#wifi company fix my connection in a timely manner challenge

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 14: Part of The Group (All Along)

Summary: And then something strange happens – the replacements arrive.

A/N: My wifi has been out and shows no signs of being repaired any time soon. Ergo, I'm posting this in kind of a rush, so any mistakes will be fixed when I have access to a connection for longer. See y'all at the end of the semester 🫡💕🕊️

Warnings: language, smoking

Taglist: @liebgotts-lovergirl @latibvles @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs @ithinkabouttzu

England, 1944

For once, Zenie finds that she doesn’t want to be alone with Shifty. Zenie isn’t anywhere that Shifty is and is everywhere that he isn’t. She carefully plans and coordinates her movements so that they’re never alone. They’re only together in groups, or with at least one other person, like Earl or Skinny. When she can’t guarantee that they won’t be left alone together, she sticks closer to Bill than ever. Suo fratellino? More like la sua ombra – his shadow. 

All the careful planning, the cautiously choreographed movements . . . It makes her feel like she’s back in the mountains, trying to move between home and the diner with the least amount of interaction with the man downstairs in front of the radio. The realization makes her feel icky. One day she will never feel repulsed by interacting with a man again.

And then something strange happens – the replacements arrive.

She hears him before she sees him. Luz must notice it too, because they both pause in their game of cards, their eyes flickering toward the loud laughter coming from a small group of unfamiliars. One loud laugh rings out above them all. And it sounds . . . familiar.

“Ah Christ, don’t tell me there’s two of them,” George mutters.

The laugh sounds a lot like Bill’s. And when the replacement steps into view, he even walks like Bill – that confident swagger that’s hard and breezy all at once. He’s got a bright smile that’s almost as bright as his hair. He and the other replacements offer Zenie and George a respectful nod as they pass, and Zenie finds herself smiling back at him.

“What do you think?” Luz asks.

Zenie shrugs, slapping down her next card to resume their game. “I dunno. They’re paratroopers, same as us.”

“Yeah. Same as us.” The replacements look younger and cheerier than everyone who made it through the jump into France. Neither of them says anything about it. Then, or later when they tell Bill that they think they’ve found one of his own. The news only makes him smile.

“From Philly, huh? Well then, he must be pretty tough. We’re in good hands.” For the first time in a while, his smile actually reaches his eyes. 

The papers in her jacket pocket crinkle as she moves. Sitting on the bed, pulling on her boots, she can’t decide if she should put them with the rest of her belongings before she goes. What’s the point of carrying them around? She’s stared at them for the better part of the day and hasn’t gotten anywhere with putting her thoughts onto the page. It’s not like inspiration is suddenly going to strike while she’s at dinner, forcing her to pull out a pencil and jot down her feelings while the rest of the company happily chatters around her.

A letter from Bobby was waiting for her when she got back from France. Somewhere between Dear Tommy and the usual updates on life back home, Bobby had changed his tone. Something has happened with your family, he wrote. I would tell you, but at the same time, I don’t want to hurt your morale. So I’ll leave it up to you – do you want to know?

Dear Bobby, of course I want to know, I left them, but they’re my family and I want them to be okay and please tell me, please tell me, please tell me that my mother is okay and that it’s not her – she doesn’t write. Of course she wants to know. She wants to know that her mother, her brother, her sister, are all okay. She just has to find a way not to pour her desperation onto the page, because she knows Bobby, and the last thing she wants is for him to think that he’s damaged her morale. Any eager words that pour from her heart and her pen are the product of a young girl’s own romantic folly, not the bruised determination of a soldier.

At least the other paper in her pocket has a beginning. Dear Mama. She’s not sure what to say beyond that. Everything felt so certain before coming back to England. Before that night at the brothel. (She’s faced with the uncomfortable realization that if she was mistaken about Shifty, there may be more that she’s gotten very wrong. She tries not to think about it too much.)

Thump! Toye hops off his bunk and straightens his tie. “Ready?”

Zenie finishes lacing up her boots and then shoves the papers under her pillow so she won’t have to think about them until they return to the stables tonight; out of sight, out of mind. She tries for a smile.

“Ready.” 

Ten feet tall and bulletproof, Shifty had once said to describe the feeling their uniforms gave them. With her jump wings and her unit citation medal pinned to her jacket, Zenie can’t help but agree. Even the replacements have them, but looking around, anyone can tell who made it through Normandy – they’re all swaggering around like they own the place, looking down their noses at the new guys and shooting each other cocky grins a mile wide. This must have been what Matthew and his friends felt like when they strutted around in their uniforms after baseball games with adoring girls on their arms.

