The Digital Foundations

 Where we are sitting currently in our worlds digital history is a turning point.  

Much in the way that the discovery that "Bar Bars"  had an intelligence on par with that of "civilization" and that "savages" did actually know how to manage their own lands; the integration of the digital world into the everyday lives and influencing how the very structure of our world is viewed by the average citizen.

Before digital integration began simply, getting the pronunciation of a message correct was both a hurdle and a built in security feature.   
Now, transmitting the message is not the difficulty.  

 Providing accurate context, avoiding echo chambers, and weeding out -Malicious Misinformation- 

-Malicious Misinformation- 
Propaganda meant to shield it's origin and/or appear to be from a trusted -news  aggregate-.
-news aggregate-
Peer reviewed educational or informational source that presents accurate and notably altered live -streams- of information

-stream-
live or programmed streams of data meant for public or compensated consumption.


While allowing -satirical and emotional expression- open to -content- -creation- and -curation- through  -packet transmission-

-packet transmission-
information meant for storage or multiple points of access. 
-satirical and emotional expression-

Artistic or Therapeutic presentation of information 
-Content-
Fictional, editorial, or historical presentation of information. 
-Creation-
Establishment, transmission, or storage of information for purpose of distribution.
-Curation-
tagging and labeling of content with regards to origin and intent, done by the content creator or moderator.  

Argument for Google and like companies
Data security and transmission.  

Argument for Amazon and like companies
Marketplace management and vender verification
Reason : Small business and private seller protections.  

Argument for Facebook and Like Companies
Content curation and moderation
Reason : screening for legal distribution and accuracy.  

Argument for You Tube and Like Companies
Content distribution and monetization
Reason : Verified news and entertainment platforms for artists, educators, and journalists.

Apple and like companies
Access point security and development
Reason : Personal and Public security. 

Public Responsibility to Emergency Services
Information Storage and Access
Reason : to protect legal rights and personal data of the public

Note :
Like Companies - a company that offers a similar service or platform regardless of scale to userbase.  

Reason for legal restructure of company services and offerings :
Currently all functions are being handled under single company umbrellas. 

Restructuring would address 
Monopolies of economic resources through violations of labor rights
Breaches of personal security information through accident or intent
Legal infringements on artistic expressions and devaluation of those creations. 
Abuses of Enforcement agencies and Human Rights.
All resulting in hindrances to Emergency response and medical security.

The regulatory and Enforcement agencies necessary to assist and verify oversight already in place. 
F.T.C./D.O.L.
L.O.C./F.D.I.C.
F.C.C./F.B.I.
D.H.L./C.I.A
F.E.M.A./Armed Services

One Hot Date

I checked the mirrors for the tail that had been with me since I had left the city and pulled back onto the interstate.   I guess I had lost them at the exit, my mind went back to the conversation from a few minutes ago.  

"You broker their heart."  
"Well, now you know why.  I couldn't drag her into all of that."  
"She's not in a much better place."
"What do you mean?"
"Her new boyfriend is a drug dealer and beats her."
"Fucking seriously,  where's she staying?"  
"With him."
"Address?"


There they were, they had waited at the rest stop on the other side of the on ramp. 
I let them follow until I got off the interstate again, took a few extra turns and ended up at the address.
A few minutes later we were in the car.

"Just a robe?"
"I wouldn't have been able to leave if I went back in."
"Alright, well shit, it's hot a/f that's for sure."
"Great, you just want me for sex too."
"I would be lying to say it hasn't crossed my mind, you remember how hot and heavy we would get."
"Yeah, see, just my tits and sex."
"Not even close.  We're riding into battle love.  Two Law enforcement agencies and at least one gang, possibly two are going to be converging on the place after I show up.  My heart rates up and I'll admit that if we survive this that...here, take my coat." 

"If it gets really bad there's a bow on the back porch."
"You don't have a gun?"
"No. I've never carried one."
"You're doing all this without a fucking gun?   Are you insane?"
"Maybe a little, but when I need one I usually take it away from someone.  I can't be the cute ditzy twink if I'm packin' heat and looking like I'm ready for a fight."
"Twink?"
"Long story...but they usually hand it to me to show off what they have to intimidate or impress.  Then I know what, where, and if it's loaded or not." 
"Okay, so a bow?" 
"Yeah."
"If this goes sideways and we survive then we may not see each other for 10 to 20."
"Fuck."
"Three hots and a cot and time to read.  I'll survive, I'm just glad you've still got that look."
"What look?"
"That look of passion and defiance, same thing as strippers and hookers that haven't been broken..."
"Are you calling me a slut?"  
"No, it's the same look in the eyes of a battle experienced soldier."
"..."
"Look, if we survive this b.s. I want you to get in touch with this person.  Have them train you, work with them, you're a bad ass already, they'll help you become even more bad ass."
"I'm not a bad ass."   
"Honey, you're riding into a probable gun fight wearing nothing but your bathrobe and planning on using a bow and arrow as your primary weapon, one that will be 30 yards away and may not have arrows with it if the shooting starts.  You. Are. A. Badass.  And I love you."
"Liar."
"We kiss the same...only person that I've ever experienced that with and you're here with me when no one else had the hutzpah to.  Honey, I love you.  Talk about Ride or Die."

