It's that time of year again! Hammered out a modest (for me) word count of 472k over the year, with December's reflecting my overall burnout. Finished Falling Falling Stars, started another story to get addicted to (Underline the Black and friends), and overall it's been a great year for emotionally authentic writing! (My yearly wordcount does not include: worldbuilding, outlining, planning, multiple drafts (only the first draft of a chapter is included), or half-chapters since I *only* count completed chapters. It's a bit unconventional, but having a monthly wordcount where I only count completed chapters has been working for me for years now!)

This has been the first year in a little while that I haven't hit 500k, which I think reflects both a desire to spend more time relaxing and resting between writing, but also being absolutely smashed with a lot of new medical diagnoses and appointments, and being often too burnt out to write at all.

Next year doesn't look much better on the medical front, and may indeed be a lot worse. Being diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), T2 Diabetes (50% of the people with my permacancer get T2 diabetes which only goes into remission upon removal of the tumours, but my tumours are inoperable, so my T2D can't go into remission) and possibly Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) on top of all my other disorders each came as huge blows. One of the saddest being learning I may never be able to take ADHD meds again, and having to stop after a very amazing 3 months where I could schedule writing ahead for the first time in my life, and plan a holiday for December.

There will be no more Schedules going forward, that was sadly a 'medicated ADHD' blessing, and it's gone now. :(

So going forward into 2023 I don't know what writing I will be doing or what I will achieve. I don't know if I can continue writing the way I have been, and if I get an official confirmation on the PAH (so far it's only CT confirmed), and only have around 5~ years left to live, my writing future could look very different indeed.

But it's business as usual in the meantime.

This year I am the most broke I have ever been on the medical front (I have no health insurance, and only some of our healthcare is free, which doesn't include psychiatry, or the calibre of therapy I need, and now that I need to see a private pulmonologist and possibly engage in lung rehabilitation, things might get pretty awful pretty fast). I have never been more grateful to all the folks who have supported or who are still supporting on Patreon or who have given to Ko-Fi.

I love everyone who is in this little community, but for the ones who kept me financially afloat so I didn't drown, thank you.

Day 1: Narragansett to Long Island

Distance Covered: 82.27 miles

Total Time (including rests): 9:54 (7:14am-5:08pm)

Time spent riding: 7:04

Average Speed: 11.6 mph

Apples Eaten: 3 (fuji - 6/10, granny smith - 7/10, fuji - 7/10)

Overview of the ride itself:

Today's ride was split up into 2 parts: I first had to bike down to the Cross Sound Ferry in Connecticut (approx. 43 miles), then I took the ferry to Long Island and had to bike to my campsite (approx. 39 miles). I will refer to these as the pre-ferry and Long Island parts of the ride, respectively.

The pre-ferry component of the ride was more pleasant for 2 reasons:

1) it's the first part of the ride, so I wasn't that tired for it

2) There wasn't much shade in the Long Island portion, and it was HOT today. I almost considered stopping to get cold water when I was only 5 miles away from my campsite.

The pre-ferry part had one large comparative downside, though: it was really hilly. I think it would've made the fact that I was already tired so much worse if it had been the second half of the ride.

During the pre-ferry part, I took a snack/early lunch break around 20 miles in. I then obviously took another break for the ferry ride (it was about an hour long). During the Long Island part of the ride, I didn't take any breaks and just biked all the way to my campsite.

That's it for the bookkeeping, now for the fun part: thoughts, ideas, and things I noticed on the ride!

Bike Roads Terminology

I spent a lot of time thinking about this at the beginning of the ride, because I realized I'm going to be referring to certain types of roads in this blog, it'd be good to have a description of what I mean when I use those terms.

