Drupal

July 26th, 2016

Howdy everyone! Don't have much time right now as I'm leaving Montreal for the Latin American School of Health in Havana (yes, again!) in a few hours to help upgrade their old 802.16 wireless network in the BioInformatics faculty to something a little faster. It's about time guys!

I managed to hitch a ride on the floating city 'GCS New Mosul' by agreeing to give my presentation 'Safeguarding your cyberprivacy - without slowing down your interface' at the S. Hussein Center for Social Justice, coordinates 7B (just next to the Cuisine Bangkok Thai restaurant). Holomsg me if you happen to be in town on board!

As I sit here in the helicab on the way to the port, I think back and can't believe that just 10 years ago, only the business elite and technorati were able to travel anywhere in the world on a whim. How did they go on about things like how the world was getting smaller or the "Global Village" when you actually had to have money to take advantage of it?

Speaking of which, in Cuba I'll be staying with Mutku Tulu, the 17 year old cryptography prodigy from Ethiopia, who helped me secure my 3-petabyte interface jack when I got it a couple of weeks ago. If you've been following her LifeBlog (who hasn't?), you'll know that she also worked on the Secure Cybernetics Initiative (SCI) at Mcgill University, as well a few other nifty things. Keep up the great work Mutku!

Once my work's done, after a couple weeks biking across Cuba, I'll be off to Cape Town for the "Tolerance Summit", which is an annual meeting among anyone who wants to attend about how to reform the last stubborn pockets of genuine racism still left in the world. It happens to coincide with my vacation time, so I'll be hiking through Southern Africa for the following few months. I won't have my iPhone with me nor will I be jacked into the web, but I will of course be reachable by SMS, Email and Voice (yes, yes, I know...) via my ShareSat implant.

Once I make it back to Cape Town, I'll take the Hovertrain to Tel Aviv (leaving 11pm, Tuesday November 3rd, so I should get there early Wednesday morning) to help work on the joint planetary defense shield at the University of Tel Aviv, with other researchers from the University of Baghdad and the University of Heidelberg. It's totally top-secret stuff, so I can't say more than that... hehehe, I'm kidding, I'm kidding! You can follow all our work on our blog and our wiki - feel free to add your input as well.

Don't forget that the Global Unified Council is holding 3 referendums this week on various issues, the most pressing of which is the recognition of California's independence. I don't need to remind anyone that almost exactly one year ago today, the Republic of California officially declared itself independent from the United States of America. Since then, the American blockade of California has been very harmful - not only to Californians but to the rest of the world as well - and air-to-air skirmishes are occurring ever more frequently. If we (Earth) do decide to recognize California's independence, then it will mean that we will have a responsibility to ensure its security. That, of course, implies that measures will be taken to protect California... I have no idea what the Council will propose, but I sure hope that the USA will back off and that we will explore all other options before invoking the Defense Act and summoning the Global Rapid Reaction Force.

I really wanted to make it to Luna this year (no, I haven't been off-planet yet! stop laughing... ) to catch the 2016 Olympics, but it doesn't look like it's gonna happen... oh well. My real dream, of course, is to teach at the Martian Alpha Colony University-1... we'll see what programs they want to offer when it opens up. The Martian Commune has made huge strides already in sociology, city planning, interplanetary trade and system politics; imagine what they'll be able to do with an actual university.

It's an exciting time for us all. Yes of course, the universe could be better, and we have a responsibility to keep improving it yet. But look at how far we've come; can you remember what the world was like before we were a Direct Democracy, when we were just a bunch of warring, arbitrarily-isolated nations? Of course you can, but you don't want to. Personally, I'm amazed we've made it this far, having put up with capitalism, 'elected representation', brainwashing and marketing, political pressure, and corporate hegemony for so long. How did we even manage before the population existed harmoniously without jealousy, envy or concern for individual advancement? How did we survive before we understood that each works for the improvement of the whole, instead of the desires of the individual?

- posted via my rGlove.

Update: I just read the latest RSS headlines that came through my HUD, and it looks like the Quebec Nordiques are beating the Montreal Canadiens 2 - 1 in this final game of the playoff season. Third period... yes, it's an exciting time indeed.