The room is falling quiet for Smokey just as Zenie slides onto the bench at the table that Luz, Bill, Skip Muck, and Jonny Martin are occupying.

“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” Skip chirps. “You busy polishing those jump wings, Tommy?”

“Nah, he was probably busy with his hair.” Zenie manages to duck as Luz tries to ruffle her dark locks. She misses her hair. And, for the record, she does not take as much time on it as Luz has started claiming that she does. There’s just something comforting in knowing that she can take care of it. It reminds her of how Marilyn used to help her pin it up over night so that she could have curls for school the next day.

“You’re just jealous that girls like running their hands through mine more than yours.” He’s so shocked by the comeback that Zenie manages to mess up his hair while he’s frozen.

Laughter breaks out around them at whatever Smokey is saying from the front of the room. She’s missed something.

She’s not the only one, though. From the table behind her, she hears a frustrated voice ask, “Do you guys have any idea what he’s talking about?”

“Hey,” Zenie lowers her voice and uses her lips to point behind Bill’s head. “That’s the guy I was telling you about. With the red hair.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen him around,” Skip agrees. “Heffron, I think.”

Bill takes a drag from his cigarette before glancing over his shoulder. He exhales smoke when he asks, “And ya think this kid is from Philly?”

“Positive,” Luz confirms. “There’s no mistaking that laugh.”

“Or that walk,” Zenie adds.

As if on cue, the redhead stands, resting his glass on the table with a thump. “Should be heading back to barracks.”

The second that he starts to turn he finds himself stopped by Bill’s hand on his chest, holding him in place. It’s so sudden that the replacement barely has time to cast an indignant glance down at the hand on his chest – which has sprinkled a few ashes from the cigarette its holding onto his tie – and the rest of their table doesn’t have a chance to register what’s happening. Is this an act of aggression?

“You Heffron?”

“Yeah.”

The pressure in the table’s atmosphere deflates. The fight leaves all the men watching the interaction. No need to jump into a fray tonight.

“Where you from?” Bill wants to know.

“Who’s askin’?”

“From Philadelphia?”

“South Philly, yeah.”

Even facing away from her, Zenie can hear the smirk in Bill’s voice when he removes his hand from Heffron’s chest. “I could tell.”

The replacement stares at him, puzzled. Bill’s friends might have relaxed, knowing that their friend isn’t out for a fight, but this boy hasn’t quite figured it out yet.

Bill gestures towards himself. “Seventeenth street.”

Now the replacement lights up. It’s such a quick change that it’s almost startling, how this boy can go from eyeing someone taller than him as he prepares for a fight to pumping his hand in a firm shake with a smile that’s a mile wide. And it doesn’t seem fake, like some of the men – like it’s for show. He really does seem happy to have found someone like himself when he exclaims, “Front street!”

Zenie knows how he feels because that’s how she felt the first time she noticed Shifty. In an unfamiliar place she had heard him mutter in Cherokee and something about knowing they were the same made her feel at home. Thinking about it now, she feels the hard sourness of unprocessed emotions lodge in her throat, sticking together in a big lump that makes it hard to swallow.

Bill jerks his head toward the table at the place across from him, motioning for the redhead to join them. He doesn’t seem to notice that this displaces Luz, Zenie, and Skip, who all have to scoot down the bench to make room for him. “Here, sit down.”

“You see that?” Skip asks as they move. “Guys been here a couple of seconds, and already he’s got a non-com telling us to make room for him!”

“Hey, Bill!” Zenie leans across Luz and takes a swipe at her friend. “You gonna bother introducing us to your new pal? Or should we just get on with replacing you?”

Bill laughs, stopping halfway through one of his questions about who he and Heffron may or may not both know. He uses his cigarette to point out other people at the table.

“Skip Muck from New York. George Luz from Rhode Island. Tommy Driver from North Carolina. And Joe Toye is around here somewhere. He’s from Pennsylvania, too, but not Philly.”

Heffron nods at them each in turn, smiling. “Hey, how ya doin’?”

A lot of the replacements that she’s seen so far seem . . . unprepared. Woefully so. All bright eyed and big mouthed. Maybe it’s the air of confidence mixed with street smarts that Heffron carries with him, but something about him is decidedly different. He’s more serious, somehow, than most of the others. Everyone else must sense it too, because before long he’s joking around with everyone else at the table and he acclimates so well that he could have been part of the group all along.

