Deal With Their Period

Cosmopolitan - What It's Like to Get Your Period When You're Homeless

Youtube: Invisible People - Homeless Woman Walks Us Through a Day in the Life on the Streets of San Diego [video]

Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) - A Day in the Life of a Homeless Person

Boston 25 News - The day in the life of a homeless person in Boston

Business Insider - Here's A Trick I Learned At The Homeless Shelter For Surviving Bed Bugs

HomelessAdvice - Advice When You Need It

Primal Survivor - 10 Survival Tricks Learned from Homeless People

Invisible People - Surviving the Winter Without Shelter

NBC News - Marvin's World: Nine Lessons From Homeless Man's Winter in NYC

TIME - 'I Thought I Was Going to Die.' How Chicago's 80,000 Homeless People Are Surviving in Deadly Zero-Degree Weather

Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) - Where I Lived in the Winter When I Was Homeless

Guide 2 Homelessness - Survival Guide to Homelessness

HomelessAdvice - Do Homeless Shelters Charge Money?

Food Storage Moms - How to Survive in a Homeless Shelter

Los Angeles Times - Column: When homeless people lose their possessions, they end up further from leaving the streets

Gothamist - What Life Looks Like For One Of 3,600 Homeless People Living On NYC Streets

Boise State University - A day in the life of a Boise homeless man

Youtube: Don Johns - sneak peek at homeless shelter life in America [video]

On the Pulse News - Day in the Life: Local homeless woman lives ‘day to day’

Reddit: r/IAmA - I Am A a mother of 2 who was homeless for a year after leaving my husband, AMA.

Our Father’s House Soup Kitchen - Living on the Streets: What’s It Really Like?

Londonist - "I Was Homeless On The Streets Of London. This Is What It Was Like"

DailyMail - People who have escaped being homeless reveal what life is REALLY like - from fooling 'squares' with sob stories to get money to going for two weeks without eating

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) - How young homeless people experience London and the homeless system

The Guardian - Homeless in Britain: ‘I graduated with honours – and ended up on the streets’

Youtube: EPOCH - The day I became homeless in London [video]

BBC News - 'I’m homeless but I find great places to live'

Youtube: Invisible People - Homeless Woman Sleeping Rough in London after Domestic Violence [video]

London Homeless Info - Information for homeless in London by ex-homeless

Youtube: Real Stories - Life On The Streets: Britain's Homeless Problem (Poverty Documentary) [video]

The Associated Press - Homeless shelters begin to see value in making room for pets

National Alliance to End Homelessness - Pets Can Be a Barrier — or an Open Door — to Ending an Individual’s Homelessness

Feeding Pets of the Homeless - Addressing Pet of the Homeless

Enid News & Eagle - Day in the life of the homeless: Walking, waiting and sleeping outside

Churches

Many of the churches (and other religious or spiritual organizations) provide resources and overnight shelter for the homeless. Some of them may even include free hot meals, clothes, information on applying for financial aid or maybe a few dollars to help pay the rent or a utility bill as well as other aid.

Sometimes, when there’s no more space inside the church, it’s not uncommon to find homeless people sleeping on its steps too. They can sleep there every night without the cops bothering them. The reason why is that churches are on private property. As long as the church owner allows you to be there, you're good. And they usually do give permission.

However, it’s understandable that some homeless people may not feel comfortable going to a church for help. In fear that the church may try to use the opportunity to “convert” them or there might be discrimination based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

American Magazine | The Jesuit Review of Faith - What it’s like going to church when you’re homeless

Need Help Paying Bills - Churches Help With Rent, Utility Bills, Food...

Christianity Today - Church and State for the Homeless

U.S. Catholic - Churches answer the call to shelter the homeless

Vox - The Salvation Army says it doesn’t discriminate against LGBTQ people. Critics say that’s not true.

Gothamist - Muslim Charity Spends Holy Month Feeding The Homeless Every Night

The Muslim Council of Britain - How can mosques serve the issue of homelessness?

Religion News Service (RNS) - Homeless find rest in faith-based shelters more than others

Libraries

Patrons, regardless of their housing status, have always found the library to be a welcoming place. It can provide an air-conditioned space on a hot day, warmth in the wintertime, public restrooms for all, internet access, charge your phone, and be a quiet space to read or to keep yourself busy.

For those people experiencing homelessness it’s not unusual to find them waiting early in the morning each day for the doors to open. They’ll spend their entire day there reading to escape from their everyday reality, listening to music, browsing the internet for job listings, maybe even researching ways to help themselves out of their situation or just keeping themselves entertained.

However, many libraries still require patrons to have an permanent address and photo identification to get a library card. But what most don’t realize is that some libraries allow patrons to use temporary addresses, such as the shelters or other social service organizations when applying for a library card. If you can’t get a card, it’s still possible to access the computers without it, you just need to go to the Reference Desk and ask for a new numerical code every hour. Some places may even offer you a temporary guest pass. Either way, everyone gets one-hour sessions per day on the computer.

You also don’t need a library card or a password to access their free unsecured wireless network, usually titled as “Library Guest.”

American Library Association (ALA) - Libraries Respond: Services to Poor and Homeless People

Deseret News - Homeless people need libraries, and libraries need them, too

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: School of Information Science - Serving Homeless Patrons in the Public Library: What can libraries do?

The Guardian - Homeless people have found safety in a library – but locals want them gone

Public Library Association - Library Service to the Homeless

American Library Association (ALA) - A Home to the Homeless

WickedLocal - You have a child who wants to borrow a book, but you have no permanent address. What next?

Berkeleyside - No permanent address? No problem. Berkeley library makes it easier for those without homes to get library cards

PBS - From nurses to social workers, see how public libraries are serving the homeless

Librarian To Librarian - Attending to the Forgotten: Welcoming Homeless Children into the Fold

Vehicles

Those who live in their vehicles have to worry about the legality of their lifestyle – something that is frequently in flux as laws change.

Sleeping in your car is perfectly legal if it’s parked on property you own yourself, such as the driveway of your home. But sadly, that’s not an option when you’re homeless because you wouldn’t be living in your car in the first place. It’s also legal if you’re parked on someone else’s property with their permission, like in the driveway of a friend or of a family member.

It’s possible to pass a peaceful night in a privately-owned parking lot, say outside of a grocery store. In fact, many 24hr businesses such as Wal-Mart and Cracker Barrel have built up a reputation for allowing overnight parking. But these policies are usually intended to accommodate RVers and other people on vacation with the hope that they’ll patronize the business during their stay. Either way, the parking lots are well-lit, there’s restroom access, and some may even offer free Wi-Fi.

