Idea Number One Thousand Seven Hundred Fifty Seven Might Be Good!

2026-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

Introduction</h2>
If you follow me on Mastodon, you might have seen some vague references to me wanting to build an XMPP server recently. I wanted to do this because I have the programming itch right now, but I had no idea what project to work on. One person building an XMPP server is obviously preposterous, its simply too complex, and I knew that, but I just wanted to start. I have since come up with a better idea for a project, that is hopefully more manageable, and I will present it here. I call it Idea Number One Thousand Seven Hundred Fifty Seven! (Or simply Masto Radio Bot if you prefer). I call it this because it is one in a line of many, many unfinished projects, not because I know exactly how many ideas I have had.</p>

Idea</h2>
I have seen a few cool things as of recently, listed below, and want to bodge them together:</p>

I have been listening to my local FM radio stations programming.</li>
I have seen internet radio stations like nightride.fm.</a></li>
I have seen Low Tech Magazine's solar powered website.</a></li>
I have seen the low power computers that Pine64 makes.</li>
I have always been fascinated by high efficiency audio compression algorithms, and basic TTS systems.</li>
I have seen lots of bots on Mastodon.</li> </ol>
The combination of all of these things is a Solar Powered Internet Radio Station With Automated Announcements Of News, Weather, And Music, That Also Posts What Its Doing On Mastodon.</p>
This project is significantly more achievable that previous projects because it can easily be done as many small steps, and each step has a concrete outcome. So, the first thing would simply be to make an internet radio at all. Then I can expand by upgrading it as I go. Finally, as a nice bonus, I may be able to repurpose the basic server skeleton I was working on for XMPP in order to be used for the music streaming. (All it dose now is echo over TCP)</p>
Architecture</h2>
</p>
First comes the sources of content for the radio. These will be things like public domain music, weather, and potentially hand selected news. The weather, news, and other text-based content will be run through a TTS engine for broadcast. This will be handled by separate programs to gather and synthesize each information type. These programs will then be called by a scheduler program. The scheduler will decide what gets run when, and will direct the various content programs to output audio and text into a ram filesystem. Finally, a streamer/poster program will consume these files and stream them on my website, or post the text to Mastodon.</p>
For the hardware, I will have a solar panel (probably 100w), that charges a battery (probably 100ah 12v lead acid), that powers a single board computer (already purchased), That talks to the internet through a long outdoor network cable (variable depending on where I decide to locate the contraption), and I will need to house it all in something, like a small shed.</p>
Overall, this will not be a cheap project, but if I work on one part at a time, I hopefully wont have too much trouble with buying things that won't get used.</p>
Conclusion</h2>
I sure hope I this project is as achievable as I think it is, because I would really like to actually get something done for once lol... I guess I just need to make sure I don't hold myself to too high standards.</p>
If you want to increase the chances that this project gets done, send me an email or message me on Mastodon in a month reminding me to work on it lol.</p>
Sincerely, Jessica Haines</p>

This Website is now cooler!

2026-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

I have updated three things about my website to make it hopefully easier to maintain and more visually appealing to use:</p>

I have migrated to the Zola SSG. This is much better than the large quantity of shitty bash scripts that came before and will reduce friction to me making new blog posts in the future</li>
I have ditched support for Gemini. This may make some people a little sad, but for me the enthusiasm for, and confidence in Gemini has faded. I think that basic HTML and CSS webpages allow for so much more freedom for me to personalize and make this page my own, while also still being relatively simple. At least its relatively simple compared to the massive javascript run websites I often see nowadays.</li>
I have used this newfound creative freedom to make my website a little more colorful! You may have noticed that gone are the days of simple gray backgrounds and white text, and in are the days of light blues, greens, and pinks!</li> </ul>
After realizing that the blue I chose looks like the sky, I am also toying with trying to make some kind of repeating cloud/rainbow texture for the background to spice it up even more.</p>
I hope that the few people who read this appreciate the work I have put in over the past few weeks, and make sure to look forward to more content coming soon to a website near you!</p>
Sincerely, Jessica Haines</p>

Why Knowing Whats Important Is Important - How I Think About Decision Making

2025-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

Introduction</h2>
Decision making is an important part of life in many ways. All the way back from when you came into this world, and you became aware of yourself, you needed to start making decisions. What to think about, what to do with your time, and what to eat. At first, these decisions carry little weight, as they are usually structured or assisted by someone else, but eventually, they become more powerful.</p>
In order to do what you want in life, you must constantly make decisions that further your goals. Unfortunately, even though caregivers' guardrails will fade as you get older, they are generally replaced by other entities, such as governments, businesses, and other forces that want to shape how you live.</p>
Even though the people operating these entities are often well intentioned, the entities themselves are bigger than anyone's control, and their resulting actions often are not so well intentioned. This text explores both the way people make decisions, and also the emotional factors that influence them. It attempts to point to the importance of managing your decision making ability.</p>