Smokey finishes whatever he’s been saying and the room bursts into applause and cheers. Zenie claps along automatically, not really sure what she’s cheering for and not really wanting to stop watching Bill and Heffron toss banter back and forth like a volleyball.

“I could have shot the kid a dozen times!” Talbert announces from somewhere behind her. Oh, so they’re talking about that – the Night of the Bayonet. It makes Zenie wince to think about what happened to him, and how easily it might have been any one of them – could have been her. The cries for a medic had come while Doc Roe was in the foxhole she and Bill were sharing. It feels so long ago now, yet never too distant.

Talbert doesn’t seem all that torn up about it, though. Laughs follow when he proclaims, “I just didn’t think we could spare a man.”

Heffron catches her eye and tilts his head, puzzled. “What is he talkin’ about?”

“The Night of – “

“The Bayonet. Yeah, that’s what everyone keeps sayin’, but what does it mean?”

“Smith stabbed him on accident back in France. Thought he was a Kraut.”

Heffron winces in sympathy. “Ouch.”

“All right, listen up men! A couple of announcements.” Lipton says, ending all the laughter as he steps to the front of the room. “First – listen up! The training exercise scheduled for twenty-two hundred . . . has been cancelled.”

Loud applause breaks out again, and Lipton holds up his hand to quiet them. “Secondly, all passes are hereby revoked.” There’s a brief pause where the mood of the room plummets. He rushes on before it can fall too far. “We’re heading back to France. So pack up all your gear. We will not be returning to England, boys.”

He says more that Zenie doesn’t really hear. Not returning to England. It feels like they just got there!

They all sit, waiting, unsure of what to do. In the end, it’s Bill – ever the leader – who puts out his cigarette and stands with a sigh.

“Well boys, we best get goin’. Looks like it’s up to the Airborne to go fend off the Krauts.”

[vlgeo439019-blog]

There’s no internet?! (Insert screaming 12-year old)

Our world revolves around the internet. Banking, politics, social movements, education, reading, access to medical care, booking appointments, or purchasing products online - you name it, the internet is 100% involved. As people who always have access to the inter-web, we often forget that there are remote areas in the world that are internet “immune”, so to speak. While we sit down, drinking a cup of coffee, and work on a assignment online on campus or in a cafe, we don’t really think about the people out there that are living their day-to-day lives without the internet. 

Of course this isn’t a bad thing, but when the world is so dependent on using the internet, it makes life significantly harder for those individuals who live without it. 

For the purposes of my blog this week, I’m going to write about low broadband internet accessibility in rural areas. I've spent a lot of time in the past few weeks focusing on agriculture and farming - it's time for a refreshing change!

Low internet accessibility in isolated areas isn't a new phenomena. Since the early 2000′s internet use has been growing - in 2009 usage increased by over 700% and further increased by 400% in 2013. By 2023 it is predicted that internet usage will skyrocket. The number of users is predicted to reach 33 million users, nearly 99 percent of the Canadian population. 

Unfortunately, I have difficulty believing in the authenticity of this statement, especially considering the fact that only 85% of Canadian citizens are adequately serviced with a reliable internet connection. This may seem like a considerable number of people, but when you look at a map of Canada the stark reality is that there is a technological divide between the north and south, even in Ontario!

Partial map of northern & southern Ontario.

The green areas on the map represent those regions with an adequate level of internet connection, more specifically fixed wireless access. The yellow colour represents those areas that have access to cellular data or cell service. As I’m sure you all can see, this represents a majority of Canada’s urban population in southern Ontario. 

Those areas without colour have no cellular service at all. 

Partial map of northern & southern Ontario.

The red dots represent those areas that are largely under-serviced, communities with anywhere between 1000 to 7000 people. Although generally more common in northern Ontario, there are some locations in the south that are suffering due to a lack of service as well. 

Why is this a problem? 

A farmer in the Ottawa Valley explains, “I live ten minutes from the town of Renfrew and I’m in a blackout zone with no hopes of getting high speed internet. I pay nearly $200 dollars a month for only 100 gigabytes of data - enough data for only 20 hours of internet. Watching videos is impossible.”

This may not seem like a problem, but with children who rely on the internet for school projects and assignments, it really puts a damper on things. The additional costs for poor internet are pretty unbelievable as well. 