There’s also city-designated parking lots, where they offer people living in their cars a safe place to stay and sleep overnight. It won’t draw the ire of the residents or the prying eyes of police officers handing out tickets. They even offer much needed access to restrooms, and other services to help you get back on your feet. But just like the homeless shelters you do need to fill out a application, either by calling them, visiting in-person, or filling out the online form.

If you’re on the highway, there are many rest stops where you can parked and legally sleep at. However, this varies from state to state because in some places they don’t allow overnight parking and might even have limits on how long you can park during the day. While others allow it as long as you don’t stay there for more than 12 or 24 hours. They also have restrooms and maybe even picnic tables too. Just keep in mind that they’re not always well-lit and can be pretty secluded, because of that there’s a higher possibility of people being robbed or attacked. So consider this as a last resort.

Insider - As the number of homeless people living out of their vehicles grows across the US, one man shows what it's really like to live involuntarily out of a van for 2 years

Youtube: ALLinWithAri - Living in My Car | Homeless in California | First Vlog [video]

Invisible People - Mobile Homelessness: The Legality of Living in a Vehicle

NBC New York - Is NYC Violating Right to Shelter Law? Woman Sleeps in Car Due to ‘Inhumane' Conditions

Reddit: r/IAmA - I am homeless by choice; I live in my truck.

The Guardian - ‘My car is my home’: the California students with nowhere to live

Cauf Society - Sleeping in Your Car: How To Do It Without Getting Arrested Or Dying

HomelessAdvice - Where to Sleep in Your Car When Homeless

Youtube: Jake McCollum - How I've Been Living Out of My Car for 3 YEARS | Homeless in the United States of America [video]

Vox - Affordable housing is disappearing. So cities are designating parking lots to sleep in.

Reddit: r/homeless - Anyone Have Tips For Living In My Car?

CNN - Living in her car, she was afraid and harassed. Then she found an unexpected refuge

Reddit: r/IAmA - I have been living out of my car for the past year. AMA

Empower Us - Homeless – Living in a Vehicle Survival Guide

Deseret News - People who can’t afford rent are living in their cars, and cities aren’t sure what to do about them

The Road Trip Expert - 19 Places You Can Legally Sleep In Your Car And Park Overnight

Reddit: r/Advice - I'm homeless as of today living out of my car. Anyone have any advice to help me. I live in Canada and its so cold I cant sleep some nights. I just need like survival tips till i can save up enough to get my own place

Youtube: Invisible People - Homeless mom and her two daughters live in a van near Seattle [video]

The Survival Journal - Homeless Survival Guide: How To Survive Living In Your Car

New York Post - I work full-time at Home Depot but I’m homeless and live in my car

USA Today - 'Hidden homeless crisis': After losing jobs and homes, more people are living in cars and RVs and it's getting worse

MotorBiscuit - Where Should You Sleep if You’re Living Out of Your Car?

Reddit: r/IAmA - By request: I lived in my truck for 8 months. AMA

Windsor Star - Homeless living in vehicles battle cold, hold out hope for place of their own

Reddit: r/IAmA - IAmA College (University) student that lived in my car for over 6 months (2 semesters) so I could afford to go to school. AMA

Youtube: Tiny Home Tours - Homelessness to Vanlife: Her DIY Ford E-350 Cargo Van [video]

Invisible People - Tips on How to Stay Clean While Living in Your Vehicle

Youtube: Stories From a Van - Living In A Car To Save Money | How I Did It & Complete Guide [video]

The Survival Mom - How to Live Out of Your Car: Solid Advice from People Who Made It Work

Youtube: Bria-maine - Living in a Car~A Day in My Life~The Raw Truth~Working From Home~Nomad Life [video]

MotorBiscuit - Is Living in Your Car Dangerous?

Invisible People - How Gas Prices Adversely Affect Vehicular Homelessness

Truck Stops (Service Station/Travel Center)

Showers can be pretty expensive at truck stops like Love’s, Pilot, Flying J, T/A, etc. The cost will usually range anywhere from $12 to $17 depending on the place you go to. They all have a large parking area, a fueling station, a diner or restaurant, a convenience store and usually a coin-operated laundry services too. Some may even offer other services like a movie theater, pet wash, workout rooms, salons, etc..

These facilities are usually pretty clean and modern. But if you do use the showers, just be sure to wear flip-flops if you don’t want to get warts or athletes foot. And keep in mind that the truck stops in rural areas are typically very safe and wholesome. But, as the distance to major cities decreases the incidence of prostitution, drug peddling etc. increases dramatically. For example, the Vince Lombardi service area on the New Jersey Turnpike near New York City has the most rampant prostitution.

Also. if you join a particular chain, such as Love’s customer loyalty program you can usually get a free shower if you spend $50 or more on diesel fuel (or if you get 1,000 gallons in a month you’ll earn a free shower or a free hot meal). You may want to consider this if you have a diesel-powered vehicle or a diesel generator that you regularly use.

I have heard that there are some truck drivers that will sometimes give away their free shower credit/coupon to those in need. They don't always have the time to take a shower that day or don’t need it because they already took one and it would have gone to waste otherwise.

Guide 2 Homelessness - Survival Guide to Homelessness: Truck Stops

CTC Trucking - Everything You Need to Know About Truck Stops Showers

NATSO - How Truckstops Can Help the Homeless

King5 News - Homeless camp at Washington rest stops

Los Angeles Times - I lived in a truck for 6 1/2 years. Trust me, trying to roust homeless from their vehicles is no solution.

Prime Inc. - 10 Best Truck Stops in America

Truck Drivers Money Saving Tips - Tips on Laundromat Use and Doing Laundry by Truck Drivers

Truck Drivers Money Saving Tips - Showers for Professional Drivers: Options and Money Saving Tips

USA Today - These 10 great truck stops surprise travelers with everything from dog parks to bidets

Drivin’ & Vibin’ - 7 Things Non-Truckers Should Know About Truck Stops

Campsite

Regular campgrounds cost around $20 to $60 per night, depending on the season, location, the size of the space, and what amenities they offered. But what most don’t know is that there’s actually a type of camping that’s free and yes, it’s also legal.

Dispersed camping is the term used for camping anywhere in the National Forest OUTSIDE of a designated campground. Dispersed camping means no services; such as trash removal, and little or no facilities; such as tables and fire pits, are provided. Some of the more popular dispersed camping areas may have toilets though. If not, that means you’ll need to deal with your own poop by properly burying it or packing it out with you. Essentially ‘Leave No Trace’ and practice the concept of ‘Pack It In – Pack It Out’.

