*asterisk

Europe is not in a great place at the moment, people are facing real issues, from the housing crisis to an increase in random terror attacks, these are real, not a figment of people's imagination and should not be swept under the rug by mainstream parties, that's exactly what the neo fascists want, as all fascists they are also populists, they present easy solutions for complex problems, but being fascists their “modus operandi” is to create division using a scape goat, usually vulnerable groups in society, this allows them to rally their supporters around a common enemy, creating unity within against the others, polarizing and making people more vulnerable to misinformation and unwilling to see reality.

This off course are the means used to get in power, when they get there is when the real problems begin, we've seen it in the past century and we are having a glimpse of it in the US right now. They rise on false promises of free speech, prosperity and freedom, but all you get is censorship, the demise of democratic institutions, persecution of vulnerable groups, more poverty, less social protections, social inequality and a very unhealthy nationalism focused not on helping their people but on bullying others (that can escalate to war)

What's new about this new fascism is that it's now fueled by tech oligarchs so we also have their agenda behind it and they have a pivotal role on controlling people, because, no matter what, they know that people has the power ( and a guillotine is relatively easy and cheap to make), so here enters the destruction of the social contract, all that made Europe thrive the US needs to shatter, no more social protections or a social state, no more job protection, the gig economy is the way, make people own nothing, work all the time just to survive and they won't rebel

This is not a future that we want, these is why we need to fight, because as any infection it gets harder to fight the more it spreads and it's spreading, it can spread to Germany, France and more, the virus is everywhere already we must stop it and not let infect further

Wokism and progressivism are different things. The latter has enabled the conquest of several extremely important rights across the Western world, such as same-sex marriage and access to abortion, to give just two small examples, rights we now take for granted but which were far from guaranteed not long ago. Wokism, on the other hand, is nothing more than a distortion of progressivism, totally incapable of dialogue, leading to greater polarization and prompting a more aggressive counter-reaction, which escalates the other side, and so on, in a loop that can only end badly.

Progressivism is pragmatic, wokism is dogmatic, and this makes all the difference. First and foremost, humans are individuals; we are all different, with different life experiences, circumstances, and opinions. When wokism, through its dogmatism, tries to force people from a certain group to behave in a certain way, to define what truth is, ostracizing all who think differently, it generates a reaction of rejection in people who do not see themselves reflected in everything that is preached. They might agree with 80 or 90%, but when there's no possibility of redemption without being labeled all sorts of things, it can push people to the opposite extreme. The wokes might then be happy to point the finger and say, “See, they're all Nazis, I told you so,” but the truth is they're pointing fingers from within a concentration camp, and unlike other religions, there's no heaven reserved for woke martyrs.

Being pragmatic, progressivism seeks to listen and dialogue, leading to the progress of humanity. It doesn't aim to ostracize those who think differently but rather to convince them to think otherwise or at least to find compromises.

No, Black men in the U.S. are not all incorrigible misogynists who hate women so much that they'd rather elect a fascist than a Black woman; Latinos aren't dumb and sexist to the point of voting for their own deportation just to not elect a woman; white women aren't all transphobic and patriarchy worshippers.

We won't win over an immigrant from Mexico who has lived through the violence of cartels and doesn't want the same in the U.S., or a Venezuelan immigrant who, unfoundedly fears the U.S. turning into a far-left dictatorship, or the white man who can barely afford food and housing yet is daily accused of being responsible for all the world's evils, or the Black man who constantly feels used and wants agency in his own life, not just to be considered a victim of society because of his skin color.

To conclude, we must focus on what's essential; we urgently need to reduce polarization, to see others as human beings. The most nefarious effect of polarization is that we stop seeing others as human beings; there's a total dehumanization, and if we don't stop, the consequences will be dramatic.

Tudo em Todo o Lado ao Mesmo Tempo

Uma análise feita pela IA do Bing

O filme Tudo em Todas as Partes ao Mesmo Tempo é uma obra-prima da comédia dramática absurda que mistura ação, ciência ficção, fantasia e artes marciais. Dirigido por Daniel Kwan e Daniel Scheinert, o filme conta a história de Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), uma imigrante chinesa-americana que vive uma vida monótona e frustrada como contadora. Ela é auditada pelo IRS e descobre que sua vida está ligada a um multiverso de possibilidades infinitas. Ela deve se conectar com as versões paralelas de si mesma para impedir que um ser poderoso chamado Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) destrua toda a existência.

O filme explora conceitos filosóficos como o existencialismo, o niilismo e o absurdo, além de abordar temas como a neurodiversidade, a depressão, o trauma geracional e a identidade asiático-americana. O filme mostra como Evelyn lida com o sentido da vida em um universo caótico e sem sentido. Ela se sente alienada da sociedade e de sua família, especialmente de sua filha Joy (Stephanie Hsu) e de seu marido Waymond (Ke Huy Quan). Ela também sofre de ansiedade e síndrome do impostor.