Disclaimers: (1) these are not official terms for types of roads, they're just terms I tend to use (2) my usage of these terms may not be consistent and is subject to change (3) there may be roads that do not fall into one of these categories; that's fine, these categories are neither holistic nor rigorous

Key:

Name/Road Type - Definition - Difficulty Level (# out of 10) (this number represents how much I don't want to ride a road of this type - thus, a lower number is better) - Reason for Difficulty

Road Types:

Highway - Interstate roads, wide lanes, cars going 70+ mph, will sometimes have wide shoulders you can bike on; are usually named something like I90 - DL: 9 - Highways are some of the most unpleasant roads to ride on; cars going way too fast and there's no good place to ride; luckily, bike routes will practically never have you actually riding on a highway

State Road - 2+ lane roads, usually have a speed limit of 30 or 45 mph, or, in rare cases, 60 mph; aren't super busy; will sometimes have rather wide shoulders that can serve as bike lanes; these are often roads that are named things like Route 9 - DL: 4 or 7 - Not the most pleasant, but not hard to ride on; the two different difficulty levels are for whether or not there is a wide enough shoulder that it can be treated as a bike lane

Side Road - These are roads that exist mostly in more rural areas, are usually 1-2 lanes, and are notable for having a lot of connections to driveways of houses. Oftentimes I'll refer to side roads as state roads and vice-versa; this is because they have many overlaps of features; cars usually have a speed limit of 15 or 30 mph, or rarely 45/60 mph. A notable difference between these roads and state roads is that side roads are more likely to be hilly and curvy; and side roads will typically have street names such as Collins Road - DL: 4 - while there are usually much fewer cars on side roads than state roads; the hilly-ness of side roads can make them be much more unpleasant at times; this is issue is amplified by all the baggage loaded onto my bike for this trip

City Street - roads in cities; what more needs to be said? Speed limits can range from 10 mph to 30+ mph - DL: 2-8 - while never as dangerous as highways, city streets can greatly vary in difficulty due to many reasons, including (but not limited to): amount of traffic, smoothness of pavement/number of potholes, rudeness of cars, pedestrian traffic, speed limit, and existence of bike lanes

Main Street - this is a subcategory of city streets. When I refer to city streets, I am usually referring to them in cities or other large urban centers. Main streets specifically refer to a central street of a small town; while they do not have bike lanes, they are usually much more pleasant than city streets. I call them Main streets because that is often what they are actually called - DL: 3 - Main streets are pleasant to ride on, and the cars on them are usually rather nice; the only downside is that they are not built with bikes in mind, so oftentimes the pavement isn't the best

Bike Trail - Paved roads that are specifically there for bicycles (and sometimes runners). These trails are often completely out of the way of cars, and sometimes follow old railroad trails that are no longer in service - DL: 1-2 - these are some of the best roads you can ride on; they sometimes get difficult if there's too much traffic or the pavement isn't well-kept, but the advantage of being able to ride without worry of cars on mostly flat ground more than makes up for the disadvantages

Hiking Trail/Gravel Road/Off-Road - I'm grouping these together, because all that matters is that these are all types of road I would be fine riding a mountain bike on, but because I have a heavily baggage-laden road bike on this trip, I want to avoid them as much as possible. They usually have very little traffic, but very poor pavement, either dirt, gravel, or some other soft or grainy material - DL: 8 - still better than highways, but otherwise the worse (see my initial rant)

Shoulder - This is not a type of road, but rather a part of the road. It mainly exists on highways and state roads, as the space for a shoulder on other car-based roads is often taken up by parking spots. It refers to the section past the white line that defines the border of a road. Sometimes it's miniscule, taking up only a foot, in which case you have to ride in a car lane, and sometimes it's larger than a car and makes a decent bike lane. On highways, the shoulder is often intentionally rough so that if a car accidently drifts onto it, they'll notice and readjust themselves. - DL: N/A

That's all of them for now! For reference, on today's ride, the pre-ferry part was an even split of mostly state roads and side roads, with a small number of bike trails. The Long Island part had a large number of state roads, a smaller number of side roads, and a tiny amount of gravel roads.

Notes on the Ride Itself

Gold Star Memorial Bridge Bike Path is closed - it's the only 1 bridge anywhere near New London (where the ferry to Long Island is), and I couldn't bike across it. Luckily, there was a shuttle that could carry my bike across that comes every 30 minutes, but for the like 10 minutes between learning about the closure and discovering the shuttle, I was really stressed out, because I didn't know if I'd be able to make it to the ferry in time.

I had an opposite feeling not 30 minutes later when I arrived at the Ferry port at 12:05 (my ferry ticket was for 1pm), and the guys at the dock told me I could just get on the 12pm Ferry which hadn't left yet. This didn't really affect my plans much, except for the fact that it meant I didn't have to idle around at the port for an hour, and would instead have an additional hour at my campsite in the evening. This also ended up giving me more time to work on this post :) !

