One Rule on the Citadel

happy new year -------------_--------------------

Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.

have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.

and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.

black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.

if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.

This is Juneteenth.

S2E2

"Sherry for me, please, a large one."

So, companies are tracking you no matter what you do, but this specifically is something I care about deeply.

Essentially, when you share a link, sometimes it has extra data that tracks where it comes from and goes.

Opening Spotify, clicking the first item, and using the share button, I get something like open.spotify.com/track/4P0f1HTaA2UwtLJGryNgJZ?si=DBvbfihOSweU1KHj9Mib8w

That ?si=...........…. is the tracker. It tells Spotify who clicks on the link and ties it to you, meaning Spotify knows who your friends are even if you never follow them.

Similarly, if on Amazon or EBay in the browser, I get something like www.ebay.com/itm/146493392451?_skw=lenovo&itmmeta=............&hash=item................&itmprp=enc..............

And, similarly, everything after the question mark is tracking you. I had to blank it out because it was so long!

There is an exception for a few things (I.E. the v=..... on YouTube, but not the si=..... on YouTube)

The general rule is delete everything after the ? and if it breaks, add something back.