O filme questiona se há algum propósito ou destino para as nossas vidas ou se somos apenas produtos do acaso. Evelyn descobre que há muitas versões dela mesma em diferentes realidades: algumas são felizes e bem-sucedidas, outras são infelizes e fracassadas. Ela percebe que suas escolhas têm consequências imprevisíveis e que ela não tem controle sobre o seu destino. Ela também enfrenta o paradoxo da escolha: quanto mais opções ela tem, mais difícil é decidir qual é a melhor.

O filme também explora o conceito de niilismo: a crença de que nada tem valor ou significado intrínseco. Deirdre representa o niilismo extremo: ela quer acabar com toda a existência porque ela não vê nenhum sentido nela. Ela é uma vilã complexa e carismática que desafia Evelyn a questionar seus valores e crenças. Ela diz que tudo é arbitrário e relativo: não há certo ou errado, bem ou mal, verdade ou mentira. Ela afirma que tudo é uma ilusão criada pela nossa mente para nos dar conforto.

No entanto, o filme não é pessimista nem desesperador. Ele mostra como Evelyn encontra força e esperança nas suas conexões com as outras versões dela mesma. Ela aprende com as suas experiências alternativas e desenvolve novas habilidades e perspectivas. Ela também descobre que há beleza e humor no caos e na diversidade do multiverso. Ela reconhece que há coisas que valem a pena lutar: sua família, seus amigos, sua liberdade, sua criatividade.

O filme termina com uma mensagem inspiradora: não há uma resposta definitiva para o sentido da vida; cada um deve encontrar o seu próprio caminho através da experimentação e da reflexão; cada um deve aceitar os seus defeitos e celebrar as suas diferenças; cada um deve ser grato pelas oportunidades e pelos desafios; cada um deve ser fiel à sua essência e aberto às mudanças.

Tudo em Todas as Partes ao Mesmo Tempo é um filme original, inteligente, divertido, emocionante e profundo. É um filme que nos faz pensar, rir, chorar e sonhar. É um filme que nos ensina que tudo é possível, que tudo está conectado

(Kid A, Kid A) (Kid A, Kid A)

Everything Everything Everything Everything In its right place In its right place In its right place In its right place

Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon

Everything Everything Everything In its right place In its right place In its right place Right place

There are two colours in my head There are two colours in my head What, what is that you tried to say? What, what was that you tried to say? Tried to say, tried to say Tried to say, tried to say

Everything Everything Everything Everything

Far from being a well known or one of the most loved Radiohead songs, Everything in it's right place really resonates with me, the one song that has seen me in my darkest times, the one I sing in my head when the world around me seems to be crumbling and all I see is despair and darkness, when the pain is so intense that reality itself changes does not seem real when colours seem do disappear even in the brighter of days, when nothing seems to be in it's place, this song is a mantra, I hum Everything in it's right place and it isn't off course it isn't, knowing that someone, the person who wrote this, Thom Yorke is no stranger to depression, has been there in that place where nothing is right, I'm not alone, not the only one, others have been there and other will, me most definitely in another time, another place will be back, but not alone, and this helps, so I hum hoping that someday everything will be in it's right place.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (Not a review)

An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, in which she alone can save the world by exploring other universes connecting with the lives she could have led.

The paragraph above is the synopsis of not just one of the greatest movies to be released this year, but also one of the most intense emotional experiences I've had in a movie theatre, ever.

Reading the synopsis and watching the first minutes of the movie one is led to believe that this is a simple nonsensical comedy, but if not completely wrong it is so much more.

First let me say that while I will not spoil the movie, this text will probably not make a whole lot of sense to anyone who hasn't watched the movie, because I will barely focus on the plot, but on the impact it had in me, but let's begin.

The movie starts off by presenting us with the simple life of the main character, a middle aged women that owns a small business, is married and has a child and while not being a middle aged women nor owning a small business nor having and young adult child myself, the main character is very relatable, call it a middle age crisis, but we reach a point where we are haunted by this thought , half of my life is gone, my days are all the same, I'm ageing and it's probably all downhill from here, and then the dreadful “What if” comes. This movie, like many others before it, sure, plays with that “what if” extremely well, giving us a glimpse into other lives, other universes if something happened differently in the past, but again this is just a small part of the movie.

What follow is an absolute roller coaster of emotions a ride that forces you to face the complexities of the human existence, our relationships with each other, our flaws, our view on life and it is so well done that it makes us laugh, cry and even can fill our hearts with love.

It is so masterfully put in place that is able to raise complex philosophical questions, to shake your core and leave you with a nice warm felling while masking itself as a simple nonsensical comedy.

Brilliant

This will be the year of the Linux desktop

This is a phrase that all of us that have used Linux for a while have read pretty much every year, one day I guess it will happen, but is it ready yet ?

So how is the Linux Desktop in 2022 and where is it heading ?

A more standard and less fragmented experience (mostly)

Probably the most common criticism regarding mass adoption of Linux on the desktop is fragmentation, why are so many distros to chose, Desktop enviornments ? Package Managers ? Do I want a rolling release, one that offers long time support, something in between ? Can't these people just decide on a standard already ?