Small things I saw/experienced on my ride:

a deer: it was on the shoulder of the road, maybe 20ft ahead of me. I wanted to take a picture, but it noticed me and ran into the woods before I could

an upside-down construction sign: this was an orange construction sign where the metal pole that served as the base of the sign was standing upright, and then at the top of the pole there was a orange rectangle, on which all the words (which were construction details) were upside down

shakiness: for the first 30 minutes (maybe longer) of my ride, I was still getting used to the balance of my bike with my luggage, so I was rather worried I'd tip over. This shakiness largely contributes to why I do not want to ride on any gravel road/etc. if I can avoid it

the cemetery: for some reason, my Google maps suggested I take a shortcut through a cemetery on Long Island, so I spent a good 5-10 minutes riding through an empty cemetery before getting back on actual roads. The funniest bit of this is that it really wasn't even much of a shortcut, it saved a minute, tops.

Old Main Road: this is another Google maps strange occurrence. In Long Island, there's a long state road called Main Road, which my route followed along for a good portion. However on a part of the Main Road (around here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/cgfphLKsKeJnXKBY8 ), Old Main Road splits off of Main Road and then rejoins less than a quarter mile later. This happens twice in quick succession. The strange occurrence I was referencing is that both times Google Maps suggested I take Old Main Road, even though that route would be slightly longer.

large roadkill: on the ride, there was a rather large roadkill I saw (the size of a large cat). I almost ran over it, and didn't get a good enough view to figure out what animal it was.

private communities/streets: on the ride, I saw a lot of places that were either private communities or private roads for residents only. My favorite, though, was the Oakwood communities. I'm biking along, and up ahead, I see a sign that says "Private Road - North Oakwood Residents". I'm like, fine. But then I turn my head, and on just the other side of the road, a sign says "South Oakwood Private Community". I latched onto those 2 communities and spend the next several minutes of my ride thinking up imaginary feuds that may exist between these 2 near-identical communities across the street from each other.

Post Ride Notes:

I did about 20-30 minutes of yoga after finishing my ride, which seems to have really helped my sore body (especially my back, which was really hurting at the end of the ride).

Camp setup went well (there might be some pictures in another post). My campsite doesn't have a shower, but it does have potable water, so I might soak my head at the very least (I have not yet, as of writing this post).

I have eaten 3 PB&J sandwiches today, and I haven't even had dinner yet (as of writing this, again). I expect I'll probably start getting tired of them in a few days, so I might need to switch up my meal prep (probably after Philadelphia or maybe DC).

Design Notes:

I spent a lot of the ride today thinking about the blog itself, my road classification system, and being stressed out about whether I can actually do this, so this section is rather short. I hope it will be longer in future posts, as it's the part I enjoy thinking about/writing the most.

Why I'm not good at Narrative Design:

I spent some time on my ride today thinking about Narrative Design. I think it was brought forth from the fact that I've been reading a lot of works recently, of which the quality of the narrative varies greatly. I like to think in terms of systems, but I can't create a holistic system that describes a person, which makes it really hard for me to do narrative design on a character level. On the other hand, I don't have the same issues with designing worlds, because I'm able to start by designing the mechanical systems of that world, and then other aspects sprout forth from that. A good example of this is fictional histories. Because these histories can be broad strokes, I don't have many issues designing a general system from a world, and then basically determining how I believe history would play out if that world worked according to that system. That's also probably why I so often have issues with worlds in media that have magic, because they're often just based in some time period of human history "but with magic", without taking into consideration how the existence of magic would have affected the development of that world. The issue I have with doing the narrative design of characters is sometimes similar. I often know one note which I want a character to hit, but everything else is left as a blank slate and never really filled in.

That's all for tonight! Some of this is written as I thought it up on my ride, some of it was revised to make more sense, and some of it probably still doesn't make much sense. Hope y'all enjoyed these random trains of thought!