An Evolution Of My Decision Making</h2>

Stage 1: Paralysis</h3>
When I was very young, I didn’t really make decisions, I just chose the first thing that came to mind, and was done with it. However, when getting ice cream for example, I eventually realized that maybe someone else's ice cream flavor was better than mine. This prompts the first stage of decision making. In this stage, I became afraid of my ability to affect my life. See, my reaction to this newfound freedom was that I couldn’t do anything because I could do something wrong. There were like 25 ice cream flavors, and I didn’t have knowledge of most of them. How could I possibly decide???</p>
At this stage, the problem is obvious, you can’t decide anything.</p>

Stage 2: Pros And Cons</h3>
After I suddenly could not decide, the first technique I was explicitly taught for decision making was to make a list of pros and cons for each option and compare them. This is largely still how I make decisions, although I no longer make them explicitly in my head for most things. This technique makes it possible to make informed decisions at all. This time, when I went back for ice cream, I spent 15+ minutes standing outside of the line just envisioning all of the different flavors, each with different tastes, textures, sweetnesses, and other factors. Eventually I would choose one and get in line. However, when reaching the counter, a problem occurs: They are out of the ice cream I want. Oh no. I must imagine every flavor again, and that takes far longer than I have. Again, I can’t decide, and our decision making process must be revised further.</p>
At this stage the problem is still fairly obvious, but I will still point it out: Change is hard, and thus unanticipated circumstances often cause paralysis.</p>

Stage 3: Meta-analysis</h3>
The natural response to this as a parent then, is to wonder why this is so hard for your child and exclaim, “Just pick something! It's not like it matters!” Although basic advice, this provides the foundation for stage 3 of decision making. To use a list of pros and cons when necessary or important, but otherwise to fall back where we started, to just use the first thing that comes to mind. Now when I go to get ice cream I recognize that if another flavor turns out to be better than mine, I can simply get it next time, and thus this decision isn’t really important. Now I can successfully get ice cream! Hooray!</p>
We are not out of the woods yet though, as this decision leads to one final problem:</p>

Stage 4: Paralysis Again</h3>
Now that I know what is important, several questions come to my mind: “What makes something important?” “What is most important?” “Why do I care?” The problem is that these answers are not easy to come up with, or accept once you do. Perhaps I conclude based on things other people think are important, that important things affect the outcome a person or society experiences significantly. Then, the most important thing is the work I put in to make mine and other people's lives better. Therefore, I should work hard to get good grades, get into a good college, and always be on the lookout for opportunities to help other people do the same. I should get a job at a place that helps people feel and do better, and I should not support any organizations that do the opposite. I care because I like it when I feel good, and my mom says the golden rule is, “Treat others as you would wish to be treated.” When I go to school then, I always try my hardest, and do whatever is asked of me. I grow tired, I burn out, I become unhappy, and I have a meltdown.</p>
I am now paralyzed again, despite my best efforts to make good decisions.</p>
To make matters worse, I don’t even hold to my own ideals completely, and in this model, that's an important decision that I am making wrong. This thought process hastens the problem.</p>

Emotion In Decision Making</h2>
Today, I recognize that, although all of this is still true, there is a hidden component that both drives and is driven by decisions. This component is emotion.</p>
One way that decisions affect your emotion is in the way you think about them. If you view decision making as a sort of existential exercise, you trade long term success for short term happiness, recognizing that you only have one shot at life and you had better make it count. In other words, I didn't buy the ice cream in the first place. In this view, your decisions are all part of a larger effort that shapes your universe. In this way, knowing how to make decisions is a curse, because it puts a large responsibility on you that you must accept or face consequences.</p>
However, thinking of it this way is not helpful, as it will result in unsustainable behaviors, and ultimately a meltdown like in stage 4. The other way to think about it, “nothing is important, I can do what I please,” also has undesired effects though.</p>
Unfortunately I am not yet good at balancing these two things, however I do have an idea. My economics teacher just told me that, “Rational people think at the margin,” Is a core principle of economics. This principle means that when someone makes a decision using their rational brain, they tend to make a small change to their existing plan, with the hope that their decisions will build up over time into a big change.</p>
In this model, you shrink down decisions into small sections, and perform one of them at a time. This would probably help me to not feel so overwhelmed, and to avoid the meltdown outcome, because I would have more time to recognize I was getting overwhelmed, before I got to the bad part. I will try to implement this technique now that I have thought about it.</p>

Emotion As Leverage</h3>
One way that decisions are affected by emotion is the effect of how many options there are. When there are too many choices, I may be tempted to make the decision to go somewhere else, do something else, or avoid the choice. One example of this is that when I have the meltdown from stage 4, I may be tempted to choose some music to listen to, or some other content to consume to calm down. I may look for a movie, or get some music from bandcamp, but decide that the number of movies/albums is too large. Instead, I avoid the decision by going to the front page of Youtube, which has videos that the Youtube algorithm has lovingly curated and it knows I will like.</p>
This is hugely problematic for a free society, and is not a hypothetical example. This happens to me often, and the thing that enables it is that Youtube knows so much about me that they are able to pull me in with the lure of an easier decision. This is problematic because it allows an organization with a lot of information to easily manipulate people into consuming their information, thus biasing the peoples worldview.</p>
I therefore think that we as a society should try to prevent and discourage such unethical uses of data so as to lessen the number of people who fall into this trap.</p>