Short ansewer is no, off course not, the beauty of Linux and open source in general is that anyone can pick up a project and change it according to their own view, this offcourse does not mean that having 1000000 distros is a good thing, especially when in some cases the only thing that changes is the default look.

For beginners and people that don't want massive headaches or are using Linux on a production machine, the number of distros really does not matter, the recommendation is the same, go with something that has a good community and team behind it, distros like, Mint, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu are mostly safe and solid choices. A nice mix of adoption of new features without risking too much.

Looking at these distros we can see some trends however, the first is that package management is changing, Ubuntu is pushing snaps and all others are pushing or at least playing along well with flatpaks, and although there is a lot of criticism and there are definitely downsides compared to traditional package management, the upsides are too big to ignore, having a package including all it's needed dependencies that can be used in virtually any distro, running in a sandboxed environment, sort of, installable with one click and a massive software library available is something we used to dream about some years ago, there is room for improvement and obviously there will always be distros that will not follow this route, but I see them being the “default” in a few years.

Considering that flatpaks or snaps or appimages or something similar became the default one other trend will probably follow suit, and we can see that already in Fedora and OpenSUSE, for example, immutable distros, this is already standard in Android, and will probably will be much more common in the Linux Desktop, this will diminish greatly the probability of catastrophic failure and improve security.

So to sum things up I see most mainstream distros turning immutable and relying on flatpaks or snaps for most software management, but not all will go along with this and off course being Linux open source many will still use a more traditional approach, after all tinkerers are a big demographic in the Linux space

The fall of conservatives

In this times of polarization, half of the aisle blame conservatives, but this new right wing franchise that has been popping up around the globe is not conservative, well not the democratic kind anyway or as in the political definition of the word, no, these alt right franchises are reactionary, conservatives you see, are like someone, way smarter than me, once said:

A conservative is the child that cries because it doesn't want to take a bath and then cries because it doesn't want to get out of the bathtub.

The franchised right wing however, does not want to go to the bathtub, blames everyone for trying to put them there, spends the whole time crying on how great the dirty times were and proceeds to dig the head in the mud as soon as they get out of the tub.

I think that this analogy clarifies things a bit, you see, not being a conservative myself I always found them to be extremely important in the democratic landscape, they are the voice that is always nagging about caution before others try to do changes, they are however perfectly aware that change is inevitable and often a good thing, so they embrace and accept it when it's part of our lives, think of same sex marriage and adoption, for example, a conservative when the discussion popped up was at least, worried, of the implications that it would have on the base structures of society, like families, now, however, that they have been proven that this was actually a good thing, they embrace it.

Reactionaries on the other hand don't accept change even when presented with overwhelming evidence, their core beliefs are like religious dogmas and cannot be disproved, so being gay will always be wrong in their eyes, so will abortion and so many other things that are now considered basic human rights.

I will not go on about how dangerous this is because let's face it, we just need to look out the window to see it.

My point is that conservatives are not the enemy, they are democratic opponents, this new (old) movement that took them hostage is. So for the sake of a healthy liberal democracy I hope that conservatives will rise again

Basic Online Security – A Brief Introduction

One of the biggest challenges of today is to keep our information safe, I believe that most people don’t think about it, or just assume that having a decent password for every account is “safe enough” add to that 2FA and your golden, the truth is, things are not that simple.

Over the years I’ve been researching a bit and implemented a few measures to keep me a bit more safe, so why not share them with the world.

Rule 1 — Probably the most important of them all, have unique passwords for every service you use, do not under any circumstance use the same password for everything, sites are hacked all the time, so trust me your email and password are out there, having one password compromised is not that bad, just change it and move on, but if you use that password for everything, oh well the people who have it can potentially access all your accounts.

Remembering 50 unique passwords is simply not possible for the vast majority of people, so the best option is to use a password manager. I recommend Keepass, it’s open source and has clients for Windows, Linux, Android and iOS, it’s not the most user friendly one, but works extremely well. Generate unique passwords for every service you use, define a strong master password and you’re good to go. Keep several copies of your keepass database as a backup, if you store it in the cloud and are a bit paranoid encrypt the database for an extra layer of security.

Rule 2 — Check your 2FA method, most people use the phone number, turns out, it’s very easy for someone to get a copy of your SIM, so avoid it at all costs, use an authenticator app, like andOTP, for example. If the phone number is the only available option for 2FA consider getting a new number, just for this purpose, but do not give to anyone, a lot of people use services like sync.me and all their contacts, including you, end up on public databases.

Rule 3 — Keep things updated, be it your apps, phone, OS.

Rule 4 — Use common sense to avoid phishing scams and other malware

Rule 5 — Keep offline backups of all your important information, this can save you in case of a ransomware attack, for further redundancy also store your files in the cloud.

Rule 6 — Use Paypal for your online transactions, it’s not perfect, but it’s a safer method than entering your credit card information directly on a website.