I gave 'em the skinny on the lay out, where to go when/if shooting started

"Just duck down behind the engine block and wait for them to start reloading.  If it's the gangs they'll spray and pray and you'll have about a minute to move while they congratulate themselves and reload.  If it's the law, well, just show them your hands and do what they say, you'll be okay. Just don't say anything until you can talk to a lawyer."  

I handed them the keys...

"Here's hoping we're the ambush and not the other way around."

I got out of the car.

Insomnia is a Hell of a Drug

What does insombia entail for me? 
Well, for starters there are the nightmares.  
Sometimes they startle me back to wakefulness as I start to drift off, sometimes they wake me from a dead slumber and I can't fall back to sleep for hours after. 
Others are more biological. 

The bowel issues that I have ca
use a number of problems. 

1. Maintaining a balanced diet. 
it seems easy enough, but all it takes is one bad meal or the wrong drink and I find myself in the state that I'm in right now. 

2.  When they pass I'm usually low on liquids and completly out of food, so recouperation is a thing. 

3.  the Nausia

Aside from my backside turning it's self inside out the roiling stomach will try to eject other things from that direction.

The insomnia is something I've delt for as long as I can remember.   The bubbleguts issue is a litte more...recent. 

So what do I do on these kinds of days aside from constantly run back and forth between the bathroom until I can start rehydrating and eating again?  

Usually this, writing or editing something. 
Often, making phone calls and/or sending e-mails.  And, of course, trying to get as much of the original plans tasks done as possible. 

Most of the time I spend the time feeling guilty about not taking care of myself better, then feeling guilty about doing the self care necissary to get myself back to rights.  

right now it's just trying to get back to enough of an equilibrium back together to get the things done that I need to do today and hope that the gut imbalance is just a today thing while thanking the small miricle that my intestinal distress has distracated me from the nightmares that originally woke me up. 

Never safe in space

I know I have stated this before and elsewhere...when haven't I?

Having a safe space is important.  
There are a lot of "conservatives" out there that get down on "snowflakes" for being too sensetive and wanting their "safe spaces"  but here's the truth of it.  
A safe space is necissary to maintain a healthy mental and physical presence. 

There is not place so dangerous to any creature than the watering hole.   

However, there is always somewhere to go, even in the wild.   A nest, a den, a pack, a herd, a place of safety.  

So what happens when there is no safe space to go?

Like for myself.  
When I was younger, the only safe space I really and truly had was the digital space.  
Home being a constant barrage of "Alpha Personalities" constantly trying to prove who was more Alpha>

 A school system that viewed homosexuality and racial difference  as much as the problem as the abuse that happened towards members of these groups.

A work world that was dominated by gender politics and classism.  

And then the rest of the world realizes the interent exist and the natural evolution of the world takes the last bastion of solace I had.  
The digital eco systems that used to alow a sense of peaceful escape through writing, games, (video didn't hold such a hallowed place in the diital realm until recently)  meeting people from places all over the world, 
In short, a weird Star Trek like Utopia where the Cardassians were internet trolls and Klingons were C.O.D. gamers. 

"Well you were just hiding in anonmymity."   
Not really.  
I have never really been shy about who I am. 
I used to journal a lot, but then realized that I had no privacy there.  
I used to keep digital files of all of my writings.  But they weren't safe on disk either.
 
Honestly, reflecting back on the events of my life, I question if I have ever had any sort of real privacy or solitude since I was a kid. 
Probability tells me that I'm just overly paranoid after decadees of social isolation and physically distancing myself from all except a handful of people. 

Now, after a year of living mostly by myself I realize that the only thing I really know is service to others. 
Every time I walk out the front door it is a struggle to not want to stop and help every person I see get where they're trying to go. 
Every time I turn on the news I'm trying to find solutions to problems that most would think have little to no effect on my day to day life. 

now, the closest thing I have to a safe space is this blog and the random videos I post.  If for no other reason that people pay so little attention to them that it's almost the same as writing in a private journal sometimes.  
But not the same. 

IRL I don't know how to be "off." Constantly fighting a balance between hyper vigilence and social anxiety.  Trying to get partners and others in my life to understand me while I struggle to understand them. 

The real fight, and ther real problem is trying to figure out how to simply exist and being comfortable in my own skin while finding a source of income that will alow me to exist in my physical reality while allowing me to explore my mental boundries. 