However, to access dispersed camping areas you’ll need a vehicle to get to them. So this option won’t be possible for every homeless person, only those that still have a vehicle (and/or a tent) to take shelter in. There are also limitations on how long you can stay. Most only allow for less than ten days a month, but it varies for each location. After ten days, you can just move down the road five or ten miles away from your pervious spot. This will keep you from breaking the law.

The general rule is to be a minimum of at least 100-200 feet away from any road, trail or water source. Individual forests might have their own restrictions, so it is always best to check with them before setting up camp.

Forest Service: U.S. Department of Agriculture - Dispersed Camping Guidelines

U.S. Bureau of Land Management - Camping on Public Land

FreeCampSite - Dispersed Camping

The Dyrt Magazine - Yes, You Can Find Free Camping in National Forests! Here’s How

The Dyrt Magazine - Boondocking: The Complete Guide to Free Camping (Almost) Anywhere

The Dyrt Magazine - Your Complete Guide to Free Camping Across the Country

The Outbound Collective - The dirt on dispersed camping

Bay Nature Magazine - Public Lands Have Become a Refuge for People Priced Out of Housing in the West. Local Tensions are Increasing. What Now?

Youtube: Mountain Springs Adventures - How to Find Free (dispersed) Campsites in National Forests & BLM Land + My Recent Boondocking Spots! [video]

VICE - Homeless Are Flocking to America's Forests, But It's Damaging the Land

Campendium - Upcoming Dispersed Camping Changes You Should Know About for 2022

Tom’s Bike Trip - How To Wild Camp Anywhere For Free And Not Get Busted

Fresh Off The Grid - How to Find Free Camping in the US & Canada

Beyond The Tent - 19 Spots You Can Go Free Camping in New York

Youtube: Invisible People - Homeless Woman Shows How She Lives in a Tent [video]

Reddit: r/IAmA - IAmA man who has lived in the woods in a tent near the place I work(ed) since last September, for various reasons. Currently transitioning out of the situation. - AMA.

Mortons on the Move - Are Homeless People Living in the National Parks?

The Colorado Sun - Inside Colorado’s attempt to police the growing number of homeless camps in national forests

Reddit: r/SanJose - I'm homeless living in a tent in San Jose, AMA!

Youtube: Invisible People - Homeless woman "timed out" from a homeless shelter and now lives in a tent with her children. [video]

Gyms

Getting a gym membership means you can shower, shave, use a clean toilet, charge your phone, and spend hours a day in the gym just riding a stationary bike while listening to music, audiobook, podcast, etc. They’ll also have Wi-Fi available to members too.

Planet Fitness is the more popular and affordable option because it has a basic membership plan for $10/month, but it’s only for one location. It gives you unlimited access to their gym (which is open 24 hours a day), their app, free fitness training and free Wi-Fi. However, they do charge an annual fee of $39 and a one-time start-up fee of $1. That said, there’s no commitment.

If you get their $25/month plan, that gives you unlimited access to all of their other locations and a few more perks too, such as you can bring in a guest anytime, use their tanning beds, HydroMassage, discounts on drinks, etc. But it does required a $39 annual fee and a $1 start-up fee, and there’s no commitment either.

If you’re still not sure, they do offer a free day pass for the club of your choice. Just fill out a form online, and a day pass will be e-mailed to you. Keep in mind that you may be required to show some ID upon check-in, and all day pass users are required to take a free tour.

Another option is to consider joining the YMCA. They have financial assistance available, which provides access to membership, programs, childcare, and camps to those in need of support. However, I’m hesitant to suggest this one because the pricing greatly depends on your age, financial state and where you’re located. If you live in a small town, the price will be lower than the membership price in a large city. They also have different rates, which vary by age and what services you want to access.

For example, the regular price for an adult membership (over 30) is $50/month. Even if you applied for financial assistance, the max discount is only 30% and $35.00/month isn’t feasible for those that are homeless or struggling to keep afloat. But of course, you do get access to every Y’s and a lot more stuff than you would at a gym, like the pool, classes, locker rental, towel service, showers, hot tub, steam room, etc.

But I have heard that some YMCA’s do offer free membership if you qualified, such as those that are a member of the military or a veteran. Some senior citizen can get a free membership through their Medicare Advantage plan. If you’re under 18 many YMCA locations offer free summer memberships for teens and tweens. They even have free classes and programs that are accessible without a membership, which is useful because at one point they had free lifeguard training.

Note: If a credit card is necessary, get a prepaid Mastercard. It’s a universally accepted method of paying for purchases without the need for a credit score or a bank account. Prepaid cards are sold at retail stores (usually for a fee of $1.50-2.50 or free if ordered online). With these type of cards, you only need to load them up with money when you get it, then use it to make purchases. [x]

The Penny Hoarder - Gym Memberships So Cheap Your Budget Won’t Break a Sweat

Sports Illustrated - Is a Planet Fitness Gym Membership Right for You?

KCRW - For many homeless Angelenos, the gym is critical to survival [audio]

Smarter Homemaker - YMCA (Membership Cost, Benefits, & Alternatives)

Expensive Why - Why Are YMCA Memberships So Expensive in 2022?

Low Income Relief - How to Get a Free YMCA Membership

HomelessAdvice - The YMCA as a Homeless Shelter (Showers, Lockers, and Beds)

YMCA England & Wales - Where to go for support if you are homeless

Hygiene

Fitness centers are perhaps the most popular choice for the homeless, but there are also a lot of government-run campgrounds with coin-op shower facilities too.

If you’re traveling along the coast, public beaches will have ample showers available for free (but they may not be warm or private, and you’ll need a bathing suit). If you’re traveling inland, look for public beaches on lakes or rivers. Public swimming pools can do in a pinch, but you’ll usually have to pay a fee to enter.

Public bathrooms are everywhere (such as at the parks, libraries, department stores, fast food places, Penn Station, Port Authority Bus Terminal, etc.). You can use a washcloth and a collapsible bucket (or a large plastic cup) to wash up with. Just fill it up with the water from the sink and use it to quickly wash your hair and/or privates, especially if it’s one of those single locked public restroom. If not, maybe take the bucket/cup into the toilet stall and wash in there.

If all else fails, using baby wipes (which you can get for a $1.00 at Dollar Tree) to stay clean is certainly better then nothing.

