Life on the Wire

 The end of November is a good time to check your online security status.  This is no more paranoid than locking your car doors when in a big city.  

First have you been compromised?  Check your emails on monitor.firefox.com .  They aren't trying to fear-sell products as some of the functionally similar sites. 

• Change passwords on any compromised accounts NOW.  
• Don't reuse passwords.  
• Do use a good password manager.

On password managers: I prefer offline password managers like KeePass, but a reputable online password management service is better than recycled or easy to break passwords.  I prefer offline because online password management services seem like a great negative opportunity for a data breach.  

Reduce your "attack surface".  That is:

• Uninstall software you don't use.  
• Close accounts for services you don't use.  
• Unsubscribe from the junk emailers. 
• Have a separate email account to use for junk/spam/...any place likely to sell your data to others. 

Do not fear.  Take responsibility for and control of your personal information.

Blessings.

A Kind of Solstice

 In some old calendars there was between the end of one year and the beginning of the new an undefined time, nameless time in the dark around solstice.

We are in such a time now: telling ghost stories of fascists and commies, sharing the fear of the unknowable to come by mapping it to the bojums and bandersnatchi of our grandfathers fears.

Once we have told our ghost story and sent the children off to bed (Is it any wonder that they have nightmares?) we check the door bolted. We sleep. We wake. We live life attenuated till the light increases.

Breakfast for the bold

 This morning after treadmill, shower and prayer I made masala oats for breakfast.  First had them from little instant packets from Patel's.  Here is my quick homemade style.

Prep:  I have chopped onion and chopped green peeper in separate plastic containers to make small servings easier.

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Masala Oats - (PDRU approved)

In a small sauce pan saute on medium heat:

1 tablespoon butter (be generous)

a palm full of chopped onions (1/4 cup ish)

1 thin sliced cayenne or other warmth maker

Cook until onion go translucent... not brown.

Add and saute for 2 more minutes:

half as much chopped green peppers as onion

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 pinch salt

Add water and oats.  Continue cooking.

1-1/2 cup boiling water

1/2 cup quick steel cut oats  (or other type ...water/oat ratio....directions) 

This makes two small or one large serving which needs no other condiments.  Water and coffee recommended.  

Cook until done (three minutes for my quick steel cut oats).

Linguistic Disfunction

I had an informative read this week followed by a coherent and related podcast.

First Things has an essay by Carl Truman entitled "Our Marcusan Moment".  In this eloquent piece was a link to a 1968 academic work "Repressive Tolerance".  The lead paragraph states:

THIS essay examines the idea of tolerance in our advanced industrial society. The conclusion reached is that the realization of the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed. In other words, today tolerance appears again as what it was in its origins, at the beginning of the modern period--a partisan goal, a subversive liberating notion and practice. Conversely, what is proclaimed and practiced as tolerance today, is in many of its most effective manifestations serving the cause of oppression.

I urge you read both.

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Done yet?

Ideologically loaded Humpty-Dumpty language lives.  My question is: to what end are these inversions of language directed?  

Is it just breeding resentment and dysfunction?  Destroying what currently is to allow to new utopia to be born?  A childish tantrum?

Honestly, to what end and is the end worth the destruction?

One discussion from an evangelical perspective is a podcast from HillFaith.blog which discusses Critical Theory with regard to our current cultural moment. 

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Postscript:  I suspect that Marlon Brando's character in The Wild One was more honest than Marcuse.

Predictive Processing

I came across a review of the book "Surfing Uncertainty" by Andy Clark.  The review and subsequent comments were a good and challenging read. 

The key insight: the brain is a multi-layer prediction machine. All neural processing consists of two streams: a bottom-up stream of sense data, and a top-down stream of predictions. These streams interface at each level of processing, comparing themselves to each other and adjusting themselves as necessary.

 Two key ideas to catch: predictive processing and the concept of embodied cognition.  The complete review is at Slate Star Codex.  RTWT and comment please.

HT: Assistant Village Idiot

News sites for the new year

Sadly, some of my older standby sites (BBC and such) have become useless in their wokeness: they are now propaganda in the same manner that Radio Moscow was back when shortwave was the thing.

There is no comprehensive world news media but there are some that are reliable within a limited scope.

First, World News does a weekday podcast "The World and Everything in It".  They do great reporting from a (reform christian) biblical world view.

Next, RFI and France24 are doing well especially with the African reportage.  They have not yet become BBC/CNN class obsessed with gender/climate,[insert prog cause here]...thankfully.  Still watchable.

Channel News Asia does great Southeast Asia coverage.  Headquartered in Singapore, they are doing excellent reporting.

NHK out of Tokyo reminds me of PBS in the sixties - deliberate and unprovocative, prehaps even educational without being ....tenditious.

For a well crafted, almost alternate reality, there is always Al Jazeera.

If you know of any other news stations that are faithful to a consistent world view please leave a comment.