It's funny, this whole Pandemic protocol of social distancing and things makes me laugh a little.  The rest of the world has had a taste of what it's like to live my life for the last few months and the strains of the isolation isn't getting to me, seeing others struggle with the way my existance is, has made me feel both hopeful and spiteful.  

Hopeful because I feel like my existance has been, justified, I guess in some fashion seeing others struggle with the isolation>

Spiteful because the people that are crying the loudest about having to take care of themselves and mind their own buisness are the very same people that would degrade others for struggling to do just that while being harrassed.  

Just deserts I guess. 

In the mean time, I sit over here in the wreckage of countless lives trying to manage the sadness, let go of the spite, and hold on to the hope. 

Stay Safe

What do you Honor?

 Religion is a funny thing. 

In honor of the heathens on Thursdays I conclude projects.

In honor of the profits on Fridays I plan for the next week. 

In honor of the survivors on Saturdays I rest

In  honor of the pious on Sundays I abstain. 

In honor of the hungry on Mondays I plan for the day

In honor of the learned on Tuesdays I sweat

In honor of the decedents on Wednesdays I learn

Co-vid Relief

 I haven't looked into the claim yet, just saw at the top of my twitter feed that china supports a global vaccine effort.  
Rad. 
Here's the funny thing about that situation.  
I feel like that if we had stayed within the spirit of the united nations and the W.H.O, which is to catch and contain and treat health outbreaks of various sorts, that the question of any nation offering assistance or aid when a new illness presents.  
Illness, with a global economy and a travel time to less than 24 hours for global circumnavigation, is a global issue and regardless of political situations it was agreed in the Geneva  Convention that  biological warfare was outlawed. 
Hence a biological threat would now, regardless of origin, be considered a global scale natural disaster.  
How should we, as a nation, respond to a natural disaster. 
That is the question before us now. 

Monopoly for fun and frustration

 Hearing that Congress is going after the tech monopolies again.  
And there is no question that these tech companies are, in fact, monopolies.
But much like the formation of any other monopolies it started small and snow balled.  

When many of these companies formed the ingenious idea was using phones and computers to track economic movements.  

Was the intent behind their actions to form these monopolies?   
Possibly.  
Does it much matter? 
At this juncture, no, we are in the world that we are in and it is our duty to find solutions for the problems that have risen from these issues.  
A tech monopoly was bound to happen as soon as they tech stopped being telephones and calculators and started being an entire ware houses worth of technology from a few decades ago and has been miniaturized into our pockets.

The problem was foreseen and some what addressed by the printing industry.  However the speed at which the evolution happened I don't think anyone was prepared for.  

Before taking a sledge hammer to the companies that are holding the tech sectors bustling economy together we should first work on making some very key, but very necessary designations.  

Namely.
How to define
A Tech Service - (messaging voice, video, image, or text services, weather and emergency alerts, 
A Tech Product - (a single function app like a game, widget, or piece of digital art)
A Tech Platform - (A social Media Site)
A Tech Market - (A digital store front for a physical product/location)
A Tech Security Service - (a third party aggregate ensuring safe transmission and storage of data) 
A Tech Hard Service - (maintenance, installation and insurance services for hardware)
A Tech Storage Service - (Physical server and processor space for personal, commercial, educational, or civil databases and services)

Most of these things are already compartmentalized and defined, though updates with considerations of the current digital landscape and future proofing for probable technological evolutions is what we are faced with by looking at the current tech monopolies.  

Arguably Amazon should remain a delivery and distribution service for small to midsize businesses. 
However, by removing Amazon offerings from the marketplace we are looking at the same issues currently caused by retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy - Having mass market offerings at such low prices it makes it difficult for smaller producers to compete.

So Amazon would need to make the choice between being a digital retailer or a digital P.O.S. system for other businesses.  

Google is a touch more difficult because they own a lot of what has become the "public streets" of the digital world.   
Mapping services (which I feel should be a public service for emergency management anyways)

Google, I feel, would step naturally into the role of a "Tech Security Service"  Ensuring safe and secure transmission of data such as search results and economic traffic.

...Youtube, already? is a separate company and would be classified as a "Tech Platform" tasked with content curation and stepping into the role of a Digital Public Broadcaster - the new UHF so to speak.

Facebook - is a bit stickier, but arguably should remain largely unchanged, though paying it's users (whos information was/is packaged as a product being sold) should be, for verifiable accounts, should be compensated for those sales. 
The distribution of those funds is one for debate, but still one that should be addressed. 
Especially when it is a platform that has affected major geo-political shifts in recent years.

...anyways, just my thoughts on the matter for now, with regards to finding a fair and judicious way of breaking up monopolies without destroying the infrastructure that has grown up around them.