Today's Pics -- Next

I'm really frustrated by narratives around OnlyFans related to income. Lately it's been really popular to among anti-sex work people to use statistics about OF income to dissuade people from seeing it as a viable form of work, and instead painting it as something that obviously won't be worth it. The statistics usually say something like "the average OF creator earns 150 dollars per month". which, yeah that's chump change. But for some reason everyone ignores the fact that this number doesn't account for the fact that many if not most OF accounts are probably idle, or posting infrequently because the user isn't treating it like a full time job. I want to know the average income of OF users who commit 20 or 40 or however many hours per week to their OF. I'd imagine an average looking woman below the age of 30 could easily get to top 1-2% on OF if they commit 20 or so hours per week. For example, right now I'm looking at discussion between OF creators on reddit. One person says she works about 2 hours per day on OF as a side hustle alongside her primary job. So like 10-14 hours per week depending on whether she does it weekends or not. And at the time of posting, she was a top ~6% creator. And I checked out some of her social media posts. This is someone who doesn't even post her face. She has a below average breast size, and she's skinny. Not particularly curvy in other ways either. Another user right below her said she's top 6% with 30-45 minutes of work per day. And it's hard to get clear numbers, but it looks like most sources corroborate that top 10% corresponds to about 1000 dollars per month. maybe top 6% are making 1500-2000 dollars per month. That's at least an extra 15k per year for a side hustle that takes like an extra hour each day. Sounds pretty worth it to me. Looking at some recent posts on the same subreddit r/OnlyFansAdvice, I can see that someone who is currently top 4% claims to currently be making $2500 per month, and she also does not show her face. (keeping in mind that % is ranked by income. Anyone better than top 4% is making more money than that). She doesn't say how many hours she works, but she said she posts one picture per day. One "full video" per week. And posts 3-10s gifs cut from her video into "20+" subreddits. each day. to me that sounds like at least 1-1.5 hours each day, plus however long it takes her to do a video, which I can't really guess at because I don't know how long or how quality her videos are. Scratch that, it looks like she does ~7min partnered videos. Static camera or male pov camera. No intentional lighting work, minimal editing. So that's gonna be at least 10-15 minutes of work. I can't say how much preparation is involved in the performers getting themselves presentable and in the zone, but I'd imagine no more than an hour. And then I can't imagine this minimal editing take more than 10 minutes. plus some time needs to be spent cutting it up into nice gifs, which i'm guessing can take up to an hour if a lot of thought is given, and lots of gif variants are selected. So that's like 10-13 hours per week, or 1.4-1.8 hours per day for a 30k gross yearly income. Now, she probably takes only a majority split with the guy. Maybe 70-30. so like 21k gross. And that's in addition to whatever her primary job is. I assume she has one because otherwise she just has tons of free time on her hands, and not the most livable income. So i'd say that's a pretty damn good side hustle. And that's for someone who doesn't show her face, has pretty average looking breast size. Not exactly skinny, but probably not overweight either (in terms of BMI). white. probably 25-35 (hard to tell when I can't see her face). And she probably doesn't spend any money on equipment. Maybe a little money for a rig or tripod to hold her phone. But certainly no lighting equipment, sound equipment, or cameras. (some fairly cheap lighting solutions could really boost the quality of her videos.)

I don't have any experience in porn, but I do have a bit of in videography/editing/filmmaking thanks to my dad (a director of photography), and some film classes I took, and sometimes seeing the quality of independent porn really makes me wanna give it a try just to see if I can do better from a video production perspective. And I also wonder just how much better video production lends to success. Like can someone who's a 6 make as much money as an 8 just by making the same amount of content, but with more professional video quality? I personally think some of the best visual erotic content i've ever seen came from non-porn films with erotic scenes, where the eroticism was given a very cinematic treatment. But for some reason I never see that in porn.

Playing the blame game, and other pointless endeavours

A reflection on BNHA Chapter 291

Before and after: or, How to violently radicalise an abuse victim in five easy steps

I think a lot of the people throwing blame around or trying to declare that one character or another is the One True Villain™ or the One True Victim™ need to stop seeing personal responsibility as a zero sum game, because it really isn't.

Arguing about whether Dabi and Endevour should each have 50% of the blame or if it's more of a 60/40 or 70/30 split (in either direction) is pointless. Endeavour is 100% responsible for his abuse of his family and general failings as a human being, and Dabi is 100% responsible for the lives he's taken and people he's hurt in retaliation because of it.

Sure these two things are absolutely related in that good ol' cause-and-effect sense, much like how an earthquake at sea will cause a tsunami. And much like them neither happened in a vacuum, the surrounding environmental conditions needed to be just right for a perfect storm of this magnitude to occur. It just so happens that in this case both the earthquake (Endeavour) and the tsunami (Dabi) are not faceless forces of nature, but human beings with superpowers who chose to take action based on their deep-set mental and emotional issues at everyone else's expense, either because they think their needs are more important, they think the price paid is worth being the means to the end or (most likely) a combination of the two.

