The Long Way Round

human: here is birds in water

basically, some guy called nightmare-eclipse has found several zero-day exploits in windows and at first contacted microsoft about it but they kept ignoring him (even though they have a bug bounty program, so technically they have to pay him a grant for finding these)

so then he started posting them publicly whenever he found any in hopes of microsoft finally fixing them that way, but of course that leaves windows users vulnerable, because now not-so-nice hackers can see exactly how they can use those exploits. He has found FOUR so far and microsoft did nothing about it.

finally wrote something again

#2: "hi [professor], hope you're doing well! unfortunately, I'm [sick/stuck at work/dead] and won't be able to submit [assignment] by [due date]. could I please have an extension? if not, is there anything else I could do to make up this credit? thanks so much, [op]"

The FIRST SENTENCE is the thing you want the recipient to do. Do not make them guess.

I want to let you know about ... (This email is to inform someone of something not to ask them to do anything)

Could you please do ... (This is a request. You want them to do something).

I'm looking into x and wondering if you can help me (this is also a request but for information instead of an action).

People do not want to read an email and even if they do read it, most people are skimming and not interested. Tell them what you want first, then provide context or other information (when you need a thing is often key). If the email is informational, you can even add "you don't need to do anything, this is just to keep you informed!" People will appreciate not having to figure out what you want from them.

If you can't articulate what you want the recipient to do with the message, you are not ready to email them. I read too many emails where I have no idea what the person wants from me.

My nephew is very allergic to eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, and sesame. Last year my sister discovered all hot dogs and hamburger buns now contain sesame. Not "may contain", but listed in the ingredients. This year basically every brand of sliced bread also now contains sesame, making it very difficult to find bread items he can eat.

They're just adding it to their products, so they can just list it as an ingredient and not bother with worrying about cross contamination. And they aren't even bothering with telling anyone. Capitalism is going to kill us all.

"Which brings us back to Kellogg’s. Back in 2016, the company found a way around the added burden and expense of complying with the FSMA: they simply began adding trace amounts of peanut flour to their cracker products. Doing so allowed them to list peanuts as an ingredient of the product, freeing them from having to prevent cross-contact.

Obviously a publisher is a business and a business needs to make money, but the idea used to be that you'd have a couple of very successful authors who bring in so much cash that they subsidise the new kid who is building a back catalogue of books that sell okay until they get name recognition and pay for themselves. I was told back then that a couple thousand pounds was very reasonable for a debut novel because you want to get royalties for the sales exceeding your advance and that way the publisher sees you as a profitable investment. The last couple of years I keep hearing about six figure book deals for debut (!) literary fiction (!) novels, what on earth?

My day job is as a freelance editor for nonfiction books, and I can safely say that if the publishing industry were operating as intended, I would either not have a job at all or be working for a specific press. Authors pay me directly to do the work that a press editor used to do as part of publication contracts. This is because so many presses have started outsourcing all their editorial work to either third-party contractors or, even worse, to genAI.

Anyway, I love editing. I think I love editing almost more than writing, and I'm pretty sure that I'm better at it. Last year I edited an academic article from 11k to 9k words for my supervisor and I felt like a god when I finished it, but when my supervisor asked if I'd thought about doing this professionally, I had to tell her that there's just not a viable career in editing anymore. Publishers used to employ! editors! Several different kinds of editors for different stages of the process! That used to be my dream job!

Editing is so essential to making a text good. It doesn't matter how talented or dedicated you are as a writer, you cannot achieve the level of quality by yourself that you could achieve by working with a skilled editor. That's normal! The lone genius who comes out of the cave with the perfect novel does not exist! The manuscript that gets sold to a publisher is supposed to be handed off to an editor who tells you to tighten up that plotline and reminds you that every day can't be Tuesday and sharpens your prose so your voice really shines. Skimping out on that part of the publication process takes money out of the hands of skilled professionals, leads to consumers (ew) receiving subpar products (ew!), and is such an injustice to the writers whose work can't reach its full potential (and the writers who won't get published because they can't afford to pay an editor out of pocket!).

A wedding you were not invited to, Anywhere

Permacomputing is both a concept and a community of practice oriented around issues of resilience and regenerativity in computer and network technology inspired by permaculture. In a time where computing epitomizes industrial waste and exploitation, permacomputing encourages a more sustainable approach, maximizing hardware lifespans, minimizing energy use and focussing on the use of already available computational resources. Permacomputing asks the question whether it is possible to rethink computing in the same way as permaculture rethinks agriculture. Permaculture is the science and practice of creating semi-permanent ecosystems of nature. The resilience of any such ecosystem is equal to its diversity and interconnectedness. Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms. It seeks to provide a sustainable and secure place for living things on this earth. At first it may seems paradoxical to connect permaculture and computation. Indeed, an extractive technology that depends on a wasteful use of finite resources can hardly be permanent. Therefore, by making this connection, what we are truly asking is whether or not there can be a place for computer and network technology in a world where humans contribute to the well-being of the biosphere rather than destroy it? And if yes, how? Permacomputing wants to imagine such a place and take steps towards it. It is therefore both utopian and practical. We want to find out how we can practice good relations with the Earth by learning from ecological systems to leverage and re-center existing technologies and practices. A radical reduction of wastefulness is a fundamental aspect of it: maximize the hardware lifespans, minimize the energy use. And this is not just about a set of technical problems to be fixed­—the attitudes also need a radical turn. Understandability is aesthetics, virtual does not mean immaterial and doing things with less is not a return to the past. We want to investigate what a permacomputing way of life could be, and what sort of transformative computational culture and aesthetics it could bring forward. The principles of permacomputing are: Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst Care for All Hardware — Especially the Chips Observe First Not Doing Expose the Seams Consider Carefully the Interaction Between Simplicity, Complexity and Scale Keep It Flexible Build on Solid Ground (Almost) Everything has a place Integrate Biological and Renewable Resources Properties of permacomputing systems The principles concretely manifest themselves in various forms so as to highlight the following properties: accessible: well documented and adaptable to an individual's needs. compatible: works on a variety of architectures. efficient: uses as little resources (power, memory, etc) as possible (minimization). flexible: modular, portable, adapts to various use-cases. resilient: repairable, offline-first, low-maintenance, designed for disassembly, planned for longevity, maximized lifespan, descent-friendly or designed for descent