Curious to hear about the opinions you didn’t ask for? Look no further, as I’ve grouped them all for you to see! Please remember this is also a place for discussion, including support and opposition. However, always remember to keep it respectful in the comments, as these may be centered around politics.
I encourage critical discussion, yet be courteous to other users. This is not a warzone, it’s a blog.
I have been reflecting a lot on school recently. I feel like until the 7th grade, learning via a classroom was effective. However, I think that changed when I was confined to a classroom with directed interest.
Some of you might know that I have been accepted to college. This is really exciting, even for me, as I think college will be the place where I can learn while also having the room to explore.
I worry about getting there, as in finishing my last year. I have a little over a year and a half of coursework to complete, being closer to two years. This has caused me a lot of stress, although I am focused on getting through and getting out. Once I get to my fresh start, I think I will thrive. At least, hopefully. Life always throws curveballs, though I find my way through it all somehow.
I think the main issue with school is how tailored it is to once certain type of student. There is no room for people who have atypical interests, something even as far as programming. You would be surprised how hard it is to find a programming class that matches my level. No mean to brag.
Wikipedia was my source of learning when people could not teach me properly and were simultaneously failing me in much more extreme ways. While I will never be freed from that jail of pain, it creates fury towards the education system.
While I highly respect the school I am attending now (not some private posh school, it’s a plain old public school), I cannot get over their lack of understanding. Some students have such terrible lives behind the scenes, but that will not stop teachers and administration from pushing them over their limit. It is no longer about learning, it’s about numbers and statistics. These numbers convert to money.
What I thought I knew about society was wrong. Is your view wrong? I dunno. I think I was misguided as to what the world really is and I think I am finding my own path to discovering that for myself.
While school will make it seem on paper that I am a literal failure, I know that I am not. I know this world relies on those numbers to function, but I will not give into them. I once gave into numbers and it nearly destroyed my life.
The advice I leave readers with is to trust themselves. I hope you all trust that you know what’s best and take opinions from others, but not build your personality based off what others believe is the “right way.” There is no right way and I don’t think there ever will be.
I know I haven’t written on here in a while and I’m sorry about that. During this time, a lot has happened and I’m sure most of you have seen the significant amount of changes made to my repositories in the past few months. I have been working a lot more to work on these projects and it’s really been helping with improving my mood and keeping my brain active. I’m still keeping with public domain for the most part, as for some projects I like to maintain stricter usage guidelines.
I have launched my own email service (completely free!) over at pontusmail.org which has been really exciting for me. It’s code is being hosted over at GitHub. This project has been very fast-paced although has taught me some very useful skills. Version three of my website, aidxnCC, which is also in the public domain on GitHub, has taught me all about NextJS, which I like a lot now. I have never seen such speed and this is the first time I am accepting Vercel into my life.
Next, I am being required to do service hours. 10 hours actually. They are the worst things in the world. Why? I’m not a “bullshit volunteer.” I have worked on Wikipedia for at least forty hours at least, which would be enough for four years of high school. However, I must do extra hours, which I have been forgetting to log because that’s not the point of volunteering. If I have to do some huge process to log these hours, what are we really doing? It’s about actually helping people, not creating some “brag sheet,” like the rest of America participates in.
I have been fed up with how many fake people there are in this world. We do not actually care about doing good, it’s about finding out how you can benefit from helping others. It is extremely hard to find people with values these days.
However, I have been buying a lot of domains recently. In fact, I’ve bought three just the past two days combined. I’m very excited for buying one specific domain, which will be announced soon, which I had to wait for. This domain is very close to my heart, in an infamous way. Thus, I will be happy to own this one because I can finally share my story and other people’s stories. I’ll give you a hint: abuser. And the people who are involved know exactly who they are and what they did. This is aimed to be a more educational project than anything, as I think spreading the word about this type of abuse would be quite useful. Especially the location where the project exists. All to be revealed soon.
In terms of school, I have fallen a bit behind though this is going to improve. I always try to do my hardest, even when nobody is really watching or caring. My GitHub is where my true self shines, though. Sadly, this has no value to a school which seems to be more about training conformity then actual education.