Please note, I don't say this to excuse or condemn either character, the readers who are taking sides, or even Horikoshi's writing. It's pretty well established by now that one of the biggest themes in BNHA is that there is no perfect black and white when it comes to people and society and morality, and just about all the conflict is driven by just how badly their entire system (which is built and determined to die on that hill) messes it up for absolutely everyone on all sides. Saying Dabi is a Bad Victim while Shouto is a Good Victim is just as pointless, because you're missing that the real villain is their broken society, of which everyone is a victim, even Endeavour.

Again, Endeavour was the one to abuse his family and he gets no passes for that so don't even try to argue that's what I'm saying, but he didn't wake up one day and just decide to do it. If Chapter 291 has done anything it's shown how escalation is nine tenths of the law in cases like this. He was already an asshole narcissist with a raging inferiority complex, we've heard from his own POV in an earlier chapter that he purposefully chose Rei to have kids with to eugenics a solution to his problem, he was never an upstanding guy.

While we don't see Endeavour's own upbringing there's a reason he's been such a strong narrative parallel with Bakugou, so we can make an educated guess from what we've seen of his what it must have been like having a powerful Quirk and ambitions being fed by the people around him, and the way Bakugou has clashed with characters like Deku and Shouto when he was confronted with the reality that he wasn't going to get Number One effortlessly, we can guess how well he took realising he was always going to be Number 2.

Pictured: the hero equivalent of always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

At least with Bakugou's rivals they're his own age and acknowledge him as a rival, All Might is at least a decade older than Endeavour and he's always been a loner who didn't get to know his colleagues that well. As readers we know All Might keeps his distance because he's kinda awkward socially, and because between the threat of All For One and maintaining the flawless image of the Symbol of Peace he wasn't ever able to let his guard down or it might risk people's safety. But just like Bakugou assuming Deku was looking down on him, from Endeavour's perspective it probably looked like All Might was looking down on Endeavour too.

Again, not excusing Endeavour. He's an asshole and needs to be held accountable for his actions. But just like Bakugou he didn't spring fully formed from the womb as an asshole, sure he had all the ingredients for it but their society is what decided it was a good idea to put the lime in the coconut and mix it all up, just like he's the one who broke Touya which ultimately led to the creation of Dabi.

Which brings us back to Dabi not just calling out his abusive dad but making a spectacle of it, and while again, yes, he's done a lot of murder and that's not okay either, he is absolutely justified in this. Especially because the part of his reasoning for his actions which isn't just maniacal laughter (also totally valid) is that he's correctly identified, much like Shigaraki, that while specific individuals have hurt them and must pay for it, that the overarching problem is hero society itself.

Shigaraki attacked All Might at first because Sensei said so, but later on because he was the symbol of everything he felt wrong with society, everything he's done has been to attack the pillars of the hero system like All Might and UA. Dabi attacked Endeavour, his abuser, but not just physically attacking him as a man and a father, but by attacking his reputation as the Number One Hero and the new pillar of society.

Pictured: an asshole who's realising that no matter how badly you think you done fucked up, another asshole can always come along and point out just how much worse it actually was than you thought.

Endeavour's sin was always acting as a hero first and a father second, if ever, and even then it was usually still to further his own ego and ambitions, which was tied so tightly to his role as a hero that Endeavour pretty much didn't exist outside of that. So Touya with his healthy sense of dramatic irony is naturally retaliating by treating him as a hero first and a father second, if ever, because that's the standard of behaviour that Endeavour himself set. Before discarding him for the new model he made it clear he wanted his son to be powerful, aggressive, independent, and to take down the Number One Hero without regard for anything else, and that's exactly what Dabi is doing. He's giving Endeavour exactly what he wished for and is making him choke on it.

