#java 14

[bytecodedotorg]

Java Records: A Definitive Guide

Passing immutable data between objects is one of the most common yet mundane tasks in Java applications. Before Java 14, this often required creating classes with fields and methods that were prone to errors and obscured the class's primary purpose.

Passing immutable data between objects is one of the most common yet mundane tasks in Java applications. Before Java 14, this often required creating classes with fields and methods that were prone to errors and obscured the class’s primary purpose. Java Records, introduced in Java 14 and fully adopted in Java 16, provide a more concise and expressive way to handle immutable data classes. In…

[whumpy-wyrms]

just spent 4 hours building Anton’s lab in minecraft and i’m done and it’s soooo cool you guys it’s just like how i imagined (obviously as close as i could get cuz it’s minecraft). gonna build Anton’s cabin above it next but i’ll probably post screenshots of the lab tomorrow so you guys can actually see how i imagine it (cuz it’s hard for me to draw it). if anyone wants to join my world and explore it (bedrock edition only, sorry) feel free to message me!!! like seriously i don’t bite!!!! i love playing minecraft with people :DDD

[ur-favoriterecord]

Game Pass is good for 1 Thing ig

[reasonsforhope]

"A trial programme providing a free meal a day has yielded not just financial relief for households but also improved child nutrition and student outcomes such as attendance and focus.

The free school lunch initiative for children from poor or disadvantaged families was introduced by President-elect Prabowo Subianto and Vice-President-elect Gibran Rakabuming Raka as one of their key campaign promises. Mr Gibran is President Joko Widodo’s elder son...

The pair – who won the Feb 14 presidential election by a landslide and will be inaugurated in October – had in the lead-up to the polls pledged to offer free lunches and milk for students as well as nutritional aid to toddlers and pregnant women in a bid to lower the country’s stunting rate.

Over 20 per cent of Indonesian children under the age of five experienced stunted growth in 2022, according to the United Nations. Stunting, which is being too short for one’s age as a result of poor nutrition, can result in long-term development delays.

When fully implemented by 2029, the programme will cover 83.9 million beneficiaries across the world’s fourth-most-populous nation of nearly 280 million, and cost over 400 trillion rupiah (S$33.7 billion) a year – about 2 per cent of annual gross domestic product.

But on the ground, a trial that was first rolled out in January at 16 schools in Sukabumi, in West Java, has been warmly received by around 3,500 students, their parents and school leaders, who have seen positive changes.

For one thing, saving on the cost of lunches for four of her nine children has provided significant finan­cial relief for Indonesian house­wife Rofiati, 46.

Her husband, a teacher at an Islamic boarding school in Sukabumi, earns 2.5 million rupiah a month on average, and the free school meals have helped them save about 420,000 rupiah monthly, which she can put towards other household needs.

Her children do not usually have breakfast before school. Before the free lunch programme, her children would eat lunch only upon returning home from school. Lunch would usually consist of instant noodles, or dishes of vegetables, eggs, tempeh or salted fish.

“I am not worried any more because I know they will eat at school. They have more appetite as they eat together with their friends,” Ms Rofiati told The Straits Times, adding that her children’s appetites have improved and they also like the variety of the meals provided. In fact, her 11-year-old daughter has gained 4kg since the programme started.

Every day, students on the programme receive a lunch package worth 15,000 rupiah, containing rice, meat such as chicken, fish or beef, vegetables, fruit and milk.

At home, the family usually eats meat only once a week.

It is not just the financial savings that parents are happy about. Ms Depi Ratna Juwarti, who has two out of three children benefiting from the free lunches, has noticed other encouraging results.

“They rarely get sick now. They are more motivated to study and spend a longer time studying at night,” Ms Depi said.

Her eldest daughter, Adifa Alifiya Mahrain, 12, also has good reviews. “The food is always delicious and the menu changes every day. I always eat everything. It’s a lot of fun to eat together with my friends,” said Adifa, who hopes to become a paediatrician in the future.

Mr Shalahudin Sanusi, principal of Gelarsari Islamic primary school in Sukabumi, which is trialling the programme, said he has noticed that pupils have been able to concentrate better and understand lessons more.