Conclusion</h2>
With all of these decisions that we have to make, improving your decision making skill, and managing your energy is of great importance in order to continue to progress in today's world. So fight the battles you feel are important, and always be thinking about what is important. All types of people are needed to make the world work, so don’t be afraid to change what is important to you.</p>
In addition, if, by chance, anyone reading this is in a position to discourage large organizations from collecting lots of data and biasing our worldview, then please do that. The future of our global society will thank you.</p>
Sincerely, Jessica Haines</p>

Why I Had A Hard Time In High School — On Growing Up Trans And Autistic

2025-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

This post mentions difficult topics like bullying, and gender dysphoria, although I left out almost all of the potentially triggering details</em></p>

Introduction</h2>
This post is effectively just me compiling my experiences on my growing up so that I can have something to look at and tell myself, "look at all the hard stuff I did." I think it could be useful however, to parents who want to help guide their children through the experiences of being transgender and having autism. It could also be helpful to other people who are going/have gone through similar things so that they can see that these challenges can be overcome and are not the end of the world.</p>
When I was a child in school not that long ago, I was faced with many challenges. These included social isolation, homework, a lack of feeling of purpose, and anxiety. One of the biggest things that I remember affecting me as a child was thinking about large social events such as prom.</p>
Why was prom so bad?</h2>
There were several main parts to this. One part was that I have hated formal attire for as long as I can remember. I didn't want to put on a suit, or tie, or button down shirt, because it made me feel out of place. I didn't want to be formal, I wanted to be me. At the time I didn't consider myself formal, I considered myself to be authentic and honest, and formal didn't seem to be compatible with that.</p>
Another big problem was that I would have to hang out with a large group of people. At the time people seamed unpredictable. I was unable to predict in advance how other people would feel about what I said. In fact I felt so removed from the idea of socializing that I was unable to even predict the way that I would feel about something, or to determine why I felt that way. This led to me saying the wrong thing a lot. To compound this, I was very emotional, and so not knowing how I was feeling was an extra big problem.</p>
Because of the frequency of saying the wrong thing, and me being very emotional and easy to get a reaction out of, I was also a prime target for bullying at all school functions, not only prom.</p>
Finally, there were the girls. I simply couldn't bear to be around them. Ever since ~4th grade, whenever I saw a girl I was overcome with an overwhelming feeling of smallness and wanting to disappear from the world and never come back.</p>
The biggest outcome of this was that I spent most of the summer of 6th grade training myself not to talk to people, with the idea being that I wouldn't be able to feel bed after social interaction if I didn't have any. This tactic lasted several years before I realized it was stupid, and I have had to spend many more years trying to reverse the effects that I inflicted on myself that one summer.</p>
Now that I am older and a bit more mature I recognize that many of these problems stemmed from me being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. At the time however, I didn't even know that I had autism. As far as I remember my parents never told me, and the first person to tell me that I had it was my first therapist that I got in 11th grade when I was totally falling apart mentally.</p>
But that doesn't exactly explain my feelings when I was in vicinity of the other girls at school, so in order to explore that lets look at another example:</p>
Swimming</h2>
I was well aware from gossip of my peers that the fitness program of the school had four parts, that rotated each quarter. One part was a traditional sports based gym class, another was fitness training with weights, the third was a classroom style lesson on health and the way the body works, and the forth was swimming lessons.</p>
I already knew how to swim and was decent at it, but, like at prom, I was absolutely terrified of seeing those women in bathing suits. I could not stand the thought of it. I thought that this meant that I was attracted to the women of my age.</p>
Although my guess about being attracted to the girls in my class was a fine one given the information I had at the time, I eventually learned that feeling attracted to someone is supposed to feel good. This certainly did not, so what gives?</p>
Well, after many years of wondering that myself, I stumbled upon an idea: Transgender people exist.</p>
What I know now</h2>
My relationship to this idea was hard at first. I was unable to think about it without feeling overcome with fear, and effectively blocking the thought out of my memory. However, with time, and being exposed to it through social media, I eventually learned to somewhat tolerate the thought.</p>
The obvious question then when confronted with this idea is: Am I trans? Am I not? I quickly found that I was unable to easily prove either question had an answer of yes.</p>
Through a lot of talking with people on social media, I was presented with a large amount of information about a world I had only just admitted existed. I then found myself afraid again. However, I couldn't resist to learn more. I kept coming back to seek the thrill that fear provided me with regard to trans people. And the more I learned, the more evidence I found that I was trans.</p>
For example:</p>