Just like he said, Touya's making sure Endeavour reaps exactly what he sowed because it proves his point, that if he hadn't been such a violent, toxic narcissist none of this would be happening. His desire to call out his abuser is both personal and justified (regardless of how he's going about it), and it shouldn't be condemned because it has nothing to do with his family. His family, who he was the scapegoat of and who he hasn't seen in probably around a decade, and who are still keeping silent about the abuse even though as far as they know it killed him. I'm not saying he hates the rest of his family like he hates Endeavour (though it probably comes closest with Shouto, there's a lot to unpack there) but it would be a very complicated web of love and grief and resentment and guilt that he'd need a weapons-grade therapist to unravel, which he's clearly never gotten considering this is how he's dealing with the trauma.

tl;dr Touya is a victim just like Shouto, and all the awful things he's done as Dabi don't detract from that, just as his victimhood doesn't excuse his actions either.

In conclusion, you don't have to reconcile or find explanations or excuses for Endeavour's abuse or how any of the other Todorokis have been dealing with it, especially Touya. They are all established facts and exist as objective truth regardless of our feelings on the matter. Instead of making moral judgement on the characters (or the readers who love them/hate them) maybe we all need to stop and think about it critically first, especially when chapters are still incoming and we don't even have the full story yet.

If we can all spend some quality time thinking objectively about all the sides of the story and what lessons we can learn from them, I can guarantee that little things like 'having compassion', 'listening to victims and survivors before they have to resort to domestic terrorism to be heard' and 'learning from the mistakes of the past' will get us all much better results than just sharpening some pitchforks, no matter who they're pointed at.

The following reflection is courtesy of Don Schwager © 2020. Don's website is located at Dailyscripture.net

Meditation: How would you respond if someone prophesied that your home, land, or place of worship would be destroyed? Jesus foretold many signs that would shake peoples and nations. The signs which God uses are meant to point us to a higher spiritual truth and reality of his kingdom which does not perish or fade away, but endures for all eternity. God works through many events and signs to purify and renew us in hope and to help us set our hearts more firmly on him and him alone.

First signs of the end times

To the great consternation of the Jews, Jesus prophesied the destruction of their great temple at Jerusalem. The Jewish people took great pride in their temple, a marvel of the ancient world. The foretelling of this destruction was a dire warning of spiritual judgment in itself. They asked Jesus for a sign that would indicate when this disastrous event would occur. Jesus admonished them to not look for signs that would indicate the exact timing of impending destruction, but rather to pray for God's intervention of grace and mercy.

Jesus said there would be many signs of impending conflicts and disasters - such as wars, famines, diseases, tidal waves, and earthquakes - which would precede the struggles of the last days when God's anointed King would return to usher in the full reign of God over the earth. In that day when the Lord returns there will be a final judgement of the living and the dead when the secrets of every heart will be brought to light (Luke 12:2-3; Romans 2:16).

Jesus foretells the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem

Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem was a two-edged sword, because it pointed not only to God's judgment, but also to his saving action and mercy. Jesus foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the dire consequences for all who would reject him and his saving message. While the destruction of Jerusalem's temple was determined (it was razed by the Romans in 70 A.D.), there remained for its inhabitants a narrow open door leading to deliverance. Jesus said: "I am the door; whoever enters by me will be saved" (John 10:9). Jesus willingly set his face toward Jerusalem, knowing that he would meet betrayal, rejection, and death on a cross. His death on the cross, however, brought about true freedom, peace, and victory over the powers of sin, evil, and death - not only for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but for all - both Jew and Gentile alike - who would accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Do you know the peace and security of a life submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ?

We need to recognize the signs of God's judgment, mercy, and grace to save us

Sometimes we don't recognize the moral crisis and spiritual conflict of the age in which we live, until something "shakes us up" to the reality of this present condition. God reminds us that a future judgment and outcome awaits every individual who has lived on this earth. The reward for doing what is right and pleasing to God and the penalty for sinful rebellion and rejection of God are not always experienced in this present life - but they are sure to come in the day of final judgment.

The Lord Jesus tells us that there will be trials, suffering, and persecution in this present age until he comes again at the end of the world. God intends our anticipation of his final judgment to be a powerful deterrent to unfaithfulness and wrongdoing. God extends grace and mercy to all who will heed his call and his warning. Do not pass up, even for one day, God's invitation of grace and mercy to seek first his kingdom of righteousness and peace. This day may be your only chance before that final day comes.

"Lord Jesus, your grace and mercy abounds even in the midst of trials and difficulties. Help me to seek your kingdom first and to reject whatever would hinder me from pursuing your way of peace, righteousness, and holiness. Fill me with the joy and hope of your everlasting kingdom."