He said the initiative has raised the attendance rate of its 110 pupils from 85 per cent to 95 per cent. “They eat modestly at home – mostly rice and salted fish. Rice and eggs are the best they can get,” he told ST. “Now, they are so excited, some even arrive in school at 6am, an hour before lessons start.”"

-via The Straits Times, May 18, 2024

[crowemoji]

All the names I've seen the Mouthwashing fandom say in place of 1. Jimbo

2. Jackassery

3. Juggalo

4. Jimboa

5. Judge Judy

6. Jumbalaya

7. J-diddy

8. Jockstrap

9. Jimothy

10. Jommy

11. Jomosexual

12. Juxtaposition

13. Jlumbgorp

14. Jabooty

15. Jesticular Jorsion

16. Jorshenager

17. Jerusalem

18. Jort

19. Juju on the beat

20. Jigsaw

21. Jamba Juice

22. Jisgusting

23. Jisappointment

24. Jesupercalifragilisticexpialidocious

25. Jimbabwe

26. Jumbo Josh

27. Mr. J

28. Jimboree

29. P Jiddy

30. Jumbotron

31. Jenny

32. Jackolantern

33. Jaundice

34. Jabortion

35. Jonkler

36. Jimmy Neutron

37. Jquery

38. Jingleballs

39. Jurassic Park

40. Jerma

41. Jumanji

42. Jenga

43. Jesticular Cancer

44. Jpeg

45. Jump Rope

46. Timmy Turner

47. Jeometry

48. Japan

49. Jabberwocky

50. Jorkle Jort

51. Jy Jemichal Joemance

52. Jonkeypox

53. Jungle Book

54. Jamaica

55. Jamabathy

56. Jlaystation 5

57. Juggalo

58. Jattack Jellicopter

59. Johnny Johnny Yes Papa

60. Java

61. Jembarassment

62. Juisance

63. Jasshole

64. Jestroyer

65. Japist

66. Jiece of shit

67. Jistake

68. Jatan

69. Jucifer

70. Jucker

71. Jail cell

72. Jastard

73. Jondom

74. Jirth Control

75. Jimposter

76. Jantipathy

77. Jarrest

78. Jcum on the Earth, Scum of the Jearth

79. Jaceplant

80. Jimberly

81. Jumalala

82. Gymbro

83. Jamboree

84. Jizzy

85. Gymnasium

86. Germ

87. Jambalopeticus

88. Jimbob

89. Johnson&Johnson

90. Jelly and peanut butter sandwich

91. Jimmersault

92. Jingle bells

93. Germy

94. Jury duty

95. Diddy Jiddy

96. Jebediah

97. Jalopy

98. Jaobajobblyjumburg

99. Jill pickle

100. Jumbo Jet

101. Jiljo

102. Jimbob

103. Jonah

104. James

105. Jimminy

106. Jerry

107. Jonathan

108. Jeremiah

109. Jamboree

110. Jinny

111. JimJam

112. Jumabaloo

113. Jetpack Joyride

114. Jips

115. Jhe fucking worst

116. Jojo

117. Joe Mama

118. Jocky

119. Jello

120. January

121. Jimborino

121. Jimbimples

122. Jimatron

123. Jorbachev

124. Jubilant

125. Jester-pester-lester

126. Juicy

127. Jalapeño

128. Jingus

129. Jomber

130. Jambo

131. Jibby

132. Jabber

133. Jimbo Dimbo

134. Jizz

135. Judas

136. Johnathan

137. Jetlag

138. Jsauce

139. Jumpin Jacks

140. Yimpy

141. Jingo

142. Jeremiah

143. Jugalug

144. Jeclaration of Jimdependance

145. Jimbroth

146. Jouthwashing

147. Juggleton

148. Jimsticles

149. MariJIMuana

150. Jabortion

151. Jermpop

152. Jim Jardashian

153. Jimroach

154. Jimmillion

155. Jiminy Jaminy

156. Jumbo shrimp

157. Slim Jim

158. Joshua

159. Ymmij

160. J-man

161. Jimbitch

162. Gymnastics

163. Jimsonweed

164. Jorse

165. Jorsejucker

166. Jrony

167. Japarty

168. Jschlatt

169. Jail sentence

170. Jell electrophoresis

171. Jirachi

172. Jimnecomastia

173. Jamalama

174. Jojo Siwa

175. Jeezer

176. Jingle jorts

177. Jenitals

178. Juberculosis

179. Jimertot

180. Jugly

181. Jenis

182. Jigglypuff

I'll also add my own but I'll just shove them in this list.