Wearing a dress makes me feel incredibly alive in a thrilling sort of way.</li>
I had imaginary women friends in my head who I would sometimes pretend to be. This ended up going too far and I would sometimes feel as though I actually was them. This caused some problems sometimes, although was also quite fun.</li>
I hate choosing men's clothing, because it all feels so boring and ritualized. It makes it feel like I shouldn't be here, in the store, looking at whatever this is.</li>
I remember running around in the front yard as a child in a kimono that my dad had brought home from a business trip to Hawaii. I felt awesome in that.</li>
I just kinda feel better when I look in the mirror and I see a women. It's very hard to explain.</li>
Long hair is simply superior.</li> </ul>
Anyway, now that I know I am trans, I have begun to use she/her pronouns for myself, and I no longer feel so small in front of women. I hope to continue this trend as I accrue more women's clothing, learn more about how to be a women, and make other changes. I am hoping that this will further alleviate some of the anxiety around formal attire, among other things.</p>
Now that I know I have autism, I have also been able to practice and improve on social interaction over time. I now understand how I am feeling much better, and can predict others feelings decently well.</p>
Conclusion</h2>
I hope that any parents or future parents reading this have been able to see my perspective on my own experiences growing up, and will be able to better help their own kids through these or similar challenges. The main thing I want you to keep in mind is that when your kid gets diagnosed with something, they should be told about it, and you should make sure they understand what that means. The other thing is that your child knows themselves best, and it was critical in my acceptance of my gender for my parents to be open to the idea, and not try to dismiss it or penalize it.</p>
I hope that this article has been thought provoking and allowed you to better understand the struggles of modern day trans and autistic youth. Thanks for your attention, and if you have any questions feel free to contact me at the email address below.</p>
Sincerely, Jessica Haines</p>

Why You Should Make A Threat Model

2024-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

Introduction</h2>
I like my privacy, and I think you should too. I don't like to feel like a victim to large corporations or law enforcement who collect lots and lots and lots of data about almost everyone who exists. I am also in several communities that help people to achieve online privacy. This has mainly been for one reason so far: fear.</p>
To be fair to myself, there are indeed legitimate reasons to fear data collection. These reasons include things like:</p>

If people are scared of surveillance, then they are probably less likely to research controversial issues for fear of being branded as an activist by the government. This leads to less education on important topics that will affect our future</li>
Cars are nowadays often made to track people for the purpose of evaluating someones rate for insurance. In the event of a data breach this data could be easily used by and ex or another bad actor to show up at your location and confront you</li>
Even many western governments engage in anti-movement behavior. This again causes people to be scared to advocate for change in their governments, undermining the democratic process</li> </ol>
For more examples, visit The New Oil</a>.</p>
Most people probably don't like these things, but they probably also don't understand their significance.</p>
Unfortunately, fear is not all that good a reason to do things, because it is not rational. I was afraid of the potential of identity theft, losing my data to ransomware, losing the money in my bank account, the government knowing all of my habits and using it against me, someone getting their hands on my phone and getting the data off, etc. Because of these fears, I looked for solutions, I installed Grapheneos, I deleted the accounts I didn't need, I didn't create some accounts I probably did need, I used email aliases, etc.</p>
Although most of these actions were useful, some were not, and worse, I was living in fear of things I didn't need to be. I thought that everything was a threat and I wanted to protect myself from all of it.</p>
I had heard the term threat modeling thrown around before, I had heard it was important, but I didn't really believe it. I thought, "I am doing just fine without one, why should I make one."</p>
Eventually, after several years, I have just now, finally made one. It has highlighted for me what things I do that really are useful(password managers, MFA, etc.), what things I do that it wouldn't be the end of the world if I couldn't fully implement(email aliases, fingerprint resistant browsers, etc.), and what things I have ignored that really would significantly enhance my safety(security keys). And I guess I was right, I was doing just fine without one, but what if I could have been doing good with one.</p>
Overall, the biggest thing that threat modeling has already noticeably increased is my confidence. I feel more protected because I have actually done the thinking, and I feel less scared because there aren't these big nebulous concepts out there that I am trying to protect against. The concepts are now contained and feel manageable.</p>
How Can You Do This Too?</h2>
I was listening to a podcast while writing this post, and it pointed something out I had not thought of: Maybe the fear was an essential learning step required for threat modeling. What I mean is that in order to threat model you need to asses the likelihood and severity of different threats, and the effectiveness of solutions. For me, this knowledge did indeed come from the fear stage of researching all possible threats and protections.</p>
I guess you don't have to try everything, but you do indeed need to do some research and thinking before you even start. You need to read articles on potential threats, join online communities, try out different solutions, and be open to the possible results. I have placed some suggestions of potential resources, as well as a link to the podcast, at the end.</p>
You can probably do yours differently, and I am not an experienced threat modeler, so you may well have a better format, but here is how I did it:</p>

Create a new document</li>
Put a heading called "Assets," and list all of the things that you have that someone could steal or use to hurt you in some way. These can be nebulous concepts too, like if you try to keep your different social media profiles separate. It's okay if it's incomplete. You will think of more stuff as you go through the rest</li>
Create a new heading "Threats," and list all of the ways people could use these things to hurt you</li>
Now create a heading called "Defenses." This part will be a little more complex. Write things you could do that you think would protect you. Then, find an asset this would protect, and what method of attack it would protect against. Rate this pair by how severe it is(How likely it is to happen, how well the defense protects against it, how bad it would be if it happened, etc.) You can put things you already do on here as well to analyze their validity</li>
Finally, go back and look over your defenses. If there are things with lots of high numbers, you should probably implement those defenses. If there are things with only a few low numbers, they might not be worth it</li> </ol>
Simplified Example</h2>
In this example we see that password manager, and a credit freeze scored highly, due to the large impacts of insecure passwords, the protection of your bank account by a strong password stored in a password manager, and the large impact of identity theft. In contrast, email aliases didn't do so well. They protect against surveillance and spam, but those aren't the end of the world.</p>
Here, I would totally get a password manager, and freeze my credit, and maybe still try out email aliases if I felt like it, but it would also be fine to not.</p>
It's worth noting that this can change though, so you should still do it for yourself. What if you needed to give out your email to lots of people for job searching, without people being able to compare notes on you, or risking them not being careful with your address and opening you up to harassment. Then maybe email aliases would rank more highly.</p>
Assets</h3>