Life still feels like it’s dragging be behind, although I keep pushing back and pushing through. I am slowly healing. It’s a slow process, especially having to do everything on my own, but I get through. I’m always happy to have things like my blog, my GitHub and my devices to keep me distracted from the sadness my brain wants me to focus on. Music has been invaluable these days, too.
I hope you, the reader, are doing well. I’ve seen so many people who aren’t doing well, so just know you aren’t alone if you aren’t doing well. We all have bad times in our lives and welcome to the world, I guess. I wish there was a better answer than this. Either way, I am so happy to be in this community, especially my friends over on Telegram. Keep safe, everyone!
I enjoy emulating the feelings of the author of a work, as much as possible, so I will preface this post with the music I am listening to as I write this. I have opted for a sadder playlist for this post, as my mood swings have brought me to sadness at this hour. I specifically felt inspired by “Heather” by Conan Gray, and I am listening to it as I write this post.
Just today, I woke up and my heart sunk. Donald J Trump had won the presidency. The energy and brightness I saw in Kamala died. I wanted a country where I could live in peace and harmony. I wanted someone to lead our country to being a unified place where goodness was encouraged. Everything else in my life was falling apart, and she almost seemed like my last hope.
Instead, I simply see a hateful future, as our society slips into something even worse than it was before. I had no chance to state my opinion. My future could be ruined, and I had no say in it at all.
I am sick of this.
Why do we have to hate? Why do we have to waste our energy on hurting people? Why are people like this? When we spread hate, we cause a ripple effect. I’m sure there are people who have taken their lives, simply from the election results. Numbers on a screen.
The thing is… it’s not just numbers on a screen. Those numbers are what people will kill for. Exploit. Abuse. All because they want their opinions heard. Not just any opinions… ones that will cause real harm.
I came into school, and was moved by two people in specific… their names I will not mention. Both of them are LGBTQ+ and had the chance to cast votes. Their emotions were drastically different, although masking them as good as I have ever done. We know our lives might be over soon. We might not be able to have the one thing that impacts our lives, sometimes more than everything else in life. Love.
I truly wish the best for all of us out there, but I am unsure where I can find the light in this situation. I wish I could have ended on a better note. I wish I could have given you, the reader, suggestions or hope… I simply have no more words.
I just finished editing the privacy policy for my blog, and I want you to read it. Why? It’s bigger than just my blog. I want you to help set the standard.
Now, I essentially wrote a “fair” privacy policy. However, this doesn’t mean much, and it really shouldn’t. What I determine as a “fair” policy may seem very extreme to you, overcontrolling, or even dangerous. I think about 99% of readers will find the policy extremely fair, though I want you to focus on your opinion.
I typically go through my day and pay close attention to the technology used. In the classroom, I’m watching the interfaces, which sometimes can lead to me not paying attention to what’s really important! Nevertheless, I notice how the little spying devices we have, as if permanently attached, are universally accepted in daily life. Our phones! Yes, we all agreed to that 200 page document of bullshit we don’t care about… or do we?
Online privacy is always a mess, albeit being the biggest part when trying to using the internet in a “safe” (more of a personal safety sense, especially in terms of data security and our PII) manner.
Let’s bring it back to the original point: my privacy policy. While writing the policy, I reflected on the ethics of “internet code.” No, not the code you see on movies with hackers using terminals that flash bright green lines of code on a pitch black screen. It’s the morals of the internet. There has always been a divide I noticed from “real life” and life on the internet. On the internet, it is perfectly acceptable to spout the most profane of phrases casually. On the note of privacy, it’s universally regarded that it’s fine that companies exploit us for data. Our data is free to us, and it keeps our services free, so who cares?
We must always ask ourselves, when dealing with money: do I need to make money? That is the question I asked myself on the creation of this blog. Do I need ads? The answer I came to was no. I found that by providing this content under the public domain that I am making people happy. In turn, I can recieve views, comments, and discussion. My opinions may become more relevant in the future, and I could help people feeling as lost as I am navigate their lives in less of a controlling way, and more in a “I want to give people advice” way.