The following reflection is from One Bread, One Body courtesy of Presentation Ministries © 2020.

SPLIT END

“These things you are contemplating — the day will come when not one stone will be left on another, but it will all be torn down.” —Luke 21:6

Jesus predicted the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the world. Matthew, Mark, and Luke put these two predictions together. This is sometimes confusing because we don’t always know whether Jesus was referring to Jerusalem’s fall or the world’s end.

However, there are at least two benefits from joining the two predictions. First, since Jesus’ prediction of Jerusalem’s fall was fulfilled in 70 AD just as He said, we have every reason to believe that His prediction of the world’s end will be right on target. Second, the fall of Jerusalem is a prefigurement of the world’s end. We can learn from this past event how best to prepare for the future destruction of the world.

Jesus knows what He’s talking about. He knows the future and how to prepare us for it. If we listen to Him, we will neither be misled nor perturbed (Lk 21:8, 9). When we “see the Son of Man coming on a cloud with great power and glory” (Lk 21:27), we will stand erect and hold our heads high (Lk 21:28), for we will be harvested by Jesus for His everlasting kingdom (Rv 14:16).

Prayer:  Jesus, may I repent and receive Your mercy instead of procrastinating and receiving Your judgment.

Promise:  “As I watched, a white cloud appeared, and on the cloud sat One like a Son of Man wearing a gold crown on His head and holding a sharp sickle in His hand.” —Rv 14:14

Praise:  St. Andrew Dung-Lac was one of 117 Christians martyred in Vietnam between 1820-1862. The last martyrs were 17 lay persons, one of them a nine-year-old.

Reference:  (For a related teaching on Am I Going to Heaven?, order, listen to, or download our CD 54-3 or DVD 54 on our website.)

Rescript:  "In accord with the Code of Canon Law, I hereby grant the Nihil Obstat for One Bread, One Body covering the period from October 1, 2020 through November 30, 2020. Most Reverend Joseph R. Binzer, Auxiliary Bishop, Vicar General, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio February 25, 2020"

The Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") is a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free of doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the contents, opinions, or statements

The Immutability Of Blockchain Is Useless When It Comes To Easy Crypto Thefts And Hacks

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/11/the-immutability-of-blockchain-is-useless-when-it-comes-to-easy-crypto-thefts-and-hacks/

The Immutability Of Blockchain Is Useless When It Comes To Easy Crypto Thefts And Hacks

[Disclosure: I used to have a small amount of Ethereum (Ether), but now I have absolutely zero Ether]

Your eyes are not deceiving you, the disclosure above is usually printed at the end of any article by any Forbes writer when the subject matter is about cryptocurrencies.

In this case, I am confirming that I now have no Ether, but I did have some until my crypto wallet was hacked around six weeks ago.

In the interim period, I know now more than most about the lack of crypto security and how it’s virtually impossible to retrieve funds after they’ve been stolen. It’s an interesting story, it’s just highly annoying that it happened to me.

First things first. Like many others, I was in the latter stages of the crypto wave and only started becoming interested in them a couple of years ago.

Blockchain seemed revolutionary, Ether looked as if it could more than emulate Bitcoin because of Smart Contracts, so why not quietly invest in a future nest egg? I had time on my hands, so this was always a long play… and not a big one.

I learnt quickly, heard that crypto exchanges were hacked regularly, so it would be advisable to store my Ether in a wallet via a public key and a private one. I could upload funds using my public key (open to the world), but only I would know the private key.

So far, so encrypted. Both keys were 40 characters long and I decided to use Myetherwallet to store my Ether; friends in the industry had assured me this was the best one.

As directed, I printed off my private key, kept it securely in my desk (whoops, just gave it away again) and then came up with what I thought was a masterstroke.

Some years ago when I lived in Goa, I met some very interesting people, one of whom was a notorious (and somewhat garrulous) drug dealer.

He told me over a few beers that whenever he wanted to pass on a secret message, he would give his Gmail log-in and password to an associate and that individual could access the appropriate message in Gmail drafts.

Nothing would be sent over the internet, so nobody would know, so it was as safe as proverbial houses. Good enough for a paranoid drug dealer, good enough for me; that’s where I stored my private key.