Passwords</li>
Money in bank</li>
Personally identifiable information</li>
Email address</li> </ol>
Threats</h3>

Credential stuffing</li>
Spam</li>
Surveillance</li>
Monetary theft</li> </ol>
Defenses</h3>

Password manager(Passwords->Credential stuffing: 7/10, Money in bank->Monetary theft: 8/10)</li>
Credit freeze(PII->Identity theft: 8/10)</li>
Email aliases(Email address->Surveillance: 4/10, Email address->Spam: 2/10)</li> </ol>
Resources</h2>
Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons</a></p>
The New Oil</a></p>
Privacy Guides</a></p>
Techlore</a></p>
Podcast</a></p>
Do You Know A Better Way?</h2>
If you think you know a better template for threat modeling, or you think I got something else wrong, please let me know by using the link below to send me an email. Happy threat modeling!</p>

The Anarchist Cookbook(The Nonviolent Sequel) - A Book Review

2024-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Introduction</h2>
I recently read The Anarchist Cookbook. Not the one about making bombs by William Powell, but the one about making food, and social moments, by Keith McHenry and others. I liked it, but it is missing some important discussion. Although the book preaches anarchism, it fails to provide a real example of the details and advantages/disadvantages.</p>
Before I go further, I should point out that: I do not support terrorism nor any kind of violence, and this book has not changed that opinion, but has strengthened it.</p>
Summary</h2>
First, the book starts with some essays. Mainly, these essays denounce violence as ineffective and not morally correct, but they also give the principles of anarchism, and include other out of place but related topics, such as how to avoid clashing with the federal government. These essays also preach the philosophy of nonviolent direct action, and outline how it is often more effective then other forms of protest.</p>
Next, the book provides a guide to common methods of political demonstration, with long and well thought out analysis of their merits and problems.</p>
Next comes a section on how to organize many types of events in a decentralized and democracy based way. This is probably the most concretely useful section of the book. I particularly like it because of its applicability to all sorts of scenarios regardless of your beliefs about anarchism and political demonstration.</p>
Then there is a section on nonviolent direct action, and how to use it to maximum effect. It also goes deeper and analyzes how to plan it and what kinds of questions you should be asking yourself during planning.</p>
Finally, there is a section on projects similar to Food Not Bombs. The author of the book is the co founder of this organization.</p>
Then, there is an appendix of vegan recipes, some of which are marked as appropriate for small groups, but most of which are written for groups of 100 people.</p>
Analysis</h2>
Here is a list of some things that the book dose well:</p>

Provide a compelling argument that something is wrong with the current way the world is organized. This is well sprinkled throughout the chapters. It dose this by pointing out the large amount of violence initiated by the state or other large organizations in the modern world. This includes things like wars, evicting homeless people, and putting people in jail, among others.</li>
An explanation of the philosophy behind anarchism. (The idea that the state causes more violence in trying to prevent violence than people would cause themselves.)</li>
A rejection of terrorism and other forms of violence on the grounds that they are both ineffective, and are not in line with anarchist beliefs.</li>
Advice and strategies on how to produce productive revolution and reform while avoiding illegal action.</li>
Provides good resources and descriptions on how to start a social movement.</li>
Advice on how to organize any group in a decentralized way.</li> </ol>
Important things the book dose not discuss:</p>

What is the goal of anarchism in practice? What would anarchy or society based on "voluntary agreement, cooperation, and mutual aid," actually look like? How would it deal with the few people who would try to control/harm others, or with the larger group of well meaning people who accidentally hurt others?</li>
The book discusses several examples of working anarchism in practice, but they are all either on a small scale, or failed to bring about lasting change.</li>
What are the disadvantages of decentralized organizational structures?</li> </ol>
Expanding on the first point, it feels easy to imagine a society that already has a gun problem, like the US, turning into a place where there are even more guns due to lack of a central body to enforce regulations, and thus even higher rates of gun violence. So despite the society being free of systemic violence, it may be replaced with interpersonal violence. A related question, what entity would help to mediate interpersonal disputes, like the courts do now? Would the lack of such an entity lead to even higher rates of gun violence?</p>
On point two, although anarchy is a compelling idea to reduce systemic violence, one wonders why no prominent examples of long lasting change based on anarchy can be found in the modern world. This could be, for example, because various aspect of what are now, for better of for worse, part of modern life, require an authority to function well. I am thinking particularly of things like computers, where countless standards must be developed and agreed on in order to make all of the computers able to work together and benefit from each others work. To put it lightly this task sounds very difficult without any central authority holding power over the majority of tech developers.</p>
Finally, on point three, it is easy to imagine two groups that can't agree on something causing problems when they split up. One example of this is infrastructure, like trains. What if two groups who ran trains could not agree on the schedules? Or worse, track gauge? Either of these problems would cause the trains not to be able to run on the other tracks. This would mean slowing down trips for both people and cargo, because they would have to be moved from one train to another.</p>
Overall, although the book was a useful and insightful read, it was ultimately not convincing in it's advocacy for anarchy.</p>
Giving Anarchy a Fair Chance</h2>
I will be emailing the author, Keith McHenry, to ask him for his thoughts on the potential problems I proposed, and if I get a reply, and he wants me to, I will add a section to this article with his thoughts.</p>
Book Recommendations</h2>
Are there any other good books on anarchism I should read next? I have already requested After The Revolution from the library, but if you have any other suggestions, email me with the button below.</p>