A man from Elgin County can’t even pay his bills reliably. Don Miller, a farmer and business owner, says that he was put out of service for ten days without warning, just narrowly regaining his connection in time to pay off $8000 dollars in pesticides and fertilizers. He’s unable to use internet in the evenings; too many people use it at once. Miller is unable to stay up to date on cattle and grain prices as well. 

In northern, remote communities this is even worse. There are massive issues of affordability and accessibility. In Thessalon First Nation for instance, a reserve outside of Sault. Ste. Marie, satellite internet service is provided by Xplornet. Unfortunately this system has been criticized for being inconsistent, expensive, and lags in times of high traffic. Without proper monitoring, bills can quickly add up and cost hundreds of dollars each month. 

Public wifi hotspots are a suggested solution to this problem, but for many communities this is inadequate as well. Some towns and villages lack public spaces or have inconsistent hours operation, forcing people to tailor their lives around accessibility. People are forced to travel long distances just to receive important information regarding health care, education, and employment. This costs money, time, and a considerable effort, which translates into a geographical advantage. Individuals in urban areas do not have to deal with this at all, creating the digital divide I mentioned above. 

In terms of economic activity, small communities in isolated regions are also at a disadvantage as well. There is little opportunity for digital industries or businesses to be established in these areas as low access to high speed internet could easily destroy a young or brand new entrepreneur. People are not willing to risk the possible loss. 

Even access to digital health care is a problem with poor internet. For those individuals who rely on digital forms of medical care, it’s a challenge to receive help if it is desperately needed. 

Recently there have been conversations surrounding possible solutions to this problem, the Canadian government being a major actor in the discussions of such solutions. In 2016, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) deemed basic internet service as a human right and set aside over $750 million for infrastructure investment to provide services where market forces have fail, primarily rural and northern communities as we have discussed.

Unfortunately the plans released do very little to improve the lack of accessibility in these areas. Two years ago the CRTC proposed that with improved infrastructure internet speeds would reach 50 megabits per second. Today, the Commission has gone back on its word; speed targets will be cut in half, reaching 25 megabits per second. This means that as each household in these areas adds additional internet-connected devices to their bill, there will be an increased number of connectivity issues. This is amplified in Indigenous communities where access to high-bandwidth connections is expensive and where multiple families share a single dwelling.  

Solving internet accessibility in Canada is going to be a challenge, that’s for sure. It’s difficult to say whether this is going to be possible in the first place. Many communities, even those in close proximity to Guelph have poor internet. One of my housemates currently relies on a very poor satellite connection at her family home due to the topography in her area. Her home is surrounded by drumlins, large glacial remnants, that act as giant barriers to a reliable internet signal. 

I currently live outside of Midland and experience very poor internet. If you guys look at either of the maps I’ve linked above, there’s a small peninsula that’s right across from the Bruce Peninsula to the east. In that area there’s a little spot surrounded by red dots. That’s approximately where I currently live and the internet is horrible. There are times when my youngest sister can’t complete assignments for her school because of it. 

Despite all of this, it seems to me that Indigenous communities seem to suffer the most when it comes to issues of rurality. They continue to be forcefully isolated, especially by the Canadian government and big-box internet companies due to poor bandwidth. There is little room for change, growth, and independence in these communities when the lack of internet is forcefully caging people to a number of social, economic, and political issues, continuing a cycle of dependency created as a result of colonization. 

What do you guys think? Is internet a basic human right in our time and day? Is there an adequate solution to addressing a lack of internet accessibility in a timely manner?

- Vanessa 

[rocknfit]

The extent of invasiveness

translated this interview from spanish, so the wording might be challenging to the regular saxon syntax. 

It is quite long but very interesting and I just rescued some questions. All the note inside a < > are my notes.

Martin Hilbert

People know him at the TICs for creating the first study that estimated how much information there is in the world. Doctorate on social Sciences and a PhD in communication. Works for the U. of California/ Technical assessor of the USA congress Library

(...)

What is Deep Learning?

-It's the way AI is made today. It's a neuronal network that work in a very similar way to the brain, with many hierarchies. All you see in Google and Apple (Siri) is Deep Learning. It's a very powerful AI that was discovered (direct from translation /"descubrimos" = To Discover, as opposite to Invention/Create/) five years ago.

So, How spied are we?

