title: "A Nation of Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires"

date: 2021-11-19T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# The Gravel Institute

The Gravel Institute, a crowd-funded organization that creates videos to combat right-wing disinformation, created a short video titled "You Will Never Be Rich".[1] Given their medium, which is short videos, they have very little time to get to the point. So you'll never get a complete picture of any given topic by watching their videos. That can be off-putting to some including myself who desire more detailed information, but there's definitely a place and a necessity for short-form, quickly digestible videos.

title: "Always Use Tor"

date: 2022-01-16T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# What is Tor?

Tor is an acronym for The Onion Router. Tor is free software that enables anonymous communication. The Tor Project[1], a non-profit 501c3 organization, is primarily responsible for maintaining Tor. It has been funded by human rights organizations, the US government, the national science foundation, NGOs and thousands of individual sponsors. It enables millions to use the internet in privacy, including me.

title: "Antinatalism"

date: 2021-09-05T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# Richard Stallman's Antinatalism

If you check the promoted page[1] of this blog, you'll see I have promoted Richard Stallman's article "Why it is important not to have children"[2]. I have the promoted page so that I have somewhere to promote others' ideas and so that I don't have to write a new post for each idea. But I still want to highlight a few of the points in that article that I find most compelling.

title: "Anybody Can Solve a Rubik's Cube Blindfolded"

date: 2022-05-22T00:00:00

draft: false

---

Anybody can solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded. I recorded a video of myself doing it at seventeen years old[1] using the Classic Pochmann method[2]. It took me ten minutes, but speedcubers like Flavian do it on Britain's Got Talent in under thirty.[3]

title: "[Article] You Should Be Using an Old Computer"

date: 2021-01-22T00:00:00

draft: false

---

I was going to write my own post about this subject until I discovered Luke Smith, a GNU/Linux technology Youtuber, already wrote an article about it:

title: "Atom and RSS"

date: 2020-12-17T00:00:00

draft: false

---

Most netizens are vaguely familiar with this symbol:

[RSS icon [IMG]](/resource/feed-icon-28x28.png)

title: "Autism and Memory"

date: 2022-07-20T00:00:00

draft: false

---

Memory function in autism has been studied for decades.[1] The research is fascinating to me because I have high-functioning autism and it helps me describe things I already implicitly know about myself. People with high-functioning autism such as myself have both difficulties and strengths in memory compared with neurotypicals.

title: "Automation and the Meaning of Work"

date: 2022-09-07T00:00:00

draft: false

---

Recently, artificially intelligent (AI) art generators such as DALL-E2[1], Midjourney[2] and Stable Diffusion[3] have been making headlines in the news and artists are fuming. Given the recent news attention, I figured it would be a good idea to talk about the direction AI is headed and how that affects the meaning of work going forward.

title: "Automation, Bullshit Jobs, And Work"

date: 2022-01-22T00:00:00

draft: false

---

This entry was inspired by Bullshit Jobs[1], a theory put forth by famed anarchist anthropology professor David Graeber[2]. Ever since reading it, I have been itching to write about my own observations related to automation, bullshit jobs, and work. I'll start with a few personal anecdotes related to workplace bullshit.

title: "Avoid Using Cryptocurrency"

date: 2021-07-18T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# Cryptocurrency's Unreasonably High Energy Consumption

The criticisms I'm about to levy do not apply to every cryptocurrency. I'm only criticizing the cryptocurrencies that involve high energy usage per transaction. Proof of X based cryptocurrencies where X is work, storage or some other energy-intensive process fall into this category. But I'm mostly referring to proof of work. I'm excluding proof of stake cryptocurrencies because proof of stake does not cause considerable energy usage per transaction. I'm still including non-blockchain cryptocurrencies that employ proof of work and use a high amount of energy per transaction. From now on I'll use the word "cryptocurrency" to mean only those in that high energy consumption group without further explanation.

title: "Avoiding Automobile Surveillance"

date: 2020-12-16T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# Internetification of Everything

Over the past few decades, there has been increasing "internetification" of everything. The Internet of Stings[1] has infected refrigerators, watches, televisions, and even light bulbs. As it turns out, shoehorning internet connected computer chips with proprietary[2] code into everything increases their attack surface making society more vulnerable to hacking groups[3], foreign governments and Big Brother.

title: "Avoiding Consumer Surveillance"

date: 2020-11-16T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# The Age of Surveillance

We live in the age of surveillance capitalism[1]. Intimate data about us is collected, bought and sold for profit and social control. Intermediaries like banks, payment companies, credit card companies and governments have unprecedented access into our private lives through our purchases. This level of surveillance is tyrannical. Mass surveillance is dangerous to the health of democracy and must be stopped[2]. Big Brother should not know what we buy. In this post, I'm going to talk about how we avoid consumer surveillance. In a future post, I'll talk about anonymous online shopping and some promising software projects that could be a more permanent remedy to consumer surveillance. Ultimately, there is going to have to be political action to curtail surveillance, not just new technology. But until there is increased awareness of mass surveillance and real political action against it occurs, all we can hope to do is avoid the surveillance. So here's how you do that.