Also I figured recently that the Fandom wiki has a list too but I will surpass it.

Thanks to the notes for more stuff for the list.

[dreamdolldeveloper]

back to basics

mostly free resources to help you learn the basics that i've gathered for myself so far that i think are cool

everyday

gcfglobal - about the internet, online safety and for kids, life skills like applying for jobs, career planning, resume writing, online learning, today's skills like 3d printing, photoshop, smartphone basics, microsoft office apps, and mac friendly. they have core skills like reading, math, science, language learning - some topics are sparse so hopefully they keep adding things on. great site to start off on learning.

handsonbanking - learn about finances. after highschool, credit, banking, investing, money management, debt, goal setting, loans, cars, small businesses, military, insurance, retirement, etc.

bbc - learning for all ages. primary to adult. arts, history, science, math, reading, english, french, all the way to functional and vocational skills for adults as well, great site!

education.ket - workplace essential skills

general education

mathsgenie - GCSE revision, grade 1-9, math stages 1-14, provides more resources! completely free.

khan academy - pre-k to college, life skills, test prep (sats, mcat, etc), get ready courses, AP, partner courses like NASA, etc. so much more!

aleks - k-12 + higher ed learning program. adapts to each student.

biology4kids - learn biology

cosmos4kids - learn astronomy basics

chem4kids - learn chemistry

physics4kids - learn physics

numbernut - math basics (arithmetic, fractions and decimals, roots and exponents, prealgebra)

education.ket - primary to adult. includes highschool equivalent test prep, the core skills. they have a free resource library and they sell workbooks. they have one on work-life essentials (high demand career sectors + soft skills)

youtube channels

the organic chemistry tutor

khanacademy

crashcourse

tabletclassmath

2minmaths

kevinmathscience

professor leonard

greenemath

mathantics

3blue1brown

literacy

readworks - reading comprehension, build background knowledge, grow your vocabulary, strengthen strategic reading

chompchomp - grammar knowledge

tutors

not the "free resource" part of this post but sometimes we forget we can be tutored especially as an adult. just because we don't have formal education does not mean we can't get 1:1 teaching! please do you research and don't be afraid to try out different tutors. and remember you're not dumb just because someone's teaching style doesn't match up with your learning style.

cambridge coaching - medical school, mba and business, law school, graduate, college academics, high school and college process, middle school and high school admissions

preply - language tutoring. affordable!

revolutionprep - math, science, english, history, computer science (ap, html/css, java, python c++), foreign languages (german, korean, french, italian, spanish, japanese, chinese, esl)

varsity tutors - k-5 subjects, ap, test prep, languages, math, science & engineering, coding, homeschool, college essays, essay editing, etc

chegg - biology, business, engineering/computer science, math, homework help, textbook support, rent and buying books

learn to be - k-12 subjects

for languages

lingq - app. created by steve kaufmann, a polygot (fluent in 20+ languages) an amazing language learning platform that compiles content in 20+ languages like podcasts, graded readers, story times, vlogs, radio, books, the feature to put in your own books! immersion, comprehensible input.

flexiclasses - option to study abroad, resources to learn, mandarin, cantonese, japanese, vietnamese, korean, italian, russian, taiwanese hokkien, shanghainese.

fluentin3months - bootcamp, consultation available, languages: spanish, french, korean, german, chinese, japanese, russian, italian.

fluenz - spanish immersion both online and in person - intensive.

pimsleur - not tutoring** online learning using apps and their method. up to 50 languages, free trial available.

incase time has passed since i last posted this, check on the original post (not the reblogs) to see if i updated link or added new resources. i think i want to add laguage resources at some point too but until then, happy learning!!