Warriors by Ted Bell - A Book Review

2024-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

I just finished reading Warriors by Ted Bell. I liked it, but but there are also some criticisms I have. I will talk about them here.</p>
Main Summary</h2>
Warriors is part of the Alex Hawke series of books. These are books about the adventures of Alex Hawke and the people who surround him. Alex Hawke is an M16 (British intelligence agency) officer. The people who surround him include Ambrose Converge — the head investigator for a police unit, Stoke — a member of a US organization that cooperates with the FBI, Nell — Alex's love interest, Rosow — the fictional president of the US, and Brock — a hot headed CIA Officer.</p>
The first half of the book is dedicated mainly to the setup and background to build out the characters and the political landscape that they are living in. It is well done, with character building intermixed with events outside the characters lives in order to add context and enrich the story. This paints a landscape of a hostile world in which the US is on the brink of war with China, the president has been assassinated by the Chinese, and there is a rouge Chinese military leader who wants to take over China and go to war. In addition, the Chinese have leapfrogged the US in terms of military tech by kidnapping a key US defense contractors head engineer by the name of Dr.Chase.</p>
When the latter half of the book is reached the story shifts focus from character building to a play by play of the lives of a few main characters, splitting time between them when they are physically separated. Here, the characters are set up to go on an mission to rescue Dr.Chase and his family from the Chinese. This involves many people trying to stop them, and several people do end up assassinated in the process.</p>
Finally, they go on the mission to rescue Dr.Chase from the Chinese. They first rescue his family, and are about to turn to head home, when they learn the location of the Dr.Chase from his wife. They then quickly change plans with some added circumstances to put the pressure on. They succeed in the end although some of the people are lost along the way. They also succeed in destroying the various submarines with the help of Dr.Chase.</p>
Writing Style</h2>
The writing style is fairly consistent throughout the book. It goes at a fast clip with lots of energy and dialog. This only relaxes towards the end of the book when things quiet down a bit as the drama is over. The dialog is very good, and is oftentimes funny. One example of this is when the characters are at a very serious meeting with lots of high ranking officials, and they are proposing a plan to ally with a counter terrorist group for their mission. Hawke is asking about the state of the group and this is the conversation that follows:</p>

"Nope. I met Froggy [leader of the group] at a bar in Miami Beach two weeks ago. The Frogman says they've completely reinvented themselves in the wake of Syria. More... what's the word... elite. Yeah, more elite. Not just a bunch of hotheaded badasses on a tropical island getting shit-faced on rum all day."
"No?"
"No. Straight hard-ass now."
"New and improved. Good...</p> </blockquote>
Evaluation</h2>
Although the first section of the book does a really great job of making the world more vivid, it feels quite long when reading. This is due to the lack of continuity between the snippets of stories that make it hard to get invested. I would however admit that the later part of the story benefits very well from this additional setup and it makes that part feel very engaging, as you have the context of the world to make it feel real.</p>
There is also another potential problem with the text, and that is a distinct lack of female characters. There are a few, but there are probably 5x more male characters then there are female characters. I guess that might be accurate — the military is fairly gender exclusive — but it's not that fun. Although I do understand that it is harder to make these sorts of badass characters female due to there being less examples in modern texts, it would be a lot more fun and creative of a story had Ted Bell invented them.</p>
Overall this was a good book, with lots of good content, action, and humorous dialog. It was a bit long feeling in parts though, and there weren't that many female characters.</p>
Book Recommendations</h2>
Have any other books you think I should read? Shoot me an email with the button below so I can check them out!</p>

toki musi | Poem

2024-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

toki pona</h2>
toki a! mi pali e toki musi lon toki pona.</p>

mi tan ma sina ala
mi kama li pakala
mi pakala tan ni ala
sina li ike tawa mi a!</p>
mi pakala tan ni
sina sama ala mi
mi pali e ni
mi pali e wile pi jan ante mi!</p> </blockquote>
English</h2>
Hello, I wrote a poem in toki pona. I have translated it here in English</p>

I am from another world
I come and break things
I don't break because
you are bad to me.</p>
I break because
you are not like me
I do these things
I do the things that another me wants.</p> </blockquote>

Why I like sewing

2024-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

Introduction</h2>
During this summer I did and saw many cool things. One of the things I did was to sew myself a pair of overalls. I found it quite fun, and would like to encourage others to do the same, so here is a short post on why sewing is cool.</p>
Why sew in 2024?</h3>

It allows you to feel like you have created something cool, unique, and practical</li>
The fine motor skills allow you to focus and relax</li>
It allows you to better appreciate the clothes you wear</li> </ul>
Why wouldn't you sew in 2024?</h3>