title: "Back Up Your Data"

date: 2020-07-26T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# Losing My Data

My motivation for writing this post is I accidentally deleted another unpublished post I put a lot of effort into. It probably had 6+ hours of work invested in it at least. And now, it's gone forever. Perhaps it's best put into the 5 stages of grief. At first, I denied it. I was sure I had it copied to my clipboard, saved in my text editor cache or history, but it wasn't. After that, I got angry that I could have accidentally deleted something I put so much work into. How could I make such a dumb mistake? I skipped bargaining. I was sad about it for a while. Then I reached acceptance, and decided to write this post instead.

title: "Banning Facial Recognition Isn't Enough"

date: 2021-05-30T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# Government Surveillance

Today, I came across this campaign to ban facial recognition:

title: "[Book] Lying"

date: 2020-12-30T00:00:00

draft: false

---

Sam Harris[1] talks about how lying is more harmful than most people imagine. From white lies, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy to more serious political deception, Sam makes the case for not lying in any situation.

title: "[Book] The Selfish Gene"

date: 2021-04-08T00:00:00

draft: false

---

Famous atheist, evolutionary biologist, and coiner of the modern term "meme" Richard Dawkins[1] takes a gene-centric view of Darwinian evolution by natural selection in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. The gene-centric view of evolution is beautifully elegant. It does a better job of explaining evolutionary concepts than overly reductionist theories such as group selection. The basic idea is incredibly simple, an overview of it given in the first two chapters with the rest of the book going into further detail.

title: "[Book] Waking Up"

date: 2021-01-29T00:00:00

draft: false

---

This is my second book recommendation and here I am again recommending a book authored by Sam Harris[1]. And it's probably not the last time I'll recommend his books. Allow me to justify why his content gets so much promotion on this blog.

title: "Breaking My Promise"

date: 2021-12-02T00:00:00

draft: false

---

Towards the end of July, I promised to quit flying until the climate crisis was averted and until the TSA stopped groping passengers.[1] As it turns out, that was a commitment I couldn't keep. I booked a flight. Since I made the commitment very publicly, I don't think it's fair not to write an update after breaking it. I'm not perfect. I suppose the lesson here if there is one is that I shouldn't publicly make commitments that I'm not certain I can keep.

title: "Bringing Civility to Public Discourse With the Steel Man Technique"

date: 2020-12-01T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# The United States in 2020

The political situation in the United States right now is tense, to say the least. President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 general election. Meanwhile the bullshitter[1] continues to make baseless claims of massive mail-in voter fraud to discredit the election results. No doubt the tens of millions of Americans duped into his personality cult[2] will fall for his lies, with some taking political action as we near inauguration day[3]. The rest of Americans are bewildered by how the wannabe dictator[4] even got elected in the first place. So there is a heavy emotional and ideological divide in America today and I think any American half paying attention senses it.

title: "Businesses Should be Required to Accept Cash"

date: 2022-04-22T00:00:00

draft: false

---

Businesses in the U.S. don't have to accept cash as payment for purchases, but I think they should have to. There's even a push in some countries to go completely cashless. This, in my view, would be a huge mistake. Cash helps the elderly, the poor, the unbanked, immigrants, journalists, and dissidents. Cash is the only way to purchase goods and services anonymously in regular stores.

title: "Come Watch Me Present at LibrePlanet 2022!"

date: 2022-03-14T00:00:01

draft: false

---

I will be delivering my talk, "Taking back the Web with Haketilo," on Saturday, March 19, 2022; 14:30–15:15 EDT, at the all-online LibrePlanet 2022 conference, and I hope you’ll check it out!

title: "Coming Out as Autistic"

date: 2022-05-16T00:00:00

draft: false

---

I've been considering writing about high-functioning autism for months now. I'm not used to sharing much about my life here, but I think what I have to say about autism can do a lot of good. Maybe it can help others be more understanding and empathetic towards autistic people.

title: "Comparing Multi-Factor Authentication Methods"

date: 2022-08-05T00:00:00

draft: false

---

I made a nice little chart comparing multi-factor authentication[1] methods from a user standpoint. Despite some of the information in the chart being slightly subjective and depending on one's threat model, I still think it's useful. So here it is:

title: "Consider Death"

date: 2022-04-29T00:00:00

draft: false

---

You're alive and well. You don't think about your death a whole lot. You go through life acting as if you have infinite time. You take tomorrow for granted. You take your time with others for granted. You spend your time replaying arguments you had with your friend or spouse, thinking about what you would've said or could've said if given a do-over.

title: "Consumer Data Protection is a Distraction"

date: 2021-01-18T00:00:00

draft: false

---

This post is a public service announcement.

title: "Cover Your Cameras"

date: 2021-04-07T00:00:00

draft: false

---

The reasons to cover your phone camera when you aren't using it overlap with the reasons to cover your built-in laptop webcam since phones are computers. So, I'll put them into a single, non-exhaustive list:

title: "Dead Man's Switch"

date: 2021-01-27T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# Definition