Roadtrippers - 6 tips for showering and staying clean while on the road

wikiHow - How to Stay Clean when Homeless

Boondocker’ s Bible - Where to Take a Shower When You Live in a Car?

Hope's Corner - Laundry Service Helps the Homeless

Medium - Staying Clean While Homeless.

Clean the World Foundation - Mobile Showers: Street Outreach For People Experiencing Homelessness

Survival Recipes - Hygiene

National Association for Continence (NAFC) - The Best Bathroom Locator Apps

Bathroom City - Top 4 Bathroom Locator Apps For Android and iOS

Public Shower Directory - Free Showers

Mail

Having an address is essential for applying to a job, for benefits or housing, receiving official communications, opening a bank account, replacing identification, registering the vehicle you live in, and so many other reasons too.

That’s why most homeless first try asking their friends or family if they can use their address for when the paperwork requires a permanent address. However, there are many who don’t have strong bonds with friends or family and so, this route isn’t often taken.

Some homeless shelters offer to collect and distribute mail for their guests. If there’s a shelter someone regularly returns to, it makes sense for them to receive their mail there if possible. But they will have their limits. They may institute a maximum number of people they can receive mail for at one time. Or, more commonly they’ll have a maximum number of days mail will be held before being discarded.

Some churches, generally larger ones, offer mail services to people without permanent addresses too. These are often the same places that offer meal services. So, it may be convenient for people to pick up their mail at a place they already go regularly to eat. Like shelters, church mail programs will often have a maximum holding period.

If it’s affordable enough, some people who are homeless do pay for a PO box, either permanently, temporarily, or intermittently when they need to receive something. If there aren’t any accessible places offering free mail services in the area, this may be the only option.

USPS - Is there Mail Service for the Homeless?

Invisible People - How Do People Who Are Homeless Get Their Mail?

HomelessAdvice - Where Do Homeless Get Their Mail?

NPR - A Post Office Lifeline for the Homeless [audio]

Coalition For The Homeless - Emergency Mail Program

UK Postbox - Vulnerable people that use our service

WIRED - The radical plan to give every homeless person an address

Water/Food

Soup kitchens have become a place of refuge for those less fortunate souls. Aside from free food, most soup kitchens also provide other necessities such as clothing and hygiene kits. Though some soup kitchens only serve soup and bread, others serve a freshly-cooked full course meal. They also provide a take-out bag with a sandwich and other goodies.

Food pantry is supplied with food, such as fresh produce, canned goods, and healthy frozen items from a food bank. These pantries feed hundreds of low-income people per week. Because every community is different, there are many different types of pantries. But before you go, you should always call the food pantry (or the soup kitchen) to find out when they are open and if they have food. Most pantries offer a three to five day supply of healthy food for low-income families. When possible, pantries provide special items for those family members on restricted diets.

Most pantries will require some form of identification such as a Social Security card, Public Assistance, or photo ID. Many also require a referral letter from a social service agency such as the Board of Social Services, a community organization, or your place of worship to show proof of your need for assistance.

Another option is going to a mom and pop store (local family owned) or pizzeria, bakery, supermarket, Dunkin’, etc. before closing time and asking them if you could maybe take out their trash or sweep up in exchange for their leftovers or day old's. As they would’ve thrown out the still perfectly edible food into the dumpster anyway. Most of the time they'll let you do a little token chore or take pity and just give you something.

As for water there are many places where you get free water and/or water refills, such as public water refill stations or drinking water fountains that you can always find at all the parks. There’s even an app that lists all of the places where you can find them.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service - 10 Myths and Facts About SNAP for Homeless Persons [pdf]

U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service - Are you homeless? You might be able to get food help from SNAP! [pdf]

Move For Hunger - About Hunger and Homelessness

Homeless Shelter Directory - Soup Kitchens, Food, Pantries, Food Banks

Our Father’s House Soup Kitchen - What is a Soup Kitchen?

Coalition For The Homeless - I Need Food

Coalition For The Homeless - Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry Listings

Feeding America - Find Free Food and Groceries

Reddit: r/Frugal - If you need food, go to a food pantry. Periodt.

Helping Americans Find Help - New Jersey Food Assistance

New York Post - I went dumpster diving at my local Whole Foods and found $1,000 worth of fresh baked goods, produce

New York Post - Brooklyn hipsters go Dumpster-diving for dinner

Los Angeles Times - Dumpster Diving Pays Off in Pizzas

The U.S. Sun - I’ve saved £700 in two months by bin diving – ALL my food comes from the trash and I share it with homeless people

Save the Student - 20 ways to get free food

Happy Sprout - These food waste apps will help you save money – and the planet

Android Police - 12 helpful eco-friendly Android apps to tackle food waste

MakeUseOf - 3 Food Sharing Apps to Make Your Eating More Sustainable

Fast Company - Don’t buy bottled water: This app tells you the closest place you can fill up for free

Bustle - This App Helps You Avoid Buying Plastic Water Bottles & It’s Low Key Genius

BBC News - App shows water refill stations to tackle plastic waste

California Beaches - Pier Fishing in California

Irish Mirror - Homeless people living on canal banks and forced to fish for their food in desperate struggle to survive

Survival Recipes - Food

HomelessAdvice - How to Get Free Food When Homeless

SBS - When you're homeless, how do you eat to stay somewhat healthy?

Reddit: r/mealprep - Best food for when you're homeless and can't cook?

Misc.

American Outdoor Guide - Street Survivors: Basic, Proven and Practical Survival Skills from the Homeless

M.D. Creekmore - How To Survive Being Homeless and Broke

Distractify - Formerly Homeless Share What Aid Was Most Helpful to Them

wikiHow - How to Stay Warm on Cold Winter Nights if You are Homeless

New York Post - How Siberia’s homeless survive the frigid winter

Medium - Weathered: The Struggle of the Homeless to Survive in Harsh Weather

Invisible People - Vision Impairment in the Homeless Community

Feel Good Contacts - Sight problems in the homeless

National Eye Institute - Get Free or Low-Cost Eye Care

NeedHelpPayingBills - Free prescription glasses and eye exams near you

wikiHow - How to Stay Clean when Homeless

Fast Company - This Mobile Shower And Laundry Lets The Homeless Stay Clean

Forbes - For L.A.’s Homeless, A Free Mobile Laundry Service Strives To Be ‘Part Of The Solution’

Inquirer - The Hub of Hope’s laundry services help homeless people feel 'normal’ again

The Guardian - Cleaning up: mobile laundry for the homeless goes international

Low Income Relief - Where to Charge Your Phone When Homeless: 10 Options

Frugal Reality - Where to Charge My Phone for Free? 17 Ways To Charge Without Electricity & Homeless

HomelessAdvice - Where to Charge Your Phone When Homeless

CNET - Wi-Fi is a lifeline in the pandemic. It's harder to get if you're homeless

CBS New York - LinkNYC Charging Kiosks Become Magnets For Homeless

The Daily Telegraph - Homeless rely on smartphones to survive but finding somewhere to re-charge is a challenge

Father Joe’s Villages - Homelessness and Dental Health Care

Care For the Homeless - Making Dentistry More Accessible

Family Resources - 7 Surprising Items to Help the Homeless

Metro - These formerly homeless people have shared the best things you can do to really make a difference

BetterMissions - The 7 Best Things to Give the Homeless Instead of Money

The Right To Shower - What Do People Experiencing Homelessness Need Most Besides Shelter?