It's a bit expensive</li> </ul>
Elaboration</h2>
You can draw, paint, or do ceramics, and these are indeed all also cool art forms too, but I think sewing is cooler. This is because when you paint a cool picture, that picture gets hung on a wall, and people can look at it. Although it might look cool, to an outsider, it's easy to not think about the artist. This is compared to sewing, where when you finish a piece, you get to put it on and walk around in it. This way, you can use your art to make people see you, and who you are, rather than to think about art from a detached perspective. Also, you get to make art that also dose useful work as a piece of clothing. You get to feel both like you were productive in a task oriented way, and like you were productive in a creative emotional way.</p>
When you sew, there are many precise and and delicate tasks that require constant attention, regardless of weather you use a sewing machine or sewing by hand. If you are sewing by hand, there is the rhythmic motion of pushing the needle through, feeling around through the fabric to get an even stitch length, and then bunching the fabric and pushing it back up. There are also sometimes numbers you have to count, like the number of loops you have made so far when sewing on a button. If you are sewing by machine, there is the constant adjustment of the tension on the fabric, and the gap between the stitches and the edge. This makes sewing a mindfulness activity, as deliberate concentration is always required. Mindfulness is good for your health, as it helps you to develop concentration and to live in the present moment.</p>
Finally, I never really appreciated the work that goes into making clothes until I started sewing. Although I will admit that there was more to this enlightenment then just sewing. Previously, all clothes were to me were a utilitarian item that protects me from the elements and makes me more socially acceptable. I also didn't think about why clothes are so cheap today. Now I recognize the self expression that can be obtained through clothes, changing the way that you look, and by extension the way others think about you. I also now recognize the reason why clothing is cheep. Often it is because they are not very high quality clothes. They are made of cheep fabrics and designed to fit all people, instead of tailored to an individual. This may make clothes cheaper, but it also means that the wear faster, and often don't fit quite right. Or, if they do fit right, you probably had to do a lot of work to find the clothes that did.</p>
Unfortunately, with quality often comes price, and this is not untrue for sewing. If you want to make something out of high quality fabrics so that it lasts a long time you may end up spending double what you could have spent for a commercial version of that same item. It will however, last you longer, feel nicer, and you will have more fun both wearing, and making it.</p>
What art do you do?</h2>
I like sewing, but there are other art forms too. What art form do you do and why do you like it? Please let me know by replying to this post with the button below.</p>

Evil Eye - A Book Review

2024-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Disclaimer: I haven't read any fiction books in a long time, and thus it is entirely possible that I think this book is much better than it is.</em></p>
I just finished reading Evil Eye, and I enjoyed it, so here is a shitty book review.</p>
Main Summary</h2>
Evil Eye is a book about woman named Yara who was born in New York but who's parents were form Palestine. Her parents were forced to leave Palestine due to a war, and the book mainly discusses her struggles with mental health and harassment due to her background.</p>
Yara starts out working at a college. Then an opportunity arises to go on a trip to Europe with the college. Unfortunately for Yara, she has children, and her husband is inflexible, as he dose not want to have to take off work to watch the kids. Therefore Yara isn't able to go on the trip. Yara then snaps at one of the other college professors, calling her a "fucking racist," because the college professor blames misogyny for her inability to go on the trip. She is unable to believe this, even though she dose often feel that her husband has the freedom to do many more things then her.</p>
Throughout this section of the book, many techniques are used to emphasize the speed and meaninglessness of Yara's life. One of these is that the chapters sometimes skip numbers, to show that the memories were so short and insignificant it's like they didn’t even happen.</p>
Yara then starts seeing the company therapist on recommendation of her boss, but she refuses to open up to him, and even when she dose open up to him, she doesn't understand her own feelings well enough to express them to the therapist</p>
She then develops a relationship with a gay man named Silas. Silas is very kind to her and understands her situation, as he was with another women who he thought he loved for a long time.</p>
Yara then looses her job because of budget cuts. She spends a while like this, visiting Silas, and generally feeling bad. She also paints a lot during this time.</p>
Eventually throughout the book, and with Silas's help, Yara begins to realize that one of the things keeping her buried in guilt and shame is her own husband and family. This is because they are constantly telling her to get it together whilst dismissing her claims that they are doing anything wrong by linking the problem back to her.</p>
She also starts to go see another therapist at this point, who is able to help her much more, as she is less in the dark about herself.</p>
Then, another upset happens when her husband looses his job, and blames it on her by saying that he was worried for her mental health, and it was impacting his work performance. However, Yara then goes to a coffee shop and meets the person who fired her husband. He then says that actually his husband was fired due to money mismanagement. This then makes Yara realize that she isn't always the problem, and that she wants a divorce.</p>
The final part of the book goes over how Yara gets a divorce, and eventually lives on her own selling paintings and being a freelance photographer. She shares every other week with her daughters, and although she doesn't live happily ever after, and is often sad, she lives a life that is comparatively good to her old life.</p>
Journal Entries</h2>
The whole book is scattered with many entries in Yara's journal, where she recounts memories of her past in Palestine. Some of these memories reveal how badly her mother was beaten by her father, and show how Yara feels guilty for this because she told her father about an affair that her mother was having.</p>
Yara then draws an interesting parallel, wondering if the same thing would have happened to her had Silas not been gay.</p>
Writing Shift</h2>
Throughout the book, the writing changes to reflect the state of Yara's mind. One example of this is that, during the bulk of the book, Yara vocalizes many violent urges, and even dose some of them.</p>
Towards the end of the meeting when Yaras teching contract is revoked she says,</p>

