All of it began when a young, puzzle-loving mathematician named Sarah Meiklejohn started to pull out traceable patterns in the apparent noise of Bitcoin’s blockchain.. This excerpt from Tracers in the Dark reveals how Meiklejohn came to the discoveries that would launch that new era of crypto criminal justice.

Leaders and Followers

Everyone likes to talk about leadership—we are culturally conditioned to view success as a progression through leadership positions—but there is far less attention paid to being a good follower.

My understanding of Matthew’s metaphor is that senior developers (or senior software engineers, or senior systems engineers, and so on) are at the same time complaining that their coworkers are making mistakes (“stepping onto rakes”, also sometimes phrased as “stepping into traps”), while at the same time making their environment harder to navigate (“spreading more rakes”, also “setting up traps”).

Salaries

If you’re like a lot of people, you might have gone your entire career without ever asking for a raise. It’s surprisingly common for workers, particularly women, to wait for their employer to dole out raises rather than proactively requesting one.

Technical

As part of tracing out why these types of workshops can be so detrimental to minority writers, both authors delved into the history of writing workshops. And both argued that the traditional workshop in which the author is enforced to silence will not only suppress minority voices—but that its domination across education happened not by accident, but by design.

Now let’s flip the script. Let me take you through the anatomy of characters who are commonly labelled “inactive protagonist.”

They are marginalized in some way, via race or class or gender or sex or ability. They will most certainly have suffered some kind of trauma (or three, or more), whether physical, emotional, psychological, or sexual. These two things have inevitably and inextricably colored not only how they perceive and navigate the world they live in, but how gods, natural or supernatural phenomena, technology, society, or other people react to them.

forestofglory

Across the train tracks from BWI station, a portal shimmered in the shade of a patch of tall trees. From her seat on a northbound train taking on passengers, Dottie watched a woman slip a note out of her pocket, place it under a rock, strip off her work uniform, then walk naked, smiling, into the portal.

sineala

sineala

I just set vim up for editing prose and uh

... y'all remember spell checking that uses an actual dictionary? That doesn't gaslight you about whether a word is in a dictionary or not, it just tells you?

For what it's worth, Configuring Vim as a Writing Tool by Theena is a decent hint at things that are useful for making vim writerly

I think this just speaks to the point about how there are relationship-focused people and task-focused people. In my classes I give everyone the following passionate speech: “The relationship focused folks need to work on being less sensitive. If you know you’re dealing with a task focused individual and they say something that feels kind of rude, let it go. They are probably not focused on the relationship right now. They are focused on what’s important to them and that’s the task. They can work with you regardless of whether they like you or not.

“On the other hand, you task-focused folks: you need to understand that when you’re dealing with relationship focused people that it is critical for them that they don’t feel the relationship is in jeopardy when dealing with you. They mistake your “get to the point” with a blow to the relationship, you need to be aware of that and find a softer way to say the same thing. ”

Feeding people half-truths or bullshit to make them feel better (which is almost always about making ourselves feel more comfortable) is unkind.

Not getting clear with a colleague about your expectations because it feels too hard, yet holding them accountable or blaming them for not delivering is unkind.

Talking about people rather than to them is unkind.

[W]e have strong drives to seek out five key things: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness.

It is time to be in cockroach mode. To keep going, by whatever means possible. When someone tries to stamp you out, avoid them with a swiftness and a scurry that will haunt their dreams. [...] For some of us, survival may be easier. If you fall into that privileged group, consider using your energy to remind others that they are precious, and beautiful, and so, so loved. That if they left the earth, grief would drown those of us left scurrying across the wreckage without them.

To everyone who feels like their heart has been ripped out of their chest, I feel the same. To everyone who is afraid of what happens next, I share your fears. But what we do next is important, and I need you in this fight with me.

We are the united legal frontline in the fight for people and our democracy. We will fight for people, freedom, and our democracy against any odds. We know the playbook, and we’re ready to fight back.

The world can feel scary, but no matter what happens, I’m glad you are in it. And if it helps, I wrote a long essay about Mutual Aid and how we can show up for each other—especially the most vulnerable among us—right now and always.

We must deepen our relationships of trust and care across lines of difference, across coalitions, across communities. That's the foundation upon which everything else resides.

As diasporic rebels, our Jewishness teaches us to rely on solidarity beyond all borders. Our teachings compel us to lean on the community of others to live lives worth living, whether we are mourning or celebrating, or grappling time and again with what liberation should and could look like. [...] 2. Make people soup and do not stop inviting them over for soup! Be a reason for living.

“Oh, you want to know how you can support disability justice? MAKE SOMEONE A POT OF SOUP!” my friend William Maria Rain, a true disability justice OG, yelled at the audience at a disability justice panel at the D Center at the University of Washington, circa 2014 or so. Someone had probably been wringing their hands during the Q&A and timidly asking, “Um, what’s a good way to help the disabled community?” William made the answer very plain: You help disabled people by making sure we’re not dying of starvation in our apartments.

muccamukk

asakiyume

Listening means being alive, staying alive, and keeping the ecosystems to which one belongs alive as well. Listening is caring. Not listening brings war: that is, a type of destructive encounter, a form of non-co-existence. We listen with our entire bodies, not just our ears ... Our bodies are part of and an extension of the Earth. If we allow them to become sensing instruments for dreaming and conversation, the cosmic sense of life would not be so threatened. --Natalia Brizuela

armaina

starwatcher