[redrose10]

🌹 𝕄𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕃𝕚𝕤𝕥

To-Do List♥️

Yoongi

Series

𝓒𝓲𝓷𝓷𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓷 & 𝓥𝓪𝓷𝓲𝓵𝓵𝓪 (Completed)

Summary: You were selected to marry the wayward CEO/Billionaire/Heir, Min Yoongi. You went into it with an open mind and heart determined to try and make it work. Yoongi on the other hand had no intention of ever letting you in let alone allowing himself to fall in love with you. Slowly you start to associate the smell of cinnamon and vanilla with the feelings of hurt and sorrow.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14

Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 The Proposal

Alternate Ending 1 (very angsty) Alternate Ending 2

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓘𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓾𝓭𝓮 𝓘𝓷𝓷 (Ongoing) (On hold)

Summary: You have never experienced true love which is hilarious considering you write romance novels for a living. When you end up staying at The Interlude Inn located in Holly Falls you start to wonder if maybe the answer to your newest love story is sitting behind the welcome desk. Quickly, you find out that Min Yoongi hides a lot of pain and sorrow behind his shy smiles and quick glances.

Part 1 Part 2

Raspberry Romances (Completed)

Summary: There’s no one on this planet you hate more than your coworker/secret crush Min Yoongi. He’s an arrogant, rude, womanizer who gets under your skin every single shift and you can’t wait for your day to be over so you can get away from him. Unfortunately when Jimin, your caseworker from The Ministry of Adoration, shows up offering you both a raspberry jam filled cookie, things take a surprising turn for the worst and you can no longer get away.

Chapter 1- Coffee and Cookies

Chapter 2- Whiskey and Wedding Cake

Chapter 3- Tea and Tteok-bokki

Chapter 4- Sparkling Cider & Strawberry Pie

Chapter 5- Tacos and Tangerine Juice

Cold Brewed Love (Completed)

Summary: When you begged the owner of Jin’s Java House to hire more employees you didn’t mean for him to stick you with the cold, rude, arrogant CEO Min Yoongi. Over time something begins to brew between you both and you end up forced to make decisions way above the pay grade of a cafe barista.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Cherries (Completed)

Summary: He hated them yet they became a symbol of your love for each other. Until one day they just might be what tears you apart.

Part 1 Part 1.5 Part 2

Who Rescued Who? (Completed)

Summary: With only a few dollars left to your name you weren’t sure how you were going to survive. Thankfully, Suga’s Cat Cafe came to the rescue offering you a job when you needed it most. Not only did it pay decently it also came with perks like unlimited free coffee and a cute, but grumpy cafe owner named Yoongi. At first you believed it was him that saved you at your worst, but as time went on you started to wonder…who rescued who?

Part 1 Part 2

One-Shots

He Knows

Promise

The Beanie Blues

Oblivious

I’d love too

24 Hours

Cuddle Noodle

These Cheeks are Yours Forever and Ever Babe

I Bet You Say That To All Your Girls

Cravings of Love

Pretty Eyes

Wish Upon A Star

Honey Hotteok

Birthday Cake From Hell

Drabble Game

Jin- 1

Yoongi- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Hobi- 1 2

Namjoon- 1 2

Jimin- 1

Picture Game

Everything Will Be Okay Nervously in Love (NSFW)

Pumpkin Spice Lattes Three Little Words

Even Zombies Need Love

Tulip Trees

A Growing Family

The Devil is Beautiful

Min F.cking Yoongi

Secrecy

Hair Tutorials

Kangaroo Vows

Maybe In the Next Life Part 2

Prompt Game

Bonnie and Clyde

Fire & Ice

Beauty and the Frog

Lemonade (Jungkook)

Do You Want Some Ramen?(Jungkook)

I Will Always Love You

The Silent Game (Taehyung NSFW)

The Cookie Jar (Namjoon)

Sprinkles

Valentines Prompt Game

Quiet Baby

Six Annoying Cupids

The Boy Next Door

Be My Valentine

Confetti Cake Crush

Namjoon

Rock-A-Bye-Baby

118 Slides

[bearieio]

ellie w. hcs :3

bc im seeing them everywhere and i need to put in my 2¢. thank you. (also not proofread :P)

⋆ biggest hayley kiyoko fan for like 3 years (the intro to ‘girls like girls’ was her ringtone when she was 14). would beg joel to take her to random record stores that they passed by just to see if they had any hayley kiyoko cds.

⋆ because of joel, she listens to a lot of 70s-90s dad rock. 