In this process, I had to question if I wanted to profit off my viewers, as an extra source of income, but I was also the holder of power. Without an ad blocker, viewers of my website have no choice but to have their data sent back to Google’s servers to be analyzed further. I asked myself that question, and found that I have low server operating costs, money to cover it, and a passion that makes up for the money I “lose” from not adding adverts to my website.
So, what’s next? I want you to hear me out on what I wish big companies could operate, especially on getting back to the human aspect. It appears companies have lost their values of consent, both in the bedroom with CEO scandals (not having a particular one in mind) and on the web. Let’s dive in.
First, I propose a progress bar be added to the homepage of Google. Those design people at Google can make it look spectacular, seriously. What will that progress meter be of? That’s next!
Let’s stop AdSense and AdMob, and remove adverts completely from all of Google’s services. We’re even going to remove all of the tracking across services, because we no longer need to sell people’s data. Now, Google is left with little revenue to operate. Don’t forget: we still have Google Cloud and Google One subscriptions, as well as Android, the Play Store, and other micro-transactions and miscellaneous purchases you can make throughout Google. However, that’s not enough to run Google.
Going back to the progress bar, let’s allow Google to be more transparent about how much money they need to operate that month, in addition to quick access buttons that aren’t intrusive for supporting Google. Yes, let’s literally turn Google into Wikipedia. Google can even be a role model for the already-amazing friend of mine… the Wikimedia Foundation! Some fun ideas I had were making interactive advertisements and adding mini-games (especially social games and puzzles). I even thought about including a coin system, however I worry about the ethics of micro-transactions. Although Google may facilitate these types of payments through their services, I don’t believe it would be positive to introduce them in this theoretical system.
However, why does this matter? Why should Google improve their services? Why should other companies try to adapt these types of systems? Why does this connect to a privacy policy I wrote?
This theoretical system is a demonstration of care and remembering we are all humans living on one planet. Google should be a benefit to society, though that doesn’t mean they should aim to make exorbitant amounts of money. Can someone seriously explain to my why these people don’t just donate their excess income to a real charity?
There is still much I do not understand about this world, and much more to discover. Every day, I am noticing new patterns in life. Regardless, I still trust the validity of my ideas, and I don’t think I’m far off from a kinder solution. This doesn’t mean that system will ever be recognized, let alone be implemented, though it’s one positive ending among several other positive and negative endings. Google, among thousands of other internet companies, should remember the human when they make decisions.
Linux security works similarly. If a user doesn’t need permission, or in this case, Google does not need 30% of their advertizing revenue for it’s employees, higher-ups, and everyone in between to be happy. Thus, let’s release the power, and remove the permissions to that directory for that user. Let’s make the world feel more secure, much like a SysAdmin feels secure about their system after applying effective and secure permissions (gotta remember ’em).
By doing all of this, we can go back to our roots of trying to just make it through our lives, but aim for happiness in the end. The goal isn’t to become rich, I believe it’s aiming for feeling secure and happy in life, and the amount you see in your bank has a different reaction for different people. $20 to us Americans is much more in countries such as Turkey and Argentina. However, online privacy is universally valued. We try our hardest to balance our lives, while trying to keep ourselves safe. Whether it’s people locking their nudes in their Photos app or going through annoying cookie prompts, we do our best. Let’s try and get the companies to do the rest.
My privacy policy is something I’m proud of. I’m proud to join the other websites trying to aim for user experience over making money. If I write a tutorial post on my blog, I might actually earn an award for the first human published tutorial on a WordPress blog before. For those who don’t know, lots of recipe websites are copied from other websites and ran through algorithms to include in incredible amount of words that rank high in search ratings. Some people even do it manually! While I go through this good feeling of doing good for the few who stumble upon this page, I have found the inspiration for a better internet experience for humans.
Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the rest of your day or night.
EDIT (same day):
I was recently going through the analytics settings on a plugin I use for WordPress for privacy-friendly analytics. Questioning the ethics of this… How is it going to be targeted towards privacy if I have the option to completely ignore user’s requests for privacy.