There are many kinds of dead man's switches (abbreviated here as DMS). The DMS's this post is concerned with are software-based[1]. More specifically this post is concerned with what I will call Wikileaks/Mr. Robot style DMS's.

title: "Dealing With Close-Minded People"

date: 2021-08-28T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# Motivation

I'm going to start this post in the same way I've started a few previous posts which is by sharing what motivated me to write it.

title: "Debugging Neomutt"

date: 2021-12-13T00:00:00

draft: false

---

About a month ago, I was checking my emails in Neomutt. When I opened a particular email, suddenly, Neomutt core dumped.

title: "Disgustingly Rich"

date: 2021-08-19T00:00:00

draft: false

---

With income and wealth inequality at its peak, a few billionaires now own more wealth than half the world's population. What are they spending all that money on? Well, the world's richest man is using it to rocket himself into space and toss skittles around in zero-g. Meanwhile...

title: "[Documentary] Line Goes Up - The Problem With NFTs"

date: 2022-03-15T00:00:00

draft: false

---

Someone recently asked me what I think of NFTs. I sent them the documentary "Line Goes Up"[1]. If anyone in the future asks me my thoughts on cryptocurrency, DAOs, NFTs, Web3, or smart contracts, I will send them Line Goes Up. It currently only has around six million views, but it deserves more.

title: "[Documentary] Sicko"

date: 2021-01-19T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# The Failing American Healthcare System

## Public Healthcare

title: "[Documentary] The Norden: Prison"

date: 2021-02-03T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# The Norden

The Norden[1] is a documentary series made in 2014 first aired by Finland's national public broadcasting company YLE[2]. It presents the Nordic welfare model from an outsider's perspective. The first episode looks at the Norwegian prison system. It captures so much of what's wrong with "tough" prisons like those in America and most importantly it shows a better alternative. It promotes a prison model based on rehabilitation, not revenge. You can watch it for free on archive.org:

title: "Don't Call People Homophobic, Transphobic, or Islamophobic"

date: 2022-03-27T00:00:02

draft: false

---

The suffix "phobia" implies an irrational fear of something. If you have arachnophobia, that means you have an irrational fear of spiders. It doesn't mean you're ideologically opposed to spiders. That's why I don't like the words homophobia, transphobia, or islamophobia. Despite their suffix, those words aren't used to mean irrational fear. They indicate dislike and hatred, which isn't the same thing at all.

title: "Don't Fly The Thin Blue Line Flag"

date: 2022-05-26T00:00:00

draft: false

---

Today I saw an American flag with a thin blue line as one of the stripes and the words "we support our police" under it. In case you're not aware, the thin blue line flag is internationally recognized as a symbol for support of police and law enforcement.

title: "Don't Let Cannabis Dispensaries Scan Your ID"

date: 2021-10-06T00:00:00

draft: false

---

So there's 2 problems with allowing cannabis dispensaries to scan your ID (for US citizens):

title: "Don't Record Others Without Permission"

date: 2021-03-29T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# The Right to Privacy

We've lost the right to personal privacy to a large extent thanks to the ever-expanding corporate surveillance state. The surveillance state we all live under is getting increasing attention from non-mainstream media sources. However, something that doesn't make the non-mainstream news is the privacy we voluntarily take away from each other by recording people without their permission.

title: "Don't Rely Exclusively on a VPN For Online Privacy and Security"

date: 2022-05-20T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# Don't Use a VPN For Online Privacy

In 2018, After Skool published a video about how the vital right to privacy is being eroded.[1] When I saw the title of this video, I thought "this is exactly the sort of video I'll probably agree with". And it was, until after the 5-minute mark. I picked out this video to share here because it's the epitome of an increasingly common marketing lie about VPNs.

title: "Don't Use Github"

date: 2021-05-31T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# Why is Free Software Being Hosted on Github???

Free software being hosted on Github as its main repository is a downright embarrassment to the very principles free software is supposed to stand for. Github is a proprietary platform. Important site features can't work without proprietary JavaScript running in the browser. The backend code for Github is completely proprietary. And it's owned by Micro$oft, one of the largest megacorps to ever exist whose CEO once called GNU/Linux a "cancer" and only changed his tune when he realized there was money to be made.

title: "Doublethink"

date: 2020-06-14T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# Quick Note

As a quick note, what people post online is often taken as something they will forever agree with and are forever held to. This is unreasonable. There needs to be some equivalent of forgiveness if one posts something horrible online, but that's a topic for another post. I'm not saying people aren't responsible for what they post. But I am saying we should aspire to take the most charitable interpretation of what people post if we care about advancing the conversation. Obviously a person's character is a factor in how you interpret what they post.

title: "Ego Traps"

date: 2020-08-02T00:00:00

draft: false

---

# The Ego

Before I get into ego traps, I need to explain what the ego is. I made a post previously about the self[1]. But, for this post, I'm going to give a simple definition. Ego is the sensation of "I". Ego is your idea of yourself. When asked to describe yourself, the ego is what you're describing. The ego is your "persona" that you display not only to others, but that you yourself believe. It's incomplete. This has to be true because consciousness can never be an object of itself.