⋆ can’t drive for shit. like literally she’s not allowed to drive without her glasses

⋆ she needs glasses btw. she doesn’t wear them because she’s already too much of a loser. but when she does where them, you tease her endlessly about them. 

⋆ can and will sleep on the floor whenever prompted. no blankets, no pillows needed. just her and the floor.

⋆ isn’t allowed to drink any sort of energy drinks on account of a previous incident that had to do with about 3 cans of redbull and 2 large cans of the ‘Java Monster.’

⋆ isn’t allowed to own small pets (like gerbils, guinea pigs, hamsters, etc.) because she’d definitely forget about them. 

⋆ owns big dogs. great danes, newfoundlands, irish wolfhounds, mastiffs, st bernards, YOU NAME IT, SHE HAS IT (or has had it)

⋆ when she’s older, i feel like she’d be like one of those white people who has 192793999 dogs for no reason 

⋆ since her mannerisms are so much like joels, you guys argue playfully all the time about how things should be done, often bringing others into it too. 

“jesse, tell her!” he flips her phone screen around to reveal a very tired jesse, “it’s 1AM, ellie-“ 

“TELL HER!” 

⋆ i feel like at random times, she’ll just grab your boob(s). i don’t know why and you’ve never said anything about it, so she hasn’t stopped…… very handsy….

⋆ audibly goes “honk honk!” almost every time she gives ‘em a squeeze.

⋆ she’s a really sloppy kisser. not like boy-sloppy, but like the hot, messy, girl sloppy bc that sounds better and honestly i think her kisses would be the best.

⋆ she was one of those kids who’d eat dirt and find bugs all the time

because of this, she’s the designated bug killer/bug-getter-outter…. idk

⋆ she’s the worst drunk you know.

like literally sssoooooooooo messy oh my god. but you love her nonetheless :)

she’s soo clingy, and, touchy (like more than usual), but also much more emotional and sensitive than usual when she’s drunk or when she’s sick.

⋆ ellie tends to be quite difficult when she’s sick. BUT! you make it work bc you love her and she loves you :>

when you bring ellie her favorite drink from her favorite coffee shop, you literally have to fight her to be able to get out the front door. when you get up to serve her lunch, you’ve got to peel her off of you because she refuses to let you leave her side. when you go and get the medicine she says she doesn’t need…. you guessed it, she fights for you to stay in bed next to her.

“babe, what if i die right here, when you leave- like- BABE PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME-“ she bewails, crossing her arms and huffing at the sight of you leaving her.

⋆ when you catch her playing her guitar, she sometimes gets all shy and plays the wrong chords n stuff. 

“don’t LOOK! >:(” she says, gripping the body of her guitar, glaring in your direction.

“oh!- okay” you say, throwing your hands up in a playful manner, giggling. 

⋆ but the times where she’s not shy about playing in front of you, she’ll ask you if you want to play.

“do you uh- maybe wanna play? i could teach you” she suggests, gesturing toward the stringed instrument.

but then after, she’d tease you about your finger placement :(

“i said the fourth fret, girl, not the second, or, the third!” she says, in between laughs.

“well fourth from the top or the bottom?!” you scoffed, looking at her, still puzzled.

she knows your trying your best but it’s still fun to poke at you when she can >:)

constructive criticism is appreciated !!!

[silliestflowergirl]

hi everynyan, just wanted to say i made a minecraft server for tumblr moots(or anyone cool rly) so id rly love if you join!!

it’s whitelist so just send ur tumblr and minecraft name in the server and ill get you in:3

pls join and make some friends :3 you can invite anyone also

it’s on java and latest version btw

[a-fox-studies]

May 14, 2024 • Tuesday

--- Days of Productivity [4/10] ---

When you push yourself to your limit, and then push yourself a little more— don't do that. It's a bad idea.

First lab session of the semester today, we had a terrible time. None of the systems had Java installed so the whole of the 3 hours went in confused lecturers figuring out how to install Java (why is my uni like this)

Anyway, I overexerted myself a little today, which is inevitable because I have SO MUCH TO STUDY. Hopefully I can get a break after my exams and not be piled up with assignments (manifesting 🤞)

🎧 Peter — Taylor Swift

[bahoing]

LEVEL 2 HEADMATE PACK —

[ 1 + 2 + 3 ]

YOUNG 1x1x1x1 —

Names — 1x1x1x1, 1x4, Void, Malware, Virus, Zip, Whirr, Widget, Juno, Java, Neo, Neon, Link

Age — ≈14 i imagine

Pronouns — he = they > she > it + gig, code, task, bug, error, code, home, h?, th?y, cyber, key, lag, hope

Labels — robloxgender, oldrobloxic, HAX0Rgender, aroace, feels like his orientation is connected to his "nonhumanness" & dislikes putting a "proper" label on it due to that.