[govindhtech]

Valkey 7.2 On Memorystore: Open-Source Key-Value Service

The 100% open-source key-value service Memorystore for Valkey is launched by Google Cloud.

In order to give users a high-performance, genuinely open-source key-value service, the Memorystore team is happy to announce the preview launch of Valkey 7.2 support for Memorystore.

Memorystore for Valkey

A completely managed Valkey Cluster service for Google Cloud is called Memorystore for Valkey. By utilizing the highly scalable, reliable, and secure Valkey service, Google Cloud applications may achieve exceptional performance without having to worry about handling intricate Valkey deployments.

In order to guarantee high availability, Memorystore for Valkey distributes (or “shards”) your data among the primary nodes and duplicates it among the optional replica nodes. Because Valkey performance is greater on many smaller nodes rather than fewer bigger nodes, the horizontally scalable architecture outperforms the vertically scalable architecture in terms of performance.

Memorystore for Valkey is a game-changer for enterprises looking for high-performance data management solutions reliant on 100% open source software. It was added to the Memorystore portfolio in response to customer demand, along with Memorystore for Redis Cluster and Memorystore for Redis. From the console or gcloud, users can now quickly and simply construct a fully-managed Valkey Cluster, which they can then scale up or down to suit the demands of their workloads.

Thanks to its outstanding performance, scalability, and flexibility, Valkey has quickly gained popularity as an open-source key-value datastore. Valkey 7.2 provides Google Cloud users with a genuinely open source solution via the Linux Foundation. It is fully compatible with Redis 7.2 and the most widely used Redis clients, including Jedis, redis-py, node-redis, and go-redis.

Valkey is already being used by customers to replace their key-value software, and it is being used for common use cases such as caching, session management, real-time analytics, and many more.

Customers may enjoy a nearly comparable (and code-compatible) Valkey Cluster experience with Memorystore for Valkey, which launches with all the GA capabilities of Memorystore for Redis Cluster. Similar to Memorystore for Redis Cluster, Memorystore for Valkey provides RDB and AOF persistence, zero-downtime scaling in and out, single- or multi-zone clusters, instantaneous integrations with Google Cloud, extremely low and dependable performance, and much more. Instances up to 14.5 TB are also available.

Memorystore for Valkey, Memorystore for Redis Cluster, and Memorystore for Redis have an exciting roadmap of features and capabilities.

The momentum of Valkey

Just days after Redis Inc. withdrew the Redis open-source license, the open-source community launched Valkey in collaboration with the Linux Foundation in March 2024 (1, 2, 3). Since then, they have had the pleasure of working with developers and businesses worldwide to propel Valkey into the forefront of key-value data stores and establish it as a premier open source software (OSS) project. Google Cloud is excited to participate in this community launch with partners and industry experts like Snap, Ericsson, AWS, Verizon, Alibaba Cloud, Aiven, Chainguard, Heroku, Huawei, Oracle, Percona, Ampere, AlmaLinux OS Foundation, DigitalOcean, Broadcom, Memurai, Instaclustr from NetApp, and numerous others. They fervently support open source software.

The Valkey community has grown into a thriving group committed to developing Valkey the greatest open source key-value service available thanks to the support of thousands of enthusiastic developers and the former core OSS Redis maintainers who were not hired by Redis Inc.

With more than 100 million unique active users each month, Mercado Libre is the biggest finance, logistics, and e-commerce company in Latin America. Diego Delgado discusses Valkey with Mercado Libre as a Software Senior Expert:

At Mercado Libre, Google Cloud need to handle billions of requests per minute with minimal latency, which makes caching solutions essential. Google Cloud especially thrilled about the cutting-edge possibilities that Valkey offers. They have excited to investigate its fresh features and add to this open-source endeavor.”

The finest is still to come

By releasing Memorystore for Valkey 7.2, Memorystore offers more than only Redis Cluster, Redis, and Memcached. And Google Cloud is even more eager about Valkey 8.0’s revolutionary features. Major improvements in five important areas performance, reliability, replication, observability, and efficiency were introduced by the community in the first release candidate of Valkey 8.0. With a single click or command, users will be able to accept Valkey 7.2 and later upgrade to Valkey 8.0. Additionally, Valkey 8.0 is compatible with Redis 7.2, exactly like Valkey 7.2 was, guaranteeing a seamless transition for users.

The performance improvements in Valkey 8.0 are possibly the most intriguing ones. Asynchronous I/O threading allows commands to be processed in parallel, which can lead to multi-core nodes working at a rate that is more than twice as fast as Redis 7.2. From a reliability perspective, a number of improvements provided by Google, such as replicating slot migration states, guaranteeing automatic failover for empty shards, and ensuring slot state recovery is handled, significantly increase the dependability of Cluster scaling operations. The anticipation for Valkey 8.0 is already fueling the demand for Valkey 7.2 on Memorystore, with a plethora of further advancements across several dimensions (release notes).

Similar to how Redis previously expanded capability through modules with restricted licensing, the community is also speeding up the development of Valkey’s capabilities through open-source additions that complement and extend Valkey’s functionality. The capabilities covered by recently published RFCs (“Request for Comments”) include vector search for extremely high performance vector similarly search, JSON for native JSON support, and BloomFilters for high performance and space-efficient probabilistic filters.

Former vice president of Gartner and principal analyst of SanjMo Sanjeev Mohan offers his viewpoint:

The advancement of community-led initiatives to offer feature-rich, open-source database substitutes depends on Valkey. Another illustration of Google’s commitment to offering really open and accessible solutions for customers is the introduction of Valkey support in Memorystore. In addition to helping developers looking for flexibility, their contributions to Valkey also support the larger open-source ecosystem.