Yara wanted to open her mouth and scream and fling the brochure across his desk. Instead she grabbed it from his hand, teeth clenched, and walked out. - Page 84</p> </blockquote>
In contrast, towards the end of the book a more warm and fuzzy feeling is elicited by the text. When Yara is at an art studio with her daughters, and they are being shown a painting, it is written that,</p>

Mira stared at the painting with her mouth open, seemingly mesmerized. Sitting between them, Yara felt herself expand. - Page 366</p> </blockquote>
Why Me</h2>
I think that a big reason I like this book is because I can relate to it. Even though my parents have not been kicked out of a war zone before, and I received help much sooner than Yara did, I still have had my fair share of mental health issues. I remember feeling many of the same things, like the random violent urges, and the resting feeling that something isn't right. It makes me feel like I belong.</p>
Book Recommendations?</h2>
Have any other books for me that follow a similar theme to this one? If so, shoot me an email via the button below so I can read it next!</p>

Idea Number One Thousand Seven Hundred Fifty Seven Might Be Good!

This Website is now cooler!

Why Knowing Whats Important Is Important - How I Think About Decision Making

An Evolution Of My Decision Making</h2>

Why I Had A Hard Time In High School — On Growing Up Trans And Autistic

Why You Should Make A Threat Model

Assets</h3> Passwords</li> Money in bank</li> Personally identifiable information</li>

Threats</h3> Credential stuffing</li> Spam</li> Surveillance</li>

Resources</h2> Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons</a></p> The New Oil</a></p> Privacy Guides</a></p> Techlore</a></p> Podcast</a></p>

Do You Know A Better Way?</h2> If you think you know a better template for threat modeling, or you think I got something else wrong, please let me know by using the link below to send me an email. Happy threat modeling!</p>

The Anarchist Cookbook(The Nonviolent Sequel) - A Book Review

Giving Anarchy a Fair Chance</h2> I will be emailing the author, Keith McHenry, to ask him for his thoughts on the potential problems I proposed, and if I get a reply, and he wants me to, I will add a section to this article with his thoughts.</p>

Book Recommendations</h2> Are there any other good books on anarchism I should read next? I have already requested After The Revolution from the library, but if you have any other suggestions, email me with the button below.</p>

Warriors by Ted Bell - A Book Review

Book Recommendations</h2> Have any other books you think I should read? Shoot me an email with the button below so I can check them out!</p>

toki musi | Poem

English</h2> Hello, I wrote a poem in toki pona. I have translated it here in English</p> I am from another world I come and break things I don't break because you are bad to me.</p> I break because you are not like me I do these things I do the things that another me wants.</p> </blockquote>

Why I like sewing

Introduction</h2> During this summer I did and saw many cool things. One of the things I did was to sew myself a pair of overalls. I found it quite fun, and would like to encourage others to do the same, so here is a short post on why sewing is cool.</p>

What art do you do?</h2> I like sewing, but there are other art forms too. What art form do you do and why do you like it? Please let me know by replying to this post with the button below.</p>

Evil Eye - A Book Review

Book Recommendations?</h2> Have any other books for me that follow a similar theme to this one? If so, shoot me an email via the button below so I can read it next!</p>

Resources</h2>
Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons</a></p>
The New Oil</a></p>
Privacy Guides</a></p>
Techlore</a></p>
Podcast</a></p>

Do You Know A Better Way?</h2>
If you think you know a better template for threat modeling, or you think I got something else wrong, please let me know by using the link below to send me an email. Happy threat modeling!</p>

Giving Anarchy a Fair Chance</h2>
I will be emailing the author, Keith McHenry, to ask him for his thoughts on the potential problems I proposed, and if I get a reply, and he wants me to, I will add a section to this article with his thoughts.</p>

Book Recommendations</h2>
Are there any other good books on anarchism I should read next? I have already requested After The Revolution from the library, but if you have any other suggestions, email me with the button below.</p>

Book Recommendations</h2>
Have any other books you think I should read? Shoot me an email with the button below so I can check them out!</p>

English</h2>
Hello, I wrote a poem in toki pona. I have translated it here in English</p>

I am from another world
I come and break things
I don't break because
you are bad to me.</p>
I break because
you are not like me
I do these things
I do the things that another me wants.</p> </blockquote>

Introduction</h2>
During this summer I did and saw many cool things. One of the things I did was to sew myself a pair of overalls. I found it quite fun, and would like to encourage others to do the same, so here is a short post on why sewing is cool.</p>

What art do you do?</h2>
I like sewing, but there are other art forms too. What art form do you do and why do you like it? Please let me know by replying to this post with the button below.</p>

Book Recommendations?</h2>
Have any other books for me that follow a similar theme to this one? If so, shoot me an email via the button below so I can read it next!</p>