Moreover, I split the key into ten different sets of four characters and encrypted it my own way. Whenever I accessed the wallet, I would scrunch the characters together, cut-and-paste, access my wallet, then clear my browser history, then rearrange them differently. Clever old me.

Clever, not. This, apparently, was how the hackers found my private key. So if you’re thinking of storing your private key (or talking to fellow drug dealers), then Gmail drafts is a very bad idea. Clearly, I found this out too late; you have no excuses.

Crypto wallets and exchanges are mutually exclusive and do not provide security.Quoteinspector (via Creative Commons Flickr

What happened next was insane and intense. When I next logged in, I quickly discovered that I’d been cleaned out a week earlier. The crypto cupboard was bare.

Like any other burglary, this was an intensely stressful experience, so I activated my network of great people. Black hats, white hats, blockchain aces, crypto genii, high-networks individuals with access to the top, everybody I could think of.

Information came quickly. The Ether had been moved to a new public key address, but had not moved for seven days. This meant it could have been malware that had scraped the private key (but didn’t know how to move it to an exchange) or the thieves were biding their time.

Unfortunately, they bided their time for another six days, but I was told ‘not to worry’. This was blockchain and if the funds were moved to an exchange then I would be alerted, the thieves would be easy to track down.

Then they moved and six days later I was alerted that they were transfering my funds (along with others) to the Binance exchange. That transaction had to be stopped because no blockchain transaction can be reversed. Simple surely, the exchange could just block that transaction.

The next six hours were crazy, it was if the whole world was trying to help me out. Over the course of that evening, the odds of me blocking the transaction veered between 5 per cent to 40, down to 20, up to 70, down to 30 and finally a big, fat zero.

Myetherwallet were sympathetic, but said there was nothing they could do, they did not have the ability to stop movements, even if they were suspicious. I spoke to Myetherwallet CEO Kosala Hemachandra in a panic as the heist continued its less than merry way.

Remember we are an open source wallet that doesn’t hold any user funds, so any compromise of funds like this may be a result of using a lookalike phishing site. We have the highest security measures available in the market so that our users are protected against malicious actors.

Well, that was nice to know, but it didn’t help me much, so I turned to Binance, but was presented with a website request for a ‘ticket number’ and they would get back to me in 72 hours.

Seventy-two hours? I wanted something done within 72 seconds. I was told to expect a reply, which came 24 hours later, and a request for a law enforcement number to whom I had needed to report the crime.

I live in the UK, not North America. Law enforcement means the Police and while I appreciate the work the Police do, I don’t think any Police force in this country would even understand what had happened to me.

This to them would just be another burglary and if they did know enough about crypto, being informed that I had left my private key in my Gmail drafts was as good as leaving a window open in my house. I probably deserved it.

I later caught up with Wei Zhou, Binance CFO at this month’s Blockchain Summit in Malta and he said there had an increase in thefts such as mine over the last couple of months describing it as a ‘last grab’; hackers knew the crypto community was beefing up security.

We work very hard to ensure the safety and security of funds on Binance and Trust Wallet. Our hope is that all users are informed on best practices to ensure the safety of their own storage and accounts. We work closely with law enforcement agencies around the world to help users recover funds, so in case of stolen funds, we encourage users to file reports right away with law enforcement.

It will be interesting to find out just how many times Binance has co-operated to get theirs users’ funds back, but Zhou assured me that Binance wanted this relationship with law enforcement to be more efficient and they’re working on it.

I have seen the price of Ether plummet in the six weeks since I was hacked, so the pain has lessened over this period of time, but while I’ve been an idiot, I’m not exactly clueless in how this all works.

For the average and traditional investor however, the volatility of cryptocurrencies and its current (and brutal) bear market are enough to put most of them off investing in crypto.

Add stories such as mine and the eventual creep of regulation, the crypto world right now seems to be a very dangerous place to play.

On the other hand, I’m still a believer and while I’ve been burnt once, I may yet return. In the interim, the thieves have got away with it and whether this is a ‘last grab’, whether I’m a total loser or whether better security is coming, the warning is clear.

Never, at any time, store your private key anywhere on your computer or your cellphone; you are not safe. Moreover, forget using Gmail drafts for anything else other than drug-dealing… it’s a mug’s game.

[Disclosure: I do not currently hold any Ether… or any other cryptocurrency]