It seems obvious that Valkey is going to be a game-changer in the high-performance data management area with all of the innovation in Valkey 8.0, as well as the open-source improvements like vector search and JSON, and for client libraries.

Valkey is the secret to an OSS future

Take a look at Memorystore for Valkey right now, and use the UI console or a straightforward gcloud command to establish your first cluster. Benefit from OSS Redis compatibility to simply port over your apps and scale in or out without any downtime.

Read more on govindhtech.com

[zvaigzdelasas]

Google is planning a legal challenge to block a ruling by India's antitrust watchdog to change its approach to its Android operating system, concerned that it will restrict how it promotes the platform, sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters.[...]

The rulings come as Google faces increased antitrust scrutiny across the world. Last month, it suffered a major setback when a European court upheld a 2018 ruling saying it was largely confirming a decision that the company imposed "unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices." Google plans to appeal the decision, where it faces a record $4.1 billion fine. [...]

The Competition Commission of India's (CCI) Android ruling, despite involving a smaller $162 million fine, has worried Google since it seeks wider ranging remedial measures, three sources aware of company's thinking said.

One of the sources said that Google was concerned that the CCI's decision could increase regulatory pressures in other jurisdictions and a legal appeal to block implementation of the antitrust directive was being planned within weeks.

Google declined to comment on its legal plans, reiterating its statement from last week that the CCI order was "a major setback for Indian consumers and businesses, opening serious security risks ... and raising the cost of mobile devices for Indians."[...]

In the European Commission case, for example, its antitrust authority in 2018 ruled Google abused its dominant position by forcing manufacturers to pre-install two of its apps - Google Search and its Chrome browser - together with its Google Play store on Android devices.

The Indian order, one of the sources said, is concerning as it goes further and imposes restrictions on a wider array of Google apps - "Licensing of Play Store ... shall not be linked with the requirement of pre-installing" Google search services, Chrome browser, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail or any other application of Google," the CCI noted.[...]

In Europe, 75% of 550 million smartphones run on Android, compared with 97% of 600 million devices in India, Counterpoint Research estimates.

Google is also concerned that the CCI has ordered it not to impose any restrictions in India on so-called "sideloading", a practice of downloading apps without using an app store, and to allow other app stores to be available within its Play Store, two of the sources said.

28 Oct 22

[proservicesdubai12]

Comprehensive Guide to PRO Services in Dubai

Comprehensive Guide to PRO Services in Dubai

Dubai, a bustling metropolis and a global business hub, is renowned for its favorable business environment and strategic location. However, navigating the legal and bureaucratic landscape can be complex for entrepreneurs and expatriates. This is where PRO (Public Relations Officer) services come into play. This blog provides an in-depth look at PRO services in Dubai, their significance, and how they can facilitate your business operations.

What Are PRO Services?

PRO services in Dubai are specialized administrative services designed to assist individuals and businesses in handling governmental procedures and documentation. These services are crucial for ensuring compliance with local regulations, obtaining necessary permits, and managing paperwork efficiently.

Key Functions of PRO Services

Document Processing and Filing

Business Licenses: PRO services handle the application and renewal of various business licenses required to operate legally in Dubai.

Visas: They assist in securing work permits, residence visas, and other necessary visas for employees and dependents.

Trade Licenses: Assistance with obtaining and renewing trade licenses specific to your business activity.

Government Relations

Ministry Interactions: PROs act as intermediaries between your business and various governmental bodies, including the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization (MOHRE) and the Department of Economic Development (DED).

Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring your business complies with local regulations, such as labor laws and commercial regulations.

Company Formation

Company Registration: Facilitating the registration process of new businesses, including free zone and mainland company setups.

Documentation: Preparing and submitting required documents for company formation, such as Memorandums of Association and Articles of Incorporation.

Legal and Compliance Services

Labor Contracts: Drafting and managing labor contracts in compliance with UAE labor laws.

Trade Marks: Registering and renewing trademarks to protect intellectual property.

Visa Services

Employee Visas: Processing work visas for employees and ensuring they meet the criteria set by the UAE authorities.

Family Visas: Assisting expatriates with obtaining family visas for their dependents.

Renewals and Updates

License Renewals: Handling the renewal of business and trade licenses before they expire.

Document Updates: Updating records and documents with the relevant authorities as required.

Benefits of Using PRO Services

Expertise and Efficiency

PRO service providers have extensive knowledge of local regulations and procedures, ensuring that all paperwork is handled correctly and efficiently.

Time-Saving

Outsourcing administrative tasks to PRO services allows businesses to focus on core activities and strategic goals, saving valuable time.

Regulatory Compliance

Ensuring compliance with complex and frequently changing regulations can be challenging. PRO services help avoid legal issues and potential fines by staying up-to-date with current laws.

Local Knowledge

PROs have a deep understanding of the local business environment and can navigate the intricacies of governmental processes more effectively than outsiders.

Stress Reduction

Handling bureaucratic processes can be stressful. PRO services alleviate this burden, reducing administrative stress for business owners and expatriates.

[dubaireaestateconsultant]

Top Tips for Choosing a Mortgage Consultant in Dubai

Choosing the right mortgage consultant is crucial for securing the best mortgage terms and making informed decisions. This guide provides top tips to help you select the best mortgage consultant in Dubai.

For more information on Dubai real estate, visit Dubai Real Estate.

Importance of a Mortgage Consultant

A mortgage consultant can provide expert guidance, save you time, and help you find the best mortgage products. Their role includes:

Assessing Your Financial Situation: Understanding your financial health and mortgage needs.

Exploring Mortgage Options: Identifying and comparing different mortgage products.

Negotiating Terms: Securing the best rates and terms from lenders.

Managing Paperwork: Handling all necessary documentation and processes.

For property purchase options, explore Buy House in Dubai.

Top Tips for Choosing a Mortgage Consultant

Research and Recommendations: Start by researching online and seeking recommendations from trusted sources. Use online platforms to read reviews and gather information about various mortgage consultants.

Verify Credentials: Ensure the consultant is licensed and has a proven track record. Look for certifications from recognized institutions and membership in professional organizations.

Experience Matters: Choose a consultant with extensive experience in the Dubai mortgage market. Experienced consultants are more likely to have established relationships with lenders and a deeper understanding of the market.

Client Reviews: Read client reviews and testimonials to gauge satisfaction and service quality. Look for patterns in feedback to identify the consultant’s strengths and weaknesses.