-Super Spied! Everything is infiltrated by this algorithms and AI and other softwares. And it is very interesting, since after Snowden people said: -What is this, "they" can see my nudes!? Ok, so what, it's not that much of a deal.-

No one went to protest about this to the streets, things carried on as if nothing. The NSA confessed a couple of very illegal activities, and then well, that got fix and it was the end of it. But other things never got fixed nor even mentioned and spying will be more intense and effective. I am not saying this is good or bad, but people need to know. And if people knows that are being spied and the don't care, that's perfect too. Now, the delicate question is what will happened when this data and analytics fall in hands that can abuse of this. At Silicon Valley we are not very happy with Donald Trump using this tools. They are very disappointed to be honest.

What kind of things can be know about us, in short term, like daily?

-For starters, where are you and where have you been. If you have Gmail in your smartPhone, you can see a world maps (GoogleMaps) that will shows you where were you every day that 3G-above WiFi connection are available, the time of the day you were there, for give or take, 3 years back. It is an information that you allow Gmail to acquire and sell and use when you click on the agreement and download the app.

Something no one ever reads, right?

-Exactly. And in some cases you can opt out of some of this invasive scanning's but no one notice it or knows about it. Now, what is interesting is that with this personal mobility data you can carrie on studies. We know already that for example, we can predict with a 90% accuracy where will you be every day of the year to come.

Imagine the value of this information for a Marketing Agency, for example.

How Important is this information worth for this companies?  

-Is everything, It's all the have. Facebook worths billions of dollars because of the information, nothing else. From the top ten apprised enterprises I think 5 are Information Providers. And people always says "no! we have to fix all this, protect the user" But the most "out-there' demand I have heard on all of this conferences and whatnot is that we need property rights over our data, like intellectual property, so you could sell your data and not give it away. And I go with this claim to my colleagues at Silicon Valley and they tell me: "But, buddy! We are already doing that. You are owner of your data, but you agree that I <google i.e.> will be too after agreeing to our terms. With your data that we collect you <the user>  pays the app, that allows you to avoid trafci congtions every day and sorts your social media. Fantastic, eh?"

And that's the end of the discussion for many. (…) because the benefits overwhelm the surveillance part (…)

It is my understanding that some studies has managed to predict a lot of things from our conduct in Facebook.

-Of course! that is the data Trump used. Having between 100 and 250 of your likes in Facebook; your sexual orientation, ethnic origin, religions and political opinions, levels of happiness and "smartness" <probably referring to IQ> if you use drugs, if your parents are divorced or not, can be predicted. With 150 likes, the algorithms can predict the outcome of a personality rest better than your significant other; and with 250 likes better that yourself. This studie was made by (Dr.) Kosinski in Cambridge, then an entrepreneur took this and created Cambridge Analytics and Trump hired them for his campaign

what did he <trump> did with this?

Using this database/methodology, they created profiles for each and every voter in the US. Almost 250 million profiles. Obama, who also strongly manipulated citizens in 2012, had 16 million profiles, but here <in trumps case> a profile was created for every single voter. In average the profile of each US citizen in the database has 5000 points of data. And once they had classified every individual according to their data, they began the attack. For example, in the third debate with Clinton, Trump made an argument, <Martin forgot what the argument was in the interview> The thing is that the algorithms then created 175 millions variations of this <forgotten> message and - with variations  in visual cues - in the colour, the image , the subtitle, in the explanation, etc.- they sent it <Trump's statement> in a personalized manner. For example, if Trump said "I am for the right to bare guns" some received the image of a criminal entering your house, because <the algorithm had predicted> that you are more fearful. Others would receive the image of a dad and son hunting. In the same statement you have here two versions, but they had created 175 million. Obviously they brain wash you. It has nothing to do with democracy. It is populism in its pure form, they are telling you exactly what you want to hear.

And what did Obama do?

Obama was like the pioneer in this. In his reelection campaign in 2012, invested a billion dollars on this, way more than for TV adds. With this money he hired a group of forty nerds, from Tweeter, Googles, Facebook, Craigslist, three poker professionals, some researches on Stem Cells and whatnot. He set-up this forty nerds in a basement, give them the number for pizza delivery, right? and in this basement they created the 16 millions of profiles that "they" were interested in: the undecided voters. They took data from everywhere. They even had access to your "Setup-box" <Satellite TV>  that register how and what you watch on TV. If you have access to that, you know what interests you and thus, started to deliver personalized <Martin uses the word Individualized> messages. The delicate thing here is that, not only you will get the message in a way you will like it, but also that you will see only what you will agree with. If Obama has sixty campaign promises, might be that you highly disagree with number fifty-eight, at least two of them will appeal you. Let's say you are pro green development and in favour of abortion. Well, you get only that in Facebook.  

(…)