I bought a Kinekt fidget-ring when I first learned about them in 2010; I’ve since logged many thousands of miles worth of aimless spinning (ZOMG escalator handrails are fun) on mine; now designers Rachel and Glen Liberman have released their first updated product since the 2014 geared heart necklace: new versions of the ring in gold, rose gold, and gunmetal.
Wired’s new Guide to Digital Security
is an excellent addition to the genre of simple-to-follow how-tos for
reducing the likelihood that you’ll be victimized by computer-assisted
crime and harassment, and that if you are, the harms will be mitigated.
Like Motherboard’s guide, it is formatted as a series of short articles; like EFF’s Surveillance Self Defense kit, it is structured around different kinds of threats, with separate paths for “civilians,” “public figures” and “spies.”
* How to Encrypt All of the Things,
where Andy Greenberg shows you “how to keep snoopers out of every facet
of your digital life, whether it’s video chat or your PC’s hard drive”;
* How to Sweep For Bugs and Hidden Cameras, where Lily Hay Newman basically shows that unless you’re really technologically sophisticated, this is very, very hard;
* and What to Do if You’re Being Doxed,
where Newman interviews the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Eva
Galperin for really practical advice on what could easily be a nightmare
scenario.
Electronic security is a team sport: that’s why the Cybersecurity Campaign Playbook
has a chapter for how family members of political campaigners should
armor themselves against being used as a means to get at their
relatives.
This is the ideal season for you to help you up your family’s security
game. When you go home for the holidays, think about how you can install
software, change defaults, and teach your family good practices to help
you – and them – stay safe.
If this interests you, read EFF’s Security Education Companion, which teaches you how to be an effective communicator of security precepts.
(I’m playing through the “Lost Mine of Phandelver” adventure with my players, most of whom have never played any form of RPG before. They managed to get past the guards at the beginning of the goblin hideout and even managed to convince one to guide them safely through the cave, thanks to an amazing bit of persuasion from the smooth-talking elven sorcerer. Their guide, Tommy, takes them past a room of wolves on the way to meet his boss.)
Me, DM: Okay, so, you come up to this group of wolves, which are all snarling and obviously very hungry. They’ve clearly been trained as attack animals, not as pets, and as you approach, one even lunges at you as if to try and take a bite. Before it can do so, however, Tommy makes a sharp noise and commands it to stand down. The wolf slinks back in obvious fear.
(Our elven druid’s player starts visibly trembling with excitement as soon as I mention the wolves.)
Druid, OOC: I’ve always wanted an animal companion!! Can I, like, talk to it? Make it my friend? Can I love it like my own child?
DM: Uh, sure, roll animal handling to see how it reacts.
(She rolls a nat 20 for a total of 24)
DM: Yeah, okay, how do you become freakin’ BFF’s with this starving, savage wolf?
Druid, OCC: I pull out some of my food and give it to them!
Aasimar monk, OOC: (laughing) But aren’t you vegan? What do you give it, a rice cake?
Druid, OOC: I give it an apple! And they like it!
DM: (sighs) Sure, yeah, you give this carnivorous predator an apple and it falls head over heels in love with you. Congratulations, you’re the first person in this wolf’s life to show it a shred of kindness, and now it will never leave your side.
Druid, OOC: Can I name it?
DM: Sure.
Druid: I’m going to name you Neko!
Sorcerer: You’re naming your wolf “cat?”
Druid: When you get your own wolf you can name it whatever you want, but mine’s name is Neko!
(For the rest of the session, and even afterwards, the player continued to talk to “Neko” as if they were in the room with us, occasionally “feeding” them chips from under the table.)
Please tell me that you aren’t this stupid, and this is a joke.
Literally all those answers can be found in science books for kindergartners. A lot of them are “Actually it does”, “Actually we do” and “Actually they don’t”.
It’s no joke. And the first time I encountered it over a year ago I thought it was troll, or just ignorance.
All the flat earthers are asking is for you to look around and be curious. Use your senses.
The most reliable method I think is getting a pilot licence and fly around the world yourself, though I don’t know if they give you a licence unless you understand it’s round.
Or learn trigonometry and measure the shadows on different latitudes, Aristophanes style. You can even calculate the size of the Earth and the distance to the sun with math you can develop yourself. It’s very important that you understand you can independently create the math that proves the Earth is round, even if you’re too lazy to do it.
Measure the distance between any three places on whatever flat Earth-map you have, as far apart as you can afford to travel, then measure the distance between them on a real globe using the equation to find the shortest line between two points of the surface of a sphere that travel and transport businesses use to save fuel, then travel between them, and then see which measurement better predicted the reality.
Study the Earth in Google maps as closely as you can. Go from South Africa to north Norway to east China to the Bering strait to New York to Florida to Equador to Tierra del Fuego and see how it all fits together in a way that actually only makes sense if it’s a sphere. Get as close as you have to. Seeing the full picture should take years.
Watch a boat disappear behind the horizon as it goes away from you, then climb to a higher elevation where you can see it again. Send up a drone or a helium balloon with a sturdy camera to see Earth from above. Just travel a little bit. I first saw that the Earth is round on the Sweden-Finland ferry when I was eight, and I can only assume any flat Earthers have never been on as much as a four hour boat ride.
Maybe they all live on the Pole of Inaccessibility, by the north tip of China. Hey, here’s a fun question: This point is exactly equidistant from three coasts in different directions – the furthest from the sea you can get anywhere on the Planet. How far is that?
Yes, be curious. but do not sit in a little hole in the ground and think you’ve got the shape of the world all figured out because you’re special and clever and everyone else is wrong if you’re not willing to do any work whatsoever TO figure things out. If you’re going to claim to earnestly believe the Earth is flat, that does indeed take a special, dedicated kind of ignorance. Being completely unaware of how physics work to the point that you can concieve of an Earth that can’t be round because the Corolis effect is unnoticeable for airplanes and then declaring to the public you know better than everyone who’s sailed around the world isn’t “challenging the establishment” or “looking at the world around you”, it’s just embarassing.
Just the enormous amount of things you have to fail to know to disbelieve the shape of the Earth is, well, it would fill a library of natural science, and you should find the closest library and start reading so you can stop offending people who actually do the work of science that you’re relying on to be able to post your shit aross the world through sattelites and fiberoptics and plastic and computer technology that would have never been imagined of by a people who hadn’t put people on the Moon.