Source — 1x1x1x1 (but young) (Roblox Myths???? Technically??)

Personality Traits — meek, naive, tries to avoid it but ends up trusting people very easily, feels isolated from other players/etc., like he could never understand them and they could never understand him at all.

Roles — doekid, age regressor, theriotype holder, trauma holder, disorder holder

Emojis — 👾💻🎒🦎🧩❎✳️❇️

+ Typing Quirk — replaces "a" with x, i with 1, and never types out numbers. "'Th1s 1s mxss 1nfection?... why would 1 ever sxy thxt?..."

[taltalily]

A CALL TO ALL MINECRAFT ROLEPLAY ENJOYERS

I'm opening a fantasy themed SMP! The smp is role-play focused, has a proximity voice-chat plugin, and apart form that is pretty much vanilla.

The server's vibe is inspired by D&D, and there are 4 unique races to play as, who divide into 4 regions. we even costumized the map with some lore-important builds, and added a world border (proximity voice chat works best in a bordered erea)- and many more surprises!

PLAYERS MUST BE 14-21 YEARS OLD AND HAVE MINECRAFT JAVA EDITION TO JOIN THE SMP.

That being said, if you are interested in joining, fill in This Form, and we will reach out to you with the discord server link :)

Even if you can't/don't want to join, please reblog this post! I'm hoping to get this to as many minecrafters as I can, because we want to have lots of players join in. Like I said, we put a lot of effort into this, so reblogging would really really help.

If you have any questions, but don't want to apply yet, you can leave a comment on this post and I will try to answer it (depending on how many people will see this and how many questions there will be,) to the best of my ability.

[lilith-hazel-mathematics]

Minecraft lowblock

Not my usual type of post, but I found something kinda cool in Minecraft and really wanted to share it. Below is a picture of a skyblock map that I made. I call it "Lowblock", as a reference to low%.

The map consist of exactly 14 blocks: 12 for the end portal frame, one lava block eventually required for a nether portal, and one bone block (at top) required for mob spawning. This is the smallest possible map that's beatable glitchless (excluding trivial nonsense like pre-placed portal blocks). The expected completion time is 6 years.

As with most skyblock maps this extreme, the strategy revolves around the Wandering Trader. The only tile on which the trader can spawn is that bone block. Given how small the spawnable area is, it's extremely unlikely for the trader to actually spawn there. I'll spare the details, but basically, every 20 minutes there is a 1/12294 chance that the wandering trader spawns on that bone block. This means that, on average, a wandering trader will spawn every 171 days. Not minecraft days, REAL LIFE DAYS; about half a year.

Without emeralds, it's impossible to purchase anything from the trader, and you also have nothing to sell them. However, at the crack of dawn, the wandering trader drinks milk. If you kill them at that exact moment, there's a 10% chance they drop the milk bucket. Since on average you'll need to kill them 10 times before you get a bucket, the expected time to acquire a milk bucket is 1708 real life days. About four and a half years.

As of the Java 1.21.5 update, about a month ago, the wandering trader now has a 33% chance to purchase a milk bucket for 2 emeralds. So, on average, you're looking at another 512 real days before you obtain any emeralds. That's another one and a half years, for a grand total of 6 real life years.