Clear Communication: Ensure the consultant communicates clearly and keeps you informed throughout the process. Good communication is essential for a smooth and transparent mortgage process.

For mortgage options, consider home mortgage uae.

Questions to Ask a Mortgage Consultant

When interviewing potential mortgage consultants, ask the following questions:

What is your experience in the Dubai mortgage market? Understanding their level of experience can give you confidence in their ability to handle your case.

What types of loans do you specialize in? Some consultants may have more experience with certain types of loans, such as first-time homebuyer programs or refinancing.

How do you help clients secure the best mortgage rates? This question helps you understand their approach to negotiating with lenders.

What are your fees, and how are they structured? Transparency about fees is crucial to avoid any surprises later on.

Can you provide references from previous clients? References can provide insight into the consultant's reliability and effectiveness.

For rental options, visit Rent Your Property in Dubai.

Evaluating Your Options

When evaluating mortgage consultants, consider the following factors:

Experience and Reputation: Choose a consultant with extensive experience and a strong reputation in the industry. Experienced consultants are more likely to have established relationships with lenders and a deeper understanding of the market.

Communication Skills: Ensure the consultant communicates clearly and promptly. Good communication is crucial for a smooth mortgage process.

Transparency: Look for transparency in fees and terms. The consultant should provide a clear breakdown of their fees and any potential additional costs.

Customer Reviews: Check online reviews and testimonials to gauge client satisfaction. Look for patterns in the reviews to identify strengths and weaknesses in the consultant's services.

For property sales, visit Sell Your Property in Dubai.

The Role of a Mortgage Consultant

A mortgage consultant's primary role is to act as a bridge between you and potential lenders. They help you understand your financial situation, identify suitable mortgage products, and guide you through the application process. Here are some specific tasks they perform:

Financial Assessment: Evaluating your financial situation, including your income, expenses, credit score, and debt-to-income ratio, to determine your mortgage eligibility.

Exploring Mortgage Options: Identifying and comparing different mortgage products from various lenders to find the best fit for your needs.

Rate Negotiation: Negotiating the best mortgage rates and terms with lenders on your behalf.

Paperwork Management: Handling all necessary documentation and ensuring compliance with regulations.

Closing Assistance: Assisting with the final steps of the mortgage process and closing the deal.

Benefits of Working with a Mortgage Consultant

Working with a mortgage consultant offers several advantages, including:

Access to a Wide Range of Products: Mortgage consultants have access to a broad range of mortgage products from different lenders, increasing your chances of finding the best deal.

Expert Guidance: Consultants provide expert advice on the best mortgage options based on your financial situation.

Time Savings: By handling the research, paperwork, and negotiations, consultants save you time and effort.

Stress Reduction: Managing the complexities of the mortgage process can be stressful. A consultant can alleviate this stress by guiding you through each step.

Customized Solutions: Consultants offer personalized mortgage solutions tailored to your specific needs and goals.

Real-Life Success Story

Consider the case of Maria, a first-time homebuyer in Dubai. By following these tips, she found a highly recommended mortgage consultant who helped her navigate the mortgage process, resulting in a favorable mortgage rate and a smooth home purchase.

Maria was initially overwhelmed by the various mortgage options and the paperwork involved. She decided to seek the help of a mortgage consultant based on recommendations from friends and online reviews. The consultant assessed Maria's financial situation, explained the different mortgage products available, and helped her choose the best one for her needs.

Throughout the process, the consultant handled all the paperwork, negotiated with lenders to secure a competitive rate, and kept Maria informed at every step. This personalized service made a significant difference, reducing Maria's stress and ensuring a smooth and successful home purchase.

For more resources and expert advice, visit Dubai Real Estate.

Conclusion

Choosing the right mortgage consultant in Dubai can make a significant difference in your home-buying experience. By following the tips outlined in this guide and conducting thorough research, you can find a consultant who meets your needs and helps you secure the best mortgage deals. For more resources and expert advice, visit Dubai Real Estate.

[radical11]

Empowering Futures: Premier Educational Consultancy's Role in UG Medical Counselling

Introduction

Navigating the complex and competitive landscape of undergraduate (UG) medical education can be a daunting task for aspiring medical professionals. With the increasing demand for medical education and the rigorous selection process for admission to medical schools, students often find themselves in need of guidance and support. Premier Educational Consultancy has emerged as a key player in providing comprehensive assistance to students aspiring to pursue UG medical education. This article delves into the vital role played by Premier Educational Consultancy in empowering students and facilitating their journey through UG medical counselling.

Understanding the Need

The pursuit of a career in medicine begins with the quest for quality education. However, the process of gaining admission to reputable medical schools is often convoluted, involving stringent academic requirements, competitive entrance exams, and complex application procedures. Recognizing these challenges, many students seek the services of educational consultancies to help them navigate this intricate pathway. Premier Educational Consultancy has responded to this need, establishing itself as a trusted ally for students aspiring to enter the field of medicine.

Expert Guidance and Counseling

One of the core functions of Premier Educational Consultancy is to provide expert guidance and counseling to students embarking on their UG medical journey. The consultancy's team of experienced professionals equips students with the knowledge and resources necessary to make informed decisions about their academic and career aspirations. From evaluating academic qualifications to identifying suitable medical schools, the consultancy offers personalized counseling that takes into account each student's unique strengths and aspirations.

Comprehensive Support for Entrance Exams

Scoring well on the required entrance exams is pivotal to gaining admission to prestigious medical schools. Premier Educational Consultancy provides comprehensive support to students preparing for entrance examinations, offering guidance on exam patterns, syllabi, and effective preparatory strategies. This support extends beyond mere academic assistance, encompassing valuable insights and resources to help students navigate the competitive landscape of UG medical entrance exams.

Application Assistance and Documentation

The UG medical school application process demands meticulous attention to detail and adherence to stringent documentation requirements. Premier Educational Consultancy eases this burden for students by offering assistance with application procedures, ensuring that all necessary documents are in order, and providing guidance on crafting compelling personal statements and essays. This meticulous approach helps students present their credentials in the best possible light, enhancing their chances of securing admission to their preferred medical schools.

Navigating the Counselling Process

Once students receive offers of admission, they are faced with the task of choosing the most suitable medical school for their academic and professional growth. Premier Educational Consultancy assists students in navigating this crucial decision-making process by offering insights into different medical schools, their strengths, faculty expertise, facilities, and overall academic environment. This guidance empowers students to make well-informed choices aligned with their career aspirations and personal preferences.

Navigating the Regulatory Landscape

In addition to academic considerations, aspiring medical professionals must also navigate the regulatory landscape governing medical education. Premier Educational Consultancy provides vital information on licensing requirements, professional accreditation, and regulatory guidelines that students need to be aware of as they embark on their UG medical journey. This comprehensive perspective ensures that students are well-prepared to meet the regulatory criteria essential for a successful career in medicine.

Fostering Academic and Professional Development

Beyond the initial phases of admission and entry into medical school, Premier Educational Consultancy continues to support students in their academic and professional development. The consultancy leverages its network and resources to facilitate access to academic support services, research opportunities, and professional mentorship programs, empowering students to excel in their medical education and effectively prepare for their future careers.

Conclusion

Premier Educational Consultancy plays a pivotal role in shaping the futures of aspiring medical professionals, offering comprehensive support and guidance throughout the UG medical counselling process. By equipping students with the knowledge, resources, and personalized assistance necessary to navigate the complexities of UG medical education, the consultancy empowers students to make informed decisions and realize their full potential in the field of medicine. As the demand for quality medical education continues to grow, Premier Educational Consultancy's commitment to empowering futures remains integral to shaping the next generation of medical professionals.

**Please note that the specifics of Premier Educational Consultancy's services and impact may have evolved since my last knowledge update in December 2023. It is advisable to verify the current status and offerings of the consultancy before referencing this article.

[dubairealestate24]

Expert Tips for Choosing a Mortgage Consultant in Dubai

Choosing the right mortgage consultant in Dubai is crucial for securing the best mortgage deal and ensuring a smooth property purchase process. This blog provides expert tips to help you choose the best mortgage consultant for your needs.

For more information on home loans, visit Home Loans in Dubai.

Understanding the Role of a Mortgage Consultant

A mortgage consultant acts as an intermediary between borrowers and lenders, helping clients find the best mortgage deals, negotiate terms, and complete the necessary paperwork. Their expertise and connections in the industry can save you time, money, and stress.

Expert Tips for Choosing a Mortgage Consultant

Research and Referrals: Start by researching mortgage consultants online and asking for referrals from friends, family, and colleagues who have recently purchased property in Dubai.

Check Credentials: Ensure that the consultant is licensed and has a good reputation in the industry. Check for certifications and memberships in professional organizations.

Interview Multiple Consultants: Schedule consultations with several mortgage consultants to compare their services, fees, and approach.

Evaluate Experience: Choose a consultant with extensive experience in the Dubai mortgage market and a track record of successful transactions.

Assess Communication Skills: Ensure that the consultant communicates clearly and promptly, and is willing to answer all your questions.

Review Testimonials and Reviews: Read client testimonials and online reviews to gauge the consultant’s reliability and customer satisfaction.

Understand Fees and Charges: Be clear about the consultant’s fees and charges upfront to avoid any surprises later on.

Check Availability: Ensure that the consultant is available and willing to provide ongoing support throughout the mortgage process.

For property purchase options, explore Buy Apartments in Dubai.

Real-Life Success Story

Consider the case of Ahmed, an expatriate in Dubai looking to buy his first home. Ahmed was initially overwhelmed by the mortgage options and the complexities of the application process. He decided to seek the help of a mortgage consultant based on recommendations from colleagues. The consultant assessed Ahmed’s financial situation, explained the different mortgage products available, and helped him choose the best one for his needs.

Throughout the process, the consultant handled all the paperwork, negotiated with lenders to secure a competitive rate, and kept Ahmed informed at every step. This personalized service made a significant difference, reducing Ahmed’s stress and ensuring a smooth and successful home purchase.

For mortgage consulting services, consider Mortgage Broker Dubai.

Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Navigating the mortgage market in Dubai comes with its own set of challenges. Here are some common challenges and how to overcome them:

Understanding Complex Terms: The mortgage market is filled with complex terms and jargon that can be confusing. A mortgage consultant can break down these terms and explain them in simple language.

Comparing Different Products: With numerous mortgage products available, comparing them can be overwhelming. A mortgage consultant can provide a clear comparison of different products, highlighting the pros and cons of each.

Handling Documentation: The mortgage application process requires extensive documentation. A mortgage consultant can help you gather and organize the necessary documents, ensuring that everything is in order.

Dealing with Rejections: If your mortgage application is rejected, a mortgage consultant can help you understand the reasons and provide guidance on improving your financial profile for future applications.

Securing the Best Rates: Negotiating with lenders to secure the best rates can be challenging. A mortgage consultant, with their industry connections and expertise, can negotiate on your behalf to get the most favorable terms.

For rental property management services, visit Rent Your Property in Dubai.

Future Trends in Mortgage Consulting

The mortgage consulting landscape in Dubai is continuously evolving, with new trends shaping the market. Here are some future trends to watch out for:

Increased Use of Technology: The integration of technology in the mortgage process is expected to increase, making applications and approvals more seamless.

Sustainability: There is a growing focus on sustainable and energy-efficient properties. Mortgages for green buildings and eco-friendly homes are likely to become more popular.

Flexible Mortgage Products: Lenders are expected to offer more flexible mortgage products to cater to the diverse needs of borrowers.

Regulatory Changes: Ongoing regulatory changes may impact the mortgage market, and staying informed will be crucial for borrowers.

Market Adaptation: The mortgage market will continue to adapt to economic conditions, including interest rate fluctuations and property market trends.

For more resources and expert advice, visit Home Loans in Dubai.

Conclusion

Choosing the right mortgage consultant in Dubai is crucial for securing the best mortgage deal and ensuring a smooth property purchase process. By researching, checking credentials, interviewing multiple consultants, evaluating experience, and assessing communication skills, you can choose a reliable consultant who will guide you through the mortgage process. For more resources and expert advice, visit Home Loans in Dubai.

[cheapserverlicense]

Cheap LiteSpeed License for Web Hosting

LiteSpeed Web Server is known for its high performance, security, and compatibility with popular applications like WordPress. Here’s how to get a LiteSpeed license affordably:

Tips for Cheap LiteSpeed License

1. Tiered Licensing: Choose plans based on your needs to avoid extra costs.

2. Bulk Discounts: Purchase in bulk for significant savings.

3. Annual Plans: Opt for annual subscriptions to get lower rates.

4. Promotions: Look for special discounts and promotional codes.

5. Bundle Deals: Get discounts by bundling with other hosting services.

6. Reseller Programs: Join to access special pricing.

Enhance your web hosting with LiteSpeed without breaking the bank. Enjoy faster load times, better security, and efficient resource management today!