Finally, once you do have emeralds, there's a high chance that the trader will also sell logs, and you can buy 16 of them. The planks can be used to make a larger platform, giving enough space to spawn hostile mobs. A larger platform also dramatically increases the rate at which the trader spawns, letting you purchase saplings. This leads into an ordinary skyblock experience, rendering the map beatable.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kitchensink callithump linkdump

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://johndberry.com/

Bound by the legendary book-artist John DeMerritt:

https://www.demerrittstudios.com/

And printed by the master printer JaVae Berry:

https://www.jgraphicssf.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://storyfair.net/helpstoryfairgrow/

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://adwhiteprofessors.cornell.edu/

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

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

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

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

https://www.authorsagainstbookbans.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://www.theoryoffun.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://starsreach.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

[infwctednyacifier]

May we request a grandesized based off like robots and technology in general??/nf

also we like ur blog theme!! :3/gen

Bobert and Gizmo were very much involved . and this scene robot thing we've had laying around for a while now wdk he just popped up and got to work . and pinterests scene community . oh and Yumi for some reason . and tank u!!!!!!! :3

˙ . ꒷ 🍰 . 𖦹˙— ORDER UP ! ;; requested ☕ ᝰ.ᐟ grande 🦣 // robot headmate with a side of general technology

Names – Koda ,, Nezi ,, Laney / K0d4 ,, N3z1 ,, L4n3y

Nicknames – Ko ,, Nene ,, Zizi ,, Lane ,, Ney / K0 ,, N3n3 ,, Z1z1 ,, L4n3 ,, N3y

Age – 14

Pronouns – he / him ,, xe / xem ,, thon / thon's ,, tech / tech's ,, beep / beep's ,, boop / boop's ,, wire / wire's ,, signal / signal's ,, static / static's ,, file / file's ,, java / java's ,, ram / ram's ,, radio / radio's ,, dial / dial's ,, disk / disk's ,, rawr / rawr's ,, kyute / kyute's ,, kawaii / kawaii's ,, O_o / O_o's ,, lol / lol's ,, lul / lulz ,, yiv / yim ,, vey / vem ,, ey / em ,, ny / nym ,, rainbow / rainbow's ,, :D / :D's ,, kandi / kandi's ,, woof / woof's ,, bark / bark's ,, yip / yip's ,, awoo / awoo's ,, 🌈 / 🌈 ,, 🧮 / 🧮 ,, 🐾 / 🐾 ,, 🍫 / 🍫 ,, 🍬 / 🍬 ,, 🍭 / 🍭 ,, 📠 / 📠 ,, 🛜 / 🛜 ,, 💿 / 💿 ,, 💾 / 💾 ,, 💽 / 💽 ,, 🖥️ / 🖥️ ,, 🐶 / 🐶 ,, 🍼 / 🍼 ,, 🎀 / 🎀 ,, 🍰 / 🍰 ,, 🫧 / 🫧 ,, 🍡 / 🍡 ,, 🍮 / 🍮 ,, 🍥 / 🍥 ,, 🧃 / 🧃 ,, 🎉 / 🎉 ,, 🎊 / 🎊 ,, 🎈 / 🎈 ,, 🪩 / 🪩 ,, 🎐 / 🎐 ,, 🃏 / 🃏 ,, 🖍️ l 🖍️ ,, 🎮 / 🎮 ,, 🕹️ / 🕹️ ,, 📼 / 📼 ,, 📽️ / 📽️ ,, 🎞️ / 🎞️ ,, 🎬 / 🎬 ,, 📺 / 📺 ,, 📻 / 📻 ,, 🎙️ / 🎙️ ,, 🎛️ / 🎛️ ,, 🎚️ / 🎚️,, 🍪 / 🍪 ,, 🍔 / 🍔 ,, 🍟 / 🍟 ,, 🍗 / 🍗 ,, 🎨 / 🎨 ,, 👾 / 👾 ,, 🧩 / 🧩 ,, 🪀 / 🪀 ,, 📱 / 📱 ,, ☎️ / ☎️ ,, 📞 / 📞 ,, 🔋/🔋 ,, 🔌 / 🔌 ,, 🖨️ / 🖨️ ,, 🪓 / 🪓 ,, ☣️ / ☣️ ,, ☢️ / ☢️ ,, 🌐 / 🌐

Gender – cisboy ,, robotpuppygender ,, robogender ,, mascrobogender ,, cutething ,, backroomic ,, cutecoric ,, rawr/XD/:3/kandi/gloom/silly/🌈/⭐ user ,, scenebandsic ,, candyravergender ,, weirdkidgender + sparklefurgender + scenix ,, sparkledogic ,, furrypawstimmic ,, PLURgender ,, kandicoric ,, scenix ,,

Terms – masc ,, robot ,, thing ,, pup

Orientation – achillean ,, androsexual ,, polyamorous

Personality – silly ,, happy - go - lucky ,, relaxed ,, laid - back ,, cheerful ,, funny

Role – systeen ,, flail ,, exanthrope ,, agere / petre ,, socializor ,, blog manager

Species – robot ,, programmed to be a puppy kemonomimi of sorts

Source – braindmade

Emojis – 👾 ,, ☣️ ,, 🔋,, 🖍️ ,, 🕹️ ,, 🐾

Front triggers – the scene aesthetic ,, having to socialize ,, agere / petre ,, friends & family ,, school ,, having to relax

Memories – being created ( by us ? maybe ;P ) ,, learning about life through the internet

Extra – is a therian / alterhuman and an age / pet regressor . loves leetspeak ( letters replaced by numbers and maybe even some symbols ) . uses a lot of 2010 ' s scene references ,, emojis ,, etc and dresses in the scene aesthetic but also loves the cutecore aesthetic since it ties into the agere / petre aesthetic !

Translation key – I = 1. A = 4. E = 3. S = 5.

Example message – h1111, 1m L4n3y XP

1 u53 h3/x3/th0n/t3ch/b33p/b00p/w1r3/51gn4l/5t4t1c/f1l3/j4v4/r4m 4s ju5t 50M3 0f my pr0n0un5!!!!! 1 4l50 u53 🌈/🧮/🐾/🍫/🔌/🔋/🖍️/🌐/🪀/☎️/🍟 45 50m3 0f my 3m0j1 pr0n0un5!!! :3

1m 4 puppy r0b0t 4nd 1 l1k3 4g3r3/p3tr3, 5c3n3 5tuff, cut3c0r3, my fr1end5, 4nd my p4rtn3r5!!!!! >.<

Likes – his partners ,, xe ' s friends ,, scene & cutecore & Backrooms / liminal space aesthetic ,, money ,, Roblox games

Dislikes – cats ,, jealousy ,, being patronized ,, fakeclaimers / anti endos ,, people who gatekeep the alt / scene / emo aesthetic and it ' s subcultures

Faceclaims –

[lebuc]

bridge

* “Thus far and no more…” at least not as currently constituted;

perhaps we may not be allowed, perhaps we were never meant to breach that which is beyond our current reach;

for we see from here to there, dimly through eyes uniquely owned; and our envisioning is but a hypothesis to the totality of the conclusory reality understood at experiment’s end. *

As hypothecated, raw materials always drive and fuel a process to conclusion, just as anothers’ eyes may just glean a more precious light in a spectrum far beyond our visible one;

in spanning a bridge too far for the likes of us - they say, we must by necessity fall short. * As a poet once said, “the wall-eyed wally of the airwaves…” and so we are - makers of and staring at  the bricks in the wall we built to perdition;

we’re secretaries of the interior of the singularity of sensations we commonly share; both bound to and bounded by present conventions and their attendant wisdom; constrained by the very apparatus which allows us to append our vision in the first place, and to project that which we cannot attain at present. *

But as another great thinker once said, “the map is not the territory…” and so it is not;

projections, however intentioned do not constitute, nor do they create causality beyond their inherent dimensional span;

and though amusing and oft’ enchanting (in a hypothetical ‘thought-experiment’ kind of way) they serve no great, tangible purpose outside of the classroom, so to speak - though they be taught and lectured upon ad nauseum in successive semesters, ad infinitum. *

Our ascension and attainment just may occasion a symbiotic relationship with matter or beings presently beyond our perceptual and physical horizons, thereby bridging the material-temporal gap our present embodiment cannot alone achieve. * Thus far and no more…” as presently postulated - is both a bracing java-jolt to the jugular of our grandiosity,  and a daunting double-dare  to the determination of our species, if the infancy of our relative history is to be any guide;

a dare which certain of you readers will examine, embrace, absorb, exhaust, let expire in anguish at its unattainment, encrust, entomb uneasily… * only to later exhume, unfold & interpret, inform & exhort to future generations, to be extrapolated to the nth of the nth of the nth degree of that which can possibly be cast seeking to span and conquer the bridge - some said was too far…

’cause that’s how we roll. * 7/14 - 8/24